3.2 Local assimilations and syllabification rules 75<L ...> melody), showing the same association of Syncope with a while ae fails
to syncopate (§8.11.1).
In addition, the plural of t-s-xaebabu-t-t 'gaping hole' is t-l-xbuba. The PI
is syncopated from /t-i-xabuba/, assuming the standard
unsuffixed ablaut plurals. There are many similar Sg/Pl plurals with
unsyncopated ae in the Sg and Syncope (presumably of /a/) in the PI, e.g. Sg
α-baetol 'ground depression' and PI ί-btal (from /i-batal/), and ae-raerdrad
'thick-knee (bird)' and PI i-rrurad. Note also a-nasbaj 'hole', irregular variant
PI l-mbujja (with extra gemination and final V). Note that Syncope is not
blocked by accent in /i-bstal/; when the schwa syncopates, the accent simply
reattaches to the syllable to its left. There are also some suggestive alternations
among minor nominal ablaut patterns, where a appears to syncopate while as
does not, e.g. t-a-blülaeq-q and virtually synonymous t-ae-baelalaq-q 'ball,
lump' (cf. Imprt verb balular 'be ball-shaped').
We therefore have considerable evidence for an asymmetrical version of
Syncope that applies to a but not to as. This evidence comes from nominal
plurals, and from contrasts between VblN and L-initial nominalizations of
verbs. In this light, it is not unreasonable to take another look at syncopated
perfective verb stems like -aexbabas-t. In particular, we could argue that Stem-
Initial Syncope applies at a stage where the first two V's are schwas
(/-axababae-t/). This has the advantage of reconciling the apparent stem-wide
melody. The latter results in surface «HHLL» with quadrisyllable stems like
-fuffvru- (PerfP -affuffaerae-t) 'scrub', and «HHLL» is precisely the vocalism
of the assumed underlying /-axababas-t/, since schwa is Η while {a ae} are L.
The idea, then, is to allow e.g. /-axababae-t/ to syncopate to /-axbabas-t/. To
account for surface -aexbabae-t, a further rule is needed to spread the L part of
the
wide
Stem-Initial Syncope applies most productively to CvC syllables when
preceded and followed by V's, but even here the rule is somewhat specialized.
As a productive rule, Stem-Initial Syncope is confined to superheavy stems
(§3.4.1.4) whose basic form is at least trisyllabic, e.g. to -CvCvC(C)vC-. It
applies to the "middleweight" (though still "heavy" for some purposes) stem
type -CvCvC- only in certain morphological contexts. The set of these
contexts, showing Syncope even with middleweight -CvCvC- stems, is given
in (52), followed by the set of contexts limited to superheavy stems in (53).
The syncopated V's are taken here to be /a/ in all cases, adopting the
suggestion made above. As usual, "V" = any vowel (full or short), "v" = short
vowel. All of the contexts involve a prefix or (for certain verbs) an extra initial
short V due to Stem-Initial V-Insertion. Accents are shown in the general
formulae only when applicable to all examples, otherwise omitted.