Re: [tied] Some accentological thoughts...

On Ned, ožujak 4, 2007 1:48 pm, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal reče:

>>> I don't think the etymology is
>>> relevant. The reduction of the 4 morae to 3 (*-u:m), then 2
>>> (*-uN), then 1 (*-U) was a thing of the distant past
>>
>>And also problematic of course since that kind of shortening is pretty
>>strange.

> I don't think so: the reduction of 3-moraic "long
> diphthongs" occurred independently almost everywhere in the
> Indo-European languages.

I find the idea that -U < *-o:m strange. There is no other example where
originally long vowel in final position yields a short one. *-o:ns yields
-y, *-e:r yields -i, *-eh2m > *-a:m yields -oN, *-o:y yields -u, *-o:ys
yields -y etc. The exact details are perhaps disputable but it is a clear
fact that the reflex of a long vowel is a long vowel. Thus, -U < *-o:m is
impossible.

>>> by the
>>> time the lengthening of stressed endings took place.
>>> It is
>>> clear that the process (OK, if it took place at all), took
>>> place _after_ quantity had given way to quality as the main
>>> marker of "long" vowels. I think we can get much more
>>> interesting results if we let go of the prejudiced notion
>>> that _etymological_ length or shortness played any role at
>>> all in the process of final lengthening.
>>
>>Wouldn't you get too much lenghts in final syllables if all accented
>>syllables lenghtened? (Both B or C or just C?)
>
> Just C. If B final stress had played a role, things would be
> simple indeed: all final syllable vowels would have been
> long (the distribution between B and C final stress is
> complementary). That would definitely give too much final
> length! Otherwise, I can't explain why only C.
>
>>> About Gpl. -a:, I think it may indeed reflect the lengthened
>>> jer -U:, so is original, but that it cannot be the _normal_
>>> reflex of final -U: (which is of course -0), so it's also
>>> innovative.
>>
>>If -a: is from old long -U:, it is strange that there is no **-oma: in D.
>>pl.,
>
> There is -ima, -ama of course. I don't want to dispute the
> dual origin of these forms,

That's dual and that's short. I'll be honest and admit that there is also
-ima~ in Posavian but that seems to be secondary for older -i~ (in
loc/instr.pl.).

> but if the final jer could
> occasionally be vocalized to -a:, that may have helped to
> generalize the dual endings.

Oh come on... You treat languages and dialects like they had no written
history... Plural and dual were clearly distinguished in early monuments,
up till let's say 15th-16th century, depending on the dialect.

> Why we don't get a long vowel
> is surely because the form has one syllable more than the
> Gpl. (and in the case of a:-stems it has two morae more). I
> think such a shortening agrees in spirit with the
> conclusions you draw in your article in Wiener Slavistiches
> Jahrbuch (where you of course do not discuss final long
> jers).

Haha got me there... :)

>>**-ěxa: in L. pl. Also there is not **pekoxa: in 1. pers. sg. of
>>aorist etc. (by the way, according to Kortlandt, one would expect aor.
>>**peko~x which is nowhere to be found).
>
> The 1st person (sg., du., pl.) aorist is a.p. B, so I
> wouldn't expect any length on the jer. Cf. also short -i in
> the infinitive (also a.p. B).

You're right, it's formally B (in C).

>>> The only way -a: can be derived from a weak
>>> final -U: is if an enclitic followed. A "Bulgarian-like"
>>> z^enU:-ti:xU, mu:z^I:-ti:xU won't do, but perhaps something
>>> like z^enU:-sI, mu:z^I:-sI (as ungrammatical as zimu-sI >
>>> zimu:s or le^to-sI > l(j)etos) could work. There is of
>>> course no special reason why -sI should have been optionally
>>> appended to the Gpl. as opposed to other cases, but only in
>>> the Gpl. (and Dpl., Lpl.) would it have produced such a
>>> phonetically striking result (z^ena:-s, z^enama(:)-s,
>>> *z^enaha(:)-s), making it available for grammaticalization
>>> as a replacement for the lost Gpl. ending in o- and
>>> a:-stems. All we need is one dialect with a fondness of
>>> adding -sI all over the place, from which the innovation
>>> would have spread.
>>
>>I'm afraid that is completely ad hoc.
>
> Yes. Did I add that I wouldn't bet my life on the -sI
> hypothesis? But it's the only scenario that occurred to me
> to explain -U: > -a: as a regular phonetic development.

Which should probably point you to another conclusion .-)

>>-a: is confirmed as -U^ or -UU
>>(probably long schwa) in some Serbian Church Slavic monuments, that may
>>point to its antiquity (or it may not), but in modern dialects it looks
>>like a clear innovation (of whatever origin) since it appears *only* and
>>*exclusively* in innovative Štokavian dialects. All Štokavian dialects
>>with conservative morphology have -0 like Čakavian, Kajkavian etc.
>
> Sure, I already agreed that -a: is innovative. Especially in
> such forms as la^na:ca:, the -a: looks "stuck on" onto
> original la^na:c [probably no asterisk].

Yes, that's another thing - one would expect forms like **lânca: instead
of lâna:c(a:) if the -a: were original.

Mate