Re: BSlav & IE accentology. To whom it may concern

From: Sergejus Tarasovas
Message: 44985
Date: 2006-06-15

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Alexei Kassian" <kassian@...> wrote:

> As for second part -- an answer to prof. Wermeer's Appendix -- the
> situation is much more deteriorated.

That is?

> 2. The accentological discussion in this blog is really strange
from
> my point of view. There are a general conception of BSlav (& IE)
> accentology now. I mean Dybo--Illich-Svitych's reconstruction.
> This covers the main part of attested forms and systems of
> accentuation in the local BSlav dialects.
> The archaic labeles like "Meillet's law" etc are out of date.

This looks like a misunderstanding. Meillet's Law (barytone forms of
Slavic mobilia lose their acute to an automatic ("Slavic")
circumflex) is certainly accepted by Dybo and is mentioned in his
publications (at least up to MPAS I of 2000) under that specific
label ("pravilo Meje" or the like). Do you mean Dybo rejects the law?
If so, what does he offer instead? Or do you mean the name "Meillet's
Law" is inappropriate?

> 3. I realise well, that it's really hard to read Dybo's or Serguei
> Nokolaev's texts even if you are a native speaker of Russian.
> I plane to translate all the works of "MAS" in English (please
> forgive my poor English in advance)

I think everybody who is seriously interested in Slavic accentology
reads Russian. The well-known problems with the Moscow School are
rather the great volume of their publications, the fact that slightly
and tacitly modified versions of the same texts are often repeated
over and over again, and -- last not least -- that they usually
(read: always) don't get involved in scholarly discussion and don't
react to criticism in the literature. (All this has been mentioned on
several occasions by, eg., some members of what can be called the
Leiden School of Balto-Slavic accentology.) That's why your help as
an insider would be invaluable for those on the list who are
interested in figuring out some intricacies of the MAS conceptions.

Sergei