[tied] Re: Dybo's law

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

> On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 13:49:48 +0000, tgpedersen
> <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> >Checking out the article, I discovered I need better glasses.

Replace

> >all U's with I's in my posting (odd, I thought Slavic 3rd sg.

had -U?).

>
> In OCS and what underlies modern Russian pronunciation. Old
> Russian and e.g. modern Ukrainian have expected -(e)tI.
>
> In general, we find forms with -0, with -tU and with -tI in
> Slavic (also in the 3pl.). -tI is the expected reflex of
> PIE *-ti. Zero is the expected reflex of PIE *-t, the
> secondary (past/injunctive or subjunctive) ending, and I
> believe that -tU is also a regular outcome of PIE *-t.
> Compare similar alternations in the personal pronoun (j)a ~
> (j)azU, and in prepositions such as o ~ ob ~ obU. In Old
> Novgorodian, the forms with -0 are generally used in a modal
> sense, while the forms with -tI are used in
> declarative/indicative context (Zaliznjak, p. 119-120), so
> that fits in nicely.

I had the passing thought that -tU was chosen since -tI was used for
infinitives (although to a different stem). Does that make sense?

Another thing: Glen brought up the example of Makudoradu, the
Japanese transcription of McDonald's, which reminded me of the fact
that the way the Japanese syllabaries are pronounced. The unstressed
i's palatalise the preceding consonant and then both unstressed i's
and u's disappea; in other words, they behave like front and back
jer. Are you saying the Russians used back jer (U) as a filler (as
in the MacDonald example)?


Torsten