Proto-Balto-Slavic language
Encyclopedia
Proto-Balto-Slavic is reconstructed
proto-language
descending from Proto-Indo-European
(PIE) and out of which all later Balto-Slavic languages
(represented by Baltic
and Slavic
branches) and dialects descended, such as modern Latvian
, Lithuanian
, Polish
and Russian
.
The Proto-Balto-Slavic language is not directly attested by any surviving texts but has been reconstructed
using the comparative method
. There are number of isogloss
es that Baltic and Slavic languages share in phonology
, morphology
and accentology, which represent common innovation from Proto-Indo-European times, and which can be chronologically arranged.
has exhibited several significant changes in Balto-Slavic period:
Winter's law was still operable when there was phonemic distinction between the series of plain and aspirated voiced stops. As a result of Winter's law, the distinction between those two series has been indirectly preserved in Proto-Balto-Slavic, because Balto-Slavic vowel would lengthen before a plain voiced stop, but not before an aspirated stop, this occurring probably only if the stop was in syllable coda
(i.e. in closed syllable).
On the basis of relative chronology of sound changes it has been ascertained that Winter's law acted rather late, after some other less prominent Balto-Slavic changes occurred, such as after the disappearance of laryngeals in prevocalic position. Compare:
Therefore, the merger of PIE aspirated and plain velar stop series was one of the last common Balto-Slavic sound changes.
There are a number of words in Balto-Slavic which show Centum
reflex of PIE patalalized dorsals. A number of these can be explained by regular sound laws, although some of these laws have been obscured by numerous analogical developments. Others are argued to be borrowings from Centum languages, e.g. Proto-Balto-Slavic *kárwā 'cow' (Lith. kárvė, OCS krava, Russ. koróva) was likely borrowed from Proto-Celtic *karawā, which in turn is a regular reflex of PIE .
PIE palatovelars could also depalatalize in Balto-Slavic. Several depalatalization rules for Balto-Slavic have been proposed. According to Matasović, the depalatalization of palatovelars occurred before sonorant followed by a back vowel: K' > K/_RVback. That would explain Centum reflexes such as:
PIE palatovelars *//, *//, *// turned to Balto-Slavic fricatives: */ś/, */ź/ and */źʰ/, this latter one becoming merged with */ź/ after the loss of contrastive aspiration. They probably had an intermediate stage of affricates */ć/, */đ/, */đʰ/, and it's conceivable that they may have still been affricates at the Balto-Slavic stage. However, by applying usual methods of reconstructions on Baltic and Slavic languages, fricatives */ś/ and */ź/ represent the most likely phonological interpretation of the reflexes of PIE palatovelars.
The Balto-Slavic laryngeal was especially durable in a position before a vowel; PIE } 'thin' (Latin tenuis, Sanskrit tanú) was in Balto-Slavic reflected as *tunHu-, and only then as Proto-Slavic *tunu-ku/*tinu-ku (OCS tьnъkъ, Russ. tónkij, Pol. cienki), which shows that the loss of laryngeals in Balto-Slavic occurred after the development of vocalic prothesis in Balto-Slavic syllabic sonorants.
In a syllabic position (between consonants), laryngeal disappeared if it was in the second syllable, but in the first syllable it was preserved as */a/. Compare:
Loss of laryngeals in syllabic position occurred probably in early Balto-Slavic period. Compare:
The same phenomenon happened in Germanic and Celtic, which indicates that it might have been a dialectal isogloss
in Late Proto-Indo-European.
, and in Proto-Slavic it was probably lost word-finally. No attested Slavic language has word-final *-s preserved.
Before voiced stops */s/ manifested as */z/ in Balto-Slavic. That */z/ came to be phonologically distinctive in Slavic after the transition of Balto-Slavic */ź/ (a reflex of PIE *// and *//) > Proto-Slavic */z/.
As a result of RUKI law, Proto-Slavic has */š/ before front vowels (*/e/, */i/), */x/ before back vowels and */s/ before consonants. That distribution is most probably a result of series of changes:
RUKI rule also operated if there was a laryngeal after */u/ or */i/, i.e. */s/ changes to */š/ after *uH and *iH, but it remains open to debate whether the laryngeal was already lost in that environment, i.e. are we dealing with the change of */s/ to */š/ after Balto-Slavic */ū/ and */ī/.
In Baltic languages the evidence of RUKI rule is recognizable only in Lithuanian, because in Latvian and Old Prussian a merger occurs of Balto-Slavic */š/ (< PIE */s/ by RUKI rule), */ś/ (< PIE */ḱ/) and */s/ (< PIE */s/). In Lithuanian, Balto-Slavic */š/ and */ś/ are merged to /š/, which remains distinct from /s/ so the effect of RUKI rule is still evident in Lithuanian.
Most handbooks, on the basis of Lithuanian material, state that in Baltic RUKI law has been applied only partially. The most common claim is that Balto-Slavic */s/ turned to */š/ in Baltic unconditionally only after */r/, while after */u/, */k/ and */i/ we have both */s/ and */š/. Compare:
Similarly, Lith. maĩšas/Latv. maiss "sack" completely matches etymologically with OCS měxъ and Sanskrit meṣá, but in the word teisùs "correct" */s/ has been preserved while in Slavic there is */x/ < */š/ in accordance with RUKI rule (OCS tixъ, Russ. tíxij 'quiet, peaceful').
There is no simple solution to such double reflexes of PIE */s/ after */r/, */u/, */k/, */i/ in Baltic, and thus no simple answer to the question of whether RUKI law is a common Balto-Slavic isogloss or not. The most probable seems the assumption that PIE */s/ was changed to */š/ after */r/, */u/, */k/, */i/ completely regularly in Baltic, just like in Slavic, but the traces of the effect of RUKI law were erased by subsequent changes, such as the change of word-final *-š to *-s.
Generally it can be ascertained that Baltic shows the effect of RUKI law only in old words inherited from Balto-Slavic period, meaning that Lithuanian /š/ will come after /r/, /u/, /k/, /i/ in words that have complete formational and morphological correspondence in Slavic (ruling out the possibility of accidental, parallel formations).
Unlike Indo-Iranian, where the change */s/ > */š/ also occurred after the palatovelar *//, it is possible that palatovelars yielded fricatives in Balto-Slavic even before the effect of RUKI law. Compare:
By satemization of PIE dorsals and the merger of PIE laryngeals, Balto-Slavic has significantly modified the system of PIE fricatives. After the merger of PIE voiced and aspirated stop series, Balto-Slavic system of fricatives had the following shape:
Phonological relevance of the consonants */š/ and */z/ is disputed; it cannot be known whether they were phonologically predictable allophonic variants of */s/ and */z/ in all environments.
Phonological interpretation of the laryngeal */H/ is also disputed; on the basis of typological considerations it can be ascertained that the Balto-Slavic laryngeal was probably a voiceless glottal fricative
[h] or a glottal stop
[ʔ].
PIE */w/ was retained in Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic as a bilabial semivowel (glide), but in Lithuanian and most Slavic languages it has eventually changed to labiodental fricative
/v/.
PIE */m/ changes to */n/ word-finally in Balto-Slavic period; in Old Prussian there is a clear attestation of that change e.g. in nominoaccusative of neuters (cf. OPr. assaran 'lake' < PIE ). In Slavic however that change of *-m > *-n is indirect because in Common Slavic period all word-final vowels were dropped. It becomes more clear in sentence sandhi
conditions due to which earlier *kom emōj yielded Proto-Slavic *kan jemъ (OCS kъ n'emu), and not **ka memō.
PIE */u/ has lengthened into Balto-Slavic */ū/ when followed by */n/ which was followed by a stop. In Slavic *-n- later drops regularly. Compare:
PIE */i/ did not exhibit lengthening in such conditions, as older literature often states.
