>Syncopation in Romanian would have proceeded degetu > *degtu /dedZtu/
>> *deçtu > de$tu > de$t; only the vowel, not the whole syllable, is
>syncopated.
There's actually no need for this derivation, since, as I already mentioned,
deget has always had the /Z/ variant dejet (still today, at least one
half of the Romanian population utter the word this way). /Z/ and
/S/ are almost twins. The syncopation of the last vowel is something
natural, as in "am vãzut" (I have seen + I saw) > "am vãz't" /v&zt/.
The frequency of "dejet" is higher than that of "de$t".)
>Now, if there were also a plural *ge$ti in Romanian, the parallel of
>*ge$ti might have encouraged a 'slurred' pronunciation of 'degeti' as
>'de$ti'. But the process probably needed no encouragement.
The pronunciation ge- or je- (i.e. jejete, je$te) could be possible in
the SW province of Banat (but I can't confirm this until I ask some...
native-speaker or browse some standard work on dialects. I once
heard "jejete" in my county, but I'm not sure whether the pronunciation
indeed reflected a usage in some rural areas or whether it was a
mere emphasizing mockery).
>Richard.
George