Re: [tied] Albanian-Dacian (was: Celery)

Actually, the reflexes of word-initial (prevocalic) *g^, *g^H, *d and *dH in Albanian are a bit messy. In many cases *g^(H)- > dh- [ð] and *d(H)- > d-, and this seems to have been the original state of affairs, but there is a lot of apparently unconditioned vacillation BOTH ways. I don't see any good evidence of the different treatment of *d and *dH in Albanian, assumed by some. I think Cimochowski's theory of randomly lexicalised sandhi variation dh- ~ d- in Proto-Albanian is close to the truth if difficult to prove. At any rate we have some fossilised alternations like <dhez> ~ <n-dez> 'to light' (both from *dHogWH-eje-, the latter with the adprep *en-), cf. <dheg> 'burn' < *dHegWH-.

Albanian <dh> and <th> reflecting *g^(H) and *k^ are thought to have developed from affricates, possibly of the *dz and *ts type (as suggested by some combinative changes).

For the sake of illustration I give a few uncontroversial examples of typical Albanian developments:

*g^(H)- > dh-

dhëmb 'tooth' < *g^ombHos
dhe 'earth' < *(dH)g^Ho:m

*g^(H)- > d-

dimër (Geg dimën) 'winter' < *g^Heimon-
dorë 'hand' < *g^He:r(-a:) < *g^Hesr-

*d(H)- > d-

det 'sea' < *deët- < *dHeubeto-
djath(ë)të 'right' < *dek^s-

*d(H)- > dh-

dhjetë '10' < *dek^mt-
dhez 'light' < *dogWHejo:

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Wordingham
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 11:54 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Celery

My thoughts were partly influenced by Piotr's remark that Albanian
_might_ be descended from Dacian. Cyril's website gave PIE *d >
Albanian ð, but that must be wrong; it does not square with the
derivation of Albanian ditë 'day' from PIE *dei-.

Now, for Dacian, we appear to have:

PIE *t > Dacian <t>, probably [t]
PIE *d > Dacian <d>, probably [d]
PIE *dH > Dacian <d>, probably [d], but possibly [ð] as in Germanic.