Re: CV metathesis Q

Jeffery Jones wrote:
>
>I've been playing with a sketch where most of the verbs have two basic
>stems, CVCVC and CVCCV, to which a number of affixes are added.
Quick reply-- this sounds like my latest, Prevli, and the (Indonesian)
natlangs Leti and its relatives.  Sorry, I haven't put anything about Prevli
up on my website yet; it's still a-borning. There is some work on Leti on
line-- a paper in the Rutgers Optimality Archive by Eliz. Hume comes to
mind, but it follows Optimality Theory and is not quite comprehensible (to
me)...

Historically, in my opinion, the similar metathesis in Leti et al arises
from (1) addition of an echo-vowel to preserve the final C (2) stress
remains on the original penult, and the original ultima V is deleted by
syncope; that produces forms like: MP *kulit, PLet *?ulit-i, Leti ulti
~ulit-  (a noun, but it also affects verbs, all forms in fact.)  I think
that's pretty much what I modeled Prevli on, except Prevli can also
metathesize initial CV-.  (I just like metathesis :-)))))

There's also Rotuman, where CVCV alternates with CVVC.


Mostly,
>I've been working on filling in the specific morphology and on subsequent
>development (sound changes etc.) but recently, I started wondering exactly
>how the two stems came about in the first place. Any ideas?
>
>I should probably mention that the first stem can take (C)V(C) suffixes
>while
>the second can take C((C)V) suffixes and that some of the suffixes also
>have
>alternating forms (CVC vs. CCV and VC vs. CV).
>
>I've been googling and it seems most morphology theorists disapprove of
>this
>sort of thing.