Let me answer this one, as Polish is my
native language.
The word is always <z.ona> (pron.
"zhona"). Several centuries ago Polish /e/ underwent a change to /o/ between a
"soft" (palatal or palatalised) consonant and a "hard" dental
sound:
Slavic *z^ena > Polish z^ona (spelt
<z.ona>).
The change did not apply if the following
consonant was palatalised, so /e/ was preserved in the Dat.sg. or Loc.sg. z^en'e
(' = palatality). Later all these forms were levelled out, so that in Modern
Polish we have <z.ona, z.onie> for older <z.ona,
z.enie>.
However, this old /e/ survives in
derivatives, e.g. the adjective <z.en'ski> 'female' or the verb
<z.enic' sie,> 'get married (= take a wife)'.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2000 10:07 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] gwen etymology
z.ona too as in it's z.ena as well, or just z.ona?
Also, is the z./z' supposed to be a "zh" sound? If not, what is the
marking for?