Re: [cybalist] Hamp and his dog, an IE shepherd

----- Original Message -----

From: Sergejus Tarasovas

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 6:32 PM

Subject: RE: [cybalist] Hamp and his dog, an IE shepherd

Sorry if anyone gets this message twice.

Sergei wrote:

1. The so called third palatalization acted much later than RUKI rule (with its cognates in Baltic and Indo-Iranian).( Cf. such amazing examples from beech bark inscriptions like вьхъ 'all' etc. They show that in North Krivichian dialect of Old Russian this palatalization hadn't been completed yet by the X-XI cc).

2. So we can suppose the following development:

*pis-o-/-u->*piS-o-/-u->*pьxъ>*pьs'ь>various derivates in Slavic languages with 'hardened' (depalatalized) s and consecutive involving of the word in -o-stem paradigms (qiute normal developement). By the way, why the -u- stem is reconstructed?

Dear Sergei,

Your scenario might work for East Slavic, but not for West Slavic, where the third palatalisation worked differently (*x > *š) and was NEVER "reversed" to yield s. Starting with *pis-o/u-, we would end up with Polish *piesz, not pies. Had the third palatalisation failed, as it non uncommonly did, the result would be *piex (with RUKI S > x). To sum up, whatever the origin of the word, the West Slavic reflexes exclude old *s and support the reconstruction *pik'-.

As for your final question, if you re-read my posting, you will see that I did NOT reconstruct a -u- stem (the Slavic nom. sg. *pIsU is ambiguous, of course). Actually, all the evidence I know of favours a Slavic -o- stem, which is precisely why I don't INSIST on the identification of *pIsU with *peku but merely offer it as a remote possibility.

Piotr

PS: My apology to Sergei. The second hyphen in pIs-U- (which crept in unintended, as the -U was meant to represent the nom./acc. sg. ending) may indeed suggests a reconstructed u-stem. Sorry, and let me repeat for the sake of clarity that to the best of mu knowledge *pIsU is an o-stem (< *pik'o-s if sufficiently old). To be sure, the distribution of u-stems Proto-Slavic was more limited than in PIE (e.g. u-neuters and u-adjectives were eliminated, and even the surviving u-masculines suffered much analogical contamination) and a very early replacement of *piC-u- by *piC-o- can be contemplated, though of course it makes the connection with *peku all the more speculative.

Anyway, since PIE *peku (non-satemised!) has survived in Baltic (Old [and dialectal?] Lith. pe~kus, Pr. pecku 'cattle'), as has the 'dog' word (Lith. šuo~, šun~s, Pr. sunis), whatever happened in Proto-Slavic should in principle be treated with all due caution as an inner Slavic affair.

Piotr