Re: [tied] Re: Nominative Loss. A strengthened theory?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sergejus Tarasovas" <S.Tarasovas@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 12:03 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Nominative Loss. A strengthened theory?


> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Sergejus Tarasovas"
> > <S.Tarasovas@...> wrote:
> > Or is *o: in *-o:m a contracted *oo?
> >
> > I'm almost sure it is. It has a circumflex in Greek too, and it
> > counts for two syllables in the Avestan Gathas.
>
> Everything looks quite neatly, then.
>
> > And there's the
> > heavier jer reflex in Slavic.
>
> So you too accept this special jer? I've been sure it was a Dybo's
> idiosyncrasy. But do you accept its phonemic status? And if you do,
> doesn't it look a bit lavish for the Common Slavic to reserve a
> special phoneme for one and only morpheme?

Of course it does. I think it was Vondrák which first thought about this
idea. But Leskien was opposed to it and he had a good argument - if this
"super" jer was somehow reflected as -a: it would mean it was in the strong
position and we would expect the former jer (like in g. pl. *kon6c6) to fall
out. In that case we would have **konca: but that is not the case. We have
ko``na:ca: < (older) ko``na:c which clearly shows that -a: was added later.

Mate