[tied] Re: Polish G. -ga

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> This perhaps true for w-, but for h- (which, apart from Northern
> Russian, is what we have here) there is no motivation to prefer
> rounded vowels over unrounded ones. Ukrainian, for instance, has h-
> forms in combination with a (harba), e (hev), o (hostryj) and u
> (hulycja). I would say the predominance of -h- (-g-) over -w- (-v-)
> in the pronominal genitive favours a deeper timeline over a

shallower

> one.

Probably. I was also thinking of the fact that [h] and [w]-prostheses
seem to be freely interchangable in late Common Slavic, which could
mean both arose in the same phonological environment, but this is not
necessarily true.

> The imperfect is the only other form with Common Slavic hiatus I can
> think of (-e^a-, -aa-). In the OCS documents it is either

preserved,

> contracted (-e^-, -a-) or receives a -j- hiatus-breaker (-e^ja-,
> -aja-). Whatever the origin of the Slavic imperfect, it is

certainly

> ancient, and the hiatus must have been preserved there for

centuries.

Xaburgajev et al. argued the imperfect is a late areal (south-western
Balkans) innovation, though unfortunately I don't remember the
details.

Sergei