On 2008-08-11 19:13, alexandru_mg3 wrote:
> Based on what you can reconstruct *z^- ?
Common sense. If the "elsewhere" reflex of *s is <sh> (= s^), one would
expect its voiced counterpart *z^ as a natural intermediate step between
*s and the modern affricated palatal stop <gj>. Such a "hardening" of
*z^ is commonplace, and is parallelled by the hardening of *ð > d in
some contexts (whereas its voiceless counterpart has remained
fricative). I'm not sure which of the two necessary changes -- the
retraction of the strident fricatives or the stress-conditioned voicing
-- was earlier. There are two possibilities:
(1) *s > *s/*z > *s^/*z^ > sh/gj
(2) *s > *s^ > *s^/*z^ > sh/gj
Piotr