Pseudo-epenthetic /l/ in Slavic

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Alexandre Vaxman wrote:

> 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 
> consonants: i.-e. * (s)pieu [non-syllabic i and u] , lat. spuo, lith.
> spiauju, slovene pl'ujo [open o]. The traditional 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 which I am more acquainted.

The difference between "syllabic" and "nonsyllabic" or even 
"consonantal" is more in the interpretation than in the phonetics -- the 
very same objective reality can be interpreted as any of the above 
depending on the language, the morphological context the linguistic 
theory, etc. By the same token, the sounds [blu] can be a color or a 
verb according to context. Some might even say that "syllables" are a 
myth invented by speakers and linguists to simplify the description of 
what they think they hear.

That being said, there is a general progression from forms described as 
consonantal, which tend to have more constriction, noise, and friction 
and be briefer, to forms termed vocalic, which tend to have less 
constriction, noise, and friction and be longer in duration; consistent 
with this, "consonants" tend to have shorter transitions, whereas 
"semivowels" blend more gradually into the adjacent vowels.

> 2)What could cause the deletion of a non-syllabic i in latin "spuo"
> and its deglidification in lithuanian "spiauju";

Hard to know without context: under what phonetic/phonological/ 
morphological conditions did the change occur, in what phonological 
system, what exceptions can be identified, etc. etc.? As a wild first 
stab, plot the path on an F1/F2 graph and see what happens if you take a 
short cut (straighten out the curve).

> 3)Could you cite examples from other Slavic languages, especially with 
> pseudo-epenthetic consonants other than /l/? 

Italian and French have opposite processes in their history: in Italian, 
prevocalic /l/ vocalizes to /i/ as in più "more" (cf. French plus), and 
in French, postvocalic /l/ vocalizes via /w/ to /u/ and is eventually 
incorporated into the nuclear vowel: cheval "horse' sg. +s => *chevals 
=> *chevaws => chevaux pl. with /o/. Compare also forms like Ukr повний, 
Bel поўны [powny] "full" from *pol-, cognate with the English form.

But I would begin by saying this is not "epenthesis" at all -- it's a 
substitution of /l'/ for /y/ (or /j/ if you prefer). See for example 
<http://www.unice.fr/dsl/tobweb/papers/Hdt%20Kristo-Scheer%20FDSL6%20Potsdam%2005.pdf>, 
page 4, which explains the change as a response to the impossibility of 
palatalizing labials while all other consonants had paired off. By the 
same token, Cz /mje/ => [mñe] is a substitution (specifically, an 
assimilation), not an epenethesis.

> 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?

AFAIK syllable boundaries did not intervene in this Slavic sound change, 
because CS did not have syllable-final labials; it worked very hard to 
create open syllables.

I've always wondered whether language contact could've been involved -- 
it's hard to see where [lateral] comes from, though otherwise [l'] and 
[y] are quite similar, and the change was strongest in the East and 
weakest in the West.

> Finally, what literature could you recommend on these topics?

Sorry, I've been away too long.

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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