slàbъ

slàbъ Grammatical information: adj. o Accent paradigm: a Proto-Slavic meaning: `weak'

Old Church Slavic:

slabъ `weak' [adj o]

Russian:

slábyj `weak' [adj o]

Czech:

slabý `weak' [adj o]

Slovak:

slabý `weak' [adj o]

Polish:

sɫaby `weak' [adj o]

Serbo-Croatian:

slȁb `weak' [adj o], slȁba [Nomsf];

slȁb `weak, bad' [adj o], slàba [Nomsf];

Čak. slȁb (Vrgada) `weak' [adj o], slabȁ [Nomsf], slȁbo [Nomsn];

Čak. slȁp (Orbanići) `weak, bad' [adj o], slȁba [Nomsf], slȁbo [Nomsn]

Slovene:

slàb `weak, bad' [adj o], slába [Nomsf]

Bulgarian:

slab `weak, bad' [adj o]

Lithuanian:

slãbnas (Žem.) `weak' [adj o];

slõbnas (E. Lith.) `weak' [adj o] \{1\}

Latvian:

slãbs `weak' [adj o]

Indo-European reconstruction: slob-o-

Comments: Though Latv. slãbs matches the Slavic etymon perfectly, I am inclined to regard the Baltic forms as borrowings. Rasmussen (1992: 72) mentions slãbnas as an example of his blocking rule, according to which Winter's law, did not operate for resonants. Since he also claims that Winter's law applied exclusively to the syllable immediately preceding the stress, his version of Winter's law cannot account for PSl. *slàbъ.

Other cognates:

MLG slap `weak, slack' [adj]

Notes:

\{1\} According to Fraenkel (151), the vocalism of slõbnas may be due to an East Lithuanian development (cf. Zinkevičius 1966: 103).