--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> W dniu 2011-06-09 22:35, stlatos pisze:
>
> > I know oi>ai, it's ai>ie that has no expl.
>
> It's actually a pretty simple story. In East Baltic, _stressed_ *ai (<
> *ai, *oi) and *ei fell together as *e.: (a mid-high monophthong), which
> was subsequently diphthongised to /ie/ independently in Auks^taitian
> Lithuanian and in Latvian.
It's interesting you would say that, since I, just before making that reply, read:
http://www.lituanus.org/2009/09_3_02 Baranauskas.html
The proposition by Dubonis that the name of the peasant stratum leičiai is related to the ethnonym lietuvis (Lithuanian) received serious criticism from Zigmas Zinkevičius.6 Zinkevičius pointed out that according to accepted theory, "the diphthong ei in East Baltic languages would have shifted to ie if that syllable is stressed." Thus, in the word lei~tis the diphthong ei should have shifted to ie, unless the stress had originally been on the last syllable.
which also discusses other problematic forms. I don't agree w his conclusions, but I do think Lietuvà leitis are related (and << PIE * Leyt.ú+ 'low / deep > lowland / depth / water'), so I'm not convinced that it's a "simple story".