Ru. /#nC/ (cont.)

[Frank Y. Gladney]

Thanks to those who responded to my _Ia pomniu chudnoe 
mgnoven'e_ query.  I should have focused it more clearly on what I 
had in mind, namely, so-called side syllables (Nebensilben), which 
are formed by sonorant consonants in environments where they 
violate sonority sequencing, and how are eliminated in the speech 
chain.  It is generally agreed that they are eliminated after a 
preposition or a prefix.  Thus, however dubious the claim that _mgla_  
is monosyllabic (based on the claim that _m_ is never syllabic), there 
is no doubt that _m_ is not syllabic in _vo mgle_, which is syllabified 
_vom.gle_.  But after a word boundary other than with a preposition, 
there is a lack of general agreement.  In Pushkin's _Pechal'noi mgloi 
okruzhena_, I would venture to say that the third syllable is [nojm], as 
good a syllable as _diuim_ 'inch', so that _m_ does not form a side 
syllable.  Likewise in _On mchit ee lesnoi dorogoi_, it seems the first 
syllable can be _onm_; cf. _sonm_ 'assembly'.  Thus I beg to differ 
with Olaf Broch (Slavische Phonetik, p. 244), who cites these lines as 
instances of side syllables being retained.  But in _Ia pomniu 
chudnoe mgnoven'e_ I'm not sure.  This line would scan normally, 
without side syllables, if between the first two acceents, on _Ia 
pOmniu chUd-_, and the fourth foot _gnovE(n'e)_ the intervening _    
-noe mgno-_ were read as two syllables, maybe as _no.em_ , i.e., 
[n at .jim].  Viewed this way, maybe it's not a problem  So _pace_ Paul 
Gallagher and Katherine Crosswhite, who question the _g_.   All we 
have to do is take Alexandra Smith's proposed syllabification, 
_japom  njiuchu  dnaje  mgna  ven' je_, and shift the second _m_ to 
the coda of the preceding syllable. 

Frank Y. Gladney

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