HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Slavic liquid metathesis refers to the phenomenon of metathesis of
liquid consonant In phonetics, liquids are a class of consonants consisting of voiced lateral approximants like together with rhotics like . Etymology The grammarian Dionysius Thrax used the Ancient Greek word (, ) to describe the sonorant consonants () of cl ...
s in the
Common Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...
period in the South Slavic and West Slavic area. The closely related corresponding phenomenon of pleophony (also known as polnoglasie or full vocalization) occurred in parallel, in the
East Slavic languages The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of the Slavic languages, distinct from the West and South Slavic languages. East Slavic languages are currently spoken natively throughout Eastern Europe, and eastwards to Siber ...
. The change acted on syllables in which the
Proto-Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...
liquid consonants *''r'' and *''l'' occurred in a
coda Coda or CODA may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * Movie coda, a post-credits scene * ''Coda'' (1987 film), an Australian horror film about a serial killer, made for television *''Coda'', a 2017 American experimental film from Na ...
position. The result of the change is dependent upon the phonological environment and accents, and it varies in different Slavic languages. The change has been dated to the second half of the 8th century, before any Slavic languages were recorded in writing. Therefore, the change itself cannot be observed, but it can be inferred by comparing words in different Slavic languages. Evidence of the earlier state of affairs is also preserved in
loanwords A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
into and from Early Slavic as well as in
cognates In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical eff ...
in other
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...
, particularly
Baltic languages The Baltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 4.5 million people mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. Together with the Slavic lan ...
.


Background

During the Common Slavic period, a tendency, known as the law of open syllables, led to a series of changes that completely eliminated closed syllables. By the
Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and othe ...
period, every syllable, without exception, ended in a vowel. Some of the changes included: * Monophthongization of diphthongs, * Loss of word-final consonants (PSl *''vьlkъ'' < PBSl '' *wilkás'' < *PIE ''*wĺ̥kʷos''), * Simplification of some medial consonant clusters (OCS tonǫti < *topnǫti) and * Formation of the nasal vowels *ǫ and *ę, respectively from *am/*an and *em/*en. The change discussed here is part of this process, and it involved the liquid consonants, grouped under the cover symbol ''R'', *l or *r in a
coda Coda or CODA may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * Movie coda, a post-credits scene * ''Coda'' (1987 film), an Australian horror film about a serial killer, made for television *''Coda'', a 2017 American experimental film from Na ...
position, in environments that are traditionally designated as in the table on the right. The application of the law of open syllables in such environments had different results in different Slavic dialects, and it is some of the earliest evidence for differentiation into the multitude of Slavic languages. In some, it is the metathesis of a sequence of a liquid consonants followed by a vowel, and in others, it is an insertion of another vowel. In most cases, the effect was to eliminate the syllable-final consonants *l and *r so that the law of open syllables was maintained.


Reflexes in Slavic languages


oRT

Metathesis then occurred in all Slavic dialects. In South Slavic dialects (Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian) as well in Czech and Slovak, the metathesized vowel was lengthened as well. In East Slavic and the Lechitic branch of West Slavic, the outcome was dependent upon the
Proto-Slavic accent Proto-Slavic accent is the accentual system of Proto-Slavic and is closely related to the accentual system of some Baltic languages (Lithuanian and Latvian) with whom it shares many common innovations that occurred in the Proto-Balto-Slavic period. ...
: in acuted syllables, the output was the same as in South Slavic and Czech-Slovak, but on circumflexed syllables, the metathesized vowel did not lengthen. : ''PSl.'' = Proto-Slavic proper, the stage before both the loss of distinctive vowel length and the change *a > *o : ''CS'' = Common Slavic, Late Proto-Slavic, the last recontructable ancestor of all Slavic languages Compare the following reflexes: If the syllable was not acuted, the metathesis in West and East Slavic occurred without the lengthening so EPSl. *a retains its short quantity and yields ; compare EPSl. *ȃlkъtь ‘elbow’ > Serbo-Croatian '' lȃkat'' but Czech '' loket''.


TeRT and ToRT

Word-medially, on the other hand, there were three primary outcomes: #In Czech, Slovak and South Slavic, the metathesis occurred with lengthening: Proto-Slavic (PS) CeRC CaRC > CRēC CRāC > Common Slavic (CS) CRěC CRaC. #In the rest of West Slavic, the metathesis occurred but without lengthening: PS CeRC CaRC > CReC CRaC > CS CReC CRoC. #In East Slavic, a vowel was inserted to break up the RC sequence (''pleophony''): PS CeRC CaRC > CeReC CaRaC > CS CeReC CoRoC. As a result of dialect-specific changes occurring before and after the cluster resolution (metathesis/pleophony), the outcomes in various languages are diverse and complex. For example, in North-West Lechitic (northern Kashubian, Slovincian, Pomeranian and Polabian) and East Slavic, *CalC and *CelC merged into *CalC prior to cluster resolution: *In Polish and Sorbian, the metathesis occurred without lengthening: Polish
brzeg Brzeg (; Latin: ''Alta Ripa'', German: ''Brieg'', Silesian German: ''Brigg'', , ) is a town in southwestern Poland with 34,778 inhabitants (December 2021) and the capital of Brzeg County. It is situated in Silesia in the Opole Voivodeship on t ...
, mleko, groch, młot as opposed to OCS brěgъ, mlěko, Slovene gràh, OCS mlatъ. *In North-West Lechitic, *CalC and *CelC yielded ClŭC (Polabian glåvă ‘head’, å < ъ), *CerC > CreC (without lengthening, as in Polish) while in *CarC, ar becomes ŭr, just like word-initially under acute (Polabian råmą ‘arm’ < *rъmę < *armę), but it did not undergo the metathesis. Compare Polabian porsą, Slovene prasè and Pomerian ''gard'' (often in toponymics like
Białogard Białogard (pronounced , german: Belgard, ; Pomeranian: ''Biôłogard'') is a historic town in Middle Pomerania, northwestern Poland, with 23,614 inhabitants as of December 2021. The capital of Białogard County in the West Pomeranian Voivod ...
) to OCS gradъ (note that unchanged ''ar'' in *gardŭ would have yielded ''or'' in Pomeranian). *In Czech and Slovak, word-medial metathesis occurred with lengthening just like in South Slavic: Czech mlat, hrách, Polish młot, groch with an /o/. *The East Slavic languages have pleophonic *CarC > CoroC, *CerC > CereC and *CalC/*CelC > ColoC: Russian górod, béreg, mólot, molokó.


