13.7.1.23:59: HÓNAP ~ HAVI

hónap 'month' ~ hav-i 'month's, monthly'

nap is obviously 'day' (as in my last post "A hét napjai") and Wiktionary identified hó as an archaic word for 'month'. Did the longer form hónap arise to avoid confusion with hó 'snow'? Why does the related word hold 'moon' have a short vowel, and what is -ld?

Did hó have a paradigm like hó 'snow' with ó ~ av alternation? It seems that vowel-initial endings tend to follow the -av stem, though there are exceptions:

hó-ért (not *hav-ért; superessive singular)

hó-ig (not *hav-ig; terminative singular).

What accounts for these cases? Was there a lost buffer consonant?

The ó ~ av alternation reminds me of o [oː] (< *au) ~ av alternation in Sanskrit go 'cow':

go-bhis (instrumental plural)

gav-ā (instrumental singular)

Does the Hungarian alternation have a similar origin?

7.2.00:17: go 'cow' also has other types of stems:

gau-s (not *go-s; nominative singular)

gāv-au (not *gav-au; nominative/accusative dual)

gāv-as (not *gav-as; nominative plural)

gām (not *gav-am; accusative singular)

I assume gām is a contraction of gāv-am with a long vowel since the accusative singular has a 'strong' stem like the other four case-number combinations above. Although the accusative plural generally has a 'weak' stem, gāv-as (like the nominative plural) is attested as well as gās, so the latter may be from strong gāv-as or weak *gav-as.

13.6.30.23:59: A HÉT NAPJAI

Yesterday I was listening to Neoton Família's "Holnap hajnalig" (Until Dawn Tomorrow) which led me to look up section 2.1.1.6.1 on time expressions in Kenesei, Vago, and Fenyvesi's Hungarian.

Today is vasárnap 'Sunday' (lit. 'fair-day') which is in the nominative unlike the other six days which are in the superessive. Is this because vasárnap is the only day name ending in -nap 'day'?

The other day names are:

hétfő 'Monday' (lit. 'seven-head'; i.e., first day of the week)

kedd 'Tuesday' (cf. két 'two'; 'second' is második < más 'other' + ordinal suffix -odik)

szerda [sɛrdɔ] 'Wednesday' (Slavic borrowing; cf. Slovak streda and Slovene sreda 'id.' from Proto-Slavic *serda < 'middle [of the week]')

csütörtök 'Thursday' (Slavic borrowing; cf. Slovak štvrtok and Slovene četrtek 'Thursday' from Proto-Slavic *četvĭrtŭkŭ < 'fourth [day]')

péntek 'Friday' (Slavic borrowing; cf. Slovak piatok and Slovene petek 'Friday' from Proto-Slavic *pętŭkŭ [pɛ̃tʊkʊ] 'fifth [day]')

szombat 'Saturday' (Hebrew borrowing; why szomb- instead of *sabb- [ʃɔbb] or *sább- [ʃaːbb] which would be closer to Hebrew Shabbat?)

The Slavic borrowings must be old, as they lack several innovations in Hungarian's modern Slavic neighbors:

- -t-insertion in Slovak

- *ser to sre in Slovak and Slovene

- *č-lenition in Slovak

- *ę-denasalizaztion in Slovak and Slovene

They do, however, reflect the loss of Proto-Slavic *-ŭ, so they cannot be very old.

Slavic languages have a, ǎ [ə], and u as well as o for the vowel of the first syllable of 'Saturday': e.g.,

- Macedonian sabota (from an earlier sǎbota?)

- Bulgarian sǎbota

- Russian subbota

- Polish sobota

Hungarian's non-Slavic neighbor Romanian even has a high first vowel: sâmbătă [sɨmbətə].

What accounts for this variation?

7.1.2:33: I discovered Byzantine Greek σάμβατον, and now here's what I think happened. μβ [mb] might have been an attempt to imitate Hebrew b after Greek β had shifted from [b] to [v]. Greek σάμβατον was borrowed into Proto-Slavic as *sǫbota [sɔ̃bota] (but why did it become a feminine *-a-noun in PS?). PS *ǫ underwent irregular early denasalization in West Slavic. Elsewhere it regularly became Macedonian a, Bulgarian ǎ, and East Slavic u. PS *ǫ was borrowed as Hungarian om. (But why don't the second vowels of szombat and *sǫbota match? And what about the high vowel in Romanian?)