> -----Original Message-----
> From: alexmoeller@... [mailto:alexmoeller@...]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 6:06 PM
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [tied] Re: *gwistis
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "m_iacomi" <m_iacomi@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 5:01 PM
> Subject: [tied] Re: *gwistis
I apologise if this message has already appeared. My internet access died
as I was sending it through the 'Reply' facility.
> [Moeller] well explain me the form of deSti in Rom. and giSt in
> Albanian with the same "St" of your Latin digitus. Did in
> Albanian gi from Latin went too St?
The points have been made that
(a) Latin 'digitus' did NOT syncopate digitus > *digtus >...
(b) In the less-isolated parts of the empire, the 'g' dropped, so the path
went digitus > diitus >... We have not discussed what happened to the
vowels.
(c) On the periphery, (incipient) palatalisation preserved the consonant.
On this basis, we expect Romanian to have had a form such as 'degetu'. It
has been pointed out that there are forms with -ege- replaced by -eje-, -ej-
and -e$-. Assuming that they date from before the final 'u' disappeared, we
can see the following slurring pattern:
degetu > dejetu > dejtu > de$tu
with all four forms still around, as deget, dejet, dejt and de$t. The
phonetic change we see is:
-ghit- > (Reorganise vowels) -ghet- > (Palatalise) -get- > (soften further)
-jet- > (syncope or apocope) > -jt- > (simplify) -$t-
I had expected to find PIE gwistis > Albanian gisht. I suppose it was too
simple to be true. (The apparent resistance to palatalisation had surprised
me.) If, as George has just said, it too has nothing to do with PIE
*gwistis, e.g. Old Norse kvistr, this should definitely go on the list of
pseudo-cognates.
> > Appendix Probi, 12: calcostegis non calcosteis.
> Palatalized -g-
> > was more resistant in peripheral Romance languages (as
> Romanian)
> > or in loanwords from Latin. Normally this would explain the
> fact
> > we have conserved (palatalized) -g- in Romanian <deget> (see
> also
> > Sardinian <dighitale> < digitale;
>
> [Moeller]ah, again Sardinian? well, if not Spain nor Portugal,
> nor French nor Italian, nor retoromanish, then at least
> Sardinian.....
I must confess I don't understand the point about 'loanwords from Latin' in
Vulgar Latin. Perhaps the claim here is that more learned words were more
resistant, even from an early stage?
> [Moeller]
> but Angelo in Italian, Giovanni in Italian to, originale in
> Italian, original in French, with a good preservation of "g"..
> well.. that is life..
I am not sure what the <g> in Italian angelo has to do with this discussion.
What was being discussed was the disappearance (not replacement) of /g/
between vowels. As I said in my first post, the 'g' in French <doigt> has
*never* been pronounced. It was inserted in the _spelling_ later, as were
many superfluous and indeed incorrect letters. Piotr has already mentioned
the 's' in English 'island'. I could add the 'c' in 'scissors'. As to
superfluous and once dropped letters, English has the 'b' in 'debt' and the
'p' in 'receipt'.
Richard..
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