Frederik Kortlandt - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Frederik Kortlandt
Baltistica, 2017
The closest relatives of Balto-Slavic are Albanian and Indo-Iranian. Together with Armenian and T... more The closest relatives of Balto-Slavic are Albanian and Indo-Iranian. Together with Armenian and Thracian, these are the satǝm languages, which together with Greek and Phrygian constitute the eastern part of Classic Indo-European. The obvious common development in this area is the satǝm palatalization, which did not affect Greek and Phrygian. Indo-Iranian was separated from the other satǝm languages by the depalatalization of palatovelars before resonants in the latter. Proto-Indo-European had a threefold distinction between fortis, glottalic lenis, and plain lenis obstruents, all of them voiceless, e.g. *t [t:], *d [ť], *dh [t]. In the Classic Indo-European languages (after their separation from Anatolian and Tocharian), the lenis obstruents became voiced [ʔd], [d], while the fortis remained voiceless [t]. This system was best preserved in Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic and Albanian. Another development that seems to be dialectal Indo-European is the retraction of *s to *ṣ after *i, *u, *r, *k in Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic, Albanian and Armenian. However, this retraction cannot be dated and may have affected any part of the Indo-European dialects. This may also explain the Hittite reflex š of PIE *s. The large majority of special correspondences between Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian are archaisms, not innovations. This is important because it implies that a comparison of Balto-Slavic with Indo-Iranian leads to a reconstruction of an early stage of Indo-European.
Baltica & Balto-Slavica
... F Kortlandt Leiden The Old Prussian Preterit According Bezzenberger the Enchiridion offers th... more ... F Kortlandt Leiden The Old Prussian Preterit According Bezzenberger the Enchiridion offers the following preterit forms bitte nannte mige entschlief wedde din hrte sie per tra berzog bei bei war deir sah gn segnete billa bill sprach ... Download, http://hdl.handle.net/1887/1932. ...
Selected Writings on Slavic and General Linguistics, 2011
In his magnum opus (Syntax and Semantics, Leiden 1978, henceforth: S&S) C.L. Ebeling makes a dist... more In his magnum opus (Syntax and Semantics, Leiden 1978, henceforth: S&S) C.L. Ebeling makes a distinction between temporal gradation (pp 301-308 and 337-339) and temporal limitation (pp 311-315). In the case of temporal gradation "p , q", the meaning "q" specifies the time during which the referent carries the meaning "p". Example: (1) Dutch jong knappe vrouwen "women who are / were pretty when they are / were young": "...woman. PLUR. pretty , young..." (S&S 338). The time at which the women are/were pretty is specified by the time of their being young. Though nothing is said about the women at the time when they are no longer young, the phrase suggests that they may no longer be pretty. Similarly: (2) Dutch hij is dronken gevaarlijk "he is dangerous when he is drunk": "... å he = dangerous , drunk...
Baltica & Balto-Slavica, 2009
Professor Bammesberger has kindly drawn my attention to W.P. Schmid's discussion of the oldest Pr... more Professor Bammesberger has kindly drawn my attention to W.P. Schmid's discussion of the oldest Prussian text (1982), which I had not seen. Schmid thinks that the text is addressed to God and proposes the following translation: "Salve, o Herr! Du bist wohl nicht mehr unser Vater (Väterchen). Wenn ich trinken will, wilst du kein Geld geben."
Baltica & Balto-Slavica, 2009
AMSTERDAMER BEITRÄGE ZUR ÄLTEREN GERMANISTIK, 1989
Acta Linguistica Petropolitana, 2018
*h *s mpem *pimbepíba-bib *-s-lsem *klunse-luay *kleusá ravam *-s-busanim busay *b h ous-*b h eH ... more *h *s mpem *pimbepíba-bib *-s-lsem *klunse-luay *kleusá ravam *-s-busanim busay *b h ous-*b h eH 3 us-*b h uns-*-h-*-s-*h *p ibid. ibid.
