Reconstruction talk:Proto-Slavic/siňь

I'm going to rename this page to according to ЭССЯ —  —Useigor (talk) 19:35, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Then what about the Serbo-Croatian and Slovene descendants? —CodeCat 19:41, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The nominative could be leveled from the definite form stem *sinьj-, with the weak jer dropped and the resulting /nj/ cluster palatalized. Earlier attestations need to be researched to make a definite conclusion. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:18, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, there is no trace of i-stem adjectives in Proto-Slavic, that I know of. If I remember correctly, only four types appear in Old Church Slavonic: hard, soft and the two special participle declensions in -ęt- and -(v)ъš-. —CodeCat 20:23, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * So why did you create the page as *sinjь then? It should be *sinъ with the definite form *sinъjь. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:39, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Because it's a soft-declension adjective? In SC and Sl, *sinъ gives just *sin, while *sinъjь gives *sini. In Russian the outcome of the latter would be *sinyj, unlike the attested form. —CodeCat 20:47, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * What about ? —Useigor (talk) 21:02, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I guess that's a fifth type of adjective declension, restricted only to comparatives. But it's almost completely identical to the soft declension. —CodeCat 21:13, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * But why it should *sinъ? Looks like that *sinь is soft adjective with definite form *sinьjь. Or there is 2 adjectives: sinъ and sinь? —Useigor (talk) 21:28, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The distinction between hard and soft is determined only by the last consonant. If it's palatal then it has the soft declension, if it's not then it has the hard declension. -n- is a non-palatal consonant, so the declension should be hard. —CodeCat 22:33, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * But in https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:About_Proto-Slavic *velьjь is soft. -l- is non-palatal consonant. —Useigor (talk) 22:43, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Only the last consonant counts. —CodeCat 23:11, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I know. And therefore there is mistake? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:About_Proto-Slavic#Adjectives —Useigor (talk) 19:30, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I still don't understand what you mean. -j- is a palatal consonant. —CodeCat 20:19, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks. I thought that -j- was vowel. So ЭССЯ just have mistaken? Also i want to ask: sinъ + jь > sinьjь? — https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:List_of_Proto-Slavic_adjectives —Useigor (talk) 21:10, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
 * No that would give sinъjь. I think it would be good for you to review the Proto-Slavic article, specifically the part about alternations. —CodeCat 21:36, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I have found in one dictionary that /nj/ in Serbo-Crotian sinji (also in the now-obsolete sinj) is taken from the definite inflection by jer being dropped + second iotation, as I predicted above. The same thing could happen in Slovene. Old Russian (possibly of Church Slavonic origin) form is however which kind of narrows it down. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:21, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Except that if it happened here, why did it not happen in any other definite adjective forms? It seems very unlikely that -nъjь would give -nj only in this one instance, but not in thousands of others. One other thing to remember is that this is not a weak yer, but a tense yer. Tense yers don't disappear, but are vocalised to high vowels (mid if stressed in Russian) in all circumstances. —CodeCat 21:29, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Because the adjective was primarily used in the definite form. Today the indefinite form has been completely lost. Analogy spreads from the more common form to the less common form. In other adjectives the indefinite form was retained so the preservation of paradigm precluded such developments. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 22:31, 11 October 2014 (UTC)