tgpedersen wrote:
> Russ. xoc^ú, xótet' ?
Yes, it's Russ. c^, Pol./Cz. c, OCS s^t, S/Cr. c'
>>The fricative s' (from *x) merged
>>with *s^ in West Slavic but not elsewhere.
>
>
> Isn't that disputed, BTW? some say *s > x, *s' > s^
???
We are talking about the fate of Slavic *x before _new_ front vowels
(from monophthongised *e^2 < *ai < *oi/*ai as opposed to *e^1 from *e:).
The development was as follows:
*xai > *xe^ > s'e^
*s^e: > *s^e^
The two outcomes merged in West Slavic, but not in South or East Slavic.
I don't think anybody would dispute it.
> (and how do you
> account for Russ. dux, dus^niy ?
This is the first palatalisation, not the second. Originally, *s^
occurred before front vowels, *x before back ones. In this case, the
suffix had a reduced front vowel (PSl. *-InU- from *-ino-).
Talking of Russian, the second regressive palatalisation was
analogically cancelled when it occurred across the morphological
boundary in declensions, e.g. in the loc.sg. duxe (Pre-Slavic *daux-ai <
dHous-oi) instead of expected *duse (from regular *dus'e^). However, its
effects are well visible in non-derived environments, where analogy
couldn't touch it, e.g. celyj < *ce^lU < *kaila-, seryj < *s'e^rU <
*xaira- (cf. Polish szary, with West Slavic *s^ < *s').
>>Non-intersecting alternative paths from velar stops to alveolar or
>>dental affricates/fricatives are possible because the articulatory
>
> space
>
>>of oral obstruents is not linear: the configuration of the tongue
>
> tip,
>
>>blade and body has to be taken into account as well.
>>
>
>
> Yes that was the question. An example would be nice.
A few have already been shown. What else do you need? More information
about the significance of tongue shape? Any good handbook of
articulatory phonetics can give you the details. For example, Polish
<sz> is apical, English <sh> is laminal and bunched up ("domed, to use
Ladefoged's terminology"), while Polish <s'> is predorsal (also domed,
but without a laminal or apical component). The acoustic effect is
different in each case, although the place of articulation is the same
for all three (postalveolar). If <sz> and <s'> are distinguished in
Polish, it means that they lie on alternative paths crossing the same
place of articulation.
Piotr
Piotr