In an earlier study (1988) I argued that we have to reconstruct preglottalized stops for Proto-Ge... more In an earlier study (1988) I argued that we have to reconstruct preglottalized stops for Proto-Germanic on the basis of the following reflexes: (1) Preaspiration in Icelandic, e.g. in epli 'apple', opna Open', vatn 'water', batna 'improve 1 , mikla 'increase', teikn 'token', verpa 'throw 1 , elta 'pursue 1 , verk 'work'. These examples show that the preaspirated stops do not reflect clusters but directly represent the voiceless plosives of Proto-Germanic. Since the same reflexes are found in the Norwegian dialect of Jasren (cf. Oftedal 1947), preaspiration is an inherited feature in these words. (2) Preglottalization in the western dialects of Danish: the so-called vestjysk st0d (cf. Ringgaard 1960). The classic view that it represents "en ljudaffektion, som inträtt vid tenues i vissa ställningar" (Kock 1891: 368fn.) does not explain the rise of the glottal stop. (3) Gemination in Swedish, e.g. in vecka 'week', droppe 'drop 1 , skepp 'ship', cf. ON. vika, dropi, skip, OE. wice, dropa, scip, Finnish viikko. This gemination is unexplained. (4) Assimilation of mp, nt, nk to pp, tt, kk in the larger part of Scandinavia. The nasal consonant was apparently devoiced by the preaspiration of the following plosive and then lost its nasal feature. (5) Gemination of k before j and w, e.g. ON. lykkja 'coil', bekkr 'brook', nqkkvi 'boat', rfikkr 'dark'. Similarly, gemination of t beforey in a limited area, e.g. Swedish sätta 'set'. (West Germanic geminated all consonants except r before./ and is therefore inconclusive.) (6) Gemination of p, t, k before r and / in West Germanic. The same development is found sporadically in Scandinavia; this suggests that we have to do with the loss of an archaic feature (such äs preaspiration) rather than with an innovation. In Icelandic, preaspiration is lost before r and preserved before / (cf. Haugen 1941: 101). (7) Standard English inserts a glottal stop before a tautosyllabic voiceless plosive, e.g. lea'p, hel'p (Brown 1977: 27). There is no reason to assume that this is a recent phenomenon (see now Kortlandt 1997). (8) The High German sound shift yielded affricates and geminated fricatives, e.g. OHG. pfad 'path', werpfan 'throw 1 , zunga 'tongue', salz
A Festschrift for Werner Winter on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday
Whatever these difficulties may be, and whatever their biological origin, it is clear that, at th... more Whatever these difficulties may be, and whatever their biological origin, it is clear that, at the level of concepts, categorization is carried out neither by rigorous, nor by logical, nor by universal criteria. Indeed, there may be no general means by which categories are formed at this level.
Baltistica, 2013
We arrive at the following relative chronology: 1. Depalatalization before syllabic *r (Proto-Ind... more We arrive at the following relative chronology: 1. Depalatalization before syllabic *r (Proto-Indo-European), 2. Depalatalization before syllabic *l (Balto-Slavic, Albanian, Armenian), 3a. Rise of an epenthetic vowel before syllabic nasals (Balto-Slavic, Armenian), 3b. Depalatalization before syllabic nasals (Albanian), 4. Rise of an epenthetic vowel before syllabic nasals (Albanian).
Baltistica, 2014
There are two chronological layers of metatonical circumflex in monosyllables, viz. an early Balt... more There are two chronological layers of metatonical circumflex in monosyllables, viz. an early Balto-Slavic layer which is reflected e.g. in Lith. dės , jos , duos and a recent Aukstaitian layer which is found e.g. in nom.pl. tiẽ , acc.pl. tuos , inst.sg. tuo . Leskien’s law was younger than the former but older than the latter. This analysis is not based on a comparison with Slavic or Indo-European but on the internal evidence of the East Baltic languages. The Baltic future represents two Indo-European paradigms, viz. an s‑ present with accentual mobility between the suffix and the ending and an s‑ aorist with fixed stress on the root and monosyllabic lengthening in the 2nd and 3rd sg. forms. Both of these formations have exact correspondences in the Old Irish subjunctive. They must have existed side by side in Proto-Baltic in view of Prussian teīks ‘make!’ beside postāsei ‘you will become’. The circumflex of Latvian sāls and guovs shows metatonical length as a result of monosyllabic lengthening. There is no evidence for a PIE phoneme *a in sāls , zuoss and nass , nor for the vowel *e in the PIE paradigm of guovs , nor for a PIE paradigm with fixed stress in the case of guovs , nass and zvrs , nor for a generalization of the original nom.sg. instead of acc.sg. accentuation in sāls and nass .
