The progressive palatalization of Slavic (original) (raw)
Related papers
The article adresses a question raised by the Progressive Palatalization of Slavic (“Prog”): why is it that palatalized velars are absent from native material in the case of *g in the dialect continuum continued by present-day Russian and Belorussian? (As in Russian jagá vs. Polish jędza and SCr jéza.) Owing to the precise set of conditions under which it did or did not take place, Prog is usually agreed to have given rise to paradigms in which modi-fied and unmodified velars alternated in stem-final position, e.g. Gsg *otьća (modified) vs. Asg *otьkъ (unmodified). In all attested systems, those alterna-tions have been regularized, most often in favour of the modified consonant, so that we find, say, *otьćь instead of expected **otьkъ. But the reverse occurs as well. In nominal paradigms, for instance, Russian/Belorussian appears to have generalized the unmodified consonant in the case of *g, as illustrated by jaga. Why? The article argues that the background is provided by the palatalizion of consonants followed by front vowels which underlies the palatalization corre-lation of Russian and neighbouring Slavic languages. Before front vowels, the process obliterated the difference between *s/z and *ś/ź (< *x/g by Prog). As a consequence, paradigms became complex in a way that favoured regulariza-tion of the unmodified velar (section 3.6). It is suggested that palatalizion of consonants followed by front vowels originated in Baltic (section 4.2).
On the relative chronology of the II regressive and the progressive palatalizations of Common Slavic
Russian Linguistics, 2020
This article examines one of the oldest conundra of Slavic historical linguistics, namely the relative chronology of the II regressive and the progressive palatalizations of velar obstruents. To do so, it is first of all shown that these palatalizations constitute two discrete innovations and not a single bidirectional change. On the basis of a thorough analysis of the competing hypotheses it is then argued that the assumption of a relative chronology which dates the progressive before the II regressive palatalization (Pedersen’s chronology), allows the attested forms to be accounted for best. The main complication relating to this chronology concerns certain inflectional endings of the Old Church Slavonic pronouns vьsь and sicь. In the instrumental singular masculine and neuter and the genitive, dative, instrumental and locative plural these pronouns show endings of the hard inflectional type instead of the expected soft-stem endings. Contrary to what may be considered the communis opinio, this peculiarity can, however, be explained by means of a morphological innovation. This assumption is supported by evidence from the medieval Novgorod and Pskov dialects. Three morphological mechanisms, which may have been involved in the rise of the unexpected endings, are discussed: proportional analogy, product-oriented innovation and syntagmatic assimilation. Examples of typologically parallel developments from Slavic and other languages are provided in order to substantiate the claim of a morphological innovation.
Balto-Slavic phonological developments
Baltistica, 2011
Elsewhere I have proposed the following relative chronology of early sound changes (1989a: 42-47, 2005a: 115-118): (1) Neutralization of the opposition between palatovelars and labiovelars after *u and *s, yielding a palatovelar before *i and a plain velar elsewhere (cf. Steensland 1973: 34, Kortlandt 1979: 58). This development belongs to the Proto-Indo-European period (stages 1.2 and 1.3 of my chronology). (2) Rephonemicization of the opposition between fortes ("voiceless") and lenes ("voiced aspirates") as an opposition between voiceless and (plain) voiced stops. This was a shared innovation of all Indo-European languages except Anatolian and Tocharian and therefore belongs to the dialectal Indo-European period (my stage 2.1). The (lenes) glottalic stops (traditionally called "plain voiced") became preglottalized voiced at this stage (cf. Kortlandt 1978a: 110). (3) Retraction of *s to *ṣ after *i, *u, *r, *k in Balto-Slavic, Albanian, Armenian, and Indo-Iranian. The highly specific character of this sound change points to a common, dialectal Indo-European development (my stage 2.2).
[2014] Early Slavic dialect differences involving the consonant system [Trailer]
The consonant system of early Slavic is of particular interest because it is there that the earliest reconstructible dialect differences arose. The isoglosses setting off North Russian, Bulgarian-Macedonian and West Slavic from more central areas were produced by the Second Palatalization of Velars and developments that can be coordinated with it. All this happened before the uncoupling of inherited long and short vowels. With one or two exceptions all inner-Slavic dialect differences involving vowels or the prosodic system are significantly later. The reconstruction aims to reduce the number of distinct steps that have to be assumed to account for the data. It relies strongly on the technique by which dialect differences are attributed not to locally different chains of events, but to shared innovations hitting dif-ferent areas in different order. This trailer is a drastically pared-down version of my contribution to Dutch Contributions to the Fifteenth International Congress of Slavists ... Linguistics (= Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics 40, to appear in 2014). Anybody interested in the full text please don't hesitate to contact me.