3.2 Local assimilations and syllabification rules 73emerging unitary morphophonological interpretation that differs significantly
from the analysis given above.
3.2.7 Syncope and Leftward L-Spreading
3.2.7.1 Syncope
In some positions, a Syncope rule affecting /a/, and arguably /ae/, appears to
apply. Whether or not the rule affects only /a/ (asymmetrical version) or
applies equally to both /a/ and /ae/ (symmetrical version) depends on decisions
about how to represent the stems in question. The data just below on Syncope
are for T-ka, while some dialectological color is given at the end of this
section.
The most important cases of Stem-Initial Syncope involve alternations of
stem-initial surface -CvCV... and -vCCV... in verbs, where "v" is a short
vowel and "V" is any vowel. Consider the examples in (51).
(51) Examples of Stem-Initial Syncope
gloss unsyncopated category syncopated category'(hole) gape' xabuba-t Imprt -axbuba-t Shlmpf
-sexbabae-t PerfP
ά-xbubu VblNWithin the set of pronominally inflectable verb forms, the unsyncopated
onset is confined to the Imprt forms, which are always unprefixed. On the
other hand, we find Syncope at work in all of the fully-inflectable (i.e. prefix-
tolerant) stems such as Shlmpf and PerfP, which begin with a short V absent
from the Imprt, due to Stem-Initial V-Insertion (99). This initial short V is also
found in other verbs that geminate the initial C and therefore are not subject to
syncope, converting e.g. PvQR... to vPPvQR... (§3.4.8). (51) also shows that
Syncope operates in the VblN, targeting a short V in the first stem syllable,
which follows the vocalic prefix, here a-.
There is no Stem-Initial Syncope when the basic form of the stem is of the
middleweight shape -CvCvC- (with only short V's). This is the shortest of the
heavy verb-stem shapes (§3.4.1.4) that begins with a short open syllable of the
sort that could, in principle, be syncopated. The absence of Stem-Initial
Syncope is seen in VblN's of the form α-CaCaC (or its variant a-CaCaC), e.g.
a-baraj (or more common variant a-baraj, subject to possible reinterpretation
as a-baeraj) 'boasting, boastfulness'. Likewise, causative Shlmpf stems like
-s-araf- 'pester' with subject prefix, e.g. 3MaSg Future ad Vs-araf 'he will
not pester', fail to syncopate. There are also some nouns like t-a-bakun-t
'heap' with unsyncopated a. The stem (minus the vocalic prefix) is again