C.C. Uhlenbeck made a distinction between two components of Proto-Indo-European, which he called ... more C.C. Uhlenbeck made a distinction between two components of Proto-Indo-European, which he called A and B (1935a: 133ff.). The first component comprises pronouns, verbal roots, and derivational suffixes, and may be compared with Uralic, whereas the second component contains isolated words, such as numerals and most underived nouns, which have a different source. The wide attestation of the Indo-European numerals must be attributed to the development of trade resulting from the increased mobility which was the primary cause of the Indo-European expansions. Numerals do not belong to the basic vocabulary of a neolithic culture, as is clear from their absence in Proto-Uralic (cf. also Collinder 1965: 112) and from the spread of Chinese numerals throughout East Asia. Though Uhlenbeck objects to the term "substratum" for his B complex, I think that it is a perfectly appropriate denomination. The best candidate for the original Indo-European homeland is the territory of the Sredny Stog culture in the eastern Ukraine (cf. Mallory 1989). If we can identify Indo-Hittite and nuclear Indo-European with the beginning and the end of the Sredny Stog culture, respectively (cf. Kortlandt 1990: 138), Uhlenbeck's view can be unified with Gimbutas' theory of a primary homeland north of the Caspian Sea and a secondary homeland north of the Black Sea (cf. 1985). What we have to take into account is the typological similarity of Proto-Indo-European to the NorthWest Caucasian languages. If this similarity can be attributed to areal factors (cf. Kortlandt 1995: 94), we may think of Indo-European as a branch of Indo-Uralic which was transformed under the influence of a Caucasian substratum connected with the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. We may then locate the Indo-Uralic homeland south of the Ural Mountains in the seventh millennium BC (cf. Mallory 1989: 192f.) and perhaps identify the Khvalynsk culture on the middle Volga as an intermediate stage before the rise of the Sredny Stog culture in the fifth millennium BC. The Indo-European verbal system appears to combine Uralic flexional morphemes with Caucasian syntactic patterns. Holger Pedersen already argued that the subject of a transitive verb was in the genitive [= sigmatic nominative] case if it was animate and in the instrumental case if it was inanimate while the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb were in the absolutive [= asigmatic nominative] case form (1907: 152), that the endings of the perfect and the thematic present originally belonged to the flexion of intransitive verbs and the "normal", mostly athematic endings to the flexion of transitive verbs (1933: 311-315), and that the intransitive and transitive flexion types correspond to the Hittite flexional paradigms in-hi and-mi (1938: 80-85). Beekes has shown that this theory explains the origin of the Indo-European nominal flexion in its entirety (1985). Knobloch however identified the Indo-European thematic vowel in verbal paradigms-e/o-with an object marker (1953). Elsewhere I have integrated these findings into a coherent whole, arguing that the Indo-European thematic flexion of the verb can be compared with the objective conjugation of the Uralic languages and that this hypothesis explains the distribution of the thematic flexion in Hittite and Sanskrit as well as the rise of the thematic subjunctive (1983a, cf. now Nikolaeva 1999 on the re
Lone Takeuchi's stimulating book (1999) has given me an opportunity to reconsider my (unpubli... more Lone Takeuchi's stimulating book (1999) has given me an opportunity to reconsider my (unpublished) semiotactic analysis of Japanese particles, which includes the following components: X wa = for an entity X there is a situation E in which X occupies a position. X mo = for an entity X there is a situation E in which X occupies the same
