Abdullah Konushevci wrote:
> [AK]
> Rather than the lack of /s/ we may accept rule *s > j, so *yes >
> Alb. <ziej> 'to boil, cook' is regular: *y > Alb. /z/, /*e/ > Alb.
> ie and /*s/ > /j/.
> I remember that it was first mentiond this etymology by Mr. Rasmusen.
Was it? I would still find it unacceptable. Neither *j > Alb. z nor *-s-
> Alb. -j- are independently established and generally recognised sound
changes, so you can't assume they are "regular" if that's precisely what
you set out to prove.
>
>>*wik^ah2- + *-pot-/*-potnih2 > zot 'lord', zonjë 'lady'.
>
>
> [AK]
> I don't know why not from *dye: + pti > zot: *dy>z, *pt > tt >t
But what is *dje:-? Just a variant of *dj(e)u- employed ad hoc to derive
the correct output ;-)? Is there anything about the semantics of <zot>
and <zonjë> to justify the hypothesis that they originally referred to
the Heavenly Lord and Lady? I know Demiraj posits *dje:u- as the initial
element, but this simply isn't the expected compositional form of
*djeu-! We have <dyu-pati-> in late Sanskrit, but only as an epithet
applied to a god, or to the personified Sun.
On the other hand, we have well-established IE words for the chief of a
tribe or village (and his wife): Ved. vis'-pati-, vis'-patni:, Lith.
vies^-pat(i)s, vies^-pati. These could easily produce the right range of
mundane, honorific and figurative meanings ('master, boss, host, lord',
etc., and then 'deity, god', just like Ved. vis'pati- may refer to Agni
and Indra). If so, is it just an accident that the Albanian reflex of
*wik^m.tih1 also has initial <z->? (*wik^ah2- can be explained as the
normalised reshaping of the feminine root noun *wik^- in pre-Albanian).
I believe we owe this etymology to Eric Hamp, who established the change
of *wik^- > z- some forty-five years ago.
> *i:l-, i:lu- "dirt, black" (pp.499)
> *ie:lo:-, yHlo- "unripe, raw" (pp. 504-505)
OK, but the first is ultimately based on the root-comparison of Slavic
and Greek words meaning 'mud, ooze' etc., and Pokorny offers no evidence
for a colour term like that, and I completely fail to see what the
latter etymon (again based on doubtful comparison between Balto-Slavic
and Celtic) could have to do with Alb. zall.
Piotr