Henning Andersen

IE *s after i, u, r, k in Baltic and Slavic

Abstract 1. The problem with which this article is concerned was first brought to the attention of the scholarly community 150 years ago by Rasmus Kristian Rask in his pioneering Undersogelse om det gamle Nordiske eller Islandske Sprogs Oprindelse. Rask did not specifically discuss the treatment of IE *s in Slavic and Baltic, but in his survey of the nominal desinences of Slavic, he noted that “Stedsformen endes i Navneordene overalt paa ach eller ach [= jach]; i Tillaegsordene er den lig Ejeformen og endes paa ych eller ich; dette svarer til den littaviske Stedsform i Flertallet, der i Hankjonnet endes paa ůse og i Hunkjonnet paa osa esa isa issa efter en Overgang som i disse Sprog er hyppig, f. Eks. russisk mucha litt. mussẽ en Flue, blocha litt. blussa o. m. fl.” 1 “In the substantives, the locative everywhere ends in ach or ach [= jax] ; in the adjectives it is identical with the genitive and ends in ych or ich; this corresponds to the Lithuanian locative plural, which in the masculine ends in ůse and ...

Lenition in Common Slavic

Three different reflexes of Proto-Slavic *g and the reflex of *di changed to fricatives in early Slavic. A hitherto unnoticed sequential constraint in Common Slavic, along with the geographical limitations of these changes, permits us to date them relative to the loss of syllable-final obstruents in CSI., to the fall of the jers, and to one another. Typological analysis shows that the source of the phonetic changes was a pronunciation rule implying phonemically tense vs. lax obstruents in CS1. The relative chronology established is significant for several problems of chronology within Slavic and for its relation to Baltic; and the set of concentric isoglosses defined throws light on the pattern of expansion of early Slavic.

The New Russian Vocative: Synchrony, Diachrony, Typology

1. Since the 1800s some proper and some common nouns of the Russian 2nd (-a) declension are attested with innovated vocative forms, apparently formed from nominatives by truncation. 2. Current usage is somewhat heterogeneous, and speakers differ markedly in their evaluation of new vocative forms depending on phonological, morphological, and semantic features. Here it is shown that the state of variation these differences reflect is a synchronic projection of the orderly progression of a gradual change. 3. The change is one of two renewals of the vocative in the history of the language, each of which calls for an interpretation. 4. They also raise the general question of the place of the vocative in grammar. Their functions and idiosyncratic conditions of use indicate that vocatives are lexico-pragmatic derivatives. 5. A rudimentary typology of vocative expressions reveals a possibly universal correlation between prosodic contours and types of vocative expression. 6. A final synthesis draws on the preceding sections to present a coherent synchronic and diachronic account of the innovated truncated vocative, concluding with an analysis of the striking similarities between the new vocative forms and the forms of the imperative.

Early Vowel Contraction in Slavic: 1. i-Verbs. 2. The Imperfect. 3. The vòlja/súša Nouns

Abstract Three closely related studies show how three Common Slavic suffixes were changed in an early wave of glide loss and vowel contraction that occurred between the Late Common Slavic quantity-to-quality vowel shift and the earliest texts. The studies examine the Present suffix, Common Slavic -eje-, of iterative, causative, and denominative i-verbs; the Imperfect suffix, Common Slavic -ējā-, -ājā-; and the suffix of lexicalized relative adjectives -ej-(ā). Each study presupposes a detailed understanding of vowel contraction and due attention to the functional relations between the given elements and similar or contrasting stem-forming suffixes.

On SLOVĚNE and the History of Slavic Patrials

ABSTRACT Uncovering the origin of SLOVĚNE, the Late Common Slavic self-designation of the Slavs, has for a long time seemed a pretty hopeless business. But so far no attempt has been made to reconstruct the prehistorical context – before the Slavic migrations – in which it must have been created. Such an attempt is made here. It pays attention to the details of the morphological prehistory of patrials (words for inhabitants), but especially to the semantic categories of patrials that can be observed in the oldest stages of attested Slavic, and which can be posited for earlier times. Against this background it is possible to hypothesize both the discourse context in which the word was created and the series of semantic changes it must have gone through since then. Section 1 reviews some recent, innovative proposals for the etymology of SLOVĚNE. Section 2 examines the morphology and semantics of patrials in Old Church Slavonic and several others of the earliest attested Slavic languages. Section 3 reconstructs the semantic categories of Common Slavic patrials. Section 4 applies the relevant findings in an etymological explication of SLOVĚNE. Section 5 discusses phonological and morphophonemic changes relevant to the patrial suffix. Section 6 is a brief summary.

The Dawn of Slavic: An Introduction to Slavic Philology

This work uses linguistic, cultural and historical themes to provide an account of the development of the Slavic languages. The book contends, among other things, that an understanding of early Slavic writing is incomplete outside the context of medieval culture.