Odp: [tied] Re: Russian [eto] = "that" (demonstarative).

Normally, Polish has no initial <h-> in native words (as opposed to Czech, Slovak, Belarusian or Ukrainian loans, where <h-> corresponds to Polish <g->), but it does have what seems to be glottal <h>-prothesis in the expressive place/direction adverbs <het> and <hen(-hen)> 'far away'.

Note also Polish oto, Russian vot 'here('s)' < *o-to-, with a a different vowel "prefix".

Anyway, whatever the diachronic amalysis of the Slavic words, there are other examples of deictic *h1e-, including the preterite "augment" in the Greek/Armenian/Indo-Iranian areal block. Cf. also Latin e(c)ce 'lo!, behold'.

There is a research project devoted to PIE "particles" at Zurich University. Perhaps they'll come up with something enlightening.

http://www.research-projects.unizh.ch/phil/unit64400/area496/p2023.htm

Piotr

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

From: Sergejus Tarasovas

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 10:41 AM

Subject: [tied] Re: Russian [eto] = "that" (demonstarative).

--- In cybalist@..., MCLSSAA2@... wrote: > --- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote: > > *(h1)e- itself is a pronominal morpheme which combines quite freely > with other such elements (e.g. Russian eto < *(h1)e-tod), ... > > I have come across no Russian words starting in [e-] rather than > [je-], except [eto] and recent loanwords. In PIE [H1ed-] = "eat" and > [H1esti] = "is", the [e-] pressnts in Russian as [je-]. I have a good > textbook of Old Slavonic, and it does not list [eto]. I suspect that > the [e-] in Russian [eto] arose in historic Russian times as a > prefixed inarticulate emphatic noise. Old Church Slavonic is a cultivated bookish version of some Old Bulgarian dialects spoken in Macedonia (with, probably, some Moravian elements). It's by no means an ancestor of Old Russian and differs (sometimes significantly) from the latter in its vocabulary. Presence or absence of a lexeme in OCS is of small relevance when considering presence or absence of a lexeme in Old Russian. <eto> is registered in Old Russian sources and has its reflexes not only in Russian <e'to>, but in Ukrainian <ge'to> (with fricative [g]) and Belarussian <gEt'a> ({E} for open [e]). This lexeme is indeed considered to be the only e-initial with the prosthesis other than traditional [j]. Nearly all the auctores agree that Old Russian spelling <eto> actually hides an alternative prosthesis - [h] ([heto]), registered in Russian dialects, Ukrainian and Belarussian (to some extent) and in a number of Old Russian vaccilations like <uz^I> : <guz^I> 'tug, trace (such horse harness element)' < *[huz^I] < Slavic *o,zjI. This prosthesis has probably nothing to do with PIE *h1- which had disappeared long before.