Reconstruction talk:Proto-Balto-Slavic/saušás

How can Lithuanian derive from this? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:53, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

You're referring to the š? Certainly, the Slavic descendant can't derive from anything other than š, and the RUKI law does predict that it should be there as well because it's preceded by u. So given the descendants, either *sausas is original and Slavic somehow applied the RUKI rule only after it split off, or *saušas is original and Lithuanian undid it. Ronald Kim's paper does note that Lithuanian often "de-RUKI-izes" words without any clear reason, and that Slavic tends to reflect the original situation: "The operation of this sound change is consistent in Slavic [...] It is much less regular in Lithuanian, especially after *i and *u, but examples do exist". Kortlandt clearly places the RUKI law in Pre-Balto-Slavic, meaning he favours *saušas in this case. Matasović does the same and even provides the form *saušas directly, noting the unclear origin of the Baltic reflexes after *i and *u as well. In any case, there is certainly more speaking for *š in both sources and reasoning than there is for *s. —CodeCat 21:19, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I didn't ask for an explanation of RUKI, I asked how can in this particular reconstruction Lithuanian sausas derive from *saušas. It can't. *saušas is postulated on the basis of two descendants, and it can't account for one. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:40, 4 August 2013 (UTC)