On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 06:43:17 +0000, Richard Wordingham
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>Were the asterisks needed at
><http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/6/6-1627.html>? Is it possible
>that the mazurzenie dialects never had hushes?

No. The asterisks are superfluous. The phonemes /s^/, /z^/, /c^/ are
attested throughout Polish from the oldest texts onwards (not to mention
the rest of Slavic) and are still there in standard Polish [which at least
for this part of its phonology is based on the non-mazurza,cy dialect of
Wielkopolska]. The mazurzenie (/s^/ > /s/, /z^/ > /z/, /c^/ > /c/) in the
dialects of Malopolska and Mazowsze is a direct result of the development
of palatalized dental/alveoalr /s/, /z/, /t/, /d/ to "alveolo-palatal"
(palatalized post-alveolar) /s'/, /z'/, /c'/, /dz'/, a development which
took place around the XIII century.

>What about the shift r' > z^? Is the starting point there
>attested?

Twelfth century texts write <r>, thirteenth century texts already have <rf>
(that's r + "long s"), later <rz> (= Czech <r^>, rhotic fricative). The
change from /r^/ to /z^/ started around the 15th c., but didn't become
normative until the 18th. century.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...