Re: THEORY: Evolution of infixes/ablaut?

>From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
>Perhaps sometimes it's simple metathesis.  Suppose that the plural infix
>was -l-, placed before the final consonant.  Well, it could've been that
>at an earlier stage it was a suffix -l, and forms like, say, _pakl_
>became _palk_.  That's just a guess, tho, and couldn't explain all
>infixes, either.
Hey, that's what Georgian does with -v-!  (When nouns with an -o ending are
declined, the -o turns into -v before the suffix is applied, but the -v-
infix migrates forward in some instances.  Example: _tvramet'i_ "eighteen"
should be *_trvamet'i_ (< _rva_ "eight"), but apparently the former is
easier to pronounce (and Georgian is VERY HARD to pronounce at least for
me).  That's metathesis rather than infixing when you get down to it,
though.  A case when syncope involving the appearance of -v-, by the way, is
with _mindori_ "field" > plural _mindvrebi_.

For the record, and some of you probably have already figured this out --
I'm very fond of Georgian, Coptic and Irish/Scots Gaelic, since they seem to
have pretty unique, exotic and complex features that confuse the hell out of
me...

By the way, I get my Georgian info from an excellent description of Georgian
in a nutshell (a rather spacious nutshell at that), by P.J. Hillery:

http://www.armazi.demon.co.uk/georgian/grammar.html

Includes sample text, sound file, and bibliography.  Thumbs up for me!  Now
I must return to my current mandate of discovering the manifold secrets of
Pink Floyd songs because I have two gigs with a friend's band coming up...

Danny
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