TьRT and TъRT

See History_of_the_Slavic_languages#High_vowels.


Complete and incomplete metathesis

If the liquid metathesis is complete only if it occurred with the corresponding vowel lengthening, the metathesis occurred completely in South Slavic and partially in Slovak and in non-word-initial position in the whole Czecho-Slovak area. The complete metathesis has been operational in all Slavic languages for acuted syllables. For word-initial non-acuted syllables, there was no lengthening except in South Slavic and, partially, Slovak. As mentioned, the complete metathesis occurred in South Slavic, in Czech and Slovak and in Polish and Sorbian, without lengthening. In North-West Lechitic, the metathesis did not occur even for *CarC syllables. In East Slavic, pleophony yielded *CVRC > CVRVC. The reflex of *l in North-West Lechitic and East Slavic is always "hard".


First and second metathesis

Since the reflexes of acuted word-initial *''ar-'' and *''al-'' are the same in all Slavic dialects, they must have changed before the syllables ending with a liquid, which have different reflexes. One can thus distinguish the first and the second metathesis of liquids.


Dating

From Slavic evidence alone, the change cannot be dated precisely because no Slavic languages had yet committed to writing. However, words may have been documented from contemporary non-Slavic languages, and words may also have been borrowed into Slavic from other languages. That makes it possible to narrow down the time that the change occurred. The liquid metathesis occurred in the Common Slavic era. It took place after or was still productive until the end of the 8th century. The name of
Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first E ...
, who died in 814, underwent the change: *
Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old Hig ...
''Karl''''Karl'' is not only a
proper noun A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', '' Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...
but also a common noun and then means "adult male". It is a normalised form, based on the Old East Franconian dialect. The common noun is also attested as ''charal'' in Old
Upper German Upper German (german: Oberdeutsch ) is a family of High German dialects spoken primarily in the southern German-speaking area (). History In the Old High German time, only Alemannic and Bairisch are grouped as Upper German. In the Middle High ...
, with an
epenthetic In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable ('' prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word ''epent ...
vowel, for example in the Old Alemannic rendering of the
Rule of Saint Benedict The ''Rule of Saint Benedict'' ( la, Regula Sancti Benedicti) is a book of precepts written in Latin in 516 by St Benedict of Nursia ( AD 480–550) for monks living communally under the authority of an abbot. The spirit of Saint Benedict's Ru ...
. That may be the origin of the intrusive vowel in ''Carolus'', the Latinised version of the name, but the Slavic process seems to be unconnected.
> PSl. *karl′uThe rendering of OHG ''l'' as PSl. *''l′'' is regular; the reason is that PSl. plain *''l'' was
dark Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low lu ...
, while OHG ''l'' was a normal which was identified with the PSl. palatalised liquid *''l′''.
> Common Slavic *korl′ь > Russian koról′, Polish król, Slovak
kráľ Kráľ ( hu, Sajószentkirály) is a village and municipality in the Rimavská Sobota District of the Banská Bystrica Region of southern Slovakia. Genealogical resources The records for genealogical research are available at the state archive ...
, Serbo-Croatian krȃlj On the other hand, the change had already been completed in the earliest
Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and othe ...
documents. That implies that the change was completed, at least in the dialects of Bulgaria and of Macedonia, in no later than the 9th century, when the documents were written. There are, however, some attested unmetathised words in OCS such as ал(ъ)дии, a doublet of the metathised ладии. There are also glosses of Slavic words in foreign-language sources. Earlier sources show no effect of liquid metathesis, such as when the late-8th-century Greek chronicler
Theophanes the Confessor Theophanes the Confessor ( el, Θεοφάνης Ὁμολογητής; c. 758/760 – 12 March 817/818) was a member of the Byzantine aristocracy who became a monk and chronicler. He served in the court of Emperor Leo IV the Khazar before taking ...
writes Slavic names as (Ardágastos) and (Dargamērós). Old Church Slavonic versions of the names, with the metathesis applied, would be '' Radogostъ'' and '' Dragoměrъ''. Liquid metathesis is also seen in various borrowings preserved in toponymics; Latin ''Arba'' > Serbo-Croatian '' Rȃb'', Latin ''Albōna'' > Serbo-Croatian '' Làbīn'', Latin ''Scardōna'' > Serbo-Croatian '' Skràdīn'' etc.


Interpretation

It has been suggestedMatasović 2008:150 that East Slavic preserved the actual state of affairs, that the vowel was inserted in Common Slavic and that it was only subsequently lost in all dialects except in East Slavic, preceding the liquid. The exact development would thus be in Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian as follows: * PSl. *bardā 'beard' > *Common Slavic *baradā (*boroda) > *baradā (*boroda) SCr. ''bráda'', Blg. ''bradá''.


See also

*
Proto-Slavic language Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...


Notes


References


Further reading

* * * {{Slavic languages Proto-Slavic language Sound laws