Re: Decircumflexion, N-raising, H-raising: Slavic soundrules on-line

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> A slightly parallel case: the Lith. o-stem nom. pl. *-oy
> (giving acute *-aí > Slavic -i, Lith. -ì), analogicaly
> replaced in the hard o-stem nouns by the soft ending -ai~.
>
> The original situation must have been (I'll use á for
> stressed acute, à for unstressed acute, â for stressed
> circumflex, ã for unstressed circumflex):
>
> nouns/adjectives:
> -hard -aí (-aì)
> -soft A -jaí (-jaì) (light root)
> -soft B -ijaì > -jaì (heavy stressed root)
> -soft C -ijaí > -jaî (heavy unstressed root)
>
> The contraction of stressed -ijaí (or is it -íjaì?) led to
> circumflex -jai~ in the "soft C" stems.
>
> This situation leads to the endings we find in the
> adjectives (accents as in Lith.):
>
> *-o- : ge~ras -> gerì
> *-jo- : z^ãlias -> z^alì
> *-ijo- : dìdelis -> didelì
> *-íjo- : auksìnis [< *auksini:~s] -> auksìniai
>

Interesting. But *ai > *ie is not commonly accepted, and the medìnis-
type adjectives' -iai is usually explained by the influence of the
nominal declension: not only medìniai, but tíems medìniams, dvíem
medìniam, medìni! (vs. gerì, geríems, gerie~m, geras! -- a "proper"
adjectival paradigm), in colloquial speech sometimes also medìniui,
medìnyje (vs. gerám, geramè), in many dialects a whole paradigm is
borrowed from the *-ijo-nouns. The influence is ascribed to the fact
the *-ijo-adjectives are very often -- much more often than any other
ones -- substantivized (that substantivization is insomuch productive
that it seemes to me every *-ijo-adjective has already been
substantivized -- cf. auksìnis 'gold coin', medìnis 'clog' etc. etc.).

Sergei