Re: NATLANG: Vowel harmony rules?

trackso@FREEMAIL.HU wrote:

<<  On the contrary you used the statement "You get [...] /-Ar/ after
most monosyllabic stems". This is a worse (i.e. less selective) test
than mine one.

  I suppose the difference between you and me is that you seem to treat
the <-Ar> ~ <-Ir> alternation as an irregularity. On the contrary I say
that it is not an irregularity but an inherent lexical attribute of the
stems. We say the same but I think my solution is a bit systemic.>>

I see your point.   What interests me, though, is the following:

(1) The "irregular" Aorist ending is identical to the most common form of the 
Aorist.
(2) This phenomenon is relegated exclusively to the aorist.

What I mean is for "bil", for example, you get "bilir", but not *bilmik.   
There doesn't
seem to be any obvious reason why this should be.   For that reason, I think 
it would
be simpler to have two stipulations (well, three):

(1) If a verb stem ends in a vowel, it will take /-r/ in the Aorist.
(2) If a verb stem ends in a consonant:
     (a) It will take /-Ar/ if it's of Class A, and is not specified further
     (b) Else, it will take /-Ir/

Now the form of the non-lowering verb stems becomes an accident (which
doesn't seem so bad, since there are exceptions), and not the form of the
Aorist (which would be unfortunate, IMO).

I'm very interested in the Hungarian phenomenon, though.   That might
explain a lot.

-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/