Re: Balto-Slavic C-stems / long vowel endings

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> > > Doesn't it also give you *mogóN, *móz^esI free of charge, so to
> > > speak (with some tweaking, ie. that *-oN <- *-oH)
> >
> > As I said: "it doesn't work on lengths produced by laryngeals".
> >
> > The law doesn't work on the 1sg. of thematic verbs, as shown by

the

> > a.p. c 1sg. (e.g. be``roN).
> >
>
> I'm not familiar enough with Slavic phonology, I'm afraid, and the
> only Slavic language I know a smattering of is Russian, but it seems
> to me that stressed -ú is the typical 1sg ending in that language.

The 1sg. pres. ending -oH2 yielded acute -o: in Lithuanian (later
short -u). In Slavic, it turned into -a: and was later expanded with
the secondary ending -m (cf. 1sg. aorist pekU < *pekwom, and also
skr. bhára:mi < *bhero:+mi). The addition of -m probably followed the
change o: > a: in Slavic, because the o: yielded u: > y before nasal
stops in word-final position: kamy < *ka:mu: < *ak'mo:n. Also, -a:N #
wasn't affected by umlaut (A.sg. zemljoN; thus also 1.sg. pres. bijoN
etc.).

> To quote Wright's Gothic Grammar:
> "
> In the parent language the nom. sing. [of the weak inflection] ended
> partly in -e:n, -o:n, and partly in -e(:), -o(:). The reason for

this

> difference is unknown. The various Indg. languages generalized one

or

> other of the two forms in prehistoric times, as in Gr. nom. poimé:n,
> shepherd; he:gemó:n, leader; acc. poiména, he:gemóna, beside nom.

Skr.

> rá:ja:, king; Lat. homo, man; sermo, discourse; acc. rá:ja:nam,
> hominem, sermo:-nem. In prim. Germanic the two forms existed side by
> side, as in Goth. hana from -e:n, -o:n (§ 87, (1)), beside tuggo:,
> haírto: from -o(:) (§ 89). In Goth. the -o(:) became restricted to

the

> feminine and neuter, whereas in the West. Germanic languages it

became

> restricted to the masculine, as OE. guma, OS. gumo, OHG. gomo, man,
> from -o(:), beside OE. tunge, OS. tunga, OHG. zunga, tongue; OE.
> e:age, OS. o:ga, OHG. ouga, eye, from -o:n.
> "
> Further, the ON weak inflection has nom. -i, obl. -a.
>
> But also, the ON Conjug. I (dömi, dömir, dömir), III (vaki, vakir,
> vakir) and possibly II (tem (?<- *temj ), temr, temr) have -i in

1sg,

> where you'd expect an -a <- *-oN.
>
> All this mess might somehow have to do with PIE stress patterns,

which

> is why I asked.
>
>
> > The verb *mogti is a special case. It started out as barytone

(one

> > of the few, if not the only, verb that was always a.p. I: most of
> > the others became a.p. I only after Hirt's law). By Dybo's law,

it

> > must have shifted to mogóN, *moz^és^I. No other verb in Slavic
> > showed this accent pattern, so it was analogically levelled to

the

> > usual model for a.p. b verbs, yielding mogóN, mòz^es^I, but with
> > lengthening in Czech (mohu, móz^es^), just like in other cases of
> > late accent retraction in that language (nestí > né:st(i), voljâ
>
> > vó:le, peró > pé:ro)
>
>
> So it jumped two morae (I find it difficult to believe single-mora
> stress-movement that isn't caused by analogy)? Which came first,
> lengthening or movement, and is there a causal connection?

The lengthening is probably a by-product of the stress retraction.
Something similar happened much later in e.g. Croatian chakavian
dialects of southern Istria: vodá > vó:da (water), seló > sé:lo
(village) etc.

>