From: sergejus_tarasovas
Message: 14226
Date: 2002-08-04
--- In cybalist@..., "elmerasdk" <jer@...> wrote:
Dear Jens,
thank you for this detailed clarification of your point of view. The
comments below is not a try to argue -- rather some questions "in
wake of".
>There is also the indirect evidence of Baltic
> metatony, as Lith. skìrtas 'separated' (mobile, IE end-stressed
type,
> her restored after the working of Hirt's Law) vs.
> skir~tas 'separation' (barytone) or áukstas 'high' (mobile, IE end-
> stressed) : au~kstas 'storey' (barytone), where the circumflex is
(in
> my opinion) best explained by the lateness of the differentiation:
> after a certain point in time Lithuanian formed no more acutes
> (you've begun again in words like bánkas because that now sounds
> closer to the foreign source); so here, too, the variants consist
of
> the same material, only the accent has been differentiated to
express
> a difference of "part of speech" (substantive vs. adjective), and
> when that happened late enough the newly accented syllables could
> only get circumflex, whence the difference which is thus
essentially
> not one of intonation, but of accent placing.
But this point in time should be probably placed rather late on the
time axis because Lithuanian seems to hesitate between circumflex and
acute in early borrowings from Slavic: _lénkas_ 'Pole',
_kùrtas_ 'hunting dog of high class', _tùlkas_ 'translator',
_bìrkavas_ '10 pounds', _cìrkva_ 'church', _s^álmas_ 'helmet',
_Póvilas_ 'Paul', _banýc^ia_ 'church', _nedé:lia_ 'Sunday',
_Velýkos_ 'Easter', _siú:lyti_ 'offer' (exmaples from Zinkevic^ius'
abridged _Leituviu, kalbos istorija_). If so, this circumflex-
yielding derivational metatony must have operated at the time when
Dybo's law wasn't already a must or had ceased to operate at all.
And, by the way, is it really possible to demonstrate that cases like
_re:~kia_ 'shouts' -> _ré:kauja_ 'id. (intensive)',
_plau~kti_ 'float' -> _pláukioti_ 'id. (iterative)',
_vil~kas_ 'wolf' -> __vìlke:_ 'she-wolf', _padrai~ko_ 'strews' ->
_padráikos_ 'strewn straws' can indeed be dated to that earlier times
when Lithuanian speakers still didn't mind using this marked throat-
pressing (as in Low Lithuanian) uneconomic acutes while your examples
are for sure of later origin?
> In conclusion, I would much prefer to regard the "accent
> properties" of Baltic and Slavic derived words as the only thing
they
> can be observed to be, i.e. the effects of analogical copying of
the
> base-word. In the terminology of Kurylowicz, one could say that
> the "forme de fondation" has been utilized in the various "formes
> fondées" with its full set of properties, including the accent.
It seemes the Balts analogically copied not only specific lexemes,
but some derivational rules as well -- I mean ablaut series like
_bré:z^ti_ 'scratch, draw':_brìz^e:s_ 'spring-tooth
harrow':_brúoz^as_ 'Strich':_braiz^ýti_ 'draw':_bru:~z^inti_ 'smooth,
finish (by rubbing)', where ablaut is mostly analogically
innovational. And what if they analogically copied some accent-
related rules as well (though I'm not sure what I mean :) )?a
Sergei