8.8 Agentives 545P. -CVCDCVC-, Agentive e-M-aePCeCaC
'sing' garuras e-m-aegreras (PI i-m-agruras)These agentives show Stem-Initial Gemination, applying to the first C of
the stem proper (following the -m- or -n- prefix). The only exception in (570)
is e-m-aegreras 'singer', an elicited form recorded for T-ka but worth
rechecking with other informants, and not yet verified for other dialects.
The Sg vocalic prefix is ae- ore-, with considerable dialectal and even
intradialectal variation.
Short V's (either one or two in number) between the prefix -m- or -n- and
the diagnostic penultimate V are nearly always ae, though there are rare
dialectal variants with a after the prefix: ae-n-abbedar (570.g). Using the
diagnostic V for labeling purposes, we have three vocalic patterns, most
clearly characterized in C-final stems.
The first is an «-type with vocalic sequence ending «...ae as», consistent
with stem-wide
vocalic sequence ending «...e a» consistent with
(570.c,g-h,l,p). The third is an α-type with vocalic sequence ending «...au»,
again consistent with
T-ka to verbs with at least one full V, but occurs in R even with all-short-V
stems.
V-final stems in (570) are mostly augment verbs, but also include the non-
augment verb in (570.e). The V-final stems generally have agentives ending in
i or u regardless of whether the diagnostic penultimate V is ae, e, or a. For
example, (570.b) with stem -PvCu- is the V-final equivalent of -PvCvC-
(570.a), and the corresponding agentive has the same ae-type vocalism up until
the final V, where we get u or i. We get a similar string of ae's followed by
final i in (570.n). We get e-type vocalism with final u or i in (570.f,j,m), and
α-type vocalism with final u or i in (570.k). e-m-asjjeyh in (570.e) shows
deletion of a stem-final V.
Both the «ae α u» (α-type) and «ae e a» (e-type) patterns are consistent with
vowels ae and α and the high vowel u. In «ae e a», the ae is L, the a is H, and
the e is mid-height. Since in most relevant agentives there is no lexical i (or
other lexical full V), we cannot speak here of V-Height Compromise, which
elsewhere produces e from a mix of lexical i and an overlaid L melodic
segment. In effect, e in «as e a» agentives results from the overlapping of the L
and Η components of the
In (570), we find default antepenultimate accent in agentives of augment
verbs, otherwise we get marked penultimate accent (χ-pen). In the case of
(570.e), χ-pen applies prior to the deletion of the stem-final V. This accentual
behavior is identical to what we get with VblN's.
For superheavy verb stems, the agentive with -m- (or -n-) is of low
productivity. Instead, these verbs typically use an unprefixed nominal form