Re: Order of Some Indo-Iranian Sound Changes

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> On 2009-02-24 04:29, Andrew Jarrette wrote:
>
> > To tell the truth, I actually have a few more questions concerning
> > the Russian postalveolar/medio-palatal spirants and affricate.
> >
> > 1. If Russian <c^> comes from palatalized *k(W) and Russian <z^>
> > comes from palatalized *g(W) and *g(W)H, why do they differ in
> > articulation in that <c^> is soft medio-palatal as you described it,
> > while <z^> is apical postalveolar? They both arise from the
> > palatalization of (labio)velars which only differed in voicing in
> > Proto-Slav, did they not?
>
> Yes. Already in Common Slavic a sligh asymmetry developed as *3^ was
> deaffricated, becoming *z^. Other Slavic languages developed new
> affricates later on, but Russian deaffricated all the voiced ones and
> was left with /c^/ and /c/ (the latter from the second palatalisation or
> progressive palatalisation of PSl. *k). I suppose this skewedness of the
> obstruent system made /c^/ available for individual treatment.

Is it possible that *g in Common Slavic, or at least Proto-Slavic, was
actually [G] rather than [g]? After all, that could explain why it
becomes /h/ (actually _voiced_ /h/, no?) in Czech, Slovak, and
Ukrainian (and Belorussian? On Wiki it says that Belorussian <h> is
pronounced [G]), and why its palatalized form is /Z/ rather than /dZ/.
Later developments such as the second palatalization might have
operated after a *[G] was hardened to [g], and therefore led to
phonemes such as /dz/ in some dialects.

>
> In standard Polish, by the way, the sounds represented <sz>, <z.>, <cz>,
> <dz.> (s^, z^, c^, 3^) area all apico-postalveolar; so are the reflexes
> of palatalised *r (spelt <rz>), which have merged with /z^/ and /s^/
> (once upon a time it was a trilled fricative, like Czech r^). There is
> also a regional phenomenon known as "mazurzenie" (Masovian
> pronunciation) -- the merger of the whole apico-postalveolar series with
> the dental sibilants <s, z, c, 3>. The reflexes of Old Polish /r^/

were

> not affected, since they developed more recently.

Just to be certain, is <szcz> actually [StS] in Polish, unlike Russian?