In a syllabic position, PIE sonorants */l/, */r/, */m/, */n/ have twofold reflexes in Balto-Slavic, differing in a prothetic vowel: *iR and *uR (where symbol R denotes any of aforementioned sonorants). Analysis of their distribution has shown that the reflexes of type *iR are much more common. It has remained an unsolved mystery to this day which exact phonological conditions trigger which reflex.
Several theories have been proposed, most notable being one by André Vaillant. According to him, *uR reflexes arose after PIE labiovelars. If this was true, it would be the only trace of PIE labiovelars in Balto-Slavic.
Similarly, Jerzy Kuryłowicz thought that *uR reflexes arose after PIE velars, and also notable is also older opinion of Jānis Endzelīns and Reinhold Trautmann according to whom *uR reflexes are the result of zero-grade of morphemes that had PIE */o/ (> PBSl. */a/) in normal-grade. Matasović (2008) proposes following rules:
Proto-Slavic preserved Balto-Slavic system of short vowels unchanged, but merged PBSl. */ō/ and */ā/ yielding PSl. */ā/, while the difference between these long vowels was preserved in Baltic.
PIE */e/ changes to PBSl. */a/ before */w/ in heterosyllabic position, i.e. */e/ > */a/ / _wV. Compare:
It appears that in some cases in Balto-Slavic period initial *(H)e- and *(H)a- were mixed. That change, called Rozwadowski's rule by some, is based on the cases where Balto-Slavic has initial *e- in etymons which in PIE had initial *(H)a-, *(H)o-, }, }. Slavic has preserved some relics of initial *e-, *a- alternations. Compare:
Similar to vowels, PIE diphthongs were preserved in Balto-Slavic, with the exception of *ow (and also and ), which yielded PBSl. *aw. Later in Proto-Slavic PBSl. *aw (< PIE *ow, *aw, , , *How) > PSl. */ō/, which was reflected as /u/ in all Slavic languages.
Balto-Slavist Georg Holzer
has reconstructed a relative chronology of 50 Balto-Slavic sound changes (just phonology, no accentuation), from Proto-Balto-Slavic down to the modern daughter languages. However, only the first 12 are Common Balto-Slavic, and thus relevant for this article:
was completely reworked in Balto-Slavic, with far-reaching consequences for accentual systems of the modern daughter languages. For the reconstruction of Balto-Slavic accent the most important are the Balto-Slavic languages that have retained tonal oppositions, these being Lithuanian, Latvian, (probably) Old Prussian and West South Slavic languages of Slovene and Serbo-Croatian. However, one should keep in mind that the prosodical systems of dialects in the aforementioned languages are sometimes very different from those of standard language
s. For example, some Croatian dialects like Čakavian and Posavian dialects of Slavonia
n Štokavian are especially important for Balto-Slavic accentology as they retain more archaic and complex tonal accentual system than the Neoštokavian dialect on which modern standard
varieties of Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian
, Croatian
and Serbian
) are based. On the other hand, many dialects have completely lost tonal oppositions (e.g. some Kajkavian varieties, the Zagreb spoken nonstandard idiom).
To this day, there is no consensus among Balto-Slavists on the precise details of the development of Balto-Slavic accentual system. All modern research is based on the seminal study of Stang (1957), which basically instituted the field of comparative Balto-Slavic accentology. However, a number of laws and correspondences have been discovered that are nowadays held to be true by the majority of researchers, event though the exact details sometimes remain in dispute.
In Croatian dialects, especially Čakavian and Posavian, the "new acute" (neoacute, the "new rising") is usually markied with tilde, as ã. Short neoacute ("short new rising") is marked as à. Neoacutes represent post–Proto-Slavic development.
In short syllables PIE tone became short accent in Balto-Slavic, and was preserved as such in both Baltic and Slavic branch, although its lengthening could be triggered by certain conditions. For example, in Lithuanian vowels /a/ and /e/ were lengthened when they initially bore short accent in open syllable, and rising tone emerged that is marked with tilde sign ã. Compare:
In long syllables, however, opposition between tones emerged, which are called acute and circumflex, i.e. acute (á) and circumflex (ã) accent. In this context, Balto-Slavic long syllables encompasses the following cases:
Balto-Slavic acute emerges in the following cases:
Balto-Slavic circumflex emerges in all the other syllables, and these are:
As one can see, rules governing the development of Balto-Slavic acute and circumflex accents seem to be very complicated, when formulated within the framework of "classical" Proto-Indo-European laryngeal theory
. Dutch Indo-Europeanist Frederik Kortlandt
has proposed an alternative, more elegant and economic rule for the derivation of Balto-Slavic acute: acute is a reflex of a glottal stop
, which has two sources - merger of PIE laryngeals and the dissolution of PIE pre-glottalized stop ("voiced stops" in traditional reconstruction) to glottal stop and voiced stop, according to the Winter's law. Kortlandt's formulation appears very elegant initially, and seems to be confirmed independently by a glottal stop in Latvian as a reflex of Balto-Slavic acute in words in which accent was retracted, and is in accordance with the typological universal
according to which in most languages high tone is developed in syllables closed with a glottal stop. Rising tone can then be explained as a result of the development of high tone on the second mora of a long syllable.
Though elegant, Kortlandt's theory also has some problems. Glottalic theory
of Proto-Indo-European reconstruction which was proposed in the 1970s is not generally accepted among linguists, and today only a small minority of linguists would consider it a reliable and self-supportive framework onto which base modern Indo-European research. Kortlandt's interpretation of intonational effects in post-PIE period of Balto-Slavic with glottal stops moreover presupposes independent development of PIE "preglottalized stops" to voiced stops in every PIE branch, which is a very unlikely scenario. Also, there is a number of Balto-Slavic lexemes which point to acute accent but that are provably not of PIE laryngeal origin, and some of which were are result of apophonical lengthenings occurring only in Balto-Slavic period.
Matasović (2008) lists the following scenario as the most probable origin of Balto-Slavic acute:
. Shortening operated according to Leskien's law after the Lithuanian metatony. In Žemaitian dialects the usual reflex of Balto-Slavic acute is the so-called "broken tone", with a glottal stop on a syllable carrying it (like in Latvian). In monosyllablic words the acute became circumflexed. Metatonical retraction of the accent from the final syllable to the penultimate syllable also created a circumflex automatically. In diphthongs, which had a sonorant as a second part, the acute has been preserved, but since the diacritical mark is put on the first part of such diphthong, the grave accent
is used instead (e.g. Lith. pìlnas 'full' < PIE ).
In Old Prussian the acute was reflected probably as a rising tone. The marks on long vowels and diphthongs in Abel Will's translation of Martin Luther's Enchiridion point to that conclusion, which is the only accented Old Prussian text preserved. Diphthongs that correspond to a reconstructable Balto-Slavic acute are generally long in the second part of that text.
In Latvian the acute is reflected in the first syllable as rising or lengthened intonation (stieptā), marked with a tilde. When the accent was retracted from word-final, or any other syllable, to a syllable that carried a Balto-Slavic acute, then the first syllable of a word in Latvian has a so-called "broken" (lauztā) tone.
In all Slavic languages the acute has been shortened. In Slovenian the shortened acute has again been lengthened in the first syllable of polysyllabic words.
Balto-Slavic circumflex yielded rising intonation in Lithuanian after the Lithuanian metatony, which is marked with a tilde. In Old Prussian, the Balto-Slavic circumflex corresponds to diphthongs with length on the first part (in Will's translation of Enchiridion). In Latvian, Balto-Slavic circumflex is reflected as falling intonation (krītošā).
In standard varieties of Serbo-Croatian (i.e. in Neoštokavian dialect), Balto-Slavic circumflex is reflected as long falling accent on the first syllable. In Slovene, the accent has shifted to the end of the word in syllables with short accent (originating from acute) and circumflex.
In Czech acuted syllables have been reflected as long, while the circumflexed syllables were shortened. Russian has lost almost all the traces of Proto-Slavic accentuation, except in the pleophonical reflexes of Proto-Slavic syllables closed by liquids (*/l/, */r/): stress is on the second part of disyllabic reflex if the Proto-Slavic vowel was acuted, on the first part if it was circumflexed.