Russian Linguistics, 2008
Baltistica, 2017
The closest relatives of Balto-Slavic are Albanian and Indo-Iranian. Together with Armenian and T... more The closest relatives of Balto-Slavic are Albanian and Indo-Iranian. Together with Armenian and Thracian, these are the satǝm languages, which together with Greek and Phrygian constitute the eastern part of Classic Indo-European. The obvious common development in this area is the satǝm palatalization, which did not affect Greek and Phrygian. Indo-Iranian was separated from the other satǝm languages by the depalatalization of palatovelars before resonants in the latter. Proto-Indo-European had a threefold distinction between fortis, glottalic lenis, and plain lenis obstruents, all of them voiceless, e.g. *t [t:], *d [ť], *dh [t]. In the Classic Indo-European languages (after their separation from Anatolian and Tocharian), the lenis obstruents became voiced [ʔd], [d], while the fortis remained voiceless [t]. This system was best preserved in Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic and Albanian. Another development that seems to be dialectal Indo-European is the retraction of *s to *ṣ after *i, *u, *r, *k in Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic, Albanian and Armenian. However, this retraction cannot be dated and may have affected any part of the Indo-European dialects. This may also explain the Hittite reflex š of PIE *s. The large majority of special correspondences between Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian are archaisms, not innovations. This is important because it implies that a comparison of Balto-Slavic with Indo-Iranian leads to a reconstruction of an early stage of Indo-European.
Baltica & Balto-Slavica
... F Kortlandt Leiden The Old Prussian Preterit According Bezzenberger the Enchiridion offers th... more ... F Kortlandt Leiden The Old Prussian Preterit According Bezzenberger the Enchiridion offers the following preterit forms bitte nannte mige entschlief wedde din hrte sie per tra berzog bei bei war deir sah gn segnete billa bill sprach ... Download, http://hdl.handle.net/1887/1932. ...
Selected Writings on Slavic and General Linguistics, 2011
In his magnum opus (Syntax and Semantics, Leiden 1978, henceforth: S&S) C.L. Ebeling makes a dist... more In his magnum opus (Syntax and Semantics, Leiden 1978, henceforth: S&S) C.L. Ebeling makes a distinction between temporal gradation (pp 301-308 and 337-339) and temporal limitation (pp 311-315). In the case of temporal gradation "p , q", the meaning "q" specifies the time during which the referent carries the meaning "p". Example: (1) Dutch jong knappe vrouwen "women who are / were pretty when they are / were young": "...woman. PLUR. pretty , young..." (S&S 338). The time at which the women are/were pretty is specified by the time of their being young. Though nothing is said about the women at the time when they are no longer young, the phrase suggests that they may no longer be pretty. Similarly: (2) Dutch hij is dronken gevaarlijk "he is dangerous when he is drunk": "... å he = dangerous , drunk...
Baltica & Balto-Slavica, 2009
Professor Bammesberger has kindly drawn my attention to W.P. Schmid's discussion of the oldest Pr... more Professor Bammesberger has kindly drawn my attention to W.P. Schmid's discussion of the oldest Prussian text (1982), which I had not seen. Schmid thinks that the text is addressed to God and proposes the following translation: "Salve, o Herr! Du bist wohl nicht mehr unser Vater (Väterchen). Wenn ich trinken will, wilst du kein Geld geben."
Baltica & Balto-Slavica, 2009
AMSTERDAMER BEITRÄGE ZUR ÄLTEREN GERMANISTIK, 1989
Acta Linguistica Petropolitana, 2018
*h *s mpem *pimbepíba-bib *-s-lsem *klunse-luay *kleusá ravam *-s-busanim busay *b h ous-*b h eH ... more *h *s mpem *pimbepíba-bib *-s-lsem *klunse-luay *kleusá ravam *-s-busanim busay *b h ous-*b h eH 3 us-*b h uns-*-h-*-s-*h *p ibid. ibid.
