Re: [tied] Vladimir

----- Original Message -----
From: "george knysh" <gknysh@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 8:12 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Vladimir


> ******GK: Bear with me. I'm not too clear on this process. The contention is that the proto form was *vol- or *gor- or *mel-. Around 800 there would have been a metathetic event in West and South Slavic, and a "fuller voicing" in East Slavic? (except for Pskovian as to milk et sim.) Why is this considered a better solution than the view that the proto form was *vl- *gr- and *ml- which was subsequently "full voiced" only in East Slavic?******

(1) The old forms are directly attested in the earliest documented Slavic names (Dargomir-, etc.), and in the oldest Slavic loans e.g. into Romanian and Albanian.

(2) Unmetathesised forms like <gard> survive marginally in some dialects, e.g. in Kashubian.

(3) The assumed Proto-Slavic forms correspond to cognate words in Baltic and elsewhere, e.g. Lith. bérz^as, Germanic *berkjo: vs. Russian bereza, Pol. brzoza, etc. (PSl. *berza reconciles them).

(4) Early loans into Slavic show the same change, e.g. *walx- > volox/vlox/vlax (to cite Alex's favourite word), or Alb- > Laba, among many others.

(5) Vowelless syllables with syllabic *[l.], *[r.] also existed but developed differently in Slavic. Cf. PIE *wl.kWos > Russ. volk, Polish wilk, Czech vlk, OCS vlUkU, SCr. vuk.

Piotr