Re: [tied] *kuningaz (again)

On Wed, 30 Jan 2002 06:10:34 -0800 (PST), george knysh
<gknysh@...> wrote:

>*****GK: Thank you Piotr (and thanks to Miguel for his
>parallel contribution). How does one explain the sound
>shift away from "g" in Slavic?

The Germanic suffix -ing(az) > -e~gU (like e.g. the native Slavic
suffixes -IkU > -IcI, -ika > -ica) were affected by the so-called 3rd.
palatalization: kuningaz > kUne~gU > kUne~dzI (likewise
penning/Pfennig ~ pene~dzI, Siling- ~ sIle~dz-skU, etc.). Note that
this palatalization sometimes fails (e.g. when -y- followed: kUne~dzI

> knjaz' vs. kUne~gynja > knjaginja).

>Esp. East Slavic. In
>the latter, one has both "Varyagi" and "Variazi"
>developing from "Vaeringar" (with the nasal loss), but
>I have never seen "knyagi" only "knyazi".

This is probably because Varyagi was borrowed at a later time, when
the 3rd. palatalization was beginning to stop working.

>And the "g"
>to "z" may even have antedated the loss of nasals
>here, since there is an Arabic text of the 8th c.
>which explains that "knez" is the Saqaliba term for
>"malik".******

What's "Saqaliba"? e~ > e is general South Slavic.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...