[tied] Re: Lith. Acc.pl.

--- In cybalist@..., Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer@...> wrote:

> I'm afraid this will lead to misunderstandings. Richard asked about

the

> nom.sg., not the acc.pl..

Mea culpa. My apologies to everybody for this unnecessary confusion.
It was the keyword _Saussure(-Fortunatov)'s law_ (rather not
applicable to i- and u-stems N. sg.) that acted as a red herring
here.

> Acc.pl. -ìs, -ùs with non-acutes do indeed act like they were

acute

> themselves, since they attract the accent. This can hardly be

phonetically

> regular from IE *-ins, *-uns, but it may well be analogical on the

endings

> -ùs (-úos-ius) and -às (-áNs-ias) of o/a:-stems.

Still asking (very prudently this time): if you assume that Acc.pl. -
ìs, -ùs were historically short, why do we have North High Lithuanian
Nom. sg. àkè.s (close [e.]) 'eye' (regularly < *-is) but Acc. pl.
àkìs (regularly < *-í:s)? If you agree they were long and beared
circumflex rather than acute accent (non-acutes means circumflexes,
doesn't it?), how would you explain the shortening then?

Sergei