Frederik Kortlandt | Universiteit Leiden (original) (raw)

Papers by Frederik Kortlandt

Recent Developments in Historical Phonology, 1978

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 more Lone Takeuchi's stimulating book (1999) has given me an opportunity to reconsider my (unpublished) semiotactic analysis of Japanese particles, which includes the following components: X wa = for an entity X there is a situation E in which X occupies a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

Folia Linguistica Historica, 1982

Journal of Indo-European Studies, 1983

I. In 1901 CC Uhlenbeck concluded from the identity of the nominative and the accusative of the n... more I. In 1901 CC Uhlenbeck concluded from the identity of the nominative and the accusative of the neuter in the Indo-Euro-pean languages that the differentiation of these cases is second-ary. For an early period of the proto-language he assumes the existence of an agentive ...

Indo-European is a sister of Finno-Ugric and a daughter of Indo-Uralic, which is a sister of Samo... more Indo-European is a sister of Finno-Ugric and a daughter of Indo-Uralic, which is a sister of Samoyedic and a daughter of Uralo-Siberian, which is a sister of Altaic and a daughter of Eurasiatic. When the Mongols entered Manchuria, they were in the same position as the Indo-Europeans when they entered Central Europe. The crucial factor in linguistic expansion is mobility, both physical and social.

The reconstruction of Balto-Slavic accentuation requires a careful examination of the data rather... more The reconstruction of Balto-Slavic accentuation requires a careful examination of the data rather than the postulation of ill-conceived ideas in need of numerous additional hypotheses in order to eliminate the counter-evidence.

There is no example of phonological loss of a High tone on the basis of its position in a word-fo... more There is no example of phonological loss of a High tone on the basis of its position in a word-form (as opposed to tonal shift and syntactically conditioned loss). The typological parallels adduced by Olander are all instances of doubly accented word-forms resulting from the rise of a new High tone. In the case of the Slavic instances, the new High tone on the initial syllable can be attributed to contact with languages that have initial stress.

Indo-European is an Indo-Uralic language that borrowed directly from North-East Caucasian, but no... more Indo-European is an Indo-Uralic language that borrowed directly from North-East Caucasian, but not from North-West Caucasian or Kartvelian, and indirectly from Semitic.

In East Baltic, the i-diphthongs were monophthongized in stressed syllables. The Slavic reflexes ... more In East Baltic, the i-diphthongs were monophthongized in stressed syllables. The Slavic reflexes -ě and -i do not reflect a prehistoric contrast between circumflex and acute.

Elsewhere I have argued that the traditional unaspirated voiced occlusives of the Indo-European p... more Elsewhere I have argued that the traditional unaspirated voiced occlusives of the Indo-European proto-language were actually glottalic lenes. My reconstruction is based on direct evidence from Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Baltic and Germanic and indirect evidence from Indo-Iranian, Greek, Latin and Slavic. The reason why earlier scholars did not take this possibility into account is the fact that glottalization was an unwritten feature before the rise of modern dialectology.
The Proto-Indo-European system *t:, *t’, *t which had arisen under the influence of a North Caucasian substratum became *t, *’d, *d except in Anatolian and Tocharian, then *t, *d, *þ/ð in Italic, *t, *d, *th in Greek, later *þ, *’t, *t in Germanic, *th, *t’, *d in Armenian, *t, *’d, *dh in Indic, *t, *ʔd, *d in Balto-Slavic, and *t, *d in Iranian, Albanian, Phrygian and Celtic.
Anteconsonantal *d [’d] yielded *H1 [ʔ] at an early stage in Indo-European. Preglottalization has been preserved in western Danish, standard English, Latvian and Lithuanian, and has left traces in Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, German and Slavic. It was preserved in the earliest Russian loanwords in Latvian and in the earliest West Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic. The Anatolian languages make a distinction between fortis *t: < PIE *t and lenis *t < PIE *d and *dh. We must reconstruct fortis *t: for traditional *t, preglottalized *’t for *d, and unaspirated lenis *t for *dh, all of them voiceless, for the Anatolian branch of Indo-European. This must indeed have been the Proto-Indo-European system.

Katsiaryna Ackermann has presented a detailed account of the oldest Slavic aorist forms of underi... more Katsiaryna Ackermann has presented a detailed account of the oldest Slavic aorist forms of underived verbs with speculations about their origins (2014). Unfortunately, her theory of Slavic accentuation, which is largely based on Klingenschmitt’s, has long been outdated. It appears that the thematic presents without an acute root vowel adopted final stress on the analogy of the athematic presents before the incorporation of mogǫ and idǫ into the present system. The sigmatic aorist of underived verbs had fixed stress on the root, which is reflected as an acute (a) or long neo-acute (b) in the material. The root aorist was an athematic formation with mobile accentuation (c) and, consequently, a falling tone on the barytone forms of the paradigm. I have proposed that dastъ can be identified with Greek ἔδωκε ‘gave’ as a k-aorist *dōk with
satǝm palatalization of the velar stop yielding *dōs and that bystъ is an analogical k-aorist, to be compared with the Greek perfect πέφῡκε ‘grows’. The paradigm 3sg.
*stastāti, 3pl. *stastinti became the model for the Balto-Slavic causative formations.
Accentual mobility was preserved in the paradigms of imamь and *zьnamь.

