--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<gpiotr@...> wrote:
> one would expect *seNto < *sinta
> from BSl. *c'imtám). It's usually assumed that *sUto
reflects Old
> Iranian *satá with a peculiar treatment of
unaccented *a (presumably
> pronounced as a kind of schwa rather than fully open
[a] in the Iranian
> prototype).
> The single example with *m. > *U is "regular" and
all the
> counterexamples are analogical? This gives a new
meaning to the notion
> of regularity ;-)
I've taken your criticism very seriously and have
studied the problem carefully. After researching the
possibility from various angles (including using the
archives of this list) I'm still convinced sUto comes
regularly from *(t>0)k^m,tom.
The only other linguist I've been able to find who
agrees is Andrew Sihler, who wrote "OCS deseNtU (for
*desUtU < *dek^m,tos after deveNtU)" in section 398.10
of his "New Comparative Greek and Latin Grammar". I
can't find any description of the proposed
intermediate steps in his (or anyone else's)
derivation.
Obviously I wouldn't think this were a regular
change if *-um didn't become -U with loss of m. Since
Baltic and Slavic apparently retained m before t much
later than some other branches, it leaves open a
possible change that shows *nt and *mt differed
before the nasal merger before stops.
If you have any description of *-um > -U that
doesn't involve *-m(>w)>0 after *u, and so argues
against *-imt- > *-uwt- > Ut, I'm willing to listen.
I'm also not completely clear about the timing of
the changes in Iranian groups in contact with Slavs
and the type of replacement in borrowing alien sounds
for each.
Below are some earlier descriptions of yours:
>
I have already mentioned arguments in favour of dating
several Iranian loans or calques (e.g. *bogU with the
meaning 'god', *boz^Inica <-- *bagina-) to the early
Middle Iranian ("Sarmatian") times. Also, *xUte^ti,
*sUto and the rivernames with *dUn- must belong to
that period (in earlier loans we'd expect *o rather
than the reduction vowel *U). Interestingly, some of
the Middle Iranian loans may have come from dialects
diferent from those ancestral to Ossetic, and more
similar to Middle Persian (of the late Seleucid to
early Sassanid periods) in terms of phonetic
developments.
>
>
The reduced vowel *U which occurs in some Slavic
river-names (*dUnEprU 'Dnieper', *dUnEstrU 'Dniester')
is the reflex of unstressed Iranian *a (also shortened
*a:) in a pretonic syllable. A similar substitution is
visible in the numeral '100', Slavic *sUtó < Iranian
*satá- (the regular Slavic reflex of the IE word
would be **sInto or **sIntU) and in the verb
*xUt-je-/*xot-je-'want' (most likely from Iranian
*xat-yá- < *snt-jé-, cf. Polish chÄÄ 'willingness'
< *xant-i- < *sont-i-). The variation *U/*o in the
verb is unmotivated phonologically; *don-/*dUn- may be
a similar case of an unstressed back vowel being
replaced by dialectal Slavic equivalents.
>
>
You've got a point, Mr Advocatus Diaboli. (pre-)Slavic
*-uka- could substitute
early NE Iranian *-aká, just as *sUto '100' may
reflect *satá (note, by the way,
that in both cases the retained voicelessness of the
stops suggest a fairly old,
say, "Scythian" date of borrowing). It might be an
areal thing.
>
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