Kortlandt, "The Progressive Palatalization of Slavic", Folia Linguistica Historica 1984

7/28/2019 Kortlandt, "The Progressive Palatalization of Slavic", Folia Linguistica Historica 1984

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Folia lAnguistia Historica V/2 pp. 211-219 Societas LinguistioaEuropaea, 1984

THE PROGRESSIVE PALATALIZATION OF SLAVIC

FREDERIK KORTLA1STDT

Contemporary mainstream linguistics has a strong theoreticaibias. This has often led to a negligent attitude toward the data,especially among linguists of a generative persuasion1. Adequateknowledge of the material, though a prerequisite for any usefulscholarly activity, is no guarantee of a valid analysis, however.In the following I intend to show how one or two false theoreticaiassumptions can lead astray a scholar who is known for Ms in-sistence on the perusal of an accurate and comprehensive bodyof data.1. As fa r s I can see, the final statement on the conditionsand chronology of the Slavic progressive palatalization has beenreaehed by A. Vaillant (1950: 53-55). Though the problem hasrem ained populr among historical nguists and has even beenth e subject of a number of monographs2, later efforts have neitherdisproved Vaillant's view nor yielded a better alternative.Vaillant's position can be summarized s follows: * j b , *^, * .became fronted after *i, *-, * $ unless they were followed by aconsonant or by one of the high rounded back vowels *u,*-3.This assimilation did not take place after the diphthongs * a$and *ei because these did not end in *< any longer. There is noreason to separate the progressive palatalization chronologicallyfrom the second regressive palatalization, which yielded the samerefleses in all Slavic languages. The locative forms otoci, otbdxb'father(s)9 adopted the endings of the soft inflexion; the originalendings were preserved in Ibze epermitted% sicexz 'such5, cf.rwete esay* (pl)9.2. This view has a number of consequences for the relative-chronology of sound laws:

1Cf. Kortlandt 1983b.2 Jezowa 1968, Channon 1972, Lunt 1981.8 The latter condition was first proposed by A. Belio (1921 : 25 -26)..


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2122.1. H the progressive palatalization was blocked by a followingTounded *u or *, this implies that the delabialization of tlielatter was posterior to the palatalization.2.2. the diphthongs %i and *ei did not end in *i any longer,1>he progressive palatalization was apparently posterior to theirmonophthongization.2.3. If *i from *ei did not cause palatalization of a followingvelar, the merger of the diphthong with ealier *l was posteriorto the palatalization.2.4. The latter two Statements suggest that *e i yielded close*e , which was subsequently raised to *.2.5. Since and a remained distinct after the newly palatalizedconsonants, the progressive palatalization was posterior to theretraction of & to a after j9 6, , .2.6. Since *i from *u after * j did not cause palatalization of afollowing velar, e.g. ig o eyoke% its merger with earlier *< wasposterior to the palatalization.2.7. The latter two Statements imply that the vowel adjustmentafter *j caused the merger of *e with *, but not the merger of*u with *i.2.8. The first and the last statement suggest that *u was fronted1iO * by a preceding *j before th e palatalization, and delabializedto *i at a later stage.2.9. The latter two statements suggest that the delabializationwas early in the case of the low vowels and late in the case ofihe high vowels4.3. In his recent study of the progressive palatalization (1981),Horace Lunt adopts Mare's view (1969: 13) that *o, *, *u, *i ere delabialized to * , * 9 *y, *y in early Slavic, which becamedistinct from Baltic s a result of this development, and thatihe language remained without rounded vowels until shortlybefore the oldest texts (Lunt 1981: 15 and n. 17). His offhandrejection of alternative views s "outmoded", though it is in linewith a populr device of argumentation in generative linguistics,does not contribute to a scholarly discussion. It is not only highlyimprobable that a system without rounded vowels would havesurvived over 2000 years of linguistic evolution, but there is

no evidence that it ever existed in the Slavic area.4 Cf. Kortlandt 1979 : 26 - 268.


