Re: [tied] Proto-Albanian

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2003 4:05 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Proto-Albanian


>> [Alex:] About the "modhulle" and "mazare".
>> The plant which is to find by Dioscoride is written with "z". "mouzola". Do you expect the Dacian "z" gave an Albanian "dh"? It seems more probably that the "dh" from Albanian here is older.

> [Miguel:] And how do you expect a Greek or Latin author would write the sound /ð/?

>> [Alex:] It is just too see if the Albanian "dh" is from an PIE "d" or from an PIE "g'".

> [Miguel:] Albanian /ð/ can be from PIE *d, *dh, *g^ or *g^h.


Since Alex evidently desires to know the whole story of the 'pea' word, here it is:

The pre-Albanian word was probably *ma:dos, from the root *mad- found in various names of foodstuffs, e.g. Eng. meat (< *mati-, originally meaning 'food') and (beech) mast. This became Proto-Albanian *ma:d (after the loss of the nom.sg. ending), alternating with *ma:dz-. The affricate developed regularly before inflectional endings lost later than nom.sg. *-os, and was subsequently generalised throughout the paradigm, producing the new nom.sg. *ma:dz. The suffix *-ela: > *-ëlë > Alb. -ullë, Rom. -ãre (with rhotacism, as expected) was added rather late, otherwise intervocalic *-d- (or *-dz-) would have been lost.

To sum up, the common ancestor of Alb. modhullë and Rom mazãre is something like *ma:dz-ëlë.

The medial affricate can still be heard in dialectal (Macedo-Romanian) madzãre, but has been simplified to /z/ in Daco-Romanian. In Albanian it has yielded <dh> [ð]. The Proto-Albanian vowel *a: (representing the merger of pre-Albanian *a: and *e:) became rounded and retracted, ending up as Modern Albanian <o> (but Proto-Romanian borrowed the word with the old vowel quality and has preserved it). To sum up again, *ma:dz- > Mod.Alb. modh-. All these developments are 100% regular.

Piotr