Date:    Tue, 5 May 1998 08:48:00 -0400
<br>From:    Larry Horn <laurence.horn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU>
<br>Subject: Re: pundent
<br>
<br>At 5:24 PM -0500 5/4/98, Mark Mandel wrote:
<br>>Rather like "tenets" becoming "tenants", which I've noticed a lot. I can
<br>>sort of see "tenant" as a case of thinking you hear
<br>>a familiar word in an unfamiliar context, but what the heck, English is
<br>>full of weird homophones, it must be the word I
<br>>know. But "pundent" admits of no such explanation. However, there are
<br>>plenty of English words ending in /[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nt/ ([AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] =
<br>>schwa), and not many ending in /It ~ [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]t/. But the strongest candidate of
<br>>all, IMHO -- not necessarily acting alone -- is
<br>>nasalization spreading from the first /n/. Discussion?
<br>>
<br>Possible influence from "pungent", which might be taken as applying to the
<br>output of punditry?  (maybe even from "pendant", if we think phonology
<br>and/or grammatical category while ignoring the semantic field.)
<br>
<br>Larry
<br>