> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...>
wrote:
> I may well be missing something (or even asking a silly question),
> but if *ljudImÚ gives *ljúdImU (final jers lose stressability, the
> ictus skips middle jer(s)), why do we have Russ. <vorobéj> (<
> *vorbIjÍ, a. p. b) rather than +voróbej and Russ. <voronój> (<
> *vornUjÍ, *vôrnU being a. p. c) rather than +vorónyj?
As Kortlandt's self-appointed spokesman this side of eternity I would
like go on record as stating that the answer, which is very simple,
should be pretty obvious to any attentive reader of "Slavic
Accentuation".
Kortlandt assumes that final jers lost the ability of being stressed
very soon after they had arisen as a consequence of what he
calls "The rise of the new timbre distinctions". That was before (1)
Dybo's law, and (2) the rise of a difference between strong and weak
jers.
As a consequence of the former chronology, the stress in pre-Dybo
*stòlU was prevented from advancing to the final syllable by the time
Dybo's law operated. Such more or less classical accentuations as
*stolÚ have no place in Kortlandt's system. They just never arose.
This is a crucial feature of Kortlandt's theory which has rarely
(read never, Ed.) been taken into account by other accentologists,
let alone publicly evaluated. A (b)-stressed noun like the PSl.
predecessor of R. "vorobej" can cast no light on the history of such
forms as *ljudImÚ.
As a consequence of the second chronology, the stress skipped a
syllable in *ljudImÚ and similar forms.
The former point has all kinds of ramifications within Kortlandt's
system, the latter is a natural assumption which just happens to
account for a point preciously few other accentological theories have
had the guts to face, let alone explained.
Any questions?
Willem