Re: [tied] az+

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 24305
Date: 2003-07-08

08-07-03 14:28, fortuna11111 wrote:

> Btw, a quick look at mostly Eastern- and Central-Iranian languages
> gave the following results:
>
>
> Pers. pron. 1st. pers. sg.:
>
> Yazgulam: az
> Ishkashim: az
> Shugn-Roshau: as/az
> Avestan: azUm
> Pashto: zU
> Ossete: az
>
> Having in mind the archaeological evidence analyzed by D.Dimitrov and
> the supposedly close ties between Protobulgarians and Ossetians, and
> the supposed previous coexistence with Central and Eastern Asiatic
> peoples, it is definitely simpler to think up an explanation through
> the fictitious Protoslavic (where you can think up everything,
> following logical patterns) than to just point out what I would call
> direct evidence. It is, indeed, simpler to get from here to London
> through the North pole.

Eva,

The 1.sg. pronoun is perhaps the least likely thing to be borrowed (not
impossible, mind you, just extreeeeemely improbable). I'm surprised you
believe historical linguistics to be a discipline where anything goes.
Proto-Slavic, Proto-Indo-European etc. are not arbitrary constructs but
what one might call logical necessities. They are not directly
observable but without them linguistic facts would not make any sense.
_Inependently_ reconstructed sound changes (not something "thought up"
to explain just <azU>) make PSl. *azU (and attested OCS (j)azU) regular
reflexes of PIE *h1eg^om, for which again there is a lot of evidence
from various quarters. The Iranian reflex (also regular) _happens_ to be
similar, partly because Iranian and Slavic share some developments (in
particular the Satem shift of *g^ > z, partly by chance (in
Indo-Iranian, *e became /a/; in Slavic it didn't, but Balto-Slavic *e
was lengthened before voiced stops, giving Slavic *e^, which in
word-initial position partly merged with Slavic *a from inherited *a: or
*o:). Likewise, Lat. ego and Gk. ego: are independent parallel
developments: the Latin pronoun was not borrowed from Greek or the other
way round. As a would-be linguist you would benefit more from trying to
understand such things than from trying to negate them for the sake of
an idée fixe.

Piotr