In an earlier study (1988) I argued that we have to reconstruct preglottalized stops for Proto-Ge... more In an earlier study (1988) I argued that we have to reconstruct preglottalized stops for Proto-Germanic on the basis of the following reflexes: (1) Preaspiration in Icelandic, e.g. in epli 'apple', opna Open', vatn 'water', batna 'improve 1 , mikla 'increase', teikn 'token', verpa 'throw 1 , elta 'pursue 1 , verk 'work'. These examples show that the preaspirated stops do not reflect clusters but directly represent the voiceless plosives of Proto-Germanic. Since the same reflexes are found in the Norwegian dialect of Jasren (cf. Oftedal 1947), preaspiration is an inherited feature in these words. (2) Preglottalization in the western dialects of Danish: the so-called vestjysk st0d (cf. Ringgaard 1960). The classic view that it represents "en ljudaffektion, som inträtt vid tenues i vissa ställningar" (Kock 1891: 368fn.) does not explain the rise of the glottal stop. (3) Gemination in Swedish, e.g. in vecka 'week', droppe 'drop 1 , skepp 'ship', cf. ON. vika, dropi, skip, OE. wice, dropa, scip, Finnish viikko. This gemination is unexplained. (4) Assimilation of mp, nt, nk to pp, tt, kk in the larger part of Scandinavia. The nasal consonant was apparently devoiced by the preaspiration of the following plosive and then lost its nasal feature. (5) Gemination of k before j and w, e.g. ON. lykkja 'coil', bekkr 'brook', nqkkvi 'boat', rfikkr 'dark'. Similarly, gemination of t beforey in a limited area, e.g. Swedish sätta 'set'. (West Germanic geminated all consonants except r before./ and is therefore inconclusive.) (6) Gemination of p, t, k before r and / in West Germanic. The same development is found sporadically in Scandinavia; this suggests that we have to do with the loss of an archaic feature (such äs preaspiration) rather than with an innovation. In Icelandic, preaspiration is lost before r and preserved before / (cf. Haugen 1941: 101). (7) Standard English inserts a glottal stop before a tautosyllabic voiceless plosive, e.g. lea'p, hel'p (Brown 1977: 27). There is no reason to assume that this is a recent phenomenon (see now Kortlandt 1997). (8) The High German sound shift yielded affricates and geminated fricatives, e.g. OHG. pfad 'path', werpfan 'throw 1 , zunga 'tongue', salz
A Festschrift for Werner Winter on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday
Whatever these difficulties may be, and whatever their biological origin, it is clear that, at th... more Whatever these difficulties may be, and whatever their biological origin, it is clear that, at the level of concepts, categorization is carried out neither by rigorous, nor by logical, nor by universal criteria. Indeed, there may be no general means by which categories are formed at this level.
Baltistica, 2013
We arrive at the following relative chronology: 1. Depalatalization before syllabic *r (Proto-Ind... more We arrive at the following relative chronology: 1. Depalatalization before syllabic *r (Proto-Indo-European), 2. Depalatalization before syllabic *l (Balto-Slavic, Albanian, Armenian), 3a. Rise of an epenthetic vowel before syllabic nasals (Balto-Slavic, Armenian), 3b. Depalatalization before syllabic nasals (Albanian), 4. Rise of an epenthetic vowel before syllabic nasals (Albanian).
Baltistica, 2014
There are two chronological layers of metatonical circumflex in monosyllables, viz. an early Balt... more There are two chronological layers of metatonical circumflex in monosyllables, viz. an early Balto-Slavic layer which is reflected e.g. in Lith. dės , jos , duos and a recent Aukstaitian layer which is found e.g. in nom.pl. tiẽ , acc.pl. tuos , inst.sg. tuo . Leskien’s law was younger than the former but older than the latter. This analysis is not based on a comparison with Slavic or Indo-European but on the internal evidence of the East Baltic languages. The Baltic future represents two Indo-European paradigms, viz. an s‑ present with accentual mobility between the suffix and the ending and an s‑ aorist with fixed stress on the root and monosyllabic lengthening in the 2nd and 3rd sg. forms. Both of these formations have exact correspondences in the Old Irish subjunctive. They must have existed side by side in Proto-Baltic in view of Prussian teīks ‘make!’ beside postāsei ‘you will become’. The circumflex of Latvian sāls and guovs shows metatonical length as a result of monosyllabic lengthening. There is no evidence for a PIE phoneme *a in sāls , zuoss and nass , nor for the vowel *e in the PIE paradigm of guovs , nor for a PIE paradigm with fixed stress in the case of guovs , nass and zvrs , nor for a generalization of the original nom.sg. instead of acc.sg. accentuation in sāls and nass .
