Re: [tied] "One" in Albanian [Was: some terms for George]

Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:

> 17-06-03 22:36, alex wrote:
>
>> I guess the explanation is very simple. Albanian lost the initial "u"
>> from *une ( Take a look at how many words begin with "un-" in
>> Albanian. The derivation should be as follow:
>>
>> *oino > une > né > nie > nje > një
>
> Despite your pretension to simplicity, this derivation is actually so
> complex that one can legitimately call it crazy. It violates a great
> number of regular developments in the history of Albanian, and every
> single step in your sequence is arbitrary:
>
> (1) *oi does not yield (Proto-)Albanian *u; it gives e (< *e: < *ai <
> *oi); before a nasal *e: would have become a nasalised vowel (*â =
> [a~]) in Common Albanian.

that won't change anything at the lost of the vowel of the initial
vowel,
no matter which a vowel was there.

>
> (2) Stem-final ("thematic") short *o disappears in Albanian. Short *o
> doesn't change into /e/ except under some special umlauting conditions
> that don't obtain in this case.

This should be explained why /o/ should give not /e/ in this conditions.

>
> (3) *oino- did not have final stress.

it does not need to have. Due the lost of initial vowel the stress
changed on /e/. Because of this it was posible the dyphtongation of /e/
to /ie/ after this the palatalisation of /n/ and the actualy form.

>
> (4) You leave dialectal forms totally unaccounted for.

which dialectal forms for "një"?

>
> In a word, bullshit.
>
> Piotr

let it be bullshit first. Every bread is first a mess..


Now you have to take a look. There is in Alb no variety for feminine
/masculine for this "një". So far I know ( posible I am wrong), the
"një" has the same form for masculine and femine which I compare with
rom. "unã" ( actully "una"). Even the expresion are similar, exprsion
which I don't know if they are because of Balkansprachbund or because
something else:

Rom /Alb
una si una face douã = një e një bëjnë dy
una pe una * = një mbi një
una lânga una = një nga një
fãra una fára douã = pa një pa dy.

alex