Re: swallow vs. nighingale, PASSer

From: Grzegorz Jagodzinski
Message: 50424
Date: 2007-10-23

Professor Witold Man'czak, a famous Polish Romanceist, in his "Fonética and morfología histórica del Español", wrote (p. 33):
 
<<
§ 85. Desarrollo regular: ssi, sse entre voc.
> j > [s^] > [x]:
 
*bassia:re > bajar, russeum > rojo
>>
 
Btw. single -si- yielded -s- in Spanish, not -j-, like in ba:sio: > beso.
 
In other words, -j- in pájaro is regular if we accepted the intermediate form *passiarum (with i = IPA [j]) or perhaps *passiaro (with -m already disappeared, and with u > o). This form is certainly irregular in comparison to Latin passerem (as a rule, accusative, not nominative was the base for modern nominal forms in Romance languages).
 
As for *-um (or -o) instead of -em we have more examples in Spanish. Man'czak writes (ibidem, § 193):
 
<<
Cambios de tipo. Conforme a la ley II fueron sustituídos:
cicer por chícharo
>>
(btw. chícharo is irregular or dialectal, as Latin c [k] should not yield ch [č] in Spanish at all so any parallels between the development of -c- and -ss- in cicer and passer are wrong; "low 2" is referred to Man'czak's laws of irregular developments, based on Zipf's law (already mentioned here and then not known by some of discutants, and causing their unintelligible protests).
 
<<
os por hueso
passerem por pájaro
>>
 
[os is of neuter gender so the accusative form is correct]
 
(there are also examples for substitution for feminine substantives but they are not in question here)
 
Besides, in § 83 the author writes:
 
<<
Desarrollo regular: s > 0
>>
(0 means no sound)
 
<<
1. ante s: grossum > grueso;
2. ante c + voc. anterior: asciolam > azuela, piscem > pez;
3. ante ti + voc.: *u:stium > uzo;
4. ante esp. ch: masculum > macho.
 
Desarrollo irregular: pájaro por passerem.
>>
 
In § 19 Man'czak formulates the following phonetic rule:
 
<<
Desarrollo reglar: e > 0
1. protónica interna primera: supera:re > sobrar;
2. postónica interna: litteram > letra;
3. postónica final tras d, s, z, y, l, r, n:
>>
[here numerous examples which are not in question]
 
<<
Desarrollo irregular debido a la asimilación: pájaro por passerem.
>>
 
In other words, in opinion of the specialist ALL internal posttonic -e- (i.e. unstressed -e- in nonfinal syllable - which is possible only in words stressed on the third syllable, counting from the end, just like passerem) should have disappeared in Spanish. However, it is under question (in my humble opinion) if such a phonetic rule functioned independently on which consonants enclose the -e- sound. The expected *passre (with double -ss- in the beginning, cf. notices on different development of siV and ssiV groups) must have been too hard to pronounce, and that is why the vowel stayed instead of disappearing. It is even hard to say whether the development -e- > -ia- [ja] was regular or not (and then caused by assimilation, like Man'czak suggests) - because the number of examples is too little to formulate a phonetic rule (for example, the rule like this one: internal posttonic -e- > -ia- between two consonants and one consonant).
 
Anyway, the example of pájaro shows clearly how valuable are certain reconstructions, including IE reconstructions. I see no reason for supposing that there were differences in number of "exceptions" between Romance and Indo-European development. And because the number of such "exceptions" in Romance languages is quite fair, I am not surprised that plenty of IE words developed irregularly as well.
 
Grzegorz Jagodzin'ski
 
 

--- In cybalist@... s.com, "stlatos" <stlatos@... > wrote:

> The original paper at:
>
> http://www.mec. es/redele/ revista4/ galinanes. shtml
>
> Rosso deriva del latín russu(m), mientras que rojo parte del latín
> russeus.

The same given much earlier in _A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms
in the Principal Indo-European Languages_ by Carl Darling
Buck. I can't find anything earlier.