From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 21154
Date: 2003-04-21
----- Original Message -----
From: "Abdullah Konushevci" <a_konushevci@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2003 1:12 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: the bee
> In best case, liquid-plus-palatal glide should be derived in palatal
glide: fëmijë < Lat. familia `child, baby', bijë < bilja `doughter',
bujar < boljar (cf. Buzmi bujar `generous Buzmi"), both wll attested
in different dialects , even Slavic nevolja > nevojë `need'
A self-correction on my part will immediately solve this problem. I've taken another look at the evidence and found that _only_ Vulgar Latin /E/ (the mid-open front vowel reflecting earlier /e/ and /ae/) was diphthongised (> /ie/) in Albanian (in accordance with its general tendency to undergo diphthongisation, also in the Romance languages). It thus merged with inherited pre-Albanian *e. Vulgar Latin /e/ (the mid-high vowel reflecting earlier /i/ and /e:/) remained monophthongal /e/ in Albanian, thus merging with reflexes of pre-Albanian *ai, *au, *eu and *o:.
In <shigjetë> and <mjeshtër> we have special developments due to the presence of an original velar (Lat. g) palatalised before a front vowel, but examples like <peshk> 'fish' from VLat. pescem (Lat. piscis) show that the vowel itself produced no glide. In other words, the development of hypothetical Balkan Latin *meléttam (<-- Gk. melitta) would have been as follows:
*melétta- --> m(ël)letë > *bletë
As simple as that.
Piotr