Re: [tied] Re: Slavic *sorka (was: Satem and desatemisation (was: A

From: Sergejus Tarasovas
Message: 30457
Date: 2004-02-02

> From: Mate Kapovic [mailto:mkapovic@...]

> This is not strange considering that *oN gives /u/ in East
> Slavic. We have to bear in mind that what we reconstruct as
> *oN does not really need to be exactly that. In the case of
> East Slavic it may have been likewise *uN.

East Slavic only?

> I think it is a
> mistake trying to reconstruct PSl *oN, *eN or *e with the
> same quality everywhere in the Slavic world.
> See, this is what I ment. Why would there have to be one and
> only pronountiation of Late Common Slavic (!) *oN? Wouldn't
> it be reasonable to presume that the actual pronountiation
> may have been different in different parts of Slavia? That
> PSl *o gives /a/ is not strange seens Lithuanian didn't have
> /o/ then and the Slavic *o is anyway very young becoming from
> *a probably not much sooner before written records (and it
> hasn't changed everywhere).

Yes, what you write is more or less generally accepted (not to say trivial),
but my point was that *oN was higher than *o across Late Common Slavic in
general despite obvious fluctuations in their realization. If so, that would
seem to support the early narrowing of tautosyllabic *am, *an in Slavic --
at least as early as the suggested Slavic loans in Lithuanian. What do you
think of *that*?

Sergei