Re: [tied] Albanian (1)

From: alex
Message: 30050
Date: 2004-01-26

Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
> 1. The development of PIE dorsal stops
> Proto-Albanian loans in Romanian give us some indication of the
> pronunciation of the reflexes of *k' and *g' at the time of the
> borrowing: their Modern Romanian reflexes are /c/ ~ /s/ and /z/ (~
> dialectal /3/).

1) Observations:
a)-from this sentence I understand you do not agree with the most common view of the scholars which assume that Rom. Lang has a structure as the other NeoLatin languages. Trough this structure I understand : substratum + stratum +adstratum.
I understand it that way because you speak about Proto-Albanian loans in Rom. which implies a population who did speak Latin and loaned some words from Proto-Albanians. In this mannere one cannot speak anymore about any "substratum" in Romanian, but just abut Proto-Albanian loans into Latin spoken by that population. Does I understand it false or do you intended to construct the sentence other way?

b) it is to assume the population who loaned these words from Proto-Albanian has learned the palatzalized sounds "c^" and "g^" from the Proto-Albanians since the language which was spoken by BecomingRomanians was still clear latin with no altered velars within.

2) From the examples given down in this post I could not find the reflexes you are speaking about in Rom. Since one is working with a "control language" one has to see which are the words which have the function of controling the actual hypothesis. Why I say "control language"? I guess you see the loans into Romanian from Proto-Albanian as "froozen" words which kept their form as the old Germanic loans in Finnish for instance.
Thus, the questions here are:

- which are the words where we have the reflex of *k' which at the time these words have been borrowed from ProtAlabanin into Rom. it has had the value of "s"
- which are the words where we have the reflex of *g' which at the time tese words have been borrowed from ProtoAlbanian into Rom. has had the value /z/ ?

Palatalised *kW is reflected as Romanian /c^/. We can
> therefore tentatively assume the following intermediate stages:
>
> *k' > *c > T
> *g' > *3 > D (> d in some instances)
> *kW /+ > *c^ > s
> *gW /+ > *3^ > z
>
> where "/+" means 'in palatalising contexts'.

I have a little trouble in understanding the group *kW or *gW "in palatalising context". I say it because I fail to see how this can be a palatalising context after a labial as "W". I assume the only way is of merging together of "k" with "kW" into "k" for allowing any palatalisation here. I point here to the words as "cui" where we have the clear construction velar-labial-palatal context ( even if there should be a latin cuneus > cui, thing about I very doubt).
If I am wrong ( "k" did not merged with "kW" into "k" for having just "k" /+) then how is possible to have practicaly "ku" to be influenced by the next palatal vowel? Examples in modern Albanian or Romanian will be very appreciated.

> The word-initial contrast between <d> /d/ and <dh> /D/, especially in
> word-initial positions, is taken by some to reflect *g^H (e.g. dorë
> 'hand' < *g^He:sr-) *vs. *g^ (e.g. dhëmb 'tooth' < *g^ombH-).

That remembers me that Rom. "zâmbet" (to smile) is not seen as related to Albanian "dhëmb" (tooth) but as a loan from Slavic "zo~bu" (tooth). Any contradiction here?

Alex