On 2009-07-29 00:57, george knysh wrote:
> ****GK: What if the loan was the "plk" rather than "plg" word (both have
> similar semantics)? That would of course still leave the "no Slavic 'f'"
> problem.
Slavic *pUlkU definitely looks like Germanic *fulkaz borrowed through
the usual phonological filters (an inherited syllabic /l/ would have
been much more likely to vocalise as *Il). Lith. pu~lkas and Latv.
pu`lks are loans via old East Slavic rather than directly from Germanic.
> But as to this: is there a rule as to when Slavs incorporated
> the foreign "f" without automatically substituting a "p"? There are
> medieval examples (and of course many modern ones). Is there anything
> which precludes early Slavic from having done this? Or should I entitle
> an article I am presently working on "The failed empire of King Parzoi"
> (if I wish to eruditely (:=))) indicate how early Slavs might have
> pronounced this Aorsan monarch's [ruled ca. 45-70 CE] name? ****
The phoneme /f/ developed independently and at different times in
different Slavic languages. Before it was fully established, the
substitution /f/ -> /p/ was automatic. I suppose the introduction was
spearheaded by users of Old Church Slavic, who took /f/ from Mediaeval
Greek (commonly merging {theta} with {phi} in the process). But even in
OCS one finds occasional p-variants like <asfalUtU ~ aspalUtU> 'pitch'
(Gk. aspHaltos).
Piotr
One of the early tsars was a certain Sviatopolk -- I suppose sviato ="light, holy, vel sim" but -polk?