Re: sum

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, mkapovic@... wrote:

> >> They arose as reduced forms in South Slavic. Serbo-Croatian has

full

> >> forms jesam jesi jest jesmo jeste jesu and enclitic sam si je

smo

> >> ste su. Slovene has only the reduced forms sem si je smo ste

so. The

> >> Freisinger Denkmäler (10th cty. Slovene) have several

occurrences of

> >> iesem. The vowel in Slov. sem (which is a schwa), SbCr. sam and
> >> Bulg. sUm is the regular propvowel which appears when clusters

move

> >> to final position by loss of a final reduced vowel (as in the

name

> >> Peter, Petar from PetrU). The Macedonian -u- in sum (sic) may

show

> >> secondary influence from thematic -u (OCS -oN).
>
> I don't see how. There is no reflection of *-oN in Macedonian -

all verbs

> have -am and in *oN yields -a- (*roNka > raka) in Macedonian

anyway. I

> would attribute -u- to the influence of the following -m.

Thanks for this clarification. I am sure you are right. I was
reporting the only statement I could find, from B.Koneski, Istorija
na makedonskiot jazik, Skopje 1967, § 190 where some dialect forms
nosu vezu are mentioned. The -u is called the "replacement" of
Slav. -oN which fooled me. I understand now that the idea rather is
that this -u is from su, a further reduced form of sum. The
following paragraph actually gives a longer series of dialect forms
of standard sum: som, sUm (U written as <a> with shortness bow),
sam, su, se. He also derives them all from jesmI. The relevant
paragraph of the phonology stipulates -o- as the prop-vowel with
subsequent change -om > -um. This is very plainly borne out by
sedum 'seven', osum 'eight' vs. nokot 'nail', petok 'friday'.

Jens
Jens