I've been reading Illich-Svitych's "Imennaja akcentuacija v
baltijskom i slavjanskom", something which I obviously
should have done long ago, but it's never too late...
I wasn't paying any attention to the writing style, only to
the contents, but after my first preliminary reading, the
fact that I'm left with a lucid image of what the book is
saying and that I have not noticed (in the sense of "been
bothered") by the style at all must be a good sign.
Certainly one of the most readable accounts of Slavic
accentology that I have encountered so far.
Before moving on to more important affairs, first a belated
defense against Jens' objections some time ago, when I
introduced the concept of a law retracting the Slavic accent
to a preceding acute syllable:
[me:]
>> The existence of a.p. II = a.p. b verbs (-né-, -jé-, -sk^é-
>> verbs, iteratives and denominatives in -i~- and -í:-) and
>> nouns (o-stem neuters) _before_ Dybo's law is something of a
>> novelty, as far as I know. It raises the possibility of a
>> parallel "Obyd's law" (Dybo's law in reverse), retracting
>> the accent to the left in non-acute a.p. II verbs (this
>> certainly didn't happen in the o-stem neuter nouns, which
>> remain oxytone even if the root is acute: vêdró, stadló,
>> dêdló, etc.).
>>
[Jens:]
>[] I do not find it proper to call the presumed law by
>somebody else's name, just because he said the opposite
>about something else.
What I-S says on p. 96 is:
Analizuruja vosstanovlennuju X. Stangom sistemu trex
akcentuacionnyx paradigm glagola v praslavjankom, V.A. Dybo
pokazal, chto baritonirovannaja i recessivnaja paradigmy
glagola naxodjatsja v otnoshenijax dopolnitel'nogo
raspredelenija i, sledovatel'no, mogut otrazhat' odnu
paradigmu, ch'e rasscheplenie svjazano s processami
peredvizhenija udarenija, zavisjaschimi ot struktury
kornevogo sloga [V.A. Dybo, Rec. na kn.: L. Sadnik.
Slavische Akzentuation. -- V.Ja., 1960, No. 6, str.
116-119).]. Takoj vyvod veren i dlja akcentuacionnyx
paradigm imeni. Pri ètom vopros o pervonachal'nosti
baritonezy ili oksitonezy v paradigme, iz kotoroj razvilis'
slavjanskie baritonirovannaja i oksitonirovannaja paradigmy,
mozhet byt' reshen tol'ko posle rassmotrenija dannyx
vneshnego sravnenija".
[Analyzing the system of three accent paradigms of the verb
in Proto-Slavic postulated by Ch. Stang, V.A. Dybo showed
that the barytonic and the recessive paradigms of the verbs
are in complementary distribution and that as a consequence
they can reflect a single paradigm, the split of which is
connected to processes of accent shift that depend on the
structure of the root syllable [V.A. Dybo, book review of L.
Sadnik, Slavische Akzentuation. -- V.Ja., 1960, No. 6, pp.
116-119).]. The same conclusion also holds for the nominal
accent paradigms. It should be added that the question
about the originality of barytonesis or oxytonesis in the
paradigm from which the Slavic barytonic and oxytonic
paradigms developed, can be solved only after studying the
data from external comparison.]
I conclude that Dybo, initially at least, didn't necessarily
say the opposite, and that he said it about the same thing
(the Slavic immobile verbs).
Had Slava lived to write the sequel (*"Glagol'naja
akentuacija v baltijskom i slavjanskom"), I have the feeling
he would have properly identified the <pervonachal'nost'> of
oxytonesis in the verbal paradigms, because that's the only
conclusion allowed by the <dannye vneshnego sravnenija>.
Incidentally, Illich-Svitych also makes the correct call in
the case of the neuter o-stem oxytones (pp. 120-123), with a
wealth of examples, which makes it even stranger that Dybo
(et al.) say in OSA p. 45 that "refleksacija kratkostnyx
oxytona neutra do konca ne vyjasnena vvidu nedostatka
materiala" ["the reflexation of short oxytona neutra has not
been conclusively cleared up in view of the lack of
material"].
Jens is of course right that the term "-Dybo" (as opposed to
"+Dybo" for what has become generally known as Dybo's law)
is acceptable only as a working title. So what about
"Kuryl/owicz's law"? (Modesty prevents me from using "law
of Kurylowicz/Carrasquer"). I know that Kuryl/owicz
proposed a (series of) retraction laws for Slavic, which in
his opinion gave rise to the Slavic acute in formerly
unstressed syllables. I do not of course think K. was right
in rejecting the possibility of acute intonation outside the
stress, and I only know K.'s retraction laws from the
negative mentions of them by Stang and others, but if
anybody has read the original, is there sufficient overlap
between K.'s laws and my "-Dybo" to justify the coinage?
Back to Slava's book. I'm pleasantly surprised by the
mention of Lith. dial. lizdà "nest" (cf. Slav. gnêzdò) [p.
43], reflecting the old East Baltic neuter ending -a (cf.
Slav. -o) < *-od. I won't jump to any conclusions about the
place of the ictus in that word. An interesting but
unexpected argument is introduced on p. 53, where I-S states
that already in PIE, the NA pl. form of neuters in -a:
showed a systematic(?) stress opposition with the singular.
The examples given are Ved. cakrám vs. Grk. kúkla and Grk.
neûron vs. pl. neurá, and this is compared inter alia with
Lith. s^im~tas (*k^m.tóm) but pl. usually <trys s^im~tai>
instead of (or next to) expected <trys s^imtai~>. It is
mentioned that more details can be found in Hirt Akzent
243-246, but I'm a bit surprised that I have never seen this
type of "mobility" mentioned anywhere. It would be
significant if mobility in thematic nouns (albeit only in
neuter o-stems) had a PIE pedigree. Does anybody have more
details to add?
More later.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...