Re: Alb. vjehërr [was: PIE *y > Alb. /z/]

From: alexandru_mg3
Message: 38718
Date: 2005-06-17

> Piotr wrote:
> Pedersen (no matter if he was right or wrong) meant only inherited PIE
> *s, not those instances of Modern Albanian /s/ which have resulted
from
> the phonetic simplification of *c < *k^. Cimochowski believed that
*k^u
> developed like *k^w or *kW/+, i.e. via *c^(W) into Mod.Alb. /s/, but
the
> examples I know are not very convincing. Anyway, *k^/_u might yield
Alb.
> <th> or perhaps <s>, but certainly not <h>. By the way I assume a
> _single_ metathesis, not several, in the passage from *swek^uro- to
> <vjehërr>, and the *sk^ is not "additional" or "invented" because it's
> simply the result of the metathesis.


I. "The alternance (k'>) c <-> s" is older then c > th in PAlbanian
because otherwise all c /ts/ would became th.

Examples of words reflecting the "alternance c <-> s" in Albanian
Alb. sumbull <-> thumbull <-> Rom. sâmbure
Alb. kurthë <-> Rom. kursã
and there are others too...
(based on this I think that vjehërr reflects too this alternance)

On the other hand we have cases (the majority of cases) where c is
preserved:
main rule: k' > c where c remained c(>later th) as in:
Alb. thark <-> Rom. Tarc /tsark/

Explicative Note: Based on the examples above I hope that you agree
that this alternance was 'c <-> s' and not 'th <-> s'.
To be sure on this please see again that this 'alternance c<-> s' is
reflected also in the Romanian's forms too: where we have both cases s
and c (=> and in Romanian c /ts/ remained c /ts/):

3. The timeframe of c /ts/ > th is older than ~ 200 AC because we need
not to superpose the c of th with the c /ts/ of (k'W,kW/+ > c^ > | c |>
s) that gave s.

4. If c /ts/ > th is older than 200 AC and because the 'alternance c <-
> s' is older than this (see 1.), the 'alternance s<->c' happened at
least before 0 AC. And there is no restriction for it not to happen
long before 0 AC.

5. On the other hand : sk > h (and we can consider based on
similarities: that V-s-V>h belongs to the same timeframe too), so sk >
h is not 'so old' because some PAlb words with h are very closed to
some Ancient Greek forms with 'sk'. So these words could be inherited
but also could be considered as Greek loans in PAlbanian reflecting sk
> h.
So sk > h happened before Roman Times, before 0AC, but not long
before...
Based on the similarities of the transformations we can consider V-s-V
having the same timeframe as sk>h.

6. As result of 1-5: there is no reason not to consider that
the 'alternance s <-> c' in PAlbanian is OLDER than sk > ks > s (or
older than V-s-V > V-h-V).

In conclusion : we can well consider that the "alternance s<->c" is
older than the V-s-V > V-h-V.

So swek^ura > swesura could take place (long) before
*(s)wesura > *(s)wehura => as result there is no issue with the
derivation below:
*swek^uro > ["alternance c <-> s: see thumbull <-> sumbull"] > *swesura
> [s/w > zero] > *wesura > [V-s-V > V-h-V] > *wehura

(more than this I supposed also that the initial s was still there when
c > s happened (for phonetic reasons: s-c > s-s, so in this case 'the
alternance c<->s' is older also then 's/w > zero'))

Best Regards,
Marius



P.S. Regarding the other points that you have raised:

II. "Anyway, *k^/_u might yield Alb.
> <th> or perhaps <s>, but certainly not <h>."

I don't say that k^ could give h. For sure not. I said that:
1. 'based on the alternance c <-> s, c passed first to s'
2. 'this s passed next to h like any other s in that context: see
gjuhë, kohë. (So a s is a s doesn't matter its original source)
On the other hand, what derivations you can propose for gjuhë, kohë as
alternatives of s>h?


III. > By the way I assume a
> _single_ metathesis, not several, in the passage from *swek^uro- to
> <vjehërr>, and the *sk^ is not "additional" or "invented" because it's
> simply the result of the metathesis.

I understood *swe > *wes and next sk^ > k^s (> h) (but maybe I
didn't understand well...sorry in that case)
So ok, a single metathesis: but why to proposed a metathesis here?
You need to have at least 2-3 examples showing the metathesis *swe >
*wes (see my 2-3 examples showing the 'alternance c <-> s') before to
can suppose this alternance. Also for a similar example is very
probable that l. > ul ~ lu.
So any metathesis based on a single example is a 'workaround' that
can easy be rejected: 'it could be, it couldn't be...' if there are not
some additional examples reflecting that case.

(nothing personal here, Piotr, I talk here about this Metathesis not
about you)

Best Regards again,
Marius