Wiktionary talk:About Proto-Slavic

Some proposed changes

• removing 80% of the article which deals with history - that's encyclopaedic. WT:AEN doesn't explain Great Vowel Shift. Some of it is quite disputable (e.g. proto-language being spoken, IPA values for reconstructed segments, where exactly was Proto-Slavic spoken)
• document existing templates used for headword line and inflection
• references on which entries should be created (i.e. no OR)
• templates (textual, not MW) for the list of descendants, new entries (noun, adjectives, verbs).
• notation for accents - I prefer the classical one, the one by Derksen based on Serbo-Croatian gives me headaches --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 04:50, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Stuff to do

• Create an appendix on Common Slavic accent paradigms
• Add an optional parameter to {sla-PoS} to indicate accent paradigm and link to the appendix. Should accept two values (in case of uncertainties).
• Rewrite inflection templates in Lua so that their number, as well as the number of parameters they require, is reduced - i.e. detection of the type of stem, and whether the consonant should undergo palatalization before the desinence. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 07:39, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Early Proto-Slavic

Recently mostly Early Proto-Slavic (i.e. the "real" Proto-Slavic, as opposed to Common-Slavic which we term Proto-Slavic) forms is dealt with in the literature, i.e. forms with distinctive lengths, diphthongs, closed syllables etc. We could provide both proto-forms, together with inflections (which differ from sources to source, because the development of word-final clusters is disputed, so there would be multiple inflections per specified sources), and a description of changes (sounds, accents) that occurred in the Common Slavic period. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 06:36, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

*kt, *gt -> *ť?

Whence is this rule? What for? Especially when only page titles follow it. E. g. there is page Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/moťi but all derivatives linking to it list PS form *mogti. So what’s the purpose of this change in PS lexicon? Same with *noktь/*noťь – Silmethule (talk) 12:40, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

That change was Common Slavic. Strictly speaking, both *noktь and *noťь are true, it's just that the former is an earlier form of the latter. (note that before velar consonants, kt and xt change to t instead) *noktь is the traditional form used in the dictionaries. Personally I'm agnostic on the issue.

The reason why etymologies link to *mogti is because the Proto-Slavic page was originally created as *mogti, and the person who moved it hasn't followed the standard procedure of updating the references to the old page as well. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:50, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

The difference between -gt-/-kt- and -tj- is not reconstructable via the comparative method. They all share the same outcome in the Slavic languages which means that they merged in Proto-Slavic at some point. Only by internal reconstruction, or by referring to earlier forms (Balto-Slavic, PIE) can we know which of the two was the original form. We could decide to write it as tj instead, but ť seems more suitable as an abstract symbol as the exact pronunciation of this sound is rather uncertain. w:Proto-Slavic and w:History of the Slavic languages give more information. —CodeCat 13:15, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

There is lots of evidence in onomastics (toponyms, personal names) written in other languages, as well as borrowings from Latin and Greek to Slavic. We can even date these changes very precisely. Georg Holzer in Historische Grammatik des Kroatischen shows that kt, xt > k'ť, x'ť, and only much later do these change to ť. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:59, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Also, looking at other present forms of descendants we can reconstruct some of the original kt', gt' groups, like *mogti basing on eg. modern Polish mogę, możesz (however it only works, when first element is part of stem and the second – of ending).

And, regarding to writing ť instead of tj – it makes no sense, when nj, rj and lj are preferred – one consistent way of iotation would look better. // Silmeth ^@talk 17:29, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Every other book seems to have its own way of marking palatalized/palatal consonants. However, I agree that it's inconsistent to have digraphs in case of */lj/ or */nj/, while simultaneously having */ť/ and */ď/. There is also the problem of not having the distinction of iotated/palatalized consonants and normal sequences such as *lj and *nj* in internal history of Proto-Slavic in extended etymologies (see *korljь; and also *t' and d* that originated from the third and second palatalizations which occurred before iotation, and which later became */c/, */dz/). Apostrophe <'> or <’> seems to be the most widespread one, perhaps we should settle on it? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 08:42, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, we should definitely provide all alternative forms for reconstructions, as they appear in the literature. I was thinking of using some box to list these instead of cluttering the headword line, which would then contain only the "Wiktionary standard form". The box would have two columns, one for reconstructions and another for the list of works that use them. Works would be listed by shortcuts which would on click link to an appendix page that lists their full name, author, etc.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 23:23, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Some proposals

• For nouns, adjectives and verbs an optional parameter ap= is added which could take values a, b, c and d (the d paradigm is reconstructed by Russians), including their combinations when there could be multiple reconstructed (e.g. a-b, similar like we have for genders). These parameters would also categorize.
• For adjectives we make principal parts feminine and neuter, in addition to the masculine. These would be optional, i.e. generated from the masculine. This would be particularly useful in cases when accents are different in different genders. For example, the headword line for *bělъ could be: bě̃lъ m (feminine *běla̍, neuter *bělo̍), which more easily explains e.g. Serbo-Croatian b(ij)ȇl, b(ij)éla, b(ij)élo. If not provided via parameters, these feminine and neuter forms could easily be generated in Lua.
• For the verb we make principal part, beside the infinitive, the first-person singular present. For example, the headword line for *běgati would be: bě̋gati (first-person present tense bě̋gajǫ). In other words, we have both present stem and the infinitive stem listed. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 01:13, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Soft sign

If ь = ĭ then actually soft sign doesn't exists in proto-slavic? If exists then which letter will be '(apostrophe) in phonetic transliteration? I mean for exmaple russian голубь = gólubʹ, where ь = '. Useigor (talk) 04:18, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

