Re: Etymology of "Warsaw"

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

> On 9/8/04 12:01 PM, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > You mean the name 'Warszawa' is known in written sources from

the

> > 17th century on. What type of sources does it appear in first:
> > official or 'unofficial'/private?
>
> I'd have to do some checking to tell you that. At any rate, pre-

17th

> sources, formal and informal alike (and there're plenty of them,
> covering chronologically three full centuries), give only
> Warszowa/Warszewa (the vacillation is normal in this kind of name;
> <-ewa> is the phonologically expected allomorph after <sz>, <-owa>

is

> analogical). Also in literary Polish: Jan Kochanowski, one of our

best

> poets of the 16th century and a native Mazovian, wrote an epigram
> entitled "Na most warszewski" (On the Warszewa Bridge). There's no
> indication anywhere of that <-awa> thing being archaic.
>

The thing that puzzles me is how -owa > -awa could be a
hypercorrection, since the place name -owa would be a familiar to
anyone, regardless of social stratum. How could anyone feel a
(almost?) unique -awa to be more correct than the ubiquitous -owa?


Another thing I was wondering: How does the change from initial to
penultimate stress fit into this, time-wise? Changing the vowel of
an unstressed suffix would be easier than changing that of a
stressed one, it seems to me.

> > Are there any other known cases of -owa > -awa in place names?
>
> Again, some checking would be in order. I'll do it at my leisure,

OK?

No problem.

Torsten