_ser'ga_<_*ausahriggs=3F_(Was:_-leben/-lev/-l=F6v_and_-ung-_(gothic_

----- Original Message -----

From: ualarauans

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 2:40 AM

Subject: [Courrier indésirable] [tied] =?iso-8859-1?q?Re:_ser'ga_<_*ausahriggs=3F_(Was:_-leben/-lev/-l=F6v_and_-ung-_(gothic_loanwords))?

The n-stems as the first elements in compounds have -a- as a
bindvowel (W. Braune, K. Helm. Gotische Grammatik. 13. Aufl.
Halle/Saale 1952. P.53).

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A.F

I agree.

So let us admit that *awsa-ring- is possible.

Or maybe *o(:)sa-

Arnaud

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The only and minor problem with OCSl usereNgU < Go. *ausa-hriggs
that I can see is the –e- from Gothic binding –a- whereas we should
expect –o-, like in OCSl vinogradU < Go. weina-gards.

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A.F

The first major problem is : why u instead of aw.

(Why not jaw or ju ?)

The next major one is why e instead of long a: < ah

a third (minor ?) one is why eN instead of in

And what about ruki law : awsa > awxa !?

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I agree that this form (Rus. ser'ga) looks pretty irregular. Not
that it devaluates the proposed etymology completely, IMHO.
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A.F

This sounds like a euphemism

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As we can infer from what we know of the Old Germanic accentuation
the main stress in the Gothic word lay on aus- and the secondary one
on –hriggs. (Arnaud : ok)

OCSl shifts the stress upon –reNg- (< -hriggs). (A.F : Why ?)

And we can speculate what happened further.

Unstressed u- gets interpreted as a prefix and is eventually dropped. (A.F why should it be interpreted and then dropped ? This is ad hoc !?)

 

The nasal –eN- > -ia- pretty early in Russian. (A.F why not)

The word becomes feminine (OCSl usereNgU is masc. (A.F : Why ?)
and Rus. ser'ga is fem.).

The stress moves to the feminine ending –a.

The unstressed –ia- gets ultimately reduced to –'- ("miagkij znak", the palatalizer) .
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A.F

The sequence of changes required looks very long and lacks clear reasons why it should have happened that way.

Such a long and complicated chain should have left a lot of variants on the road that we should be able to retrieve in dialectal forms.

Do you have them ?

Sorry, but so far, it still looks like making a sturgeon jump inside a bottle of vodka.

Much explanation is needed before it sounds acceptable to believe it.

Arnaud.

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