ь/ĭ was a vowel in Proto-Slavic, and so was ъ/ŭ. ь was pronounced like i, ъ like y or u, but less clear and shorter. Eventually, these two vowels often disappeared in the later Slavic languages, but sometimes ь/ĭ left softening as a "residue" after it disappeared. Russian writers then started to use ь (which was not a vowel with its own sound anymore) to show softening of the preceding consonant, and started to write it in places where the vowel ь had not originally been. In older Russian spelling the ъ was still written in some places too, but it was not pronounced as anything and it was dropped in 1917. —CodeCat 04:26, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I mean i want to know which letter makes soft consonant. I don't understand why some stems called "soft". Useigor (talk) 22:55, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Some letters are soft and others are hard. Soft are č, š, ž, c, ś, j, ť, ď (and also nj, lj, rj). A stem that ends with one of those sounds is a soft stem. —CodeCat 23:39, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Please note that consonants š, ž, c (ш, ж, ц) are almost always hard in Russian (but šč - щ is soft), (adding ь doesn't make them soft), can be both ways in Ukrainian, c can be both ways in Belarusian but š and ž are always hard. There are more soft (palatalised) consonants. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:58, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

But what about dz? Is it soft like c(ts)? Useigor (talk) 05:53, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Church Slavonic

Wikitiki89 (talk • contribs) keeps removing it from the descendants list for unknown reason. Church Slavonic recensions are generally treated as separate languages, with their own literatures, spelling rules, dictionaries and grammars. They have attestations for many words not found in the limited corpus of OCS canon. Etymological dictionaries always mark words found in them as such (CS, not OCS). They should thus be marked as a separate language in the descendants list as well. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:57, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I didn't "keep removing" it; I removed it once. Anyway, I'm not so much against having it, but against its location. It's not its own subfamily of Slavic, but still a part of South Slavic and should probably be as a sub-element of OCS. --WikiTiki89 14:06, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Russian Church Slavonic is South Slavic? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 15:58, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Well it's a direct continuation of OCS in written-only form, isn't it? Use of Medieval Latin in England doesn't make it not an Italic language. --WikiTiki89 16:18, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

It's spoken not written-only. OCS is merely a carefully selected oldest layer of what was already at the time separate literary languages. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:27, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

It's not "spoken", just read aloud. --WikiTiki89 19:37, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

In other words, it was spoken. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:10, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

This is just a matter of semantics and has nothing to do with whether it is a South Slavic language. --WikiTiki89 14:43, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Church Slavonic recensions were adaptations according to the local vernacular. Yes the basis was "South Slavic" (I'm putting question marks because at that time of OCS MSS there was no geographical separation of the Slavic speech yet, and such notion is anachronic) and these adaptations far outnumber the few isoglosses (phonological, grammatical, lexical) that characterize OCS as South Slavic from the modern perspective. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 15:19, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

So then it might make sense to place it in a different place depending on where the particular word is found. As the default location, it makes sense to place it as a sub-element of OCS. --WikiTiki89 16:08, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Why you're using nj, rj, lj and dz?

In my opinion ń, ŕ, ĺ are better, they save space and make text more readable. Look at the list: ť *ď, *č, *ž, *š, *c, *lj *nj *rj, *j — 3 last are like black sheeps. Also in fact first two are using caron (just does not fit with lowercase d,t), so the list in capital would look so: Ť, Ď, Č, Ž, Š, C, Ĺ, Ń, Ŕ (Ś, Ź). As you can see caron is for palatalized hushing consonants (at least not just -j) and acute for soft consonants (-j).

I absolutely don't get why we're using dz while only polish it does. Don't you think that common slavic change is g > dz (or dź) > z (or ź) otherwise we must not write epenthetic l since it's barely appear in west slavic. We can't randomly choose when to listen to west slavs when don't.

• kъnjiga / kъńiga
• prijateljь / prijateĺь (never have seen proto-slavic words/roots with not iotated vowel after i)
• brjuxo / bŕuxo
• cěsarjь / cěsaŕь
• morje / moŕe

Useigor (talk) 08:39, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree, digraphs should be eliminated. I don't understand your second paragraph? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:30, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree too that we should use single characters for these. But it makes more sense to me if we use hačeks for all of them, so ň, ř, ľ. And I don't understand your point in the second paragraph either. The phoneme *dz is reconstructed for Proto-Slavic based on the comparative method. Not just Polish has this sound, but also Macedonian and some forms of Old Church Slavonic. The fact that the *dz ~ *z distinction reflects an older distinction inherited from Proto-Balto-Slavic shows that it is not an innovation within each of these languages. And, being inherited, this implies that it must be reconstructed for Proto-Slavic proper. —CodeCat 14:39, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I can compare too. In third palatalization g > dz/dź in all Slavic languages, but later it was shortened to z/ź in all Slavic languages except Polish, Polabian and Old Church Slavonic. Therefore g > dz > z - is common slavic by clear majority. But you still use dz for some reason. Also i see that pj and similar changed to plj only in South and East Slavic. In West Slavic languages letter l almost doesn't appear (polish czapla looks suspicious). In this case South and East Slavs are in majority and that's right that we write epenthetic l. My conclusion is that there can be 2 variants: dź & pj or ź & pĺ.

