>Therefore I postulate that some nouns right before the zero-grade
>process had an accent pattern with constant stress on the second
>syllable. (These nouns may or may not have had penultimate stress
>in an even earlier time)
But why complicate a theory unnecessarily? A good theorist tries
to find the _simplest_ theory possible. The simplest theory, as far
as I see, is that there was penultimate stress up until final
vowels were lost (whereby this loss directly obscured the original
stress pattern). Everything is explained.
Therefore, it's simpler to presume that these thematic nouns
had penultimate stress like any other word up until their final
vowels were lost. Further, if you were correct, there's absolutely
no reason for the difference in accent pattern at all. It's too
loose in comparison.
I think the "important thing right now" is that you start thinking
about whether you want a logical theory or whether you just want
to propose something unique for the sake of uniqueness.
- love gLeN
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