Re: [tied] The disappearance of *-s -- The saga continues

----- Original Message -----
From: "elmeras2000" <jer@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2004 11:42 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] The disappearance of *-s -- The saga continues


> > And something else, you say that bi^ and da^ in Croatian is
> evidence for
> > falling tone in monosyllables but this is misrepresentation of the
> facts. In
> > a. p. c verbs in aorist in some stems have initial accent thus
> being
> > enclinomena with circumflex on the first syllable. Thus Croatian
> isko`vah
> > but i``skova, done`soh but do``nese, po`zvah but po``zva. If the
> verb is a
> > monosyllable like bi^, da^ or cË?u^ (cf. cË?u``h), of course it
> has circumflex
> > here instead of acute. It has nothing to do with the fact that it
> is
> > monosyllabic.
>
> The falling tone and the status as enclinomenon are part and parcel
> of the same rule. Mobile words polarize their accent in Slavic to
> the extent that the ictus moves between the first mora of the
> accentual unit and the final vowel. That unites Pedersen/Saussure's
> law of mobility, Meillet's law of falling tone on Slavic mobilia and
> Dolobko's law of accent on proclitics before barytone forms of
> mobile words as aspects of one common law. The falling tone on
> monosyllables is inescapable since it applies also to Baltic which
> has no Meillet's law. Falling tone on long vowels means ictus on its
> first part, since the ictus had high tone. Therefore it all amounts
> to this if you think about it.

But in Slavic monosyllables need not be circumflexed. In Croatian there is
aorist bi^ from bi``ti "to be" < *byti (PIE *bhuH-), but aorist from bi``ti
"to beat" < *biti (PIE *bhiH-) is bi`` (ra`zbi, u`bi etc.). So we have
circumflex in a. p. c where 2./3. sg. of aorist has initial stress, but we
have acute in a. p. a where 2/3. sg. of aorist has root stress same as
anywhere. So you can't prove anything with this. In Slavic there is no
problems with non-circumflexed monosyllables.

P. S. what about Ab. of o-stems in BSl? Why do we have circumflex here? Why
doesn't PIE *-o:d yield acute here (yes, I *am* aware of the difficulties
with Slavic -a : Lith. -o~).

Mate