Re: [tied] Proto-Albanian

----- Original Message -----
From: "alex_lycos" <altamix@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2003 8:36 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Proto-Albanian


> And here is here. These common words, they are in the most cases identicaly phonologicaly. And this is what makes me wonder. Why the same treatment for these common words and a different treatment of the Latin
words in both languages, the words in each language having today for the
"inherited" Latin elements an another foneticaly aspect. Which should be the logic here?

The common Albano-Romanian words have undergone the same changes as Latin words in both languages. It's simply untrue that their modern reflexes are "identical":

Alb. modhullë : Rom. mazãre 'pea'
Alb. përrua : Rom. pârîu 'brook'

Of course in some cases the corresponding forms are more similar, e.g. Alb. gropë 'hole' : Rom. groapã 'pit'. But in such cases the failure of sound changes to affect the word in a spectacular way is easy to explain: the structure of the word did not meet the conditions of most of the changes. Still, *gropa > groapã involves at least the (regular) diphthongisation of the stressed vowel and the (also regular) reduction of the unstressed one. The same happened in structurally similar Latin words, cf. costa > coastã 'rib', rota > roatã 'wheel'.

Piotr