About carons, if we're gonna use soft ź and ś and with acuts therefore soft ń, ŕ, ĺ must use acuts as well to be same with ź and ś, since ž and š are in use already and they represent another palatalized sounds. I mean that acute for soft consonants (e.g. lj / ĺ), caron for palato-alveolar (they are in most descendants).Useigor (talk) 20:33, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand what Proto-Slavic is. It's the common ancestor of all Slavic languages, not just of some of them. If we say that Polish dz descends from *z, that would not make sense. We have to use the form that is ancestral to every Slavic language. Majority has nothing at all to do with it. Compare for example what we do with Proto-Germanic *z. Almost all Germanic languages reflect this phoneme as r, the only ones that don't are Gothic and Proto-Norse, both very old languages. So if we went by a majority here, we'd have to use *r for Proto-Germanic, but that would not make sense because *z is the older, ancestral form of the sound. Likewise, Proto-Germanic *ē is reflected as ē in Gothic but as ā in all other Germanic languages, but we reconstruct *ē because that is the original form of the sound. —CodeCat 20:39, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

That said, recent examination of the Old Novgorod dialect suggests that we should reconstruct neither *dz nor *z, but actually *g (or *ǵ?). The Old Novgorod letters were actually written in an obscure form of Slavic that did not take place in the second or third palatalisations, which affected every other Slavic language we know of. The fact that it did not take part in the change in the same way shows that the palatalisation actually took place after Proto-Slavic had split into dialects to some degree. —CodeCat 23:55, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Seems your position is clear for me. Also i like ǵ, kъnęǵь with it looks good, and i think you know that in Russian feminine of this word is княгиня (kńagińa). But i still don't understand epenthetic l (i mentioned in my both messages) - it's not common for Western Slavs therefore we must write zemja (zem-ja), stьbjь (stьb-jь), čapja (čap-ja) and etc. — Useigor (talk) 22:57, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea of using *ǵ and *ḱ and was actually going to suggest it myself. If we do this, I would also move *gvězda and *květъ to *ǵvězda and *ḱvětъ. This is inconsistent, though, with the use of *ś for palatalized *x, but *x́ would look pretty weird. --WikiTiki89 23:45, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

There is one point we need to examine first though. In Common Slavic, vowel fronting after palatal consonants followed the application of the progressive palatalisation. This is why we have *kъnęgъ > (progressive palatalisation) *kъnęǵъ > (fronting) *kъnęǵь > (assibilation in non-Novgorod Slavic) *kъnędzь. The progressive palatalisation (one of the two which did not fully affect Old Novgorod) would have first palatalised the final consonant, and following that its declension would have switched over from "hard" to "soft" due to vowel fronting. This means, then, that we must look for signs of soft declensions in Old Novgorod nouns that underwent the progressive palatalisation in other Slavic dialects. If there is evidence of this, then we can conclude that *kъnęǵь is the latest form common to all Slavic languages, and it would also mean that the progressive palatalisation did apply to ON, but did not progress as far. If there is no soft declension for such nouns in ON, then we must necessarily reconstruct *kъnęgъ for all of Slavic. —CodeCat 00:35, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Based on w:ru:Древненовгородский диалект#Собственно дрененовгородские явления, some of the attested ON reflexes of the forms of *vьśь are в[ъ]хоу (v[ŭ]xu), въхо (vŭxo), отъ въхоѣ (otŭ vŭxojě), въ въхъ (vŭ vŭxŭ), овхо (ovxo, “fully”), вхого (vxogo), на вхыхъ (na vxyxŭ), вьхѣ (vĭxě), вьхѣмъ (vĭxěmŭ). It also contradictorily states that all the forms have the stem вьх- (vĭx-), but I don't think that makes that big of a difference. It is pretty clear that it uses the hard declension. --WikiTiki89 01:19, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• The jury is still out on how to explain aberrant features of North Russian speeches. According to some they are not exemption from e.g. second palatalization, but rather later innovations or special developments such as a postponed monophothongization. The are alternative reconstructions of Proto-Slavic (e.g. by Georg Holzer) that go chronologically earlier to account for such anomalies, and for other reasons. According to Holzer's chronology the "middle steps" from k, g > c, dz (> z) are not ḱ, ǵ but rather t', d'. There is also the issue of the little fact that 2nd palatalization is a very old isogloss and has been completed before some other Common Slavic changes took place (such as iotation, the rise of jers and nasal vowels..) so mixing such chronologically different stages is a big no-no. Those alternative reconstructions are slowly being accepted so we might add them in 5-10 years when theories get sufficiently fleshed out.
• Regarding dz - it is attested in Glagolitic (the older part of the corpus) OCS where it is overwhelmingly marked with a special letter: ⰷ (dz), and occasionally with z (this at a point when the change dz > z was completed, the letter ⰷ lost its original function and was used strictly as a numeral). Glagolitic script is generally assumed to be purely phonemic, reflecting Constantine-Cyrillus' vernacular, and that dz is given a special symbol points to its authenticity as a "separate sound". Furthermore, the Cyrillic (younger) part of the OCS corpus regularly writes z, which indicates that dz is indeed a genuine output of the 2nd palatalization, and z a later change.
• Regarding the divergent developments of l-epenthesis there are two explanations in the literature: 1) Some Slavic areas didn't exhibit the epenthesis on morpheme boundaries 2) the change was regular everywhere both within a morpheme and at morpheme boundaries, but l was lost at morpheme boundaries in some areas. Regarding the evidence - again the older part of the OCS canon has more consistent usage of epenthesis in all positions, almost completely regular in Glagolitic corpus. E.g. in Codex Assemanius (early 11th c., Glagolitic) 342 attestations have the epenthesis while 85 lack it; in Sava's book (11th c., Cyrillic) out of 205 attestations 90 are without epenthetic l, while in Codex Suprasliensis (also 11th c., Cyrillic) 695 out of 791 forms lack the epenthesis. West Slavic evidence is a bit less clear since some early 10th century attestations lack the epenthesis, but seconary evidence (toponyms such as Czech Vidovle and Davle, 14th-century Hungarian attestation of Slovak Ribelyn vs. today's Rybany or a 1276 attestation of Hleulan vs. today's Chlievany, isolated words such as Polish kropla, grobla : Kashubian kropla, grable, konople : Lower Sorbian grobla : Slovak hrobľa, hrobeľ) indicates that it was originally a Common Slavic change and developments in Bulgarian-Macedonian and West Slavic developments are secondary. That's what most scholars agree with, though few hold that the few exceptions in West Slavic are not archaisms but secondary developments as well (e.g. change of syllable boundary: grob|ja > gro|bja where the epenethesis was regular within a morpheme). At best the evidence is inconclusive and is another argument in favor of pushing the reconstruction o "true" Proto-Slavic to an earlier stage.

