[tied] Re: Albanian (3)

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

> The change I desribed was part of a shift: the slots vacated by *s

and

> *z were filled as *c^ and *3^ changed into *s and *z. It was only

then

> that a new system of fricatives emerged. Some of the oldest loans

from

> Slavic show Modern Albanian /s/ for Slavic *c^, which is

sufficient

> proof that the two processes (the retraction of sibilants and the
> simplification of "shibilant" affricates) overlapped

chronologically.

Thank you. I was waiting for someone to make the point that
phonological systems have to be considered, rather than realisations
of isolated phonemes.

Richard.