Re: [tied] trzymac'

On 2006-05-29 13:34, Mate Kapovic' wrote:

> No contraction in 3rd person is exactly what we have in Croatian:
>
> pi^ta:m, pi^ta:s^, pi^ta:, pi^ta:mo, pi^ta:te, pítaju:
>
> (notice the rising accent and short -a- in the 3rd person plural). In Old
> Croatian, I guess there was also pitaju (the accent would be *pítaju),
> although I'm not sure it's attested, but it was soon levelled to -a:m by
> the analogy to -a:s^ etc.

It's virtually identical with the Polish pattern:

-am -asz -a -amy -acie -aja,

There's no contraction in the 3pl., and was none in the 1sg. before
<-aje,> was replaced by analogical <-am>. It seems that Polish, like
some other Slavic langauges, resisted contraction with a nasal vowel.
However, it's a matter of relative preference, not an ironclad rule, cf.
regular contraction in feminine instr.sg.: *nogojoN, *dus^ejoN,
*kostIjoN give <noga,>, <dusza,>, <kos'cia,>.

Piotr