--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "pielewe" <wrvermeer@...> wrote:
> >
> > still pre-Umlaut *-jü
Now that I've noted this typo I think I better understand the pathos
of your answer. I meant "pre-Delabialization *-jü" (I was thinking
of the delabialization of an umlauted *u and the wrong word crept
into).
>[...]
> So on this reasoning the second palatalization of velars in Slavic
> (progressive plus regressive) took place shortly after the
> monophthongization of diphthongs but before the raising of the
> outcome of the monophthongization of *ei and *ou at a time when
long
> and short *u were still rounded and the ancestors of Finnic and
> Latvian were adopting their earliest layer of Slavic loans.
From [...] indeed follows that both the raising and delabialization
took place after the monophthongization, but I fail to see how one
can deduce from that that *u(:) remained rounded during the whole *
[e:]/*[o:]-stage. Yes, the delabialization triggered the raising, but
the latter was hardly completed overnight. There might have been a
pretty long period of time when *y(:) coexisted with *[e:], *[o:], so
the Slavic loans in question could potentially enter East Baltic at
both stages (both *u(:)-*[e:]-*[o:] and *y(:)-[e:]-*[o:]).
> Put differently: the earliest generations of pre-Latvian Baltic-
> speakers must have heard Asg (and presumably also Nsg) *[kanjü]
where
> attested Slavic has konjI. It may pehaps not be too fanciful that
> this gave rise to the model by which Slavic jo-stems were adopted
as
> Baltic ju-stems.
> Does this make sense? Can this be happening?
As I have tried to demonstrate, the Zinkevic^ius-phenomenon isn't
probative in the sense that it doesn't allow us to tell the *[kanjü]-
stage borrowings from those of the *[kanji], *[konjI], *[kon(:)'I] or
*[kon']. Indeed, at, eg., the *[konjI]-stage pre-Lithuanian Baltic
speakers have no other choice for [konjI] but [kanjus]. Indeed,
[kanjas] wouldn't fit because the high (even if rounded) *[ü] seemd
to fit better for the Slavic high vowel that the low [a]/[æ] (even if
fronted). [kani:s] (*ija-stem) didn't fit because of the long *i: (it
began to fit when an unstressed Nsg ending was shortened in the *ija-
stems, thus doublets like [earlier] kisielius vs. [later] kisielis).
At the *[kon']-stage Lithuanian *i-stems began to fit, but it's
exactly by that time that they had become increasingly unproductive,
so that *ju-stems (later also *ija-stems) continued to be used. For
(the reflexes of) the Slavic words in *-C^I the *ju-stem was the only
choice at all stages (since *-Tja-nouns became rare and unproductive).
Furthermore, I think it is not only *possible* for the earliest -ius
loans to enter (pre-)Lithuanian at the Slavic *-jI-stage, but that it
*must* to be the case. Indeed, the borrwoings from Slavic *o-stems
regularly surfice as *o-stems in Lithianian. Why not *u-stems, if at
least some of them were borrowed at the Slavic [stalu]-stage? And if
they were not, how come it's only *jo-stems that were borrowed that
early?
>this gave rise to the model by which Slavic jo-stems were adopted as
> Baltic ju-stems
I must admit I fail to grasp the notion of "the model for an
adoption" that remained active for nearly a millennium. Slavic
delabialized, introduced new timbres, dropped final jers,
depalatalized final consonants in some cases (the Zinkiewicz ->
Zinkevic^ius case, ca. 16th c.), and the speakers of Lithuanian
somehow knew they should pick up the *ju-stem over and over again?
Please note that we are dealing with borrowings into a vernacular,
not a developed literary language with its traditions.
Sergei