There is also the possibility to use superscript ʲ everywhere which looks much nicer IMHO. ť and ď look like ejectives. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 00:12, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

*bata, *baťa, *batja (ЭССЯ-1-163)

What's the difference between *baťa & *batja and how to type second word if we change third to baťa? —Игорь Телкачь 17:23, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

ť is the notation we use for the iotated t, which originated from a former -tj- sequence. So ť and tj are the same thing. —CodeCat 19:22, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Wordless descendants

For me most problematic part in creating pages are descendants since they're using different scripts, special chars, diacritics. So no problem if i'll be creating pages where descendants have no words, except the one that will have word? —Игорь Телкачь 01:03, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree with leaving out the descendants. They're crucial for any reconstructed term. —CodeCat 01:05, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Is it forbidden to create pages with one descendant? People who're familiar with language may type words. —Игорь Телкачь 01:21, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

• It's OK to create appendices with a single reflex (e.g. Russian). You can also type reflexes without checking their spelling, placing an accent, or only transliterations, so someone else can check them later. We have folks like Anatoli that do just that (it gives them great pleasure :) --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 01:25, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Descendants with mid3

What do you think about dividing 3 Slavic groups into 3 blocks? Church Slavonic can be written above them.

East Slavic Template:mid3 South Slavic Template:mid3 West Slavic

—Игорь Тълкачь 18:09, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Excellent idea Boris. Other than cell phones and similar technologically primitive replacements for a real computer, modern computer screens have a large width-to-height ratio and horizontal placement of lists results in a more compact entry, that can be read and skimmed more easily, reducing unnecessary scrolling. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:49, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Vowel shift

Would it be valuable to give forms with their early Proto-Slavic vocalism (i.e. *ä *a and *ī *ē *ǟ *ā *ō *ū in place of *e *o, and *i *ě *a *u *y) beside the common Slavic (post-PSl) values currently used? I imagine there will be pushback about doing away with the current notation entirely, but this would help quite a bit for putting PSl in its Balto-Slavic context and for clarifying old loanwords into adjacent languages. --Tropylium (talk) 17:02, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

We can include them in the etymology section (like "from earlier *xyz"). I don't think they should be headwords though. --WikiTiki89 17:04, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

*noktь vs. *noťь

@Atitarev, Cinemantique, Wikitiki89, Wanjuscha, KoreanQuoter, CodeCat, Ivan Štambuk, Useigor, JohnC5 None of Derksen, ESSJa and Vasmer use the assimilated form *noťь. Derksen and Vasmer use unassimilated *noktь and ESSJa uses partly assimilated *nokťь. Similarly for *mogti/*mogťi vs. moťi, etc. I wonder if we shouldn't put the headwords under the unassimilated or partly assimilated form instead of the assimilated form. I'm generally a believer in following prevailing sources unless there's a good reason not to. Note that forms like Ukrainian берегти́ (berehtý, “to protect”) and Belarusian берагчы́ (bjerahčý) (vs. Russian бере́чь (beréčʹ)) suggest that the unassimilated form *bergti and partly assimilated form *bergťi might have coexisted in Common Slavic with the assimilated form *berťi (unless the Ukrainian and Belarusian forms are secondary). Benwing2 (talk) 21:05, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I prefer showing the form that is actually reconstructable. —CodeCat 21:12, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

@CodeCat What about Belarusian волокцы, Slovak vliecť < *velkti? Benwing2 (talk) 21:49, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

They could easily be analogical. —CodeCat 21:51, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

берегти́ (beregtí) is attestable as a Russian word (I think it's dialectal) in [1]. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:27, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

@Benwing2 As far as i know such Ukrainian verbs are secondary, also i can't recall similar forms in Old East Slavic. Compare *potъ, *pętъ, *sedmъ. In Historical-Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language (Černyx, volume 1, page 579) written *noktь > *noťь. —Игорь Тълкачь (talk) 23:29, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

@Useigor Do you know an online source for Chernykh (or somewhere to get the PDF's)? The only one I found requires a Windows-only DJVU plugin and I have a Mac. Benwing2 (talk) 00:00, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

@Benwing2 http://imwerden.de/publ-1712.html http://imwerden.de/publ-1713.html —Игорь Тълкачь (talk) 15:18, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

@Useigor Thank you! Benwing2 (talk) 15:23, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I have a hunch that берегти́ (berehtý) and берагчы́ (bjerahčý) and other such forms are more likely to be due to leveling, but it would be good to find some scholarly opinions on this subject. --WikiTiki89 15:33, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Accent pattern references for verbs and adjectives

(moved from User talk:Useigor)

@Atitarev, Cinemantique, Wikitiki89, Wanjuscha, KoreanQuoter @CodeCat Wondering if anyone knows a good reference for the accentual patterns of Proto-Slavic verbs and adjectives (and any references for the accentual patterns of nouns other than Verweij 1994). Benwing2 (talk) 13:03, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

@Ivan Štambuk Benwing2 (talk) 13:04, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't have such a reference.--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 13:15, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

