--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> If there's an Iranian connection, why did Romanian rhotacise only
> intervocalic /l/'s? There's nothing resembling such a restriction in
> Iranian. And if the l-rhotacism in Romanian is due to an Albanoid
> Dacian substrate, why is there no l-rhotacism in Albanian? Tosk does
> have n-rhotacism, but that in turn can't be due to Iranian
> influence. Sorry, Marius, but the whole thing makes absolutely no
> sense.
>
> Piotr
>
I agree with you that there is barely to think about an Iranian
influence even because of the restriction mentioned ( just
intervocalic "l" ).
Missing this rhotacism in Albanian will speak for a singular ,
accidental development within Rumanian. The problem I have with is
the shortness of the time this aspect existed because this will mean
that between II century and arrival of the Slavs should existed this
change, then no more.
Keeping in mind the archaic (*) phonetic aspect of the words in Rum.,
regardless if these words are Latin, Slavic, or Albanian, corelated
with the actual aspect of the language versus
the firsts wroten testimonies, one will consider this language,
I underline here once again, _this_ Rumanian languages needs a lot
of time for changing something.
Thus, it appears more probably this intervocalic rhotacism of "l" is
more ancient.We don't know how to establish the time as it begun but we
do know it was dead as the Slavs came.
note 1: with "archaic" I mean here the fact the loanwords are almostly
unchagend phoneticaly, they being so as they have been loaned in the
time it has been loaned. If they have in actual Slavic languages or
Albanian language an another phonetical form, the Rum. aspect of the
word helps us to see how the word looked out in the time the loan
happened.
Alex