I may be wrong, but I have the creeping
suspicion that the tentative idea of *-o blocking the palatalisation was
inspired by the case of *igo 'yoke' (which, to my mind, only shows that the word
was still *jUgo when the progressive palatalisation occurred). I think the
optimal formulation should merely state that *i, *I are the
triggers and a following *y (or consonant) is a blocker. An
intervening nasal is transparent with regard to the spread of palatality (by
virtue of being automatically homorganic with the following obstruent), while an
intervening liquid _tends_ to block it (but may fail to). As for the remaining
wrinkles, I throw in the towel. Attempts to make the progressive palatalisation
more neatly Neogrammarian create more problems than they solve.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 10:00 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] *kuningaz (again)
On Wed, 30 Jan 2002 19:41:03 +0100, "Piotr
Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...>
wrote:
>Belic' (1921) and Vaillant (1950) formulated it that way. The
fact is, the palatalisation fails before *y if there is no basis for analogical
levelling, (thus in *kUne,g-yni-), and occasionally in archaic forms unaffected
by analogy like Russ. <zgi> = {stg-i} < *stIgy, gen.sg. of *stIdza
'path' (cf. Old Pol. s'c'dza). The operation of the palatalisation before *U is
capricious, but I suppose that examples like otIcI < *otIkU are more archaic
than unpalatalised -I-k-, which may easily be analogical (after -U-k-,
-a-k-).
The way the law is formulated in Bräuer's Einführung
is
(paraphrasing):
No formula has been found that explains all cases
and has no
counterexamples. Most cases can be explained if {g,k,x} >
{dz,c,s'}
after _unaccented_ {i,I,e~}, when there was no {y,u,o~,o(?)} [/U/
is
not mentioned] in the following syllable. Furthermore, /i/ <
*i:
palatalizes more often than /i/ < *ei. In some (iterative) verbs
(by
analogy?) palatalization also occurs after /Ir/ (/Il/). A good
number
of exceptions to the rule can be explained if we add that the
accent
had to fall on the following syllable, but this creates a whole
new
set of exceptions. Ausgleich within paradigms plays an
important
role.
I appreciate the lack of elegance in such a
formulation, with /U/ the
only back/rounded vowel that definitely does not
block the
palatalization ("Welche Laute zu den labialisierten und hier
die
Palatalisierung hemmenden Vokalen gehören, ist umstritten.
Mit
Sicherheit gehört wohl nur /y/ dazu, mit grosser
Wahrscheinlichkeit
auch /u/ und /o~/, während es für /o/ sehr frachlich
ist"). But I
find it hard to imagine that a law that should have been
regularly
blocked in the Nom. and Acc. masc. (-U) would have come through
the
paradigmatic Ausgleich with the success it evidently did have
(outside
Krivichian, that is).