Re: Can realism be retro-fitted?

Hi!

Carsten Becker writes:
>...
> The only
> *really* irrealistic quirk is that the animate patient
> marker, _-aris_ changes into _sira_ when used as a preverbal
> article. I wonder where that might come from ... normally,
> words aren't just reversed.
Hmm, it is perfectly clear that those must have been two different
demonstratives in Ancient Ayeri that, by regular sound changes, ended
up being the reverse of each other.

No? :-)

Well, ok, some other scholars say that the ancient root was <*sis>,
which was either suffixed with an epenthetic <-a-> or by means of a
particle <-ar> (there are disputes about which was the case), giving
either <*-a-sis> or <*-ar-sis> > <*-aris>.  At that time, Ancient
Ayeri allowed no closed stressed syllables, so the independent <*sis>
became <*'sisa>, with an epenthetic <-a>.  During the time when
intervocalic <-s-> became <-r->, this lead to the Modern <-aris> and
<sira>.

Well, well... :-)  Bending (not-yet existing?) history...

**Henrik