On Uto, svibanj 30, 2006 12:24 pm, Sergejus Tarasovas reče:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Mate Kapović <mkapovic@...> wrote:
> I vaguely remember Dybo to mention somewhere this strange behaviour
> of *i-verbs belonging to a.p. b (no length in the infinitive), but if
> I recall he didn't offer a solution (like your 2-mora-rule).
My solution is actually not meant to account just for the a.p.b
infinitives, you also have examples like Croatian du^b "oak" : du`brava,
bráda "beard" : bra`dat, examples like ma`lina < *malína etc. It is pretty
obvious that there was a shortening everywhere but that the length was
restored analogically in some cases.
Kortlandt's idea is very interesting - he thinks that the pretonic length
can be original even in front of more than 2 moras, in the case that it
has become pretonic only by Dybo's Law. However, although a nice solution
at first glance, it cannot really explain all the facts.
Mate