Re: [tied] i-verbs in Baltic and Slavic

On 2006-05-24 11:16, Mate Kapović wrote:

> This looks impossible, considering the fact that Balto-Slavic (and
> Albanian)also show a depalatalization process (cf. Lith. akmuo~), which
> proves that *k' has remained *k' for some time after the break-up of PIE.
> *s´, *s^, *c^ etc. cannot depalatalize to *k.

It would have been enough for the original PIE phoneme to have undergone
fronting and affrication in Proto-Satem, without yet shifting to fully
coronal consonants, so it wasn't past the point of no return at the time
when the group split up into the uncontroversial subgroupings. The rest,
including depalatalisation in some preconsonantal positions (where
palatalisations often fail to be carried through), would have happened
in the individual branches. I hope you wouldn't argue that Baltic and
Slavic can't be closely related because the one has kl- and the other
sl- in the root *k^leu-. It's a bit like Russ. cv'et vs. Pol. kwiat <
*kve^tU.

> Also, considering the closeness of Greek and IIr,

What particular closeness is there, other than archaisms inherited by
both? Only common innovations can indicate closer relatedness.

> as well as Balto-Slavic
> and Germanic,

Which are mostly typological and lexical affinities of the kind that
often turns out to be areal.

Piotr

> the satem thing seems to be pretty irrelevant when
> discussing dialectal groupings.
>
> Mate