@Benwing2: I don't know, maybe in some Dybo's works —Игорь Тълкачь (talk) 19:55, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

@CodeCat, Useigor What's a good reference for Proto-Slavic verbs? I'd like to fill in the conjugations of some of the Proto-Slavic verb entries I'm creating. CodeCat, you created most of the verb templates, where did you get the info from? Benwing2 (talk) 19:40, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

@Benwing2 I don't know (except Meillet "The Common Slavic" and conjugations of Slavic languages) —Игорь Тълкачь (talk) 02:30, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Proto-Slavic verb conjugation reference

@CodeCat It looks like you created most of the verb conjugation templates. Where did you get the info from? Is this purely reconstructing back from OCS or is there a reference I can look at? I would like to flesh out some of the remaining conjugations. Benwing2 (talk) 02:12, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

It's reconstructed back from OCS mostly. There are still some issues, such as the variation in 3rd singular endings, 3rd plural endings, and also the 1st plural and 2nd singular. —CodeCat 13:41, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

RFM discussion: September 2013–May 2017

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

Proto-Slavic

I am proposing that entries such as *reťi (and *moťь, *noťь, *dъťi and others) and *meďa (and *svěťa, etc.) be renamed to *rekti (*moktь, *noktь, *dъkti) and *medja (*světja), respectively; i.e. as they usually spelled in academic works. Another inconsistency is that some entries have the intrusive *l, while others do not (compare *čaplja : *zemja). --220.253.179.121 10:45, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I support using -kt-/-tj-/-dj- in these cases. WT:ASLA already specifies that epenthetic l's should be included, so Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/zemja needs to be moved to Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/zemlja. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:50, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

There is no difference between -kt- and -tj-, the distinction is purely etymological. So I don't support making it. And WT:ASLA did not originally specify that the l should be included, Ivan unilaterally rewrote most of that page and it does not represent consensus. —CodeCat 11:21, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

If the difference is purely etymological, then surely the etymology section of an entry is the place to make it. I don't see any objections being raised to the inclusion of the -l-, and in consensus-building silence implies consent. Personally I'd prefer to exclude it because we should be giving the oldest reconstructable form (hence -kt-) and the -l- is "unetymological". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:49, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Surely if we want the oldest reconstructable form, we should be reconstructing PIE and not Proto-Slavic? Reconstructions should concern themselves with the latest common ancestor, not the earliest. There is no descernable difference between -kt- and -tj- in Slavic, both have the exact same outcome in all languages. So the comparative method that linguists use to make reconstructions will give one phoneme, which has been labelled as *ť on Wiktionary and Wikipedia. To reconstruct the difference between -kt- and -tj- requires "outside information", which is not always available. It would be a bit like reconstructing the distinction between short a and o for Proto-Germanic depending on their origin, even though these clearly merged. —CodeCat 11:55, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

And concerning -j- or -lj-, there is no clear linguistic consensus on whether -lj- is original or -j-, so we just picked one to standardise on. —CodeCat 11:57, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Internal reconstruction within the protolanguage and comparison with sister languages and protolanguages is also part of historical linguistics, and distinguishing tj < *kt from tj < *tj provides useful information. We don't have to put blinders on and look only at what's reconstructable from the daughter languages, especially since the majority of published sources don't either, and do distinguish the two types of tj. If we didn't allow internal reconstruction within the proto-language, we'd never reconstruct any PIE laryngeals at all except in words directly attested in Anatolian (and even then we would never reconstruct h₁ at any rate). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:11, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I think you're mistaken. While some linguists are in the habit of reconstructing laryngeals to account for any occurrence of *a or a long vowel, there are many who don't and disagree with this practice. Ringe for example explicitly argues that not all cases of *a should be reconstructed as *h₂e just for the sake of it. But there are many cases where the descendants rule out *a and require *h₂e, so then it can be reconstructed. This doesn't apply to Slavic *ť though. There are no examples of any discernable difference between *kt and *tj in any Slavic language, so trying to distinguish them is always going to be an irregular and incomplete process. And there's also a more esthetic argument: Proto-Slavic didn't allow syllables to end in an obstruent, and we don't have reconstructions with obstruent-final syllables anywhere. Yet *noktь has such a syllable, so it would be internally inconsistent if we used this representation, unless we somehow "decide" that *kt is actually a single phoneme. And if you get to that point then you might as well just respell that phoneme as *ť... —CodeCat 12:53, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

What cases are there where non-Anatolian descendants "rule out *a and require *h₂e"? Reconstructing kt in Proto-Slavic is no different than reconstructing ɸ in Proto-Celtic (or, as I said, h₁ in PIE—or for that matter e-vocalism next to h₂ and h₃); if we know from other evidence that it was there, there's no reason to exclude it, and certainly no reason for reconstructions to "concern themselves with the latest common ancestor, not the earliest". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:15, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Well actually, the Proto-Slavic we reconstruct here is not actually the latest common ancestor, it's later. As far as I can tell, we have certain sound changes applied to our reconstructions, even though they can be demonstrated to have occurred after certain other changes that we don't apply. For example, the liquid diphthongs were changed in a dialect-specific way before the vowels *o and *a differed in quality (because *or is lengthened to *ra in South Slavic). But the quality distinctions must have arisen before a whole lot of accent changes that happened in late Common Slavic, such as the creation of accent class B (which we reconstruct). But in all of these cases we represent "archiphonemes" that can be reconstructed for all Slavic languages based on comparative evidence. *or is an archiphoneme that should be understood as meaning different things in different Slavic dialects. The same should be done for *ť, for which comparative evidence gives only a single phoneme rather than two, so there is nothing beyond that to reconstruct. —CodeCat 14:39, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Archived as stale. - -sche (discuss) 19:33, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Rename conjugation category names

