a few details about ablaut

[rgraczyk at AOL.COM]

> Fourth, Randy's Crow grammar describes some stem ablaut that looks
like a really distorted version of what we have in the Central Siouan
languages, viz. some stems ablaut and some don't, and those that do use
/-a/ before plurals and imperatives (again, this is from memory -- the
book is not handy right now).

There are some verb stems ending in -ii and -ee that ablaut, and others 
that don't.  Those that ablaut have -aa before the plural (uu) and 
before morphemes beginning in a-.  There don't appear to be any 
conditioning factors that would explain this.

>The ordinary sound change for final short *-e in Crow seems to be –i, 
but I
can’t say much more.  If I make room for Crow in my head, I’ll have to 
forget
something else that’s already there.

Scrolling through the CSD, it looks like -i is the most common reflex 
in Crow of  PSI*-e.

Randy