Etcetera

[Dennis R. Preston]

>Two good reasons Bethany.


1) IF IT DID AND IF IT PRESERVED THE /E/ VOWEL, IT WOULD BE AN OPEN
SYLLABLE WITH A LAX VOWEL, AN ENGLISH NO-NO.

2) /KS/ IS MORE LIKELY TO REDUCE TO /S/, BUT /TS/ WOULD MORE
NATURALLY ASSIMILATE BY PALATALIZATION AND YIELD /CH/, A FREQUENT
PROCESS ACROSS WORD BOUNDARIES IN ENGLISH ("EAT YET" - /I-CHET/) BUT
APPARENTLY NOT PRODUCTIVE IN CURRENT ENGLISH (E.G., NO  "HITCH AND
MISSES" FOR "HITS AND MISSES").

DINIS

Ooooops! Caps on. Not yellin'.

>  >>'exetera' or 'ek setera'
>
>After thinking about this, I am a little surprised that the <ets>
>sequence does not simply reduce to <es> - as words like success
><suk-ses> get reduced to <su-ses> - i.e., <e-se-te-ra>.
>
>Bethany

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
      Asian & African Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
e-mail: preston at msu.edu
phone: (517) 353-9290