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

> > Using the sandhi variant scheme, one could go instead
> > *-ó/*-óN and leave it there, *-ó for oxytone neuters NAsg, *-óN
> > for 1sg pres.
>
> What have oxytone neuters to do with the verbal 1sg.?

Stress, perhaps?

> The 1sg. did not have final -m in PIE, and it can't have had -m in
> Balto-Slavic because that would have given Slavic -U, not -oN.

I've looked at the tables you provided for Slavic auslauts. They all
make sense in unstressed syllables. They are too mumbly to be anything
people would pronounce in a stressed syllable. I therefore made some
of my own: *-óN -> *-óN and *-ó -> *-ó, which is actually only one
rule with two variants (or not a rule, since it doesn't do anything).

My inspiration here is what some teacher way back tried to teach us
about Latin poetry:

1) -V V- is pronounced as one vowel across the word boundary (cf in
Italian 'La donna é mobile', -a é is one vowel)
2) In such a case, -us and -um count as open syllables -V
3) -um can depending on the environment be counted as -uN or -u +
suitable nasal, eg 'dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' becomes
'dúlke-t dekóruN-st pro pátria móri'

(one senses the approach of the Romance system)

In other words, *-om had three realizations in late Latin, which all
might have developed differently. Why should Balto-Slavic be
different? But if it isn't, there are several possible outcomes for
*-os and *-om.

> > *wodó: (Goth. wato:) -> Lith. vanduõ with /n/ from the rule
> > /VDV´/ -> /VnDhV´/, since voiced stops are prenasalized (not
> > preglottalized, as Kortlandt wants); the /n/ in this word is one
> > of the few survivors of paradigm regularization, which everywhere
> > else replaced it with Winther lengthening (sez I).
>
> vanduõ *has* Winter's law. The -an- diphthong is acute (Asg.
> vándeniN). Cf. also Latv. ûdens with acute û-.

It doesn't have lengthening.

> The -n- is from metathesis in the regular Gsg. *udnós > *undós (cf.
> Latin unda "wave").

*und-áx


I like mine better. My rule explains 'n-infix' too (as a
regularization from 3pl).

> The "water" word had several morphophonemic variants, which became
> confused in several languages. The NAsg. was *wódr., G. *udnós
> (*undós with metathesis), L. *udéni. Besides that, there was a
> collective *udó:r (or perhaps *wédo:r).

I know, thank you. I like mine better.

> In Balto-Slavic, we find reflexes of *wódr., *udó:r and oblique
> *und-en-. The /o/ in Slavic vodá (without Winter's lengthening) can
> only come from *wódr., where Winter's law was blocked by the accent.
> The ending -a: could be, as I said, from collective *-o:r with loss
> of -r at some point. Lith. vanduõ combines the /o/ of *wódr. with
> the oblique und-, which is seen in OPr. unds (m.) ~ wundan (n.), and
> with the collecive ending -õ. There is another Lith. variant unduõ.



> > Slavic vodá might be backformed as a
> > singular (hence the mysterious f.) from the regular *vódy <-
> > *wódo:ns.

I like this one too.

> > I assume all the rules you supplied are for unstressed endings
> > (they don't seem to include *-ó(N) -> *-ó of oxytone neuter NAsg)?
>
> There is no such rule. Stress plays no part in the Slavic
> Auslautgestze. The neuter ending -o comes from pronominal *-od. It
> was first transferred to the adjectives (also Lith. neuter adj. -a),
> then to nouns (not only oxytones: slo``vo is a.p. c, lê"to is a.p.
> a).

I beg to differ. See above.


Torsten