Re: Russian e and jat'

Lars Finsen skrev:
> Russian has not only jo, but a whole series of
> palatalisation vowels: ja, je, ju. I'm surprised that they
> don't turn up in this discussion. But my knowledge of
> Russian historical phonology is scarce, and perhaps they
> occur only as a result of being adjacent to palatalised
> consonants. They do occur initially sometimes, but maybe
> this is due to loans, like the names Jurij and Julija, or
> inheritance from IE.
These are of several Common Slavic origins:
- front vowels _*e, *&_, and in some dialects even _*a_,
   developed a preceding /j/ at the beginning of words and
   after vowels because Proto and Common Slavic had a
   tendency to make all syllables conform to a CV structure.
- In the dialect underlying Old Church Slavic _*&_ was in
   the process of becoming _ja_, which is reflected in some
   loans in Russian.
- PIE _*eu_ became Slavic _*ju_.
- Common Slavic _*&~_ (a nasal front vowel) became _ja_ in
   most Slavic languages (with Cja later becoming C;a). Thus
   Russian _jazyk_, Latin _lingua_ and English _tongue_ are
   actually cognates, PIE _*dn=g^huA(ko)-_ -- or perhaps even
   _*g^dn=g^huA(ko)-_ since the initial is doing funny stuff,
   showing up now as _d_, now as _l_ and now disappearing.
- As i said before _*e_ > _je_ > _jo_ much later in an north-
   eastern area only, as a kind of dissimilation between /j/
   and /e/. The OCS _*&_ > _ja_ was a similar dissimilation,
   so it is not isolated.


> We have the phenomenon in Germanic too. Germ. Bär, Scand.
> Bjørn/Björn, but also Erde/Jord.
That's a different phenomenon: an original _*e_ 'breaking'
when an _*a or *u_ stood in the next syllable: _*ber(n)u >
*beornu > *beorn > *bjQrn_, thus a kind of umlaut. (BTW Old
English 'breaking' is different, in that it is triggered by
a velarized liquid or velar fricative following the vowel,
although in this particular word the results coincided to
some extent.)

> I'm using it in Urianian as well to account for a few
> names that I could reconcile with IE roots by equipping
> them with initial or internal palatals. But the scheme
> here seems to be: a>jo, e>ja, i>je, o>ju. Nothing for u.
> It's curious that the "thin" vowels (i, e) open up, while
> the others are closing. But if the Urianians want it that
> way, they shall get it.
Obviously a chain shift going on. You 'should' have
_*u_ become /y/ and then perhaps _ju_. :-) Curious: can
the Urianians decide their language changes, like
Tolkien's Elves?

/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

    a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot

                                 (Max Weinreich)


--


/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

    a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot

                                 (Max Weinreich)

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