Aidan Grey wrote:
> Everyone has come up with this same derivation, which is nice, but it
>would make the _ei_ cluster more common than I want, and the long vowel e:
>would disappear altogether. Here's what I came up with:
>
> ledsa
> lejsa (voiced unaspirated stops vocalized before sonants)
> lejs (final vowel weakening)
> leis
>
> Does this seem realistic to you guys?
Absolutely. It's what I first thought of, but didn't get around to
posting..... I think I imagined an initial stage *ledsa > **leDsa >
**lejsa...... Does that help?