Re: [tied] Re: Slavic endings / transferred from "contintental Celt

On 2007-01-22 19:00, mcarrasquer wrote:

> I see no other solution than that *-os > -U is regular. That leaves
> only s-stem *-os > -o unexplained. There are two ways to explain this
> form: (1) analogically, after all the other neuters in -o, or (2)
> phonetically. That is in fact Piotr's suggestion, but I think it goes
> something like this: if we consider that the raising was produced by
> final -h, and that in the NAsg. of the s-stems, belonging to a
> paradigm where /s/ was retained in the oblique cases (*slovos,
> slovese), final -s may have failed to become -h, that would also
> explain the lack of raising. There was a parallel situation in the
> phonetic history of English, but I don't recall what it was.

The voicing of final -s in the suffix -es (nom.pl., gen.sg., 3sg.), but
not stem-finally or in historically inflected forms that had lost their
transparency (one's vs. once < OE a:nes, bodies vs. bodice)

Piotr