Recent Developments in Historical Phonology, 1978

Folia Linguistica Historica, 1982

Journal of Indo-European Studies, 1983

Šaxmatov’s law embodies two chronologically distinct developments, first the retraction of the ac... more Šaxmatov’s law embodies two chronologically distinct developments, first the retraction of the accent to a preposition or prefix in mobile accent paradigms, and after Dybo’s law the shortening of long vowels in medial syllables. Neither development was dependent on the quantity of the preceding vowel.

The methodological differences between Kapović and myself are threefold: (1) He disregards the ch... more The methodological differences between Kapović and myself are threefold:
(1) He disregards the chronological aspects of linguistic developments. As a result, he mixes up elements from different stages of development.
(2) He disregards the linguistic system in which developments take place. As a result, he reconstructs typologically improbable linguistic systems.
(3) He multiplies the input criteria of his rules in order to arrive at the correct output.
The larger the number of input distinctions, the easier it becomes to generate any desired output.
A combination of these devices renders his treatment opaque and confuses the issues at hand.

The Hittite ending -anza /-ants/ does not represent *-ont-s but *-om-t-s, where *-t- is the ori... more The Hittite ending -anza /-ants/ does not represent *-ont-s but *-om-t-s, where *-t- is the original ergative ending after *-om. In contrast with the thematic acc.sg. ending *-om, the neuter ending *-om is not thematic *-o-m, as is especially clear from Greek indeclinable ἑκατόν ‘hundred’, ἑκατόμβη ‘sacrifice’ and other compounds.

Elsewhere I have reconstructed the following primary (I) and secondary (II) thematic active as we... more Elsewhere I have reconstructed the following primary (I) and secondary (II) thematic active as well as athematic middle (III) and stative (IV) endings for Proto-Indo-European (cf. Kortlandt 1979: 67 and 2010: 392f.):

Balto-Slavic ē-stems represent Proto-Indo-European root nouns, in particular *dheH1-, and H1-stem... more Balto-Slavic ē-stems represent Proto-Indo-European root nouns, in particular *dheH1-, and H1-stems, especially proterodynamic iH1-stems denoting deverbal abstracts, as well as Proto-Balto-Slavic ē-extensions of root nouns and hysterodynamic iH2-stems. In Latin we similarly find PIE root nouns and H1-stems, especially proterodynamic iH1-stems denoting deverbal abstracts, and hysterodynamic iH2-stems denoting denominal abstracts and collectives.

The reconstruction of Balto-Slavic accentuation requires a careful examination of the data rather... more The reconstruction of Balto-Slavic accentuation requires a careful examination of the data rather than the postulation of wild ideas in need of countless additional hypotheses in order to eliminate the counter-evidence.

The historical development of Gothic phonology has largely been clarified by Richard d’Alquen (19... more The historical development of Gothic phonology has largely been clarified by Richard d’Alquen (1974). His chronology must be integrated with the developments that separate Gothic from Proto-Germanic. Both chronologies must be integrated with the developments from Proto-Indo-European to Germanic. The exercise in relative chronology presented here shows an alternation between triangular and quadrangular vowel systems.

Katsiaryna Ackermann has presented a detailed account of the oldest Slavic aorist forms of underi... more Katsiaryna Ackermann has presented a detailed account of the oldest Slavic aorist forms of underived verbs with speculations about their origins (2014). Unfortunately, her theory of Slavic accentuation, which is largely based on Klingenschmitt’s, has long been outdated. It appears that the thematic presents without an acute root vowel adopted final stress on the analogy of the athematic presents before the incorporation of mogǫ and idǫ into the present system. The sigmatic aorist of underived verbs had fixed stress on the root, which is reflected as an acute (a) or long neo-acute (b) in the material. The root aorist was an athematic formation with mobile accentuation (c) and, consequently, a falling tone on the barytone forms of the paradigm. I have proposed that dastъ can be identified with Greek ἔδωκε ‘gave’ as a k-aorist *dōk with
satǝm palatalization of the velar stop yielding *dōs and that bystъ is an analogical k-aorist, to be compared with the Greek perfect πέφῡκε ‘grows’. The paradigm 3sg.
*stastāti, 3pl. *stastinti became the model for the Balto-Slavic causative formations. Accentual mobility was preserved in the paradigms of imamь and *zьnamь.

Elsewhere I have argued that the Hittite ḫi-verbs represent a merger of the original perfect and ... more Elsewhere I have argued that the Hittite ḫi-verbs represent a merger of the original perfect and the original thematic flexion with zero grade in the root, e.g. Vedic tudáti. If the root vowel of CeC-roots was introduced in this formation between stages C and E of my chronology (2010: 385, 396), it automatically became *o, as happened in the singular forms of the perfect. Thus, we arrive at o-grade in Slavic bosti ‘to stab’ and the Germanic 6th class verbs versus zero grade in the Vedic 6th class presents. The athematic reduplicated intensive is evidently a derivative of this formation, e.g. Vedic jaṅghanti ‘strikes’. In Anatolian, the complementary distribution between o- and zero grade was brought into line with the paradigmatic alternation of the perfect. In Indo- Iranian, the reduplicated intensive similarly adopted the alternation of the root vowel from the 3rd class reduplicated presents but preserved the zero grade root vowel of the 6th class presents in the subjunctive.

This volume is complementary to my earlier books on Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Armenian, I... more This volume is complementary to my earlier books on Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Armenian, Indo-European and Indo-Uralic (see the bibliography). As in my earlier work, the emphasis is on the relative chronology of linguistic developments, especially in phonology and morphology. Since most articles were written in response to publications by other scholars as contributions to various discussions, their content is rather heterogeneous. Readers who are looking for specific topics can find their way through the index.