Common Slavic *seb- ~*sob- as a starting point of formal and semantic derivation

Abstract

In the late fifties, the present author arrived at the conclusion that in all languages the form of words depends on three main factors, not only on regular sound change and analogical development, but also on what he calls irregular sound change due to frequency. According to the author, very frequently used word groups, words and morphemes sometimes undergo irregular reductions, e.g. Polish wasza miłość > waszmość ‘you’, podobno > pono ‘would-be’, OPol. (umrze)-ci > (umrze)-ć ‘die’. For many years this theory has aroused practically no interest. But in Biuletyn Polskiego Towarzystwa Językoznawczego 67 (2011) there appeared four articles dealing with this theory (two of them positive and two negative). The most important is the article whose coauthor, a professor of applied mathematics, arrived at the conclusion that the chance that the theory in question is erroneous is less than 1 in 10 million.