[tied] Re: Slavic peoples and places

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:

> I wonder. Polish has never had any sort of g-lenition, and yet we

have <ga,sienica>. It seems that both variants have existed since a
very early time. *go~sen- may be due to folk-etymology ("goose-neck
worm").

>
> Piotr
>

The following examples should also be considered:

1. (Standard Russian) гуж 'tug (as part of draw-gear)', (Polish)
gążew 'flail's strap' and their Slavic cognates, but Old Russian ужь, =

ужа 'tug, rope' (it would be too unnatural to explain as influenced
by ужь 'grass-snake'). All this words can be derived from (Proto-
Slavic) *o,zjь (with a facultative prosthesis [h]).
The Polish example excludes East Slavic influence on (Polish)
gąsienica (too much of that influence), but, in my opinion,
makes "goose-neck worm" explanation too overstrained ("goose-neck
rope" ?). One should suppose (prosthetic) [h]>[g] developement in
Polish.

2. (Russian) выдра 'otter' and it's Slavic cognates, but (Lower
Sorbian) hudra 'the same' < (Proto-Slavic) *[v:h]ydra.

3. (Russian) воробей 'sparrow', but (Ukrainian) горобець 'th=
e same' <
(Proto-Slavic) *võrbьjь:*võrbьcь.

So the case is probably not closed.

Sergei