Here is a table of basic accentual correspondences of the first syllable of a word:
Proto-Balto-Slavic had, just like Proto-Indo-European, a class of nouns with so called "mobile" accentuation in which accent alternated between the word stem and the ending. These classes of nouns are usually reconstructed on the basis of Vedic Sanskrit
and Ancient Greek
, which have retained the position of the original PIE accent almost unchanged. However, by comparing the Balto-Slavic evidence, it was discovered that the PIE rules on accent alternations, devised on the basis of Vedic and Greek, do not match. Moreover, nouns that belong to mobile paradigms in Balto-Slavic belong to declension classes that had strictly fixed accent in PIE paradigms, i.e. ā-stems and o-stems. So for a long time the exact relationships between the accentuation of nouns in Balto-Slavic and PIE was one of the most mysterious questions of Indo-European studies, and some parts of the puzzle are missing to this day.
Research conducted by Christian Stang, Ferdinand de Saussure
, Vladislav Illich-Svitych
and Vladimir Dybo
has led to a conclusion that Balto-Slavic nouns, with regard to accentuation, could be reduced to two paradigms: fixed and mobile. Nouns of the fixed paradigm had accent on the root, and in the nouns of the mobile paradigm the accent alternated between the root and the ending.
As shown by the Illič-Svityč, Balto-Slavic nouns of the fixed paradigm correspond to the PIE nouns with accent on the root (PIE barytones), the only exception being nouns with the accent on the ending (PIE oxytones) which was shifted onto the root in Balto Slavic in accordance with Hirt's law: such nouns also have fixed accent in Balto-Slavic.
The origin of the Balto-Slavic nouns of the mobile paradigm has not been completely determined, but the most probable and prevalent possibility is that proposed by Illič-Svityč, according to whom they originate as an analogical development from fixed-accent PIE oxytones. Nevertheless, it remains unclear why PIE nouns with fixed accent on the ending would become mobile, as analogies usually lead to uniformity and regularity.
The Balto-Slavic accentual system was further reworked during the Proto-Slavic and Common Slavic period (Dybo's law
, Meillet's law
, Ivšić's law
etc.), resulting in 3 Common Slavic accentual paradigms (conveniently marked with letters as A, B, C) to correspond to 4 Lithuanian accentual paradigms (marked with numbers 1, 2, 3, 4) in a simple scheme:
In Russian the Balto-Slavic acute yielded expected reflex with "polnoglasie". In Serbo-Croatian the short falling accent in genitive plural has been substituted with long falling due to the loss of the yer
.
Lithuanian noun rankà 'hand' etymologically corresponds to Russian ruká and Serbo-Croatian rúka, but both of these became mobile in a later Common Slavic development. So the reflexes of the Proto-Slavic noun } 'soup' are listed instead.
In Lithuanian the initial accent was preserved in all cases in which ending did not contain syllable with Balto-Slavic acute. In these cases (NVI sg, A pl) accent shifted onto the acuted ending, in accordance with the rule discovered by F. de Saussure. Later that acuted syllable was shortened due to the Leskien's law.
In Slavic the accent shifted from the root onto the ending in accordance with the Dybo's law
, regardless of the syllable nature (i.e. whether it contained Balto-Slavic acute or not), so the nouns of the a.p. b are consistently accented on the ending (oxytonic, except in the I pl). In Neoštokavian dialects, which is used as a basis for standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, accent was retracted from the ending onto the root syllable and became rising (so called "Neoštokavian retraction"). Old Štokavian and Čakavian dialects preserved the original ending-stressed paradigm.
Lithuanian distinguishes two accent paradigms of these nouns: if they had acuted root, they belong to the third accent paradigm, and if the root was not acuted, by the operation of de Saussure's law the accent shifted onto the all acuted endings in the paradigm, so these nouns belong to the fourth accent paradigm.
In Proto-Slavic the acute has been eliminated in the nouns with mobile accentuation by the operation of Meillet's law
, so therefore all the nouns with mobile accentuation belong to one accent paradigm, the so called accent paradigm c.
Lithuanian has preserved the best Balto-Slavic mobile paradigm. In Neoštokavian the final accent has been retracted and gained rising intonation, and the Proto-Slavic initial accent is preserved as a circumflex.
has been significantly reworked in Balto-Slavic. Prominence of lengthened-grade has been significantly increased, as opposed to PIE in which it was used only for rare vrddhi
-formations, nominative singulars of some consonant-stem nouns and sigmatic aorist.
Proto-Slavic abundantly used lengthened-grade in morphology. For example:
Similarly, in Lithuanian:
On the basis of already-present apophonic oppositions beween Balto-Slavic the long */ā/, */ē/, */ō/ and the short */a/ and */e/, new oppositions in arose between the long */ī/, */ū/ and the short */i/, */u/. This latter type of apophony was not productive in PIE. Compare:
This new type of apophonic length was especially used in Proto-Slavic in the formation of durative, iterative and imperfective verbs. Compare:
Linguistic reconstruction
Linguistic reconstruction is the practice of establishing the features of the unattested ancestor of one or more given languages. There are two kinds of reconstruction. Internal reconstruction uses irregularities in a single language to make inferences about an earlier stage of that language...
proto-language
Proto-language
A proto-language in the tree model of historical linguistics is the common ancestor of the languages that form a language family. Occasionally, the German term Ursprache is used instead.Often the proto-language is not known directly...
descending from Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
(PIE) and out of which all later Balto-Slavic languages
Balto-Slavic languages
The Balto-Slavic language group traditionally comprises Baltic and Slavic languages, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which points to the period of common development...
(represented by Baltic
Baltic languages
The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe...
and Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
branches) and dialects descended, such as modern Latvian
Latvian language
Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
, Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
, Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
and Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
.
The Proto-Balto-Slavic language is not directly attested by any surviving texts but has been reconstructed
Linguistic reconstruction
Linguistic reconstruction is the practice of establishing the features of the unattested ancestor of one or more given languages. There are two kinds of reconstruction. Internal reconstruction uses irregularities in a single language to make inferences about an earlier stage of that language...
using the comparative method
Comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor, as opposed to the method of internal reconstruction, which analyzes the internal...
. There are number of isogloss
Isogloss
An isogloss—also called a heterogloss —is the geographical boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or use of some syntactic feature...
es that Baltic and Slavic languages share in phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
and accentology, which represent common innovation from Proto-Indo-European times, and which can be chronologically arranged.
Phonology
Proto-Indo-European phonological systemProto-Indo-European phonology
The phonology of the Proto-Indo-European language has been reconstructed by linguists, based on the similarities and differences among current and extinct Indo-European languages...
has exhibited several significant changes in Balto-Slavic period:
- the three series of PIE stopsStop consonantIn phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
were reduced to two series (voiced and unvoiced) - PIE syllabic sonorants were substituted with sequences of a short vowel (*i or *u) and a non-syllabic sonorant
- the three PIE laryngeals merged into one (*H), which may have disappeared even during the Balto-Slavic period
- the complex system of PIE dorsals was simplified due to the delabialization of labiovelars and the change of PIE palatovelars into fricatives
Stops
PIE voiced and unvoiced stops were preserved in Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic, and aspirated series was deaspirated.Winter's law was still operable when there was phonemic distinction between the series of plain and aspirated voiced stops. As a result of Winter's law, the distinction between those two series has been indirectly preserved in Proto-Balto-Slavic, because Balto-Slavic vowel would lengthen before a plain voiced stop, but not before an aspirated stop, this occurring probably only if the stop was in syllable coda
Syllable coda
In phonology, a syllable coda comprises the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a vowel. The combination of a nucleus and a coda is called a rime. Some syllables consist only of a nucleus with no coda...
(i.e. in closed syllable).
