Pseudo-epenthetic /l/ in Slavic

[Henning Andersen]

Hi,

Traditionally, the term epenthetic literally 
means inserted and is synchronically, in Common 
Slavic and some descendents, applicable to the 
/l"/ that is inserted in inflection and 
derivation after labials before certain affixes. 
The /l"/ in pljujoN, bljudo, etc. is not 
epenthetic in this sense, but a fixed part of the 
given CS roots. (I personally don't like the term 
and this distinction.)

The elimination of glides, esp. /j/ in complex 
(marked) consonant environments is common. I call 
it deiotation.

>From English one could cite the types dew, tune, 
New Engl. dial /tiu:n/, /diu:/, gnl. American 
/tu:n/, /du:/. In British dialects widely with 
the same initial consonants as chew and jew.

Deiotation often leads to the change of glides to 
obstruents, sometimes to liquids. Contrast

Pol. dial. psies, bzialy, o(f)siara, co(w)ziek, 
mniara for Pol. st. pies, bialy, ofiara, 
czlowiek, miara

and

Jekavian pljeti, bljezhati, vljera, mljera.

In the Slavic languages, /j/ is obstruentized in 
languages where also /w/ is, and where liquids 
too may be obstruentized in some environments; 
e.g., Pol.st. twardy [tf-], ro/w [-f], trzy 
[tsh-], dial. sxoma [sx-] for st. sloma . Where 
/j/ becomes a liquid, other glides and some 
liquids become (non-syllabic) vowels, and some 
obstruents become liquids; e.g., SCB pao < pal, 
more < mozhe.

The contrasting developments in syllable onsets 
can be described in terms of spreading, from left 
to right in the Pol. ex., the other way in SCB. 
One can classify the Pol. ex. as fortition, the 
SCB one as lenition, perhaps.

But the larger picture seems to call for a different perspective.

A fuller account in "Vocalic and consonantal 
languages", Studia Linguistica A. V. Issatschenko 
a Collegis et Amicis oblata, ed. Lubomir Durovicš 
et al., 1-12. Lisse: De Ridder Press, 1978.

Interestingly, the same distinction appears 
applicable to the contrast between the Germanic 
consonant shift (p t k > f th h) and the later 
High German consonant shift. When High German p 
t  k change to pf/f/ff  ts/s/ss  kx/x/xx, 
features spread from left to right. But the 
development of simple aspiration in North German 
is a spread of vowel features from right to left.

  See "On bifurcations and the Germanic consonant 
shifts". Language in Time and Space. A 
Festschrift for Werner Winter on the Occasion of 
his 80th Birthday (Trends in Linguistics. Studies 
and Monographs 144) ed. by Brigitte L. M. Bauer 
and Georges-Jean Pinault. Berlin-New York: Mouton 
de Gruyter. 2003




>Dear SEELANGers,
>
>Reading Rajko Nahtigal's "Slavic languages" (Ljubljana, 1952; Moscow, 1963),
>I found the following statement:
>"The soft l' (also) developed from non-syllabic i after labial conso-
>nants: i.-e. * (s)pieu [non-syllabic i and u] , lat. spuo, lith. spiauju,
>slovene pl'ujo [open o]. The traditionnal label "l-epentheticum" (inserted
>l) is not correct for the soft l'".


I have four questions pertaining to this quotation:
>1)Where does the difference between a non-syllabic i and the consonantal j
>lie? Slavists have always used this notion of non-syllabic i, e.g.
>Reformatskij (1975) "O foneme j i "i" v russkom jazyke" (in: Fonolo-
>gicheskie etjudy) speaks of three different phonetic realizations of /j/:
>as a [j], as a zero, and, third, precisely as "non-syllabic i".
>Is there any phonological and/or phonetic criteria justifying the existence
>of such phoneme? As far as I know, it is not much used in the generative
>framework with wich I am more acquainted .
>
>2)What could cause the deletion of a non-syllabic i in latin "spuo" and its
>deglidification in lithuanian "spiauju";
>
>3)Could you cite examples from other Slavic languages, especially with
>pseudo-epenthetic consonants other then /l/?
>
>4)What is in your thought the reason of this sound change?
>Would it be appropriate to explain in by a positional factor like
>fortition i --> l'/ C.___ where . is a syllabic boundary?
>
>Finall, what literature could you recommend on these topics?
>
>Best,
>
>Alex Vaxman,
>PhD student,
>Laboratoire Parole et Langage,
>Aix en Provence, France
>
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|||||   Henning Andersen

|||||   Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
|||||   University of California, Los Angeles
|||||   P.O.Box 951502
|||||   Los Angeles, CA 900095-1502

|||||   Phone: +1-310-837-6743.  Fax by appointment
|||||   http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/slavic/faculty/andersen_h.html

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