From: Torsten
Message: 66768
Date: 2010-10-13
>Ah, so I wasn't so far off, except of course I assume extra-Slavic provenance. My Polish dictionary does not have much by way of ks-; it seems
>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
>
> >> But the same anlaut stop might appear in some unpredictable
> >> Slavic alternation:
> >> Russian tsvetI, Polish kwiat, "flower" cf.
> >> Engl twig, ON kvistr "twig", kvisl "(river, tree) branch"
>
> >> and if we assume a similar meaning "set of wooden slats" as for
> >> Gmc
> >> *bo:k-, we could reconstruct for Slavic "book":
> >> *kYeÅ-a- -> *kYing-a- -> kniga, and
> >> *kYeÅ-ka -> *kYÅeg-ka- -> Pol. ksiÄ Å¼ka
>
> > Perhaps better:
> > *kYÅ-énk-a -> *kYn-Ãng-a -> Russ. etc knÃga
> > *kYÅ-énk-ka -> *kY-éNg-ka -> Polish ksiÄ Å¼ka
> > cf.
> > *kUn-éng- > Russ. knyaz (<- *kneNz), Pol. ksiÄ dz
>
> Miguel, in sci.lang six years ago:
>
> The context is initial *kUneN- > knjeN-/knjaN-. There are
> early spellings with xn-, which suggest that the initial
> cluster knj- (after the loss of yers) developed into ksnj-,
> and the nasal was dissimilated before a following nasal
> vowel (ksnjVN- > ksjVN-). In other combinations, the /s/
> was eventually lost, and we have knj- or kn- (with
> depalatalization), e.g. knieja (kneja).
>