C.C. Uhlenbeck made a distinction between two components of Proto-Indo-European, which he called ... more C.C. Uhlenbeck made a distinction between two components of Proto-Indo-European, which he called A and B (1935a: 133ff.). The first component comprises pronouns, verbal roots, and derivational suffixes, and may be compared with Uralic, whereas the second component contains isolated words, such as numerals and most underived nouns, which have a different source. The wide attestation of the Indo-European numerals must be attributed to the development of trade resulting from the increased mobility which was the primary cause of the Indo-European expansions. Numerals do not belong to the basic vocabulary of a neolithic culture, as is clear from their absence in Proto-Uralic (cf. also Collinder 1965: 112) and from the spread of Chinese numerals throughout East Asia. Though Uhlenbeck objects to the term "substratum" for his B complex, I think that it is a perfectly appropriate denomination. The best candidate for the original Indo-European homeland is the territory of the Sredny Stog culture in the eastern Ukraine (cf. Mallory 1989). If we can identify Indo-Hittite and nuclear Indo-European with the beginning and the end of the Sredny Stog culture, respectively (cf. Kortlandt 1990: 138), Uhlenbeck's view can be unified with Gimbutas' theory of a primary homeland north of the Caspian Sea and a secondary homeland north of the Black Sea (cf. 1985). What we have to take into account is the typological similarity of Proto-Indo-European to the NorthWest Caucasian languages. If this similarity can be attributed to areal factors (cf. Kortlandt 1995: 94), we may think of Indo-European as a branch of Indo-Uralic which was transformed under the influence of a Caucasian substratum connected with the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. We may then locate the Indo-Uralic homeland south of the Ural Mountains in the seventh millennium BC (cf. Mallory 1989: 192f.) and perhaps identify the Khvalynsk culture on the middle Volga as an intermediate stage before the rise of the Sredny Stog culture in the fifth millennium BC. The Indo-European verbal system appears to combine Uralic flexional morphemes with Caucasian syntactic patterns. Holger Pedersen already argued that the subject of a transitive verb was in the genitive [= sigmatic nominative] case if it was animate and in the instrumental case if it was inanimate while the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb were in the absolutive [= asigmatic nominative] case form (1907: 152), that the endings of the perfect and the thematic present originally belonged to the flexion of intransitive verbs and the "normal", mostly athematic endings to the flexion of transitive verbs (1933: 311-315), and that the intransitive and transitive flexion types correspond to the Hittite flexional paradigms in-hi and-mi (1938: 80-85). Beekes has shown that this theory explains the origin of the Indo-European nominal flexion in its entirety (1985). Knobloch however identified the Indo-European thematic vowel in verbal paradigms-e/o-with an object marker (1953). Elsewhere I have integrated these findings into a coherent whole, arguing that the Indo-European thematic flexion of the verb can be compared with the objective conjugation of the Uralic languages and that this hypothesis explains the distribution of the thematic flexion in Hittite and Sanskrit as well as the rise of the thematic subjunctive (1983a, cf. now Nikolaeva 1999 on the re
Lone Takeuchi's stimulating book (1999) has given me an opportunity to reconsider my (unpubli... more Lone Takeuchi's stimulating book (1999) has given me an opportunity to reconsider my (unpublished) semiotactic analysis of Japanese particles, which includes the following components: X wa = for an entity X there is a situation E in which X occupies a position. X mo = for an entity X there is a situation E in which X occupies the same
Russian Linguistics, 2008