Adjarian's Law
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Adjarian's law is a
sound law In historical linguistics, a sound change is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic cha ...
relating to the historical phonology of the
Armenian language Armenian (endonym: , , ) is an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language and the sole member of the independent branch of the Armenian language family. It is the native language of the Armenians, Armenian people and the official language of ...
: in certain dialects, initial-syllable vowels are fronted after the consonants which reflect the inherited
Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...
(PIE) voiced aspirates. It was named after its discoverer,
Hrachia Acharian Hrachia Acharian (, reformed spelling: Հրաչյա Աճառյան; ; 8 March 1876 – 16 April 1953) was an Armenian linguist, lexicographer, etymologist, and philologist. An Istanbul Armenian, Acharian studied at local Armenian schools an ...
, whose surname was also romanised in a
Western Armenian Western Armenian ( ) is one of the two standardized forms of Modern Armenian, the other being Eastern Armenian. It is based mainly on the Istanbul Armenian dialect, as opposed to Eastern Armenian, which is mainly based on the Yerevan Arme ...
form as ''Adjarian''. Compare: * post-PIE * bʰan- "speech" >
Classical Armenian Classical Armenian (, , ; meaning "literary anguage; also Old Armenian or Liturgical Armenian) is the oldest attested form of the Armenian language. It was first written down at the beginning of the 5th century, and most Armenian literature fro ...
բան ''ban'' > Karchevan dialect ''ben'',
Karabakh dialect The Karabakh dialect (, ''Ġarabaġi barbař''), also known as the Artsakh dialect (Արցախի բարբառ, ''Arc'axi barbař'') is an ancient Eastern Armenian dialect with a unique phonetic and syntactic structure. It was mainly spoken in the ...
''pen'' * post-PIE **dʰalara- "green" > Classical Armenian դալար ''dalar'' > Karabagh ''telar'' as opposed to absence of vowel fronting after the non-aspirated voiced stops: * PIE * dṓm-; Classical Armenian տուն ''tun'' "house" > Karchevan ''ton'', Karabagh ''ton'' * PIE * gʷṓws "cow" > Classical Armenian կով ''kov'' > Karabagh ''kov'', ''kav'', Karchevan ''kav'' This conditioning is not a synchronic process, but rather reflects the quality of the original prevocalic consonant. In such cases the vowels first received the
advanced tongue root In phonetics, advanced tongue root (ATR or +ATR), or expanded pharynx, and retracted tongue root (RTR or −ATR) are contrasting states of the pharynx during the pronunciation of vowels in some languages, especially in Western and Eastern Afri ...
(
ATR ATR may refer to: Medicine * Acute transfusion reaction * Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3 related, a protein involved in DNA damage repair Science and mathematics * Advanced Test Reactor, nuclear research reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory, ...
feature Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature recognition, could be a hole, pocket, or notch * Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob * Feature (machine learning), in statistics: individual measurable properties of the phenome ...
in certain contexts and the
ATR ATR may refer to: Medicine * Acute transfusion reaction * Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3 related, a protein involved in DNA damage repair Science and mathematics * Advanced Test Reactor, nuclear research reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory, ...
back vowels were then fronted. The dialect of
Malatya Malatya (; ; Syriac language, Syriac ܡܠܝܛܝܢܐ Malīṭīná; ; Ancient Greek: Μελιτηνή) is a city in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey and the capital of Malatya Province. The city has been a human settlement for thousands of y ...
preserves the intermediate stage, with
ATR ATR may refer to: Medicine * Acute transfusion reaction * Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3 related, a protein involved in DNA damage repair Science and mathematics * Advanced Test Reactor, nuclear research reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory, ...
vowels such as .


Dialect distribution

Adjarian's law in its full form appears mainly in dialects of the southern and eastern parts of the traditional Armenian dialect area, in modern-day southern Armenia and southwestern Turkey. An outlier is the Armenian community of Musaler on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.


Historical development

Vaux (1992) argues that voiced stops often involve tongue root advancement and proposes that the source of
ATR ATR may refer to: Medicine * Acute transfusion reaction * Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3 related, a protein involved in DNA damage repair Science and mathematics * Advanced Test Reactor, nuclear research reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory, ...
were simply the voiced stops such as , , as found in Classical Armenian. Garrett notes that Adjarian's Law is however never triggered by voiced stops that have developed from the Classical Armenian plain voiceless stops; but it was also triggered by the
breathy-voiced Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...
fricative (which developed in the involved dialects from Classical Armenian ). He proposes that the voiced stop consonants that trigger it should be assumed to similarly have been breathy voiced , by the time of Adjarian's law. Breathy voiced stops are recorded from several other dialects of Armenian; none of these however show Adjarian's law. Garrett interprets this to mean that Adjarian's law should be considered a type of
transphonologization In historical linguistics, transphonologization (also known as rephonologization or cheshirization, see below) is a type of sound change whereby a phonemic contrast that used to involve a certain feature X evolves in such a way that the contra ...
, where breathiness leads to
ATR ATR may refer to: Medicine * Acute transfusion reaction * Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3 related, a protein involved in DNA damage repair Science and mathematics * Advanced Test Reactor, nuclear research reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory, ...
only if it is simultaneously lost. According to Vaux, the relevant feature is instead the devoicing of the Classical Armenian voiced stops. Adjarian's law demonstrates that the
Proto-Armenian language Proto-Armenian is the earlier, unattested stage of the Armenian language which has been reconstructed by linguists. As Armenian is the only known language of its branch of the Indo-European languages, the comparative method cannot be used to re ...
retained the PIE aspirated stops and had not undergone a Germanic-style consonant shift. The result is important evidence against certain arguments in favor of the
glottalic theory The glottalic theory is that Proto-Indo-European had ejective or otherwise non- pulmonic stops, , instead of the plain voiced ones, as hypothesized by the usual Proto-Indo-European phonological reconstructions. A forerunner of the theory was ...
of the Proto-Indo-European stop system since such vowel fronting makes no sense if the protolanguage's voiced aspirates had been simple voiced stops. It does, however, if they were breathy-voiced. Since voiced aspirates then have to be reconstructed for Proto-Armenian, only Germanic can be claimed to be "archaic" for PIE consonantism in the
glottalic theory The glottalic theory is that Proto-Indo-European had ejective or otherwise non- pulmonic stops, , instead of the plain voiced ones, as hypothesized by the usual Proto-Indo-European phonological reconstructions. A forerunner of the theory was ...
framework. The
absolute dating Absolute dating is the process of determining an age on a specified chronology in archaeology and geology. Some scientists prefer the terms chronometric or calendar dating, as use of the word "absolute" implies an unwarranted certainty of accuracy ...
of Adjarian's law remains unclear. Dates as early as the fifth century have been proposed. A likely later boundary is the formation of the community of Musaler, no later than the 11th century.


Notes


References

* * * {{citation, last=Vaux, first=Bert , year=1992, chapter= Adjarian's Law and Consonantal ATR in Armenian, title=Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference of Armenian Linguistics, pages=271–293, editor-first=John, editor-last=Greppin Armenian language Indo-European sound laws