Liquid metathesis is not a common Slavic
process but a group of parallel developments that occurred independently and at
different times in the various Slavic-speaking regions, producing different
results. In certain peripheral areas (the Baltic coast, Macedonian dialects)
liquid metathesis took place very late or even failed to be carried through
consistently. In East Slavic we have early metathesis in word-initial "vowel +
liquid" combinations, but so-called "pleophony", i.e. a disyllabic pronunciation
instead of metathesis, in word-medial positions (a special type of pleophony
occurred also in Krivichian):
PSl. *gordU > Russ. gorod (pleophony:
*or > oro); Pol. gród (*or > ro); Cz. hrad, OCS gradU, SCr. grad (*or >
ra); Polabian and Pomeranian gord (no metathesis).
Preconsonantal *ol, *er and *el underwent
similar developments:
PSl. *zolto 'gold' > Russ. zoloto (*ol
> olo); Pol. zl/oto (*ol > lo > l/o); Cz., OCS, SCr., Bulg. zlato (*ol
> *la).
PSl. *bergU 'tree' > Russ. bereg
(*er > ere); Pol. brzeg (*er > re > rze); Cz. br^eh, OCS bre^gU,
SCr. breg / br(i)jeg / brig, Bulg. brjag (*er > *re^, with
dialect-specific developments)
PSl. *melko 'milk' > Russ. moloko
(*el > olo); Pol. brzeg (*el > le); Cz. mléko, OCS mle^ko, SCr. mleko /
ml(i)jeko / mliko, Bulg. mljako (*el > le^ with dialect-specific
developments).
I have already explained the reasons why
the *oR > Ra metathesis in South Slavic must be dated to the eighth
century.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 11:54 PM
Subject: [tied] slavic methathesis
did the slavic methathesis indeed appeared just in the
8-th
century or was this a phenomenom which appeared already in
common
slavic, until the slavic languages separated
themself?Piotr mentionated "the
first " emthathesis in slavic
should be known from the 8-th century
first.
but in which slavic then? just south slavic or how is
this
phenomenom in the other slavic languages to
documentate?