Re: Mi- and hi-conjugation in Germanic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:52:12 +0000, elmeras2000
> <jer@...> wrote:
>

[On Slavic *dUbrI vel sim.]

> I don't get the impression that the word was terribly
> frequent (it survives, barely, and as a pl.t., in R. and
> Ukr., and is also obsolete in Cz. and Pol., unknown
> elsewhere). A low-frequency word may not have been attested
> with all its inner yers by accident. It depends on which
> OCS manuscripts exactly have it, which I don't know and
> cannot easily find out. I find the parallel with Lith.
> dubury~s "'Einsenkung, Vertiefung, Grube, mit Wasser
> gefulltes Loch', auch Flußn." striking, but it would require
> a bit of O.C.S. philology to see if it can be true.

The 1994 "Staroslavjanskij slovar' (po rukopisjam X-XI vekov)"
reports seven attestations (from the Codex Zographensis onwards). In
addition to that there is also at least one early Old Russian
attestation in the Izbornik 1076. g. ("Sreznevskij", "Slovar'
drevnerusskogo jazyka (XI-XIV vv.)"). None of these attests to the
presence of a jer between the "b" and the "r". Given my knowledge of
the present state of jerology (which is nil) I wouldn't hazard a
guess at the chance that the word nevertheless did have a jer in that
position.


By the way, how do you guys explain the coexistence of "I" (e.g.
R. "debr'" or for that matter the Albanian toponym "Dibar") and "U"
(e.g. Czech debr^) in the first syllable?


Best,



Willem