On Tue, 17 Jun 2003 14:01:43 +0000, fortuna11111 <
fortuna11111@...>
wrote:
>> Yes. But if they had borrowed (Old) Bulgarian kUs^ta, it
>wouldn't have ended
>> up as <kuc'a>.
>
>Just a technical question. Do you exclude the possibility that a
>language adjusts a borrowed word to its own phonetic model?
>The combination "sht" is very foreign to Serbian
Is it? I thought Serbian was s^tokav.
>, just as their special way of saying "c" is very foreign to us.
That's a different matter.
> Comparison
>> between Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian requires *ko~tja as the
>common
>> prototype.
>
>You mean, in starting the comparison you already assume the
>existence of a common prototype?
That's just a shorthand, given the fact that Slavic historical phonology
doesn't hold that many secrets anymore.
What we observe is SCr. kuc'a "house", Bulg. k&s^ta "house" (Macedonian
[West-Bulgarian, if you prefer] kak'a, kok'a, kuk'a, k&nk'a). The
Serbo-Croatian word, if inherited, can conceivably go back to *ku(k)tja or
*ko~(k)tja. The Bulgarian word, if inherited, can go back to *ko~(k)tja or
*kU(k)tja. The only common form is *ko~(k)tja, which also happens to be
the only one that can explain the Macedonian forms (assuming k&nk'a exists
in the Kostur area, I'm not sure), and on top of that, also the forms in
other Slavic languages.
I can see no reason at all why one shouldn't accept the common prototype
*kontja, unless for purposes of special pleading (and even then, it will be
pleading in vain).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...