7.2 Stem categories 299allow the melodies to apply to the pre-VV-Contraction stem, then have the
stem-final V's high or low feature transferred to the augment-initial V as part
of the VV-Contraction process. A similar transfer occurs in VV-Contraction
examples involving unaugmented V-final stems in the Shlmpf, which end in
the underspecified high vowel hi (§3.1.2.4, §7.3.1.3).
Alternative #2, which might be considered by readers who wish to
motivate the distinction between augmented and unaugmented V-final verbs
other than by lexical verb-class assignment, would be to take the augment as -t
as before, but to claim that verbs of the augment class end in underlying short
(not full) v. The difference between augment verbs and other V-final verbs
would then be predictable: augment verbs are simply those verbs ending in a
final short v. This would account directly for the surface ν in the augmented
forms (affurrae-t, furra-t, etc.). It would also permit a phonological
interpretation of the way VV-Contraction applies when the stem-final V is
directly followed by a V-initial subject suffix (-aer, -aed, -aem, -asn), see
(305.a), above. Specifically, we could posit /ae-as/ —> e in all of these
combinations. For unaugmented verbs, we would posit stem-final lal in the
PerfP, so the VV-Contraction cases would have underlying la-xl, which
surfaces as either ae or e depending on which suffixal category is involved
(§7.3.1.1).
Alternatives #1 and #2 each have some attractive features. I reject
alternative #1 since the VblN and other nominals show a clear stem-final full
V (with no Augment). I reject alternative #2 since there is no other evidence
for positing stem-final short V's (contrasting in phonological behavior both
with full V's and with deletable stem-final V's).
7.2 Stem categories
7.2.1 Mood-aspect-negation (MAN) categories
To repeat, each regular verb has the basic stems shown in (307).
(307) Basic Verb Stems
a. perfective system
Perfective Positive (PerfP)
Resultative (Resit)
Perfective Negative (PerfN)b. long imperfective system
Long Imperfective Positive (LoImpfP)
Long Imperfective Negative (LoImpfN)
Prohibitive (Prohib)