Re: "One" in Albanian [revisited]

From: Abdullah Konushevci
Message: 34586
Date: 2004-10-11

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
> All, right, here's the gist of the matter. Hamp finds Huld's
> etymology (from *smiah2) implausible, and in general rejects the
> reconstruction of Common Albanian *një/*nji, which, as he argues,
is
> based on incomplete evidence (uninflected, originally unstressed
> forms). He himself takes into consideration a great amount of
> dialectal material (including inflected forms, such as Dushmani
njâni
> (m.) and njâna (f.), and concludes that the type <një> represents
a
> development of unstressed *njâ < *njân < *nje:n < *(V)ni-ain- <
*eni
> + *oino-, analogous to Slavic *ed-inU (i.e. deictic + numeral).
> According to Hamp, a parallel formation can be seen in Geg tân,
Tosk
> tërë < *tod + *oino-. The type <nji> is either a by-form of <një>
> with vowel colouring due to the initial palatal, or (perhaps) a
> reflex of deictic *eni- without the accompanying *oino-.
>
> Piotr
************
Albanian <nji> 'one', also <i> 'id.', preserved especially in epic
poetry; Geg <njâ> 'one' and Tosk <një> 'id.', to my view, is a
compound of pronominal stem *H1ey- and *oino- `one'. I guess that
this pronominal stem underwent nasalizm in Albanian, so we may
assume that protoform of Palbanian was *H1eny + *oino > *anj- +
*ino, zero-grade form of *oino (after well-known apheresis of
unstressed syllable) > nji `one'. Second form <i> is simply derived
from *ino > *in (with regular loose of /n/ at the end of the word) >
i `one'.
Last two forms: Geg <njâ> and Tosk <një> could be explained from
form *H1eny + *oino > anj + eno > njâ(n) > Tosk <një>. I suppose
that in Slavic we have the reverse order *H1ed + ino > OCHS jedinU,
russ. odin, South-Slavic <jedan/jedna/jedno>, but also in OCHS
<inorogU> `onehorned'.
Forms <njani> (without nasal <â>) `someone' and <njana> `id' are
late derivation from adverb <nja> (some) + <nji> `one'.

Konushevci