Re: Albanian (3)

Hello Piotr,
You wrote :
" After the main wave of Balkan Latin loans in Albanian but
before the main wave of borrowings from Slavic the
fricatives *s and *z became retracted, yielding postalveolar *s^ and
*z^. "
This is only an afirmation. You have to sustain it with
arguments.
My analysis that I post today , shows that in a worst case
scenario, the activation of s -> s^ started about 200AD and was fully
spreading acrros all albanian around 600 AD. But once again it is a
worst case scenario. The activatation could be well in place at 200
AD, 300 AD or at 400AD so during and not after the main wave of
Balkan Latin loans.

Best Regards,
marius alexandru





--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

> 3. The incredible adventures of *s
>
> PIE *s disappeared from in many positions already in the earliest
> history of Albanian. It was lost before nasals (*smek^ru- > mjekër)

and

> probably always before and after liquids (the proposed development

of

> initial *sr- > *str- > shtr- is based on doubtful evidence). Some

of the

> examples discussed recently on this list suggest the compensatory
> lengthening of vowels before *-rs- and *-sr- (simplified to -r-),

as in

> *g^Hesr- > *3'e:r- > dorë 'hand' and *gWer(h3)snah2 > *3^e:rra >

zorrë

> 'intestine'.
>
> Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, I can't see any tangible

evidence

> for the phonologisation of the RUKI rule in Albanian.
>
> Before Late Proto-Albanian (i.e. in pre-Roman times) *s underwent
> voicing prevocalically in stressed syllables but remained voiceless
> elsewhere (unless already lost). After the main wave of Balkan

Latin

> loans in Albanian but before the main wave of borrowings from

Slavic the

> fricatives *s and *z became retracted, yielding postalveolar *s^

and

> *z^. While *s^ survives as Modern Albanian <sh>, *z^, which had
> meanwhile undergone a merger with the reflex of Proto-Albanian *j,
> developed further into palatal *G' and merged with *g' (from *gl or

from

> *g palatalised before front vowels). The outcome of the merger is

Modern

> Albanian /g'/ (spelt <gj>):
>
> *serpm.no- > *ziärpan- > Geg gjarpën, Tosk gjarpër 'snake'
> *supno- > *zum(n)- > gjumë 'sleep'
> *solwo- 'healthy' > gjallë 'vigorous'
> but *septm. (with final stress preserved) + *-t-a: > *s&táta >

shtatë

>
> Alb. <sh> normally corresponds to Lat. /s/ in old borrowings (e.g.
> shigjetë 'arrow' <-- sagitta), but not to Slavic /s/, except in

several

> words that belong to the oldest layer of Slavic loans (e.g. shullë
> 'maidservant' <-- *sUlU 'messenger').
>
> Combinations of *s with other phonemes have produced some really

bizarre

> results. Initial *sw- gives Mod.Alb. d-, as in *sworgH-eje- >

dergjem

> 'lie ill' (middle voice) and *s(h2)wel-jo- (or the like) >

diell 'sun'.

> The development is puzzling and the intermediate stages are

difficult to

> reconstruct. The syllables in which it took place were stressed in
> Proto-Albanian (though not necessarily in PIE), so we may

conjecture

> that the first step was *sw- > *zw-. It seems that before a

following *w

> the fricative *z failed to undergo retraction and was fronted

instead

> (by dissimilation?); the resulting *Dw- gave /d-/ upon the loss of

*w in

> clusters. The fact that we don't find /D-/ in random variation

with /d-/

> in this lexical set is probably significant: *dw- and *dHw- are

also

> consistently reflected as /d-/ in Albanian. Of course *g^(H)w-

didn't

> follow the same path because it became monophonemic *3'W- (> *3^ >

z)

> already in Early Proto-Albanian.
>
> I don't know what happened to *sw- in unstressed syllables. I would
> expect *sw- > *Tw- > *T-, but I can't offer any examples.
>
> In <vjehërr> 'father-in-law' (PIE *swek^uros) the initial /v/ is

due to

> old metathesis (*swek'ur- > *wesk(')ur-), not to a special

treatment of

> *sw-, while <gjasht> 'six' derives from the PIE variant *sek^s

(plus

> secondary *-t-a:), not from *swek^s.
>
> It seems that the combinations *k^s, *k(W)s and *sk(^) all yield
> Albanian <h> /x/:
>
> *sk(^)and-nah2 > Geg hânë, Tosk hënë 'moon'
> (cf. Skt. (s')candrá- 'shining; moon')
> *g^n.h3-sk(^)o: > njoh 'know'
> *keh1k^-sah2 > kohë 'time' (cf. Slavic *c^asU 'id.')
>
> Whether they fell together at the same time or not, they must have
> merged as something similar to or identical with *x by Roman times,
> since Lat. /sk/ --> Alb. shk and Lat. /ks/ --> Alb. fsh. However,

Early

> Proto-Albanian loans from Doric Greek are old enough to have been
> affected: Gk. kse:nos --> Alb. huaj 'stranger, foreigner'.
>
> Piotr