On 2006-08-09 13:24, tgpedersen wrote:
> Another interesting thing is that RUKI palatalisation varies with
> ablaut of *(e)i: *pi:set (*peiset) -> pis^et, but *pisati -> *pIsati
> (and -> psati in Czech). Thus the RUKI rule can't be synapomorphic
> (nice word!).
Wrong. An inherited *s would have been RUKI-ed after any diphthong with
the *i-glide. The *s from *k^, however, was not affected by RUKI at all,
since at the time of the latter's operation the Satem consonant was
still an affricate (probably some kind of palatal *c') in the ancestor
of Slavic. The development above (*s > *s^) is conditioned by the
*-je/o- suffix of the PRESENT stem, not found in the other forms of the
verb, such as the infinitive *pIsati. It's one of the criteria for
distinguishing the reflexes of *s and *k^ in Slavic: any *s (rather than
*s^ or *x) found in the RUKI context is likely to reflect *k^. It
doesn't alway work the other way, since a *s^ found in a RUKI context
_may_ reflect *-sj- < *-c'j- < *-k^j-. In those cases you need some
comparative information to distinguish between competing possibilities.
Piotr