Ungleiche Konkurrenz : die RUKI-Regel und die analogische Verbreitung von RUKI-x im Slavischen

The present paper is a review of the extant literature on the RUKI rule in Slavic and at the same time an attempt to provide an explanation for the seeming predominance of RUKI-x over s in analogical levelling. It is argued that the analogical spread of both s and x was subject to phonological restrictions that favoured a reinterpretation of the distribution of x and s along the lines of a postvocalic/-liquid vs. a postcon-sonantal allomorphic variant. It is further demonstrated that the process of analogical levelling occurred simultaneously to the RUKI rule in Slavic.