Re: [tied] Some accentological thoughts...

On Ned, ožujak 4, 2007 1:50 am, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal reče:

> On Sat, 3 Mar 2007 18:53:33 +0100 (CET), Mate Kapović
> <mkapovic@...> wrote:
>
> Unfortunately, a detailed discussion of all these issues is
> impossible, as I don't have the time.
>
> Just a few words about:
>
>>> even SCr. Gpl. -a: [I know you won't agree]),
>>
>>It is just interesting that this -a:, whatever its origin, occurs only in
>>Štokavian (sic!), and not in any Štokavian, but only in *innovative*
>>(Neo-Štokavian) dialects. There are *no* dialects (Štokavian or other)
>>which have conservative morphology *and* -a: in gen. pl.
>>If you think that -a: is original, why not consider it original as Dybo
>> does?
>
> I suppose you're referring to the fact that Dybo links the
> length in Gpl. -U: somehow to the etymology, with a PIE
> superlong *-őm (4 morae!).

I don't think that Dybo thinks it was superlong. Just plain long.

> I don't think the etymology is
> relevant. The reduction of the 4 morae to 3 (*-u:m), then 2
> (*-uN), then 1 (*-U) was a thing of the distant past

And also problematic of course since that kind of shortening is pretty
strange.

> by the
> time the lengthening of stressed endings took place.
> It is
> clear that the process (OK, if it took place at all), took
> place _after_ quantity had given way to quality as the main
> marker of "long" vowels. I think we can get much more
> interesting results if we let go of the prejudiced notion
> that _etymological_ length or shortness played any role at
> all in the process of final lengthening.

Wouldn't you get too much lenghts in final syllables if all accented
syllables lenghtened? (Both B or C or just C?)

> About Gpl. -a:, I think it may indeed reflect the lengthened
> jer -U:, so is original, but that it cannot be the _normal_
> reflex of final -U: (which is of course -0), so it's also
> innovative.

If -a: is from old long -U:, it is strange that there is no **-oma: in D.
pl., **-ěxa: in L. pl. Also there is not **pekoxa: in 1. pers. sg. of
aorist etc. (by the way, according to Kortlandt, one would expect aor.
**peko~x which is nowhere to be found).

> The only way -a: can be derived from a weak
> final -U: is if an enclitic followed. A "Bulgarian-like"
> z^enU:-ti:xU, mu:z^I:-ti:xU won't do, but perhaps something
> like z^enU:-sI, mu:z^I:-sI (as ungrammatical as zimu-sI >
> zimu:s or le^to-sI > l(j)etos) could work. There is of
> course no special reason why -sI should have been optionally
> appended to the Gpl. as opposed to other cases, but only in
> the Gpl. (and Dpl., Lpl.) would it have produced such a
> phonetically striking result (z^ena:-s, z^enama(:)-s,
> *z^enaha(:)-s), making it available for grammaticalization
> as a replacement for the lost Gpl. ending in o- and
> a:-stems. All we need is one dialect with a fondness of
> adding -sI all over the place, from which the innovation
> would have spread.

I'm afraid that is completely ad hoc. -a: is confirmed as -U^ or -UU
(probably long schwa) in some Serbian Church Slavic monuments, that may
point to its antiquity (or it may not), but in modern dialects it looks
like a clear innovation (of whatever origin) since it appears *only* and
*exclusively* in innovative Štokavian dialects. All Štokavian dialects
with conservative morphology have -0 like Čakavian, Kajkavian etc. That's
why one should be careful with this ending.

Mate