Re: [tied] slavic methathesis

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 15463
Date: 2002-09-14

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 -----
From: alexmoeller@...
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
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?