--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com,
I'd written:
> > On the other hand it is striking that
Russian "pric^init'" 'cause'
> > (which stylistically feels like a Slavonicism and has the
> > corresponding stress pattern)
Then Sergei wrote:
> Do you mean the fixed desinential stress of the Russian word,
incompatible
> with the mobile (c) paradigm one would expect for *pric^initi?
What I mean is the fixed end stress in the present tense (and the end
stress in the PPP), which historically is (c) stress, whereas the non-
learned or genuinely Russian forms of the word (like poc^init' 'mend,
fix') have retracting stress, which historically is (b) stress. That
is a recurrent pattern which poisons the life of people trying to
learn Russian (and happily also of native speakers, whose grasp of
the stress pattern of the i-verbs as required by the norm is
notoriously uncertain). There are quite a few examples, like
proglotit' 'swallow' (homely, hence genuinely Russian, hence (b)-
stressed) and poglotit' 'gorge, absorb' (stylistically elevated or
scientific, hence Church Slavonic, hence (c) stressed). If I'd known
about this earlier I'd given up learning the language.
In Russian as actually spoken, (b) stress has been gaining ground
enormously during the past centuries, so verbs that are (b)-stressed
now may well have been (c) stressed a few generations ago.
W.