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

> From: Miguel Carrasquer [mailto:mcv@...]

> >> It's in itself reasonable to think that -aí was changed to
> -ai~ due
> >> to contraction (-ijaí > -jai~), as was the fem. nom. sg. -ijá: >
> >> -e:~.
> >
> >I wonder how one would explain collectives in -ijà (vilkijà vs.
> >vìlke:, perkú:nija) then?
>
> Something with *-ih2-, I guess...

Indeed, it seems to be parallel to collectives in -uvà (< *-uh2-?).

> Well, the jo- and ja:-stems behave differently. In the
> jo-stems, there's a difference between stressed and
> unstressed *-ijos (nom.sg. -is vs. -y~s,

...

> The nom.sg. -is is short, so cannot be
> circumflex

No. -is is definitely a very late shortening -- in fact, a good deal of the
Auks^taitian dialects still has (unstressed) -ys, and the Z^emaitian ones
has -is (zu~i~kis, thus from *-y~s), not +-è.s (from +-is).

> and apparently also
> nom.pl. [adj.] -ì vs. -iai~),

The more I think of your extension of Kortlands' solution to explain -ì vs.
-iai~ in adjectives, the less I like it. The only (but crucial) merit of
contractional-analogical explanation of -ai~ in the *nominal* paradigm is
that it explains why -ai~ doesn't show the effect of Saussure's law (the
circumflex itself not being a problem, since the rule -ái# > -a~i# is
automatic in Standard Lithuanian (the exceptions like jái, visái are rare
and are usually of analogical origin or a result of interdialectal
borrowings) -- we've been on that many times before). Your -ái > -ì seems to
be ad hoc -- why do we have sakai~ (with -ai~ showing the effect of
Saussure's law and having acute in part of the Z^emaitian dialects (and
broken tone in the other)), not +sak-ì? Doesn't it look more natural to
assume that adjectives took their *(i)(j)o-stems N.pl. (*-íe) from pronouns,
-iai~ (as well as some other -- dialectally all -- cases) being obviously
analogical after *-ijo-nouns?

> >And in the historical L.sg. (Old Lith. -è, later replaced with -yjè).
>
> Doesn't -è come from suffixed *-en?
>

Yes. If you place your contraction before the agglutination of *-én, then
the ending is not problematic.

Sergei