From: alex
Message: 35678
Date: 2004-12-26
> That is a misunderstanding. All of those words had a semivowelthe explanation is nice but when one has Rom. "c�rlig" > Bulg. "kr�lig",
> preceding the resonant; the semivowel and the resonant underwent
> metathesis, but the semivowel was weak (in the technical Havl�k
> sense) and went the way of the Avars in due course like all weak
> semivowels (appr. tenth century), so that you end up with syllabic
> resonants, as is still the case in Serbian and Croatian (and Slovene
> and Czech and Slovak), e.g. "brlog", "grlo", "vrh" etc. Subsequently
> new vowels developed, usually before the resonant, in much of South
> Slavic, but not everywhere, with numerous local niceties and
> complications.
> Since "g�rl�" is obviously the most straightforward
> way for Romanian to adopt a Slavic form [grlo], it does not point to
> an early date. Indeed, if the borrowing was old we would expect
> **gurlo, with the *u that was changed into a semivowel as a
> consequence of Kretschmer's reorganization of the vowel system, cf.
> *sut�* (if that is Slavic).
>
> Willem