tgpedersen wrote:
> In other words, it's a dead morphological process. Early enough
> loans would have participated in it.
Not quite. It's a dead phonetic process converted into a morphological
rule (cf. the purely morphological "palatalisation" of k --> s in
Latinate words in English, like electri[k] --> electri[s]ity). Very old
loans show the development of /k/ into /c/ (the "second palatalisation")
in other positions too, e.g. *kaisa:r- > *ce^sar-, but its productivity
was over by the end of Common Slavic.
>>Loans like <keson>, <kepi> or <kibutz> can't be
>>affected.
>
>
> Ah, I am vindicated! ;-) Do you think you could you come up with a
> recent loan in -k ?
You need a feminine in -ka to show the effect, as no masculine or neuter
ending causes this kind of palatalisation. The k --> c (and g --> dz)
replacement is 100% productive, i.e. absolutely obligatory in all such
feminines, native or borrowed, all and recent alike, even in foreign
proper names and acronyms treated as feminines, cf. Osaka (Japan) :
Osace, YMCA [imka] : Ymce, Ortega (Spanish surname) : Ortedze.
Piotr