On the basis of relative chronology of sound changes it has been ascertained that Winter's law acted rather late, after some other less prominent Balto-Slavic changes occurred, such as after the disappearance of laryngeals in prevocalic position. Compare:
- PIE } > PBSl. *eźHam (by Winter's law) *ēźHam > PSl. *jāzun (OCSOld Church SlavonicOld Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
azъ, Slovene jaz)
Therefore, the merger of PIE aspirated and plain velar stop series was one of the last common Balto-Slavic sound changes.
Dorsals
Three series of PIE dorsals (velars, palatovelars and labiovelars) merged to two series in Balto-Slavic: velars and palatovelars. PIE labiovelars lost their labialization in Balto-Slavic, just like they did in the Indo-Iranian, Armenian and Greek branches. Unlike some other Indo-European languages, Balto-Slavic labiovelars were delabialized unconditionally and at once, leaving no noticeable direct or indirect traces.There are a number of words in Balto-Slavic which show Centum
Centum-Satem isogloss
The centum-satem division is an isogloss of the Indo-European language family, related to the different evolution of the three dorsal consonant rows of the mainstream reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European:...
reflex of PIE patalalized dorsals. A number of these can be explained by regular sound laws, although some of these laws have been obscured by numerous analogical developments. Others are argued to be borrowings from Centum languages, e.g. Proto-Balto-Slavic *kárwā 'cow' (Lith. kárvė, OCS krava, Russ. koróva) was likely borrowed from Proto-Celtic *karawā, which in turn is a regular reflex of PIE .
PIE palatovelars could also depalatalize in Balto-Slavic. Several depalatalization rules for Balto-Slavic have been proposed. According to Matasović, the depalatalization of palatovelars occurred before sonorant followed by a back vowel: K' > K/_RVback. That would explain Centum reflexes such as:
- Lithuanian akmuõ, Latvian akmens and OCS kamy would have regular /k/ as opposed to Sanskrit áśmā < PIE 'stone'
- OCS svekry < PIE 'mother-in-law'
- Old Prussian balgnan < PIE 'saddle'
PIE palatovelars *//, *//, *// turned to Balto-Slavic fricatives: */ś/, */ź/ and */źʰ/, this latter one becoming merged with */ź/ after the loss of contrastive aspiration. They probably had an intermediate stage of affricates */ć/, */đ/, */đʰ/, and it's conceivable that they may have still been affricates at the Balto-Slavic stage. However, by applying usual methods of reconstructions on Baltic and Slavic languages, fricatives */ś/ and */ź/ represent the most likely phonological interpretation of the reflexes of PIE palatovelars.
Laryngeals
Reflexes of PIE laryngeals , which represented 3 different phonemes in PIE, became merged in Balto-Slavic to a single */H/. Laryngeals disappeared in the Balto-Slavic period over a very long period. No Balto-Slavic language has preserved them, but relative chronology of sound changes shows that they were not lost at once in all positions in a word.The Balto-Slavic laryngeal was especially durable in a position before a vowel; PIE } 'thin' (Latin tenuis, Sanskrit tanú) was in Balto-Slavic reflected as *tunHu-, and only then as Proto-Slavic *tunu-ku/*tinu-ku (OCS tьnъkъ, Russ. tónkij, Pol. cienki), which shows that the loss of laryngeals in Balto-Slavic occurred after the development of vocalic prothesis in Balto-Slavic syllabic sonorants.
In a syllabic position (between consonants), laryngeal disappeared if it was in the second syllable, but in the first syllable it was preserved as */a/. Compare:
- PIE 'heron, stork' > (Ancient Greek erōdiós, Latin ardea) Proto-Slavic *radā > Common Slavic *roda (Serbo-Croatian róda)
- PIE (oblique case stem of 'salt') > OPr. sal, Proto-Slavic *sali (OCS solь, Pol. sól, Russ. sol´)
Loss of laryngeals in syllabic position occurred probably in early Balto-Slavic period. Compare:
- PIE > PBSl. *duktēr > Lith. duktė, OPr. duckti, Proto-Slavic *duktī or *duktej (OCS dъšti, Russ. doč’)
The same phenomenon happened in Germanic and Celtic, which indicates that it might have been a dialectal isogloss
Isogloss
An isogloss—also called a heterogloss —is the geographical boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or use of some syntactic feature...
in Late Proto-Indo-European.
Fricatives
PIE */s/ has been preserved in Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic in most of the positions; it changed to Balto-Slavic */š/ according to the RUKI lawRuki sound law
Ruki refers to a sound change in Balto-Slavic, Albanian, Armenian, and Indo-Iranian, wherein an original phoneme changed into after the consonants , , and the semi-vowels , , or:...
, and in Proto-Slavic it was probably lost word-finally. No attested Slavic language has word-final *-s preserved.
Before voiced stops */s/ manifested as */z/ in Balto-Slavic. That */z/ came to be phonologically distinctive in Slavic after the transition of Balto-Slavic */ź/ (a reflex of PIE *// and *//) > Proto-Slavic */z/.
As a result of RUKI law, Proto-Slavic has */š/ before front vowels (*/e/, */i/), */x/ before back vowels and */s/ before consonants. That distribution is most probably a result of series of changes:
- PIE */s/ > */š/ after */r/, */u/, */k/, */i/
- */š/ > */s/ before consonants, */š/ > */x/ before vowels
- */x/ > */š/ before front vowels (Slavic first palatalization of velars)
RUKI rule also operated if there was a laryngeal after */u/ or */i/, i.e. */s/ changes to */š/ after *uH and *iH, but it remains open to debate whether the laryngeal was already lost in that environment, i.e. are we dealing with the change of */s/ to */š/ after Balto-Slavic */ū/ and */ī/.
In Baltic languages the evidence of RUKI rule is recognizable only in Lithuanian, because in Latvian and Old Prussian a merger occurs of Balto-Slavic */š/ (< PIE */s/ by RUKI rule), */ś/ (< PIE */ḱ/) and */s/ (< PIE */s/). In Lithuanian, Balto-Slavic */š/ and */ś/ are merged to /š/, which remains distinct from /s/ so the effect of RUKI rule is still evident in Lithuanian.
Most handbooks, on the basis of Lithuanian material, state that in Baltic RUKI law has been applied only partially. The most common claim is that Balto-Slavic */s/ turned to */š/ in Baltic unconditionally only after */r/, while after */u/, */k/ and */i/ we have both */s/ and */š/. Compare:
- Lith. aušrà; Latv. ausma < PIE } (cf. Latin aurōra, Sanskrit uṣás) with RUKI applied vs.
- Lith. ausìs; Latv. auss < PIE } (cf. Latin auris, OCS uxo) with */s/ unchanged.
Similarly, Lith. maĩšas/Latv. maiss "sack" completely matches etymologically with OCS měxъ and Sanskrit meṣá, but in the word teisùs "correct" */s/ has been preserved while in Slavic there is */x/ < */š/ in accordance with RUKI rule (OCS tixъ, Russ. tíxij 'quiet, peaceful').
There is no simple solution to such double reflexes of PIE */s/ after */r/, */u/, */k/, */i/ in Baltic, and thus no simple answer to the question of whether RUKI law is a common Balto-Slavic isogloss or not. The most probable seems the assumption that PIE */s/ was changed to */š/ after */r/, */u/, */k/, */i/ completely regularly in Baltic, just like in Slavic, but the traces of the effect of RUKI law were erased by subsequent changes, such as the change of word-final *-š to *-s.
Generally it can be ascertained that Baltic shows the effect of RUKI law only in old words inherited from Balto-Slavic period, meaning that Lithuanian /š/ will come after /r/, /u/, /k/, /i/ in words that have complete formational and morphological correspondence in Slavic (ruling out the possibility of accidental, parallel formations).
