--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jens Elmegård Rasmussen <elme@...>
wrote:
On the Novgorod msc o-stem Nsg in -e:
>
> But you *have* whetted our appetite, and you can spare us a whole
lot
> of searching if you would be kind enough to paraphrase the main
point
> of your theory here. Is it graphic?
>
The trouble is that it is a long and (worse) somewhat paradoxical
story. But what is really bad is that it is based on Leskien's
hypothesis that the phonetically regular reflex of word-final PIE *os
in Slavic is *o, which is not exactly a view with much support among
Cybalist members, despite its clear prevalence among specialists
(Hujer, Vondrák, van Wijk, Berns^tejn, Mares^, Shevelov, Stieber,
Kortlandt, and many others).
So if you bear with me in the matter of the reflex of word-final *os
(for the sake of the argument), here we go.
Assuming that word-final *os yields -o we get the following reflexes:
msc Nsg o-stem/jo-stem/u-stem/i-stem: -o/-e/-U/-I.
msc Asg o-stem/jo-stem/u-stem/i-stem: -U/-I/-U/-I.
msc Vsg o-stem/jo-stem/u-stem/i-stem: -e/-e/-u/-i.
neut NAsg o-stem/jo-stem/es-stem: -o/-e/-o.
In the system of endings as displayed here, the position of the Nsg
of the msc o- and jo-stems is precarious, *because it risks being
perceived as a mark of the neuter gender*, which it is already in the
Asg. The problem is much more serious in the case of the o-stems than
in that of the jo-stems because the number of underived neuter jo-
stems is tiny (most jo-stems are characterized by the presence of
clear-cut suffixes), so that the risk of a random msc Nsg in -e being
perceived as a neuter is negligeable.
The obvious way of eliminating the problem was by analogically
replacing the regular o-stem ending with a Nsg ending from another
paradigm. The two most obvious candidates are: u-stem -U and the jo-
stem ending -e.
Both replacements undermine distinctions present elsewhere in the
system. Adoption of the u-stem ending eliminates the difference
between Nsg and Asg, adoption of the jo-stem ending eliminates the
difference between Nsg and Vsg. (I'm discounting words where those
distinctions are marked additionally by consonantal alternations
and/or prosodic means.)
Novgorod/Pskov Slavic is spoken in an area which originally spoke
Finnic. If you look at the Finnic case system, you notice that it has
no vocative. On the other hand the distinction between the nominative
and the case used for direct object is never neutralized in the
singular the way it often is in Slavic. So the choice of -e is
natural given the expectations of a speaker of Finnic learning to
speak Slavic.
The degree to which the remainder of Slavic cherished the distinction
between Nsg and Vsg is graphically illustrated by the fact that the
jo-stems, where the two cases had merged phonetically by the loss of
final *s, reintroduced it by borrowing the u-stem ending.
The way I see it, Novgorod/Pskov Slavic contains one or two features
that were introduced by the first generation of Finnic speakers to
shift to Slavic, let's say not long before or after around 600 CE. By
the time everybody was monolingual again, those features were locked
into the system while later changes just went along with what the
bulk of Slavic was doing.
The real story is longer and more involved, but these are the
main lines.
Best, Willem