@Atitarev, Benwing2, Cinemantique, Ivan Štambuk, Jan.Kamenicek, KoreanQuoter, Per utramque cavernam, Rua, Wikitiki89

Proposed (inf/[pres])	Current (pres/[inf])	Example
a	aj	*obuvati, *obuvajetь
a	aj	*padati, *padajetь
a/C	C(a)	*dьrati, *deretь
a/i	i/a	*sъpati, *sъpitь
a/i	i/a	*slyšati, *slyšitь
a/j	j/a	*sypati, *sypljetь
a/V	j(a)	*trovati, *trujetь
C	C	*pasti, *padetь
C	C	*derti, *dьretь
C/j	[j/C]?	*porti, *porjetь
C/n	[n/C]?	*mъkošę, *mъknetь
i	i	*traviti, *travitь
n	n	*dьrznǫti, *dьrznetь
ova/u	uj/ova	*cělovati, *cělujetь
V	j	*obuti, *obujetь
V/C	[C/V]?	*truti, *trovetь
V/C	[C/V]?	*pęti, *pьnetь
V/n	[n/V]?	*stati, *stanetь
ě	ěj	*gověti, *govějetь
ě/i	i/ě	*vьrtěti, *vьrtitь

Current names are based on present stem, it makes more difficult to find needing category, because present is not used in article names and usually suffixed words are derived from infinitive. So i think there is need to change order in conjugation names: from pres/[inf] to inf/[pres]. Is there any objections or alternative propositions?—Игорь Тълкачь (talk) 17:10, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

• Renamed.—Игорь Тълкачь (talk) 19:55, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Use the traditional accent symbols

@Benwing2, Useigor I don't think we should be following the Leiden school (e.g. Derksen) on this. They are known to be radical and their reconstructions aren't the consensus among linguists generally. Some of their accentual reconstructions are demonstrably false on some points.

Loss of yer causes lengthening in monosyllables only after Proto-Slavic. This happens after the shortening of the circumflex in some Slavic dialects, where the compensatory lengthening from the loss re-lengthens the syllable again. The Leiden school posits *bȏgъ, with a circumflex lengthened from an older short vowel, but this cannot be the case because there is a long vowel even West Slavic, where the circumflex regularly shortens. The circumflex posited by the Leiden school thus requires positing lengthening from a lost yer twice in order to explain the attested forms, once in order to form the circumflex, then again to re-lengthen it in dialects that shorten the circumflex. Such forms are better reconstructed with a short vowel for Proto-Slavic.

The Leiden school also posits shortening of all acuted syllables pre-Dybo's law. But this is again untenable, for two reasons. Firstly, as Kapović notes in The Development of Proto-Slavic Quantity, loanwords from 9th-10th Slavic into Hungarian preserve length on acuted syllables, as do some loans into other languages such as Lithuanian. A second reason for questioning the shortening of all acuted syllables is that they aren't actually always short in some Slavic dialects. Czech regularly reflects the old acute as a long vowel in the first syllable. If the acute was shortened at some point, they'd have to be lengthened again in the history of Czech to produce the attested forms. —Rua (mew) 22:17, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Another point to note regarding shortened acute: Derksen's dictionary denotes (shortened) acute with the same symbol as short neoacute, `. If this is valid, we'd expect both of them to be reflected with the same length and accentuation in all dialects: either both short or both long with all else being equal. If there is a discrepancy, they can't have been the same toneme in Proto-Slavic. This is something that probably needs investigating. —Rua (mew) 23:04, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

@Rua It's been a long time since I've worked in this area and it's very hard to keep all the details straight, but I think the system I used was a compromise between the traditional symbols and Derksen's symbols, in particular using Derksen's symbols but substituting the neoacute symbol ~ whenever there was a neoacute. Benwing2 (talk) 23:32, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Also, a sound change like long -> short -> long is far from unusual; I wouldn't say this makes their interpretations untenable. The advantage of using some variant of Derksen's scheme is that his is by far the most well documented and requires the least original research on our part. Benwing2 (talk) 23:58, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

@Benwing2 Then I propose we standardise on at least two differences from Derksen.

1. The first you already mentioned, showing the long neoacute with a tilde. Technically, Derksen's scheme doesn't even need the tilde, because all occurrences of ´ in his dictionary appear to be unambiguously neoacutes. However, the use of the tilde is much more common, and can't be confused with an old acute, so that's a good thing to use.
2. No circumflexes on historical short vowels. Thus, we write *bȍgъ. This is the more traditional transcription, used by e.g. Jasanoff. It makes no assumptions about compensatory lengthening due to the lost yer.

There is still one big difference between the scheme and what Jasanoff uses: old acute, short neoacute, and non-initial short are all written with `, thus treating them all as identical short rising accents, while Jasanoff distinguishes the old acute with ˝ for long rising. A crucial point, which I mentioned already, is that identical accents should give identical outcomes in identical environments, so if all three of Derksen's short rising accents give the same outcomes everywhere, then he's right in not distinguishing them. We should probably look into the reflexes of these three case more and share our findings. But I think the two points I mentioned can be implemented without much controversy in the meantime. —Rua (mew) 00:14, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

@Rua I am fine with this. Benwing2 (talk) 00:43, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

@Rua Note also, when I used the ~ for neoacute I used it for both short and long neoacutes. I think it's more unambiguous this way; but if you'd rather use it only for long neoacutes, that's fine. Benwing2 (talk) 00:45, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