Unlike Indo-Iranian, where the change */s/ > */š/ also occurred after the palatovelar *//, it is possible that palatovelars yielded fricatives in Balto-Slavic even before the effect of RUKI law. Compare:
- PSl. *desnu 'right' (OCS desnъ, Russ. désnyj, SCr. dèsnī, Lith. dešinys) < PIE (Lat. dexter, Skt. dákṣiṇas)
- PSl. *asi 'axle, axis' (OCS osь, Russ. os’, SCr. ȏs, Lith. ašis) < PIE (Lat. axis, Skt. ákṣas)
By satemization of PIE dorsals and the merger of PIE laryngeals, Balto-Slavic has significantly modified the system of PIE fricatives. After the merger of PIE voiced and aspirated stop series, Balto-Slavic system of fricatives had the following shape:
Phonological relevance of the consonants */š/ and */z/ is disputed; it cannot be known whether they were phonologically predictable allophonic variants of */s/ and */z/ in all environments.
Phonological interpretation of the laryngeal */H/ is also disputed; on the basis of typological considerations it can be ascertained that the Balto-Slavic laryngeal was probably a voiceless glottal fricative
Voiceless glottal fricative
The voiceless glottal transition, commonly called a "fricative", is a type of sound used in some spoken languages which patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant phonologically, but often lacks the usual phonetic characteristics of a consonant...
[h] or a glottal stop
Glottal stop
The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
[ʔ].
Sonorants
Proto-Indo-European sonorants */w/, */j/, */l/, */r/, */m/, */n/ were preserved in Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic, as they were in most other Indo-European branches. From context-conditioned sound laws, notable is the disappearance of word-initial PIE */w/ before */r/ and */l/ (so-called Lidén's law).PIE */w/ was retained in Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic as a bilabial semivowel (glide), but in Lithuanian and most Slavic languages it has eventually changed to labiodental fricative
Voiced labiodental fricative
The voiced labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is v....
/v/.
PIE */m/ changes to */n/ word-finally in Balto-Slavic period; in Old Prussian there is a clear attestation of that change e.g. in nominoaccusative of neuters (cf. OPr. assaran 'lake' < PIE ). In Slavic however that change of *-m > *-n is indirect because in Common Slavic period all word-final vowels were dropped. It becomes more clear in sentence sandhi
Sandhi
Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...
conditions due to which earlier *kom emōj yielded Proto-Slavic *kan jemъ (OCS kъ n'emu), and not **ka memō.
Syllabic sonorants
PIE */i/ and */u/, syllabic allophones of PIE glides */y/ and */w/, have been preserved as vowels in Balto-Slavic. Before laryngeals they yielded long vowels *iH > */ī/, *uH > */ū/.PIE */u/ has lengthened into Balto-Slavic */ū/ when followed by */n/ which was followed by a stop. In Slavic *-n- later drops regularly. Compare:
- PIE *Hunk 'to get used to' > PBSl. *ūnk > Lith. jùnkti, Latv. jûkt, OCS vyknǫti, Upp. Sorb. wuknyć
PIE */i/ did not exhibit lengthening in such conditions, as older literature often states.
In a syllabic position, PIE sonorants */l/, */r/, */m/, */n/ have twofold reflexes in Balto-Slavic, differing in a prothetic vowel: *iR and *uR (where symbol R denotes any of aforementioned sonorants). Analysis of their distribution has shown that the reflexes of type *iR are much more common. It has remained an unsolved mystery to this day which exact phonological conditions trigger which reflex.
Several theories have been proposed, most notable being one by André Vaillant. According to him, *uR reflexes arose after PIE labiovelars. If this was true, it would be the only trace of PIE labiovelars in Balto-Slavic.
Similarly, Jerzy Kuryłowicz thought that *uR reflexes arose after PIE velars, and also notable is also older opinion of Jānis Endzelīns and Reinhold Trautmann according to whom *uR reflexes are the result of zero-grade of morphemes that had PIE */o/ (> PBSl. */a/) in normal-grade. Matasović (2008) proposes following rules:
- PIE syllabic R > PBSl. *əR
- *ə > */i/ in a final syllable
- *ə > */u/ after velars and before nasals
- *ə > */i/ otherwise
Vowels
Balto-Slavic preserved Late PIE vowel system, after the effect of "laryngeal colouring". The only exception is the change of PIE */o/ > PBSl. */a/, which is an isogloss shared with the Germanic and Anatolian branches.Proto-Slavic preserved Balto-Slavic system of short vowels unchanged, but merged PBSl. */ō/ and */ā/ yielding PSl. */ā/, while the difference between these long vowels was preserved in Baltic.
PIE */e/ changes to PBSl. */a/ before */w/ in heterosyllabic position, i.e. */e/ > */a/ / _wV. Compare:
- PIE 'new' > PBSl. *nawas > OCS novъ, Lith. naũjas
It appears that in some cases in Balto-Slavic period initial *(H)e- and *(H)a- were mixed. That change, called Rozwadowski's rule by some, is based on the cases where Balto-Slavic has initial *e- in etymons which in PIE had initial *(H)a-, *(H)o-, }, }. Slavic has preserved some relics of initial *e-, *a- alternations. Compare:
- PSl. *elawa, *alawa (Common Slavic *olovo) 'lead' > Middle Bulg. élav, Pol. ołów, Russ. ólovo as opposed to OPr. elwas 'tin'
Similar to vowels, PIE diphthongs were preserved in Balto-Slavic, with the exception of *ow (and also and ), which yielded PBSl. *aw. Later in Proto-Slavic PBSl. *aw (< PIE *ow, *aw, , , *How) > PSl. */ō/, which was reflected as /u/ in all Slavic languages.
Relative chronology of sound changes
AustrianAustrians
Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....
Balto-Slavist Georg Holzer
Georg Holzer
Georg Holzer is Austrian Slavist and Indo-Europeanist.After graduating in Slavic Studies and Indo-European Studies at the University of Vienna, he earned his doctorate in 1982. Immediately thereafter he started a three-year appointment as a lecturer for German language at the Faculty of Humanities...
has reconstructed a relative chronology of 50 Balto-Slavic sound changes (just phonology, no accentuation), from Proto-Balto-Slavic down to the modern daughter languages. However, only the first 12 are Common Balto-Slavic, and thus relevant for this article:
- change of PIE */o/ > PBSl. */a/
- RUKI law
- PIE *CHC > PBSl. *CC
- Winter's law
- PIE. *// > PBSl. */C/
- PIE *// > PBSl. */C/
- Satemization
- PIE *ewC > PBSl. *jawC (e.g. PIE - > OCS ljudьje, Lith. liáudis)
- PIE *ewV > *awV
- PIE syllabic. } > PBSl. *iR (*uR)
- PIE *#wr-, #wl- > *#r-, #l- (Lindemann's law, e.g. *wronkeh₂ > OCS rǫka)
- PIE *sr > PBSl. *str (Slavic, Latvian, but not in Lithuanian)
Balto-Slavic accentual system
The Proto-Indo-European accentProto-Indo-European accent
Proto-Indo-European accent refers to the accentual system of Proto-Indo-European language.-Description:Proto-Indo-European is reconstructed to have a pitch accent system that is usually described as a free tonal accent...
was completely reworked in Balto-Slavic, with far-reaching consequences for accentual systems of the modern daughter languages. For the reconstruction of Balto-Slavic accent the most important are the Balto-Slavic languages that have retained tonal oppositions, these being Lithuanian, Latvian, (probably) Old Prussian and West South Slavic languages of Slovene and Serbo-Croatian. However, one should keep in mind that the prosodical systems of dialects in the aforementioned languages are sometimes very different from those of standard language
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
s. For example, some Croatian dialects like Čakavian and Posavian dialects of Slavonia
Slavonia
Slavonia is a geographical and historical region in eastern Croatia...
n Štokavian are especially important for Balto-Slavic accentology as they retain more archaic and complex tonal accentual system than the Neoštokavian dialect on which modern standard
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
varieties of Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian
Bosnian language
Bosnian is a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina....
, Croatian
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
and Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
) are based. On the other hand, many dialects have completely lost tonal oppositions (e.g. some Kajkavian varieties, the Zagreb spoken nonstandard idiom).
To this day, there is no consensus among Balto-Slavists on the precise details of the development of Balto-Slavic accentual system. All modern research is based on the seminal study of Stang (1957), which basically instituted the field of comparative Balto-Slavic accentology. However, a number of laws and correspondences have been discovered that are nowadays held to be true by the majority of researchers, event though the exact details sometimes remain in dispute.
Notation
What follows is a short overview of the commonly used diacritical marks for Balto-Slavic accents, all used on the example letter a. In each case, there is a crude characterization of the pronunciation in terms of High, Mid, and Low-tone sequences.- Lithuanian: "acute"/HL á, "circumflex"/H(L)H ã, "short"/H à
- Latvian: "falling"/HL à, "rising"/LH (or "lengthened") ã, "broken"/L'H â
- Slovenian: "falling"/HL â, "rising"/LH á, "short"/H ȁ (sometimes also à)
- Serbo-Croatian: "short falling"/HL ȁ, "long falling"/HML ȃ, "short rising"/LH à, "long rising"/LMH á, "posttonic length" ā
- Common Slavic: "short falling"/HL (short circumflex) ȁ, "long falling"/HML (long circumflex) ȃ, "acute"/LH (old acute, old rising")
In Croatian dialects, especially Čakavian and Posavian, the "new acute" (neoacute, the "new rising") is usually markied with tilde, as ã. Short neoacute ("short new rising") is marked as à. Neoacutes represent post–Proto-Slavic development.
Balto-Slavic acute and circumflex
The development of the Proto-Indo-European accent in Proto-Balto-Slavic was conditioned by several delicate factors, such as the syllable length, presence of a laryngeal closing the syllable, and the position of PIE ictus.In short syllables PIE tone became short accent in Balto-Slavic, and was preserved as such in both Baltic and Slavic branch, although its lengthening could be triggered by certain conditions. For example, in Lithuanian vowels /a/ and /e/ were lengthened when they initially bore short accent in open syllable, and rising tone emerged that is marked with tilde sign ã. Compare:
- PIE 'circle, wheel' > PBSl. *kákla- > Lith. kãklas 'neck', SCr. kȍlo
- PIE 'ten' > PBSl. déśimt > Lith. dẽšimt, SCr. dȅset
In long syllables, however, opposition between tones emerged, which are called acute and circumflex, i.e. acute (á) and circumflex (ã) accent. In this context, Balto-Slavic long syllables encompasses the following cases:
- syllables with long (lengthened-grade) PIE vowels */ē/ and */ō/, and long vowels which emerged in Balto-Slavic (e.g. by means of Winter's law)
- syllables with short vowels closed by a laryngeal (which merged to one Balto-Slavic laryngeal */H/)
- syllables with PIE diphthongs (i.e. all clusters of short vowels followed by a sonorant, including */y/ and */w/)
Balto-Slavic acute emerges in the following cases:
- in all syllables which were closed by a laryngeal in PIE, probably also when PIE laryngeal closed syllable with lengthened-grade vowel
- in all syllables which were closed by a voiced stop in PIE, and were lengthened in PBSl. according to the Winter's law
- in all cases of Balto-Slavic vrddhi, i.e. apophonical lengths (including new alternations *u/ū and *i/ī) which emerged only in Balto-Slavic period and have no PIE correspondences
- on long PBSl. */ū/ which was lengthened before *nC (this can be considered a case of new Balto-Slavic length, and grouped under the preceding case)
Balto-Slavic circumflex emerges in all the other syllables, and these are:
- PIE ablaut lengths
- PIE diphthongs (which were not followed by a laryngeal), i.e. all sequences of PIE short vowels and the sonorants (*/m/, */n/, */l/, */r/, */y/, */w/)
As one can see, rules governing the development of Balto-Slavic acute and circumflex accents seem to be very complicated, when formulated within the framework of "classical" Proto-Indo-European laryngeal theory
Laryngeal theory
The laryngeal theory is a generally accepted theory of historical linguistics which proposes the existence of one, or a set of three , consonant sounds termed "laryngeals" that appear in most current reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European language...
. Dutch Indo-Europeanist Frederik Kortlandt
Frederik Kortlandt
Frederik Herman Henri Kortlandt is a professor of descriptive and comparative linguistics at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is an expert on Baltic and Slavic languages, the Indo-European languages in general, and Proto-Indo-European, though he has also published studies of languages in...
has proposed an alternative, more elegant and economic rule for the derivation of Balto-Slavic acute: acute is a reflex of a glottal stop
Glottal stop
The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
, which has two sources - merger of PIE laryngeals and the dissolution of PIE pre-glottalized stop ("voiced stops" in traditional reconstruction) to glottal stop and voiced stop, according to the Winter's law. Kortlandt's formulation appears very elegant initially, and seems to be confirmed independently by a glottal stop in Latvian as a reflex of Balto-Slavic acute in words in which accent was retracted, and is in accordance with the typological universal
Linguistic universal
A linguistic universal is a pattern that occurs systematically across natural languages, potentially true for all of them. For example, All languages have nouns and verbs, or If a language is spoken, it has consonants and vowels. Research in this area of linguistics is closely tied to the study of...
according to which in most languages high tone is developed in syllables closed with a glottal stop. Rising tone can then be explained as a result of the development of high tone on the second mora of a long syllable.
Though elegant, Kortlandt's theory also has some problems. Glottalic theory
Glottalic theory
The glottalic theory holds that Proto-Indo-European had ejective stops, , but not the murmured ones, , of traditional Proto-Indo-European phonological reconstructions....
of Proto-Indo-European reconstruction which was proposed in the 1970s is not generally accepted among linguists, and today only a small minority of linguists would consider it a reliable and self-supportive framework onto which base modern Indo-European research. Kortlandt's interpretation of intonational effects in post-PIE period of Balto-Slavic with glottal stops moreover presupposes independent development of PIE "preglottalized stops" to voiced stops in every PIE branch, which is a very unlikely scenario. Also, there is a number of Balto-Slavic lexemes which point to acute accent but that are provably not of PIE laryngeal origin, and some of which were are result of apophonical lengthenings occurring only in Balto-Slavic period.
Matasović (2008) lists the following scenario as the most probable origin of Balto-Slavic acute:
- Rising tone, which we call Balto-Slavic acute, initially arose in the syllables closed by a laryngeal, partly due to the retraction of word-final accent onto such syllables which were phonologically long (Hirt's law). Other long syllables, if they bore the accent, were circumflexed (with falling tone).
- In later period new Balto-Slavic lengths were acuted.
- That younger acute has been largely eliminated in Slavic due to the effect of Meillet's lawMeillet's lawMeillet's law is a Common Slavic accent law, named after the French Indo-Europeanist Antoine Meillet, who discovered it.According to the law, Slavic words have a circumflex on the root vowel with a Balto-Slavic acute if that word had a mobile accent paradigm in Proto-Slavic and Proto-Balto-Slavic...
.
Reflexes in Balto-Slavic languages
In Lithuanian the acute becomes a falling tone (so-called "Lithuanian metatony"), and is marked with an acute accent. Word-finally the acute was regularly shortened: gerà 'good' (indefinite adjective) : geróji 'the good' (definite adjective). That rule is called Leskien's law, after the German neogrammarian August LeskienAugust Leskien
August Leskien was a German linguist active in the field of comparative linguistics, particularly relating to the Baltic and Slavic languages.-Biography:...