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213

4. Lunt Claims that "internal reconstruction alone suffices toestablish a stage where every desinence in the OCS twofold de-clension begins with *& or * . number of variant proposalsmay be made [...], but nothing changes the major fact: all des-inences begin with a low back vowel" (16). This formulation ex-emplifies another basic device of generative argumentation, viz.the presentation of underlying forms, which are established onthe basis of general principles, s major facts of a language. Yetthere is no evidence that Lunt's underlying paradigms ever existeds a synchronous System at any stage in the prehistory of Slavic.5. According to the available evidence, the following endings ofthe o- and -stem paradigms began with a high rounded backvowel at the time of the progressive palatalization:5.1. acc. sg. masc. and gen. pl. -&


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2147. The absence of the progressive palatalization after tlie diph-thongs *ai and *ei forces Lunt to assume that the latter werelowered to % and *e0 and to specify the exclusion of the diphthongsin his formiilation of the palatalization rule (19f). Theonlyadvantageof this ad hoc solution is that it saves his "underlying" repre-sentation /ai/, /ei/. As soon s we drop the a priori assumptionthat the diphthongs were preserved up to the time ofthe progressivepalatalization, the natural solution commends itself: the pala-talization was posterior to the monophthongization of the diph-thongs, which yielded long monophthongs of the timbre *, *e.8. Ltmt adduces igo


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215the regulr soft paradigm endings of tlie locative forms otoci,otwixt efather(s)', but not for petrified, pronominal, and verbalforms such s lbz& 'permitted9, sic&xz 'such9, rw&te *say* (pl)9.It forces Lunt to look for ad hoc explanations of the latter in-stances. Thus, he posits a form "rbtite" for which there is simplyno evidence and which was supposedly ousted in the entire Slavicarea in prehistoric times.If we take the evidence at face value, it is clear frorn the pho-nemic contrast between a and e after the soft consonants whichresulted from the progressive palatalization that the backingof *e to *a was anterior to the rise of these consonants. Since thebacking of *e to * was posterior to the first regressive palataliza-tion, it follows that Lunt's chronology cannot be maintained.

Lunt is unable to offer an expl&nation for the self-contra-dictory nature of his vowel adjustment rule, s he admits himself(n. 60). In my view, the retraction of *eto *a was conditionedby the rise of new long front vowels from the monophthongiz-ation of the diphthongs *ai and *ei8. Since this developmentaffected the long vowel System only, short *e was not retractedto *a.11. The hypothesis that the progressive palatalization was earlyforces Lunt to reformulate it s a subphonemic development::"In distinctive terms, the [resulting] k' apparently remains avariant of /k/ even after [the first regressive palatalization] hasoperated. Phonologization comes about when *kj becomes *cand thus opposed to *M, but this still leaves Gen. *atik* (vs.*atic) with a k' which is a variant of underlying /k/" (27f). Thi&renders Lunt's chronology practically meaningless. He is "tempted,however, to seegrounds for phonemic k'/g' earlier. Perhaps affectivefactors may have helped" (n. 83). The choice is between resistingthe temptation and giving up principled methodology.

According to the Standard view, the phonologization of thenew palatals was achieved whenthe conditioning *i, *^, * iN mergedwith the reflexes of *u, *ei, * eN in the appropriate environments.This happened s a result of the unrounding, raising and loweringprocesses which marked the period after the palatalizatipns9.12. The Russian idiom ni zgi ne vidno eit is pitch-darks and its

8 Cf. Kortlandt 1979: 266.9 Cf. Kortlandt 1979: 268f.


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216dialectal variant stegi ne vidaf (Vasmer 1953: 449) contain thegen. sg. form *stbgy of the word stezja epath*, Old Polish ,Slovene stez .Lunt affirms that "the oldgenitive should be *stbze"(Sl). This should be the case if Lunt's theory were correct. Itis not the case, however. The form shows that the high roundedback vowel of the gen. sg. ending blocked the progressive pala-talization, and thereby disproves Lunt's theory.13. The form Ibze "permitted9, like t r $ b & "necessary3 and gode'pleasing9, is a petrified loeative. It shows that the regul r softparadigm ending -i is analogical in the case of nouns which weresubject to the progressive palatalization. Lunt submits thatlbz& may represent a distorted nom. sg. form *lbdza (34) withoutadducing any evidence for his proposal.14. The incorrectness of Lunt's theory is confirmed by the pro-nominal inflexion of vbsb ea!T and sieb 'such9, e.g. inst. sg. masc.Vbs&mb, sMmb


