On Fri, 07 Sep 2001 10:50:05 -0000, "Sergejus Tarasovas"
<
S.Tarasovas@...> wrote:
>WHile we are at that, how would you explain quite unusual
>transformation "prolongated" <o> > <i>.
Looks rather like the Ro:m- > Ru:m- > Ry:m- > Ri(:)m- thing, doesn't
it? But I have no idea whether that's what actually happened. I
suspect not, because Ukr. /u/, [whether from /u/ or /o~/], when
"prolongated", does not go to /i/. I have no explanation.
But I can look one up. According to Bräuer, Slavische
Sprachwissenschaft, Band I: Lautlehre, "zeigt das Ukrainische hierbei
die am weitesten gehende Entwicklung, wenn der Diphthong (...) von
<uo> über <ue> und <üi> > <i> führt." Makes sense, but it's right up
there with French <e:> --> <wa> as one of the least intuitive vowel
developments that I know of (Swiss Romance [Grison and Valais] /e:/ ->
/ik/ is also pretty weird).