. Shortening operated according to Leskien's law after the Lithuanian metatony. In Žemaitian dialects the usual reflex of Balto-Slavic acute is the so-called "broken tone", with a glottal stop on a syllable carrying it (like in Latvian). In monosyllablic words the acute became circumflexed. Metatonical retraction of the accent from the final syllable to the penultimate syllable also created a circumflex automatically. In diphthongs, which had a sonorant as a second part, the acute has been preserved, but since the diacritical mark is put on the first part of such diphthong, the grave accent
Grave accent
The grave accent is a diacritical mark used in written Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Dutch, French, Greek , Italian, Mohawk, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic, Vietnamese, Welsh, Romansh, and other languages.-Greek:The grave accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient...
is used instead (e.g. Lith. pìlnas 'full' < PIE ).
In Old Prussian the acute was reflected probably as a rising tone. The marks on long vowels and diphthongs in Abel Will's translation of Martin Luther's Enchiridion point to that conclusion, which is the only accented Old Prussian text preserved. Diphthongs that correspond to a reconstructable Balto-Slavic acute are generally long in the second part of that text.
In Latvian the acute is reflected in the first syllable as rising or lengthened intonation (stieptā), marked with a tilde. When the accent was retracted from word-final, or any other syllable, to a syllable that carried a Balto-Slavic acute, then the first syllable of a word in Latvian has a so-called "broken" (lauztā) tone.
In all Slavic languages the acute has been shortened. In Slovenian the shortened acute has again been lengthened in the first syllable of polysyllabic words.
Balto-Slavic circumflex yielded rising intonation in Lithuanian after the Lithuanian metatony, which is marked with a tilde. In Old Prussian, the Balto-Slavic circumflex corresponds to diphthongs with length on the first part (in Will's translation of Enchiridion). In Latvian, Balto-Slavic circumflex is reflected as falling intonation (krītošā).
In standard varieties of Serbo-Croatian (i.e. in Neoštokavian dialect), Balto-Slavic circumflex is reflected as long falling accent on the first syllable. In Slovene, the accent has shifted to the end of the word in syllables with short accent (originating from acute) and circumflex.
In Czech acuted syllables have been reflected as long, while the circumflexed syllables were shortened. Russian has lost almost all the traces of Proto-Slavic accentuation, except in the pleophonical reflexes of Proto-Slavic syllables closed by liquids (*/l/, */r/): stress is on the second part of disyllabic reflex if the Proto-Slavic vowel was acuted, on the first part if it was circumflexed.
Here is a table of basic accentual correspondences of the first syllable of a word:
| Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic | Lithuanian | Old Prussian | Latvian | Serbo-Croatian | Slovenian | Czech | Russian | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| acute | ||||||||
| circumflex |
Balto-Slavic fixed and mobile paradigms
Proto-Balto-Slavic had, just like Proto-Indo-European, a class of nouns with so called "mobile" accentuation in which accent alternated between the word stem and the ending. These classes of nouns are usually reconstructed on the basis of Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit is an old Indo-Aryan language. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the oldest preserved Iranian language...
and Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
, which have retained the position of the original PIE accent almost unchanged. However, by comparing the Balto-Slavic evidence, it was discovered that the PIE rules on accent alternations, devised on the basis of Vedic and Greek, do not match. Moreover, nouns that belong to mobile paradigms in Balto-Slavic belong to declension classes that had strictly fixed accent in PIE paradigms, i.e. ā-stems and o-stems. So for a long time the exact relationships between the accentuation of nouns in Balto-Slavic and PIE was one of the most mysterious questions of Indo-European studies, and some parts of the puzzle are missing to this day.
Research conducted by Christian Stang, Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics...
, Vladislav Illich-Svitych
Vladislav Illich-Svitych
Vladislav Markovich Illich-Svitych was a Russian linguist and accentologist, also a founding father of comparative Nostratic linguistics.Of Ukrainian descent, he was born in Kiev but later moved to work in Moscow. He resuscitated the long-forgotten Nostratic hypothesis, originally expounded by...
and Vladimir Dybo
Vladimir Dybo
Vladimir Antonovich Dybo is a Russian linguist whose areas of research include the Slavic languages, Indo-European, Nostratic, and Nilo-Saharan....
has led to a conclusion that Balto-Slavic nouns, with regard to accentuation, could be reduced to two paradigms: fixed and mobile. Nouns of the fixed paradigm had accent on the root, and in the nouns of the mobile paradigm the accent alternated between the root and the ending.
As shown by the Illič-Svityč, Balto-Slavic nouns of the fixed paradigm correspond to the PIE nouns with accent on the root (PIE barytones), the only exception being nouns with the accent on the ending (PIE oxytones) which was shifted onto the root in Balto Slavic in accordance with Hirt's law: such nouns also have fixed accent in Balto-Slavic.
The origin of the Balto-Slavic nouns of the mobile paradigm has not been completely determined, but the most probable and prevalent possibility is that proposed by Illič-Svityč, according to whom they originate as an analogical development from fixed-accent PIE oxytones. Nevertheless, it remains unclear why PIE nouns with fixed accent on the ending would become mobile, as analogies usually lead to uniformity and regularity.
The Balto-Slavic accentual system was further reworked during the Proto-Slavic and Common Slavic period (Dybo's law
Dybo's law
Dybo's law, or Dybo-Illič-Svityč's law, is a Common Slavic accent law named after Russian accentologists Vladimir Dybo and Vladislav Illich-Svitych....
, Meillet's law
Meillet's law
Meillet's law is a Common Slavic accent law, named after the French Indo-Europeanist Antoine Meillet, who discovered it.According to the law, Slavic words have a circumflex on the root vowel with a Balto-Slavic acute if that word had a mobile accent paradigm in Proto-Slavic and Proto-Balto-Slavic...
, Ivšić's law
Ivšic's law
Ivšić's law is a Common Slavic accent law named after Croatian accentologist Stjepan Ivšić.According to the law, the accent was retracted from the word-final yers onto the preceding syllable. That syllable gained rising accent . Compare:...
etc.), resulting in 3 Common Slavic accentual paradigms (conveniently marked with letters as A, B, C) to correspond to 4 Lithuanian accentual paradigms (marked with numbers 1, 2, 3, 4) in a simple scheme:
| Balto-Slavic acute on the root | |||
| yes | no | ||
| fixed accent | yes | a.p. 1/a.p. A | a.p. 2/a.p. B |
| no | a.p. 3/a.p. C | a.p. 4/a.p. C |
Common Slavic accentual paradigm a
The simplest accentuation is that of nouns which were acuted on the root in Balto-Slavic. They remain accented on the root throughout the paradigm in Baltic (Lithuanian first accentual paradigm) and Slavic (accent paradigm a). In the same time, Both Baltic and Slavic have expected reflexes of Balto-Slavic acute:| Lithuanian | Russian | Serbo-Croatian | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sg Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
N Nominative case The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments... |
várna | voróna | vrȁna |
| V Vocative case The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence... |
várna | - | vrȁno | |
| A Accusative case The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions... |
várną | vorónu | vrȁnu | |
| G Genitive case In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun... |
várnos | voróny | vrȁnē | |
| D Dative case The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink".... |
várnai | voróne | vrȁni | |
| L Locative case Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"... |
várnoje | voróne | vrȁni | |
| I Instrumental case The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action... |
várna | vorónoj | vrȁnōm | |
| pl Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
N Nominative case The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments... V Vocative case The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence... |
várnos | voróny | vrȁne |
| A Accusative case The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions... |
várnas | vorón | vrȁne | |
| G Genitive case In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun... |
várnų | vorón | vrȃnā | |
| D Dative case The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink".... |
várnoms | vorónam | vrȁnama | |
| L Locative case Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"... |
várnose | vorónax | vrȁnama | |
| I Instrumental case The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action... |
várnomis | vorónami | vrȁnama | |
In Russian the Balto-Slavic acute yielded expected reflex with "polnoglasie". In Serbo-Croatian the short falling accent in genitive plural has been substituted with long falling due to the loss of the yer
Yer
The letter yer of the Cyrillic alphabet, also spelled jer or er, is known as the hard sign in the modern Russian and Rusyn alphabets and as er golyam in the Bulgarian alphabet...
.
Common Slavic accentual paradigm b
In the nouns with non-mobile initial accent, which did not have an acuted root syllable, in both Lithuanian and Slavic an independent accent shift occurred from the root to the ending. In Lithuanian these are the nouns of the second accent paradigm, and in the Slavic of accent paradigm b.Lithuanian noun rankà 'hand' etymologically corresponds to Russian ruká and Serbo-Croatian rúka, but both of these became mobile in a later Common Slavic development. So the reflexes of the Proto-Slavic noun } 'soup' are listed instead.
| Lithuanian | Russian | Serbo-Croatian | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sg Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
N Nominative case The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments... |
rankà | uxá | júha |
| V Vocative case The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence... |
rankà | - | jȗho | |
| A Accusative case The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions... |
rañkai | uxú | júhu | |
| G Genitive case In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun... |
rañkos | uxí | júhē | |
| D Dative case The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink".... |
rañkai | uxé | júsi/juhi | |
| L Locative case Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"... |
rañkoje | uxé | júsi/juhi | |
| I Instrumental case The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action... |
rankà | uxój | júhōm | |
| pl Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
N Nominative case The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments... |
rañkos | uxí | júhe |
| V Vocative case The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence... |
rañkos | - | jȗhe | |
| A Accusative case The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions... |
rankàs | uxí | júhe | |
| G Genitive case In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun... |
rañkų | úx | júhā | |
| D Dative case The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink".... |
rañkoms | uxám | júhama | |
| L Locative case Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"... |
rañkose | uxáx | júhama | |
| I Instrumental case The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action... |
rañkomis | uxámi | júhama | |
In Lithuanian the initial accent was preserved in all cases in which ending did not contain syllable with Balto-Slavic acute. In these cases (NVI sg, A pl) accent shifted onto the acuted ending, in accordance with the rule discovered by F. de Saussure. Later that acuted syllable was shortened due to the Leskien's law.
In Slavic the accent shifted from the root onto the ending in accordance with the Dybo's law
Dybo's law
Dybo's law, or Dybo-Illič-Svityč's law, is a Common Slavic accent law named after Russian accentologists Vladimir Dybo and Vladislav Illich-Svitych....
, regardless of the syllable nature (i.e. whether it contained Balto-Slavic acute or not), so the nouns of the a.p. b are consistently accented on the ending (oxytonic, except in the I pl). In Neoštokavian dialects, which is used as a basis for standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, accent was retracted from the ending onto the root syllable and became rising (so called "Neoštokavian retraction"). Old Štokavian and Čakavian dialects preserved the original ending-stressed paradigm.
Common Slavic accentual paradigm c
Nouns with mobile accent had in some cases accented root, on the others the ending.Lithuanian distinguishes two accent paradigms of these nouns: if they had acuted root, they belong to the third accent paradigm, and if the root was not acuted, by the operation of de Saussure's law the accent shifted onto the all acuted endings in the paradigm, so these nouns belong to the fourth accent paradigm.
In Proto-Slavic the acute has been eliminated in the nouns with mobile accentuation by the operation of Meillet's law
Meillet's law
Meillet's law is a Common Slavic accent law, named after the French Indo-Europeanist Antoine Meillet, who discovered it.According to the law, Slavic words have a circumflex on the root vowel with a Balto-Slavic acute if that word had a mobile accent paradigm in Proto-Slavic and Proto-Balto-Slavic...
, so therefore all the nouns with mobile accentuation belong to one accent paradigm, the so called accent paradigm c.
| Lithuanian | Russian | Neoštokavian Serbo-Croatian | Čakavian Serbo-Croatian | Common Slavic | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| sg Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
N Nominative case The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments... |
galv-à | golov-á | gláv-a | glāv-ȁ | *golv-à |
| V Vocative case The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence... |
galv-à | - | gláv-o | glȃv-o | - | |
| A Accusative case The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions... |
gálv-ą | gólov-u | glȃv-u | glȃv-u | *gȏlv-ǫ | |
| G Genitive case In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun... |
galv-õs | golov-ý | gláv-e | glāv-é | *golv-ỳ | |
| D Dative case The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink".... |
gálv-ai | golov-é (OESl. Old East Slavic language Old East Slavic or Old Ruthenian was a language used in 10th-15th centuries by East Slavs in the Kievan Rus' and states which evolved after the collapse of the Kievan Rus... gólov-ě) |
glȃv-i | glāv-ȉ | *gȏlv-ě → } | |
| L Locative case Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"... |
galv-ojè | golov-é | glȃv-i | glāv-ȉ | } | |
| I Instrumental case The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action... |
gálv-a | golov-ój | gláv-ōm | glāv-ún | ||
| pl Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
N Nominative case The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments... V Vocative case The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence... |
gálv-os | gólov-y | glȃv-e | glȃv-e | *gȏlv-y |
| A Accusative case The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions... |
gálv-as | gólov-y | glȃv-e | glȃv-e | *gȏlv-y | |
| G Genitive case In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun... |
golóv- | gláv-ā | gláv- | *gólv-ъ | ||
| D Dative case The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink".... |
galv-óms | golov-ám | gláv-ama | glāv-án | } | |
| L Locative case Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"... |
galv-osè | golov-áx | gláv-ama | glāv-ȁx | } | |
| I Instrumental case The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action... |
galv-omìs | golov-ámi | gláv-ama | glāv-ȁmi | } | |
Lithuanian has preserved the best Balto-Slavic mobile paradigm. In Neoštokavian the final accent has been retracted and gained rising intonation, and the Proto-Slavic initial accent is preserved as a circumflex.
Balto-Slavic apophony
Indo-European ablautIndo-European ablaut
In linguistics, ablaut is a system of apophony in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages...
has been significantly reworked in Balto-Slavic. Prominence of lengthened-grade has been significantly increased, as opposed to PIE in which it was used only for rare vrddhi
Vrddhi
' is a Sanskrit word meaning "growth" . In Panini's grammar, it is also a technical term for a group of long vowels. In Indo-European linguistics, it has become a term for the lengthened grade of the ablaut vowel gradation peculiar to the Indo-European languages...
-formations, nominative singulars of some consonant-stem nouns and sigmatic aorist.
Proto-Slavic abundantly used lengthened-grade in morphology. For example:
- PSl. *slāwā 'fame, glory' (OCS slava) vs. PSl. *slawa 'word' (OCS slovo)
- PSl. *twāri 'substance' (OCS tvarь) vs. PSl. *twarītej 'to form, create' (OCS tvoriti)
Similarly, in Lithuanian:
- Lith. prõtas 'intellect, mind' (< *prāt) vs. Lith. pràsti 'to understand'
- Lith. 'goodness' (< *gēr-) vs. Lith. gẽras 'good'
On the basis of already-present apophonic oppositions beween Balto-Slavic the long */ā/, */ē/, */ō/ and the short */a/ and */e/, new oppositions in arose between the long */ī/, */ū/ and the short */i/, */u/. This latter type of apophony was not productive in PIE. Compare:
- Lith. mū̃šis 'battle' vs. mùšti 'to kill, hit'
- Lith. lỹkis 'remainder' vs. lìkti 'to stay, keep'
This new type of apophonic length was especially used in Proto-Slavic in the formation of durative, iterative and imperfective verbs. Compare:
- PSl. *dirātej > OCS dьrati vs. PSl. *arz-dīrātej 'to tear' > OCS razdirati
- PSl. *birātej 'to pick' > OCS bьrati vs. PSl. *bīrātej 'to choose' > OCS birati
See also
- Proto-Indo-European languageProto-Indo-European languageThe Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
- Proto-Slavic languageProto-Slavic languageProto-Slavic is the proto-language from which Slavic languages later emerged. It was spoken before the seventh century AD. As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; the language has been reconstructed by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic...
- Balto-Slavic languagesBalto-Slavic languagesThe Balto-Slavic language group traditionally comprises Baltic and Slavic languages, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which points to the period of common development...