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217to adopt Lunt's desperately agnostic attitude: "I merely contendtliat the explanation for all the variants is to be found (1) in thehypothesis that [the progressive palatalization] applied onlyto k and g and not to whatever fricative was developing frbm*$ in the earliest Slavic, and (2) in the hypothesis that the earlySlavic pronouns represented in OCS by Sb and vtst had idio-syncratic declensions that we cannot recover" (37),and "I Venturato suggest that sieb had a special, idiosyacratic history" (n. 124).Though either (1) or (2) suffices to exclude vbsb from consideration,Lunt introduces a third safety-valve by questioning the velarorigin of the fricative, in spite of the available evidence. Notethat the entire chain of reasoning rests upon a single false assump-tion, which is a consequence of his unwillingness to recognizethe analogical origin of the soft paradigm endings in the locativeforms otoci, otocixz *father(s)9.15. To summarize, Lunt's chronology cannot be maintained.It is based on a few a priori assumptions which cannot be sub-stantiated and which force ^ to posit an arbitrary phonetiodevelopment of the diphthongs and an arbitrary niorphologicalreplacement in the imperative, to reformulate the progressivepalatalization s a subphonemic development, to dismiss thecounter-evidence of petrified forms by questioning the materi lwithout offering a solution, and to exclude pronominal formsfrom consideration because they may have been subject to unknowndevelopments. Here Lunt's own words come to mind: "Trouble-some items which interfere with the neat patterns one wishes tofind can be minimized, but they should never be omitted" (9).At an earKer stage of his career Lunt "was ready to believethat the descriptive priority of [the progressive palatalization]in my own analyses was an artifact of the method" (14). Thequestion remains pertinent. It can only be answered by recon-'sidering fact and fiction against the background of previous wo^kin the field. This means that we must take earlier scholarshipseriously. The issues have been around for a long time, and sohave most of the data10. The cavalier treatment of other people's

10 An exception must be made for the forms whioh show V b X - in theNovgorod birch-bark documents that have been unearthed in recenfcdecades.


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2i8,views wliicli is characteristic of much recent work does not con-tribute to a clarification of substantial problems. We must Iiopethat the renewed interest of the post-generative generation ina factual analysis of the data "will liave a salutary effect on theassessment of earlier scholarship.

FREDERIK KOETLANDTUniversity of LeidenFaculty of LeitersCobetstraat 242313 KG LEIDENHOLLAND

REFERENCES

Belio, A.1921 "Najmladja (treoa) promena zadnjenepanih suglasnika k, g i h

u praslovenskom jeziku", JuznoslovensM Fi lolog 2: 18-39.Cihannon, K.1972 On the place of the progressive palatalization of velars in the relative

chronology of Slavic (The Hague:Mouton).Ebeling, C. L.1963 "Questions of relative chronology in Common Slavic and Russianphonology", Dvtch contr ibut ions to the fl f th international congress o f

Slavicists (The Hague: Mouton), 27 - 42.Jezowa, M.1968 Z t problemow ta k zwanej trzeciej palatalizacji tylnofazykowych wjezykach

slowianskich (Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo PAN).:Kortlandiis F.1975 Slavic accentuationi A study in relative chronology (Lisse: Peter deRidder).J978 "On the history of the genitive plural in Slavic, Baltic, Germanic,and Indo-European", Lingua 45 : 281 - 300.1979 "On the history of the Slavic nasal vowels". Indogermanische For-schungen 84 : 259 - 272.1983a "Demonstrative pronouns in Balto-Slavic, Armenian, and To-charian", Dutch contr ibut ions to the ninth international congress of

Slavists: Linguistics (Amsterdam: Rodopi), 311 - 322.1983b "Linguistic theory, universale, and Slavic accentuation", FoliaLinguietica Historica 4 : 27 - 43.1983c "On final syllables in Slavic", Journal of Indo-European Studies11: 167 - 185.


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219Lunt, H. G.1981 The progressive palatalization of Common Slawe (Skopje: MacedonianAcademy of Sciences and Arts).Mare, F. V.1963 Vznik a ran^ v^fvoj slovansko dekli ce, eskoslovenskd pfednaSkypro V. mezinarodni sjezd slamst v Sofli (Praha: Nakladateletvieskoslovensko Akademie Ved), 51 - 69.1969 Diachronische Phonologie des U r- und Fruhslavischen (Mnchen; OttoSagner).VaiUant, A.1950 Grammaire comparee des langues slaves I: PJumotique (Lyon: !Ed.IAO).Vasmer, M.1953 Russisches etymologisches Wrterbuch l (Heidelberg: Carl Winter).Van Wijk, N.

1931 Geschichte der altkirchenslavischen Sprache I: Laut- un d Formenlehre(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter).


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Kortlandt, "The Progressive Palatalization of Slavic", Folia Linguistica Historica 1984

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