Re: Check out Origin of Ancient Languages

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <piotr.gasiorowski@...>
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@..., "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> I know it's possible for a language to live with such stem
> > alternations. Leafing through a Danish-Polish dictionary I
> > found /dech/ "breath", /bez tchu/ "out of breath/. Question: are
> > there forms of "bad Polish" in which a generalised form like

*/bez

> > dechu/ would occur?
>
> Not yet, really. We tolerate this alternation in monosyllabic nouns
> and in suffixal syllables. For example, Old Polish ps-ek (nom.) :
> pies-k-a (gen.) 'doggie' (< *pIsUk-) has been levelled out as

Modern

> Polish pies-ek : pies-k-a. However, we still have:
>
> giez : gza 'gadfly'
> pies : psa 'dog'
> mech : mchu 'moss'
> dzien' : dnia 'day'
> dech : tchu 'breath'
> pien' : pnia 'trunk'
> wesz : wszy 'louse'
> krew : krwi 'blood'
> chrzest : chrztu (< chrzstu) 'baptism'
>
> etc.
>
> However, analogy has affected some derivatives like <oddech :
> oddechu> (not *odetchu < *otU-tUx-), since here the historically
> expected alternation would be too complex. The same holds for
> <bezdech : bezdechu> 'apnoea' (as a compound, not as a phrase). In
> addition, we have levelling-out in one monosyllabic masculine,
> <deszcz : deszczu> 'rain' < dez.dz. : dz.dz.u < *dUz^dz^- (the old
> gen. still exists but few Poles realise that it is related to
> <deszcz> at all), and one or two similar cases from the early

history

> of Polish, where extreme phonetic complications led to paradigm
> restructuring (cka [< dska] : gen.pl. desk 'board', now deska :
> desek).
>
> Piotr

Thank you for all the information. It's still d/t-ch stem that
impresses me most; if a so diverse stem can survive, I thought, who
is to say that a stem like *pas^u-/fs^u can't have existed in eg.
Sarmatian, although that stem was regularised in other East Iranian
languages (and I will not invoke the ghost of some special connection
between Polish nobility and Sarmatians, lest some people on the list
mistakenly idetify me as a krypto-Sarmatist bent on plunging their
country into Medieval darkness, although it is tempting)?

Torsten