26-01-04 22:42, Richard Wordingham wrote:
> Sorry, I misremembered the spelling. It's <gisht>, not <gjisht>, or
> at least, the former wasn't challenged. I don;t klnow what that
> implies for the pronunication.
The difference is real enough, though perhaps neutralised in some
regional accents: (slightly palatalised?) velar /g/ in <gi> vs. fully
palatal /g'/ in <gji>. In some northern dialects of Albanian <gj>
becomes a postalveolar ("alveopalatal") affricate (/dz'/). My suspicion
is that /gi-/ vs. /gji-/ may reflect the contrast between PIE *gwi- and
*gi- (the *v < *w was lost in relatively recent times).
Piotr