Re: [tied] Albanian intervocalic s > h

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 38794
Date: 2005-06-20

alexandru_mg3 wrote:

> There is no complex PIE cluster CCC in <djathtë>, because is a recent
> formation, Piotr. djathë is attested at BUZUKU (so with no -të). \
> See Demiraj that consider djathë too. So we have an intervocalic k^s
> in djathë: PIE *-k's- > PAlb c > Alb th

It can't be that simple. The <ja> diphthong (sorry for misspelling the
word in my previous posting) indicates a closed syllable even before the
addition of the secondary <-të>. Either *-k^s- was still a cluster at
the time when -je- and -ja- were differentiated in Proto-Albanian, or
there was another consonant that followed it. The prototype must have
been PIE *dek^si- with one of the few suffixes that normally go with it
(*-wo-, *-no-, *-tero-), with some word-final simplification later on,
most likely something like this:

*dek^siwo- > *dec'(s)iw- > *diäcw- > *djacw- > *djac- > djath-

The cluster *cw would have arisen too late to fall together with
inherited *k^w > *c'W > *c^(W) > s, so the *w was simply lost, as it was
in most other *Cw clusters in Albanian.

I accept the possibility that *-k^s- and *-k^- may have fallen together
(eventually yielding <th>) in Albanian; that would be similar to what
happened in Slavic. But even so, the alternative metathesis *swek^uro- >
*wesk^uro- remains an option, and *-sk^- certainly gives Albanian <-h->.

Piotr