18-09-03 21:31, P&G wrote:
> Since the standard books often ignore Albanian, it would be helpful,
> Abdullah, if you could post the normal Albanian outcome of each of the PIE
> phonemes. I'd be grateful.
In a nutshell, the correspondences for non-reduced vowels are as follows:
*a, *o, *au, *ou, *m., *n. > a (or /e/ from Albanian i-umlaut)
*a:, *e: > o
*e > je, ja
*o:, *eu, *oi, *ai > e
*u > u
*u: > y (front rounded), i (in auslaut)
*i, *i:, *ei > i
In some environments, vowel + nasal sequences developed into nasal
vowels preserved in Geg but not in Tosk, hence correspondences like Geg
â [a~] : Tosk ë (schwa). With an intervocalic nasal we get Geg -ën- :
Tosk -ër- (with the nasal rhotacised) as in *k^onidah2 'nit' > Geg
thëni:, Tosk thëri:. Unstressed syllables are strongly reduced and often
lose their vowels altogether. The Albanian schwa (spelt <ë>) is a common
realisation of reduced vowels; you'll often find it at the end of words
as a reflex of *-a:.
There are some special developments like the relatively recent
dipthongisation of o and e before a final liquid or nasal that may
itself get deleted (o > Tosk ua, Geg ue, e > ie, ye). I'll be happy to
present a fuller account (with examples) in a few days' time, but now
I'm going away for the weekend. The developments of the consonants have
been far more complicated and will take a lot of explaining.
Piotr