@Benwing2 Accent symbols imply length in Slavic, so a different symbol is needed if they are of different length. Derksen and Jasanof both use different symbols for short and long neoacute, so we can probably infer that it's generally agreed they're not the same. Tijmen Pronk's paper Early Slavic short and long o and e gives an overview of the reflexes of short neoacutes. —Rua (mew) 09:50, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

You may also be interested in w:Talk:Proto-Slavic#Derksen's and Jasanoff's prosodic notations btw, which is more or less the same discussion but on Wikipedia. —Rua (mew) 10:50, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

@Benwing2 I've now created Module:sla-headword and made it check the accents on every headword. Those that don't conform to the proposed rules are placed in Category:Proto-Slavic entries with invalid diacritics. —Rua (mew) 10:53, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

@Rua Sounds good. Benwing2 (talk) 16:01, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

@Rua: It is necessary to distinguish the short stress and the old acute to explain the difference between e. g. *òrbъ > Cz. rob and *őrmę > Cz. rámě. Guldrelokk (talk) 22:12, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

*òrbъ has a long syllable, so it cannot have had short stress. —Rua (mew) 09:24, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

OK, true. Guldrelokk (talk) 18:16, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Also, the last row in the table (‘Long unaccented’) is wrong. Jasanoff, Olander and Kapović simply do not recognize that a new length distinction arose already in Proto-Slavic. Neither does the MAS, nor did Stang etc: they all follow the traditional view that most lengthenings and shortenings took place in later dialects and that there was no contrast like *a (≠ *o) ~ *ā in PS. Guldrelokk (talk) 22:33, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

That's not true. Jasanoff does not reconstruct long vowels in final syllables, giving them all the same accent mark a̍. And how is the pretonic length resulting from Dybo's law explained? There is no pretonic length when Dybo's law didn't apply, is there? —Rua (mew) 09:29, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

@Rua: That final long vowels are usually assumed to have shortened does not mean there was a phonological contrast between *a and *ā. It is normally assumed that pretonic length was preserved in mobile paradigms also. The difference between e. g. *trǫbà > Cz. trouba and *rǫkà > Cz. ruka is explained as levelling in the second case (from ruku etc.). That there was a difference in Proto-Slavic is a Leiden position, see e. g. Kapović’s Slavic length again ‘Pretonic and posttonic length’ for arguments against it. Guldrelokk (talk) 18:16, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, are there any cases of pretonic length in multisyllabic nouns of accent paradigm a, like *ęzỳkъ? Neither Dybo's nor Ivšić's laws applied here, so the Slavic accent directly reflects the original Balto-Slavic one with no complications. —Rua (mew) 18:29, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

No. Long vowels shorten before a medial acute, including one that arose by Dybo’s law: for example, *travi̋na (*travà a. p. b) > Cz., Sk. travina, Cr. tràvina. Guldrelokk (talk) 18:42, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Looking at w:Proto-Slavic accent, the number of following syllables seem to make the difference, with trisyllables never having pretonic length at all. But yer-final words are treated as having one less syllable, so something like *ęzỳkъ could in theory fit the pattern. There would have been an alternation in the first syllable between long and short based on the ending, which was probably eliminated, but who knows what relics of it remain. I wonder if there are any words like that but with short accent instead of acute on the second syllable. Those would be affected by Dybo's law, but not Ivšić, thus reflecting an original non-acute accent on the first syllable. —Rua (mew) 18:59, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

I found one: *nāròdъ. —Rua (mew) 19:09, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Final yers do generally count. In words with medial short stress, the length is preserved: e. g. *ǫtròba > Cz., Sk. útroba, Po. wątroba, *kǫkòľь > Cr. kúkolj, Cz. koukol, Sk. kúkoľ, Po. kąkol, but there is no way to show it has something to do with Dybo’s law, since words with original short medial stress acquired desinential accent and do not have pretonic long vowels. The debate on pretonic length in a. p. c is centred around different data. Mate Kapović recently wrote another paper on this subject, On shortening, lengthening, and accent shifts in Slavic; there is also a reply by Kortlandt. Guldrelokk (talk) 19:27, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your replies, it is useful information. @Benwing2 What do you think, should we ditch the macron too? —Rua (mew) 19:36, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

@Rua My preference is to keep the macron for now to avoid making too many changes at once (following the software engineering principle of incremental change), but revisit it later once we've converted all existing Proto-Slavic lemmas and references to them to your new accent scheme. Benwing2 (talk) 19:47, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Obscure endings

Hey @Rua, why do soft a-stem nouns link their nom./acc. pl. ę̇? I neither know what it means nor appears it likely that that dot, unmentioned by WT:ASLA, should be it linked if it means something.

Another question I have not come to ask anywhere yet is why the 3rd persons singular and plural of the present conjugations in the verb tables end in ь instead of ъ though Old Church Slavonic and Old East Slavic and all later I can think off reflect ъ. ь of course matches the Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo European i but how does one else suppose it was ь at the time we reconstruct? Fay Freak (talk) 08:14, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

*ę̇ is a result of the comparative method: in some languages it becomes *ę, in others it becomes *ě. See wikipedia:History of Proto-Slavic#Nasalization. —Rua (mew) 13:50, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Rua: Coincidentally I have now found that Wikipedia section, imagining Proto-Slavic and North Slavic ending etymologies differently before. So plural-only soft a-stems should be lemmatized at ę̇? But then we have to mention it at WT:ASLA? Because it does not just mean “ambiguous vowel” but an actually assumed one. I thought though our reconstructions are not that deep: otherwise one could change the tables to show both endings, as a later stage where South and North Slavic varied, like one does with those locative plurals, is that better? This would mean though plural-only soft a-stems would always have alternative form redirects (though they are rare). Fay Freak (talk) 14:12, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Rua: Oh, and that article: Isn’t it unfortunate how it starts with the notation ę̄ and then proceeds with ę̇ (although I realize it means that at some point it counts as long and then it is not long). In the table *ę̄ ends up *ę although what you are saying in the text is that it is *ę and *ě from *ę̇ in between (then of course the question is what the column titles would be, what Proto-Slavic and what Common Slavic). (Another question is whether man understands it without seeing both an Old Church Slavonic and e.g. an Old East Slavic declension table in mind or at hand; only when I compared them I realized that *gaťě—which I did not see in the ę̇ given in our tables or perhaps paradigms elsewhere only giving South Slavic ę—is actually not a separate reconstruction from *gaťę and came upon that article to finally dissolve the confusion and posit it is a simultaneously valid form, surely not as conscious about the variation as someone with Indo-Europeanist background is used to be). Fay Freak (talk) 14:33, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Nasalization section of the article mentions 2 sources (Derksen 2008, Kortlandt 1994) but it doesn't specify pages.

1) It presents ę̇ character but i fail to find "ę̇" in the sources (e.g. Derksen §2.2.3.1, §3.1, Kortlandt §5.9, §7.8, §7.9, §12.2).

2) It states:

a) *į̄ > *ę̇

b) *ę̇ (high-mid nasal vowel) is unlike to *ę (low-mid [nasal] vowel)

c) *ę̇/*ę > *ę/*ę (South Slavic), *ě/*æ̨~ja (elsewhere)

I'm not interested in this topic but i will mention i did not find "ę̇" in Meillet, Le Slave Commun (§72, §127, §166, §464, §465) or Ronald I Kim (*ě₃, ě tertium). —Игорь Тълкачь (talk) 17:50, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

@Fay Freak Present 3rd-person singuglar/pluar -ь is supported by East Slavic languages and Old Polish: Russian есть (jestʹ), суть (sutʹ), Ukrainian -(ть), -ть, Old Novgorodian есть, соуть, Old East Slavic хочеть, хотѧть, Russian Church Slavonic -ть, -ть

Григории, editor (1057), “§27 (leaf 21)”, in Еуглие‎^[2] (in Old Church Slavonic), page 21

, Old Polish jeść (jesc/yescz/ieſch). —Игорь Тълкачь (talk) 15:12, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Useigor: Well, one says something like that “from the irregular one reconstructs” and from the distribution of the forms one may perhaps draw a conclusion, though the irregular verb alone is not conclusive.

Can we find some terms were South Slavic has ę but North ě other than in feminine plurals of soft-stems so we can assess whether page-titles should have the rarely seen ę̇? Also @Bezimenen. Fay Freak (talk) 03:27, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Not sure if it is intrinsically South Slavic, but Old Church Slavonic брънѩ (brŭnję) ends in *-ę̇. There could be others, but none currently come to my mind. Безименен (talk) 09:50, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

@Fay Freak It's not clear what you mean by "the irregular one".

1) 3sg/3pl -ть is not irregular in East Slavic, you can check:

• Zaliznyak, Andrey (2004) “Таблица 9. Раннедревненовгородское спряжение”, in Древненовгородский диалект‎^[3] (in Russian), 2nd edition, Moscow: Languages of Slavic Cultures, →ISBN, page 135
• О.Ф. Жолобов (2017) “I. Древнеславянские рефлексы флективных форм глагола. 1.1. Рефлексы первичных и вторичных окончаний в глагольной парадигме.”, in Древнерусская грамматика. Простые претериты и praesens historicum., Казань: Издательство Казанского университета, →ISBN, page 11
  • tldr: Жолобов О. Ф. Древнерусский глагол: функционирование и эволюция
• С. И. Иорданиди. Из наблюдений над глагольными формами в Остромировом евангелии (3-е лицо единственного и множественного числа презенса)
• С. Л. Николаев (2011) “Следы особенностей восточнославянских племенных диалектов в современных великорусских говорах. Верхневолжские (тверские) кривичи. 3. Окончание 3 л. презенса *-tь”, in Славяноведение. 6. ноябрь-декабрь., Российская академия наук, Наука, →ISSN, page 14
  • 1989, Диалектологический атлас русского языка. Центр Европейской части СССР. page 96

2) East Slavic 3sg/3pl -тъ is attested since 13-14th century:

П. С. Кузнецов (1960) “Об образовании восточнославянских национальных литературных языков”, in Вопросы языкознания. Год издания IX. 5. Сентябрь–октябрь, Москва: Издательство академии наук СССР, page 43

1960 may contain outdated information but more recent books are unavaible online:

• Р. И. Аванесов, В. В. Иванов, editors (1982), Историческая грамматика русского языка. Морфология. Глагол., Москва: Наука
  • Roland Marti (1984) “Reviews”, in Russian Linguistics, volume 8, pages 59–72
• В. В. Иванов (1995) Древнерусская грамматика XII–XII вв., Москва: Наука
• Oleg Zholobov (2014) “О рефлексах ti- и t-форм глаголов в древнерусском языке”, in Russian Linguistics, volume 38, pages 121–163
• О. Ф. Жолобов (2016) Древнерусский глагол: к истории презенса, Казань: Казанский федеральный университет

3) I should had note that bg, mk, sh, sl, cs doesn't let distinguish *-tь/*-tъ (judging by words *věstь, *tьstь, *mastь).

About 3sg/3pl you can read §345, §345 in Meiilet, Le Slave commun (Мейе, Общеславянский). —Игорь Тълкачь (talk) 17:43, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

@Useigor: Thanks. I had looked into paradigms of Old Church Slavonic and Old East Slavic where there was ъ. