EVOLUTION OF THE PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN (PIE) VOWEL *[ae] IN PROTO-ARIAN AND PROTO-SLAVIC

ABSTRACT

In the proposed article, the vowel *[æ] with intermediate articulation is considered as the PIE prototype of the vowels [e] and [a] in coinciding positions instead of the open [e], which is close to Fortunatov's views on the vocalism of the PIE language and coincides with the ideas about the sound denoted by the letter ѣ in Old Slavic and Old Russian.

The presence of the prototype *[æ] in the vocalism of PIE makes it possible to uniformly explain the correspondence of vowels/diphthongs in a number of IE languages with the help of divergent evolution of the PIE prototype. Particular attention is paid to the evolution of the prototype in Arian and Slavic languages.

АННОТАЦИЯ

В предлагаемой статье в качестве ПИЕ прототипа гласных [e] и [a] в совпадающих позициях вместо открытого [e] рассматривается гласный *[æ] с промежуточной артикуляцией, что близко к взглядам Фортунатова на вокализм ПИЕ языка и совпадает с представлениями ряда лингвистов о звуке, обозначаемом буквой ѣ в ст.-слав. и др.-рус.

Наличие в вокализме ПИЕ прототипа *[æ] позволяет единообразно объяснить соответствия гласных/дифтонгов в ряде ИЕ языков с помощью дивергентной эволюции ПИЕ прототипа. Особое внимание в статье уделено эволюции прототипа в арийских и славянских языках.

Keywords: divergence, Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language, Proto-Slavic language, articulation.

Ключевые слова: дивергенция, праиндоевропейский (ПИЕ) язык, праславянский язык, артикуляция.

Introduction. The author was prompted to write this article by doubts about the convergence of the PIE vowels *a/*ā, *e/*ē, *o/*ō into the vowels of the Proto-Aryan language *a/*ā, which is not consistent with the author's belief in the divergent development of archaic sounds (although the results of divergence of different initial sounds may sometimes coincide). A divergent mechanism of the origin of the vowels *a and *o from the PIE vowel *ɐ with intermediate articulation with an irregular dependence of the longitude of the results on the longitude of the prototype has already been shown (this process can be symbolically written in the form *[ɐ] > {*[a]; *[o]}) [7]. Similarly, we can record the development of the PIE vowel *ǝ (also with intermediate articulation) in Indo-Iranian: *[ǝ] > {[ǝ]; [ŭ]; [ŏ]; [a]; [e]} [4] – from which we can assume that in Indo-Iranian vowels also developed divergently. The seeming logic of the explanation of palatalization in *ča, *ǰa, *ǰha by the transition *e > *a in the combinations *če, *ǰe, *ǰhe is refuted by the signs of the presence of palatal consonants in PIE without regard to combinatorial conditions [5; 6] (that is, they did not arise as a result of the influence of the subsequent front vowel, but existed as independent phonemes from the very beginning).

Further, it is believed that Proto-Slavic vocalism included the long PIE vowel [ē], the openness of which in Proto-Slavic is confirmed by the fact that after the first palatalization of gutturals it changed into a long open [ā] [1, p. 148], as in Russian infinitive verbs of the II conjugation with the stem on the consonant ч or on hard sibilant consonants [8, p. 19], which is explained by a chain of transformations of the type:  *slušati < *slušěti < *sluхěti – with the transition ě > a after palatalization and agrees with the written fixation of the vowel ě in the infinitive suffix in the form ѣ, as, for example, in летѣти.

The question arises as to the motivation for the transition of the front vowel ě of the middle-upper rise into the vowel a of the middle row and lower rise in Proto-Slavic after palatalized consonants and for the aforementioned transition of PIE *[e] > *[a] in Aryan. Articulations of palatalized gutturals are quite compatible with [e], which means that palatalization itself does not require replacing [e] with [a]. For example, the original [e] is preserved in the Proto-Slav. *četvьrtъ, related to Lith. ketvir̃tas, but in Old Ind. caturthás such a change took place.

The purpose of the article is to search for an alternative to the statements about the convergence of the PIE vowels {*[a]; *[e]} > *[a] in Indo-Iranian and about a similar unmotivated transition of ě > a in Slavic vowels using the mechanism of phonetic splitting of protosounds.

Results of the study

So, the source of the Proto-Aryan *a is considered to be the convergence of the PIE *a, *e, *o. Within the framework of the divergent hypothesis, the Proto-Aryan vowel *a must be the result of the splitting of one of the PIE prototypes *[ɐ] > {*[a]; *[o]} or *[æ] > {*[a];*[e]} (the splitting of the PIE *ə, which in Aryan led to *i in the first and last syllables, is of no interest to us here). The choice of a prototype can obviously be made by examining the groups of cognates of Aryan lexemes:

- if cognates have mainly a vowel [a] in the position under study, preference should be given to the PIE prototype *[a];

- if cognates have mainly a vowel [o] in the position under study, preference should be given to the PIE prototype *[ɐ];

- if cognates have mainly a vowel [e] in the position under study, preference should be given to the PIE prototype *[æ] (the sound [æː] is similar to *ā^e offered by Fortunatov (ā tending to e) [3, p. 24]).

Lexemes that reliably satisfy the last condition are shown in Table 1. The reliability of selection was ensured by sifting out from sets of lexemes with Proto-Aryan *[a]:
- lexemes with the majority of reflexes [a] in the studied position in IE cognates, where *[a] can be assumed in the PIE prototype;
- lexemes with the majority of reflexes [o] in the studied position in IE cognates, where *[o] can be assumed and in the PIE prototype;
- lexemes with an irregular variety of reflexes in the studied position in IE cognates, where more detailed studies are needed to choose a vowel in the PIE prototype.

Thus, there is a high probability, that among the remaining lexemes there are lexemes with PIE prototypes that have *[æ] in the position under study, generating mainly [a] and [e] in descendant languages.

Table 1.

Examples of PIE reflexes of the prototype *[æ] in the lexemes of IE languages

These lexemes, of course, do not exhaust the list of lexemes that have prototypes with PIE *[æ]. It is important that *[æ] in this list exists not only after palatals: this means that *[æ] is not the result of the influence of the PIE palatals on the subsequent *[a], but *[æ] is an independent phoneme in PIE vocalism. Its independence can be shown by the example of a group of English lexemes: [bʌd], [bæd], [bed] – where the lexeme with [æ] has a meaning that is not related to the meanings of other lexemes, and all three vowels are in the same phonetic conditions.

The examples of reflexes of Proto-Slavic *[^jæ:] in Slavic are given in table 2, the lexemes containing the studied reflexes are from [6].

Table 2.

Reflexes of PIE *[^jæ:] in Slavic

In Table 2 lexemes that have -ѣ- in Old Slav. are grouped according to the following criteria:
- lexemes 1 – 17 have -ia- in Polish, -я- – in Bulgarian;
- lexemes 18 – 33 have -ia- in Polish, -е- – in Bulgarian;
- lexemes 34 – 47 have -ie- – in Polish, -я- или -е- – in Bulgarian;
- lexemes 48 – 54 have no regular correspondences of the vowel -ѣ- to vowels in other Slavic, as to -i-, -e-, -я- [^ja], -иjе- [ije] they are found irregularly.

It is especially worth highlighting the Proto-Slavic verbs of the 4th grade with the infinitive formant -ѣти *[^jæti] – prototypes of Russian verbs of the second conjugation, in which *[^jæ] split in Slavic into [a] and [e] after hissing consonants (e.g., Old Slav. кричати, Polish krzyczeć 'to cry'; Old Slav. лежати, Polish leżeć 'to lie'; Old Slav. слышати, Polish sɫyszeć 'to hear') and evolved into [e] after other consonants (лететь, терпеть, сидеть etc.). The formant *[^jæti] evolved similarly in the prototypes of the so-called hetero-conjugated verbs (Old Slav. хотѣти, Polish сhсiеć; Old Slav. бѣжати, Polish bieżeć); in a number of verbs the root vowel evolved the same way (e.g., in the prototype of Old Russ. мѣтити 'to mark' ~ Old Ind. mā́ti 'measures' ~ Goth. maitan 'hacks' ~ Lat. mētior 'to measure').

All vowel combinations in Slavic cognates satisfy the previously formulated criterion for the presence of *[æ] in the PIE prototype, in a narrower sense – the criterion for the presence of *[^jæ:] in Proto-Slavic prototypes, the reflex of which was reflected by the letter -ѣ- in Old Slavic and Old Russ. with other reflexes of the forms -ia-, -ie- and similar to them.

Conclusion

The presence of [a] after palatalized consonants in Aryan languages and in Slavic infinitive suffixes after sibilants can be uniformly explained by the presence of the phoneme *[æ] in the ancestral language, which is reconstructed not only after palatalized/hissing consonants (in the examples above: PIE *[pæ] > Proto-Tokh. *pä- ~ Old Indian pā́- ~ Avestan pa- ~ Ancient Greek pé-; PIE *[mæ] > Old Russian mѣ - ~ Old Ind. mā́- ~ Gothic mai- ~ Latin mē-); Proto-Slav. *[d^jæ] > Old Slav. sѣdѣti, *[t^jæ] > Old Slav. летѣти, etc.  Thus, in PIE vocalism, along with the vowels *[ɐ] and *[ə] with intermediate articulation, the vowel *[æ] is also assumed (according to Fortunatov, the vowel *ā^e, that is, *[a], tending to *[e]).

References

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