(no subject)

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 4852
Date: 2000-11-25

One could also postulate *-a:ns, *-o:ns, *-ons  > *-aNx > *uNx
> *u:, collapsing the last two stages with the development of the Acc.pl. of
u-stems (*su:nuns > *syny) and thus making for greater parsimony.
 
As for the Acc.pl. of *jo- and *-ja: stems, that is North Slavic *-je^ corresponding to South Slavic *-jeN, we could have
 
*-jons, *-ja:ns > *-jaNx > *-jeNx
> *-je: (with dialectal denasalisation) ~ *-jeN
 
Some authors (e.g. Van Wijk and Kortlandt) attempt to trace the South Slavic present participle in *-y and Northern forms in *-a back to a common prototype. The former is easy to derive from PIE *-onts if, as elsewhere, *ts > pre-Slavic *s (*-onts > *-ans > ... > *-y), but the participle in *-a is rather puzzling.
 
Milewski (1948) proposes the following scenario (for my taste, it involves far too much prestidigitation):
 
*-o:nt(s) > *-a:nt > *-a:t (yielding -a), dialectally *-a:(t)s (with analogic *s) > *-a:s (yielding -y)
 
He also suggests (plausibly this time) that Old Polish -eN (which is many times more frequent than -a) derives from neuter *-ont (> *-aNt > *-uNt > *-oN), and assumes that the neuter form was generalised for participles in *-jont-, which show a nasal (*-jeN) throughout the Slavic branch. It may have been so, but an original *-jonts > *-jaNs would have ended up as *-jeN anyway, at least in South Slavic.
 
To conclude, I'd propose:
 
*-ont-s (masculine) > *-aNx > ...
> *-y
*-ont-i: (feminine) > *-aNti: > *-oNtji (with *j of analogical origin)
*-ont (neuter) > *-aNt > ... > *-oN
 
*-j-ont-s > ... > *-jeN (~ *je:? perh. in Czech znaje, Russ. znaja, etc.)
*-j-ont-i: > ... > *-jeNtji
*-j-ont > ... > *jeN
 
This leaves -a unexplained. Any suggestions? The only possibility that I can think of is that the *-a of *znaja < *zna:-ja: < *zna:-je: was generalised as the Nom.sg. ending of masculine participles in some (not all) North Slavic dialects.
 
Piotr
 

 
P.S. I'd like to return to your argument that forms like OCS robotU contain a reinforced jer in the penult syllable. As argued already by Rozwadowski (1914), this explanation doesn't take into account the dialectal distribution of the -o- forms. The development of reinforced *U into o would not be surprising in West Bulgarian/Macedonian dialects, but this -o- is also found in dialects that generally preserve the back jer unchanged (West Bulgarian) as well as those in which *U > e in strong positions, cf. Old Czech vec^eros 'tonight'.
 
I regard it as possible that *-x was lost early in pre-clitic sandhi: *-ax#C- > *-a#C-. Perhaps the loss was dissimilatory, e.g. *-ax#tax > *-a#tax > *-atux > *-otU. A regular Nom.s.g in *-U could certainly be restored on the analogy of the isolation form, but *-o survived in more-or-less idiomatic combinations.
 
It's more or less like the loss of "the" after English "at" through phonetic simplification (at the > atte > at, e.g. Chaucers atte beste > Modern English at best), subsequently reversed everywhere except in fixed phrases (at home, at table, at stake, at least, etc.). Shakespeare still used idioms like "at very heart/root". (On the other hand, the Authorised Version has many instances of reintroduced "the" which eventually didn't catch on: "at the last/length/first" etc.).
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2000 3:01 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Slavic endings

On Fri, 24 Nov 2000 09:34:15 +0100, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>You know what, Miguel? This collaborative result is more
reasonable than any explanation of Slavic endings I've seen in the literature. It works in other respects, too, by accounting for *-a:s > *-a:x > *-u:x
> *-u: > *-y and several other inflectional problems as well. There's
nothing like a good dispute.

Indeed.  Even in the more common case that no agreement is reached,
it's still worthwile (not to mention fun), if the dispute is good and
one can learn from one's "opponents".

To continue the discussion: what I'm missing in the above is the nasal
element that lurks somewhere in the development *-a:s > *-y.  It's
obviously there in the acc. plurals *-a:ns and *-ons (as well as in
the n-stem nom.sg. -y < *-o:ns), but also, as you know, in the gen.sg.
and nom.pl. [if this is not the acc. form] of the a:-stems, judging by
the ja:-stem forms in -je~.  At least in South Slavic (W. and E.
Slavic have *-e^).

We have:

n-stems nom.sg.  *-o:ns  > *-o:~s > *-a:~x
o-stems acc.pl.  *-ons   > *-o:~s > *-a:~x
a:-stems acc.pl. *-a:ns  > *-a:~s > *-a:~x
a:-stems nom.pl. *-a:s           
> *-a:x
a:-stems gen.sg. *-a:s            > *-a:x

In South Slavic, the two remaining distinct endings seem to have
merged as *-a:~x, by some kind of intrusive nasalization (recalling
Sanskrit forms like nom.pl. -(y/v)a:m.s-as from roots in *-yas and
*-was [i.e. comparatives and the pf.ptc.act.]).

For the rest, the hard forms developed as you say: *-a:(~)x > *-u:x >
*-u: > *-y.

The soft forms (whether in S. or W./E. Slavic) have *-ja:(~)x
>
*-je:(~)x, which I find somewhat puzzling (unlike *ja > *je, *ja: does
not give *je:).  Undoubtedly another effect of the *-x, but here
clearly raising rather than backing, as I had described it earlier.