Re: [tied] Re: Decircumflexion, N-raising, H-raising: Slavic soundr

On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 21:24:32 +0000, Sergejus Tarasovas
<S.Tarasovas@...> wrote:

>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>
>> Would it be plausible to assume the following:
>>
>> * h-raising was late in Krivichian, and came in part _after_
>> j-Umlaut.
>>
>> * this gave a paradigm in the (j)o-stems:
>>
>> hard soft
>> nom. *-U -(j)e ~ -(j)I
>> acc. -U -(j)I
>>
>> * "soft" -(j)e, allowing a convenient distinction between
>> nom. and acc., spread to hard stems, giving:
>>
>> nom -e -(j)e ~ (j)I
>> acc. -U -(j)I
>
>Vermeer and Krys'ko tried to speculate along the same lines: they
>assume N.sg. -o (*o-masculina) and -je (*jo-masculina) for some stage
>of pre-Krivichian (or even Proto-Slavic in general), -e having spread
>to hard stems. A weak point I see here (both in your and their
>explanation) is the fact N.sg. and Acc.sg have nearly merged in the
>soft declension itself: -(j)e is very rare, the *-IcI and *-zI (a
>product of the 3rd palatalization) being a strange exception (there -
>I and -e seem to be distributed more or less equally).

It's a weak point, but not lethal. The situation is
consistent with analogical spread. In the original
environment (the soft stems), there has been no change (both
endings occur as they have resulted from historical
accident). In the environment where the analogical -e has
spread to (the hard stems), the replacement is regular and
complete (as analogy tends to be). The only puzzling thing
is why the -e didn't analogically spread back to the soft
stems that didn't have it.

>> Did Krivichian use the acc. or the gen. for animate objects?
>
>Acc. prevails; G. is limited to personal names and -- to a lesser
>extent -- to common names denoting persons (not animate objects in
>general), and is often ascribed to the influence of Standard Old
>Russian, Church Slavonic and other Slavic dialects.

All the more reason to distinguish acc. from nom.,
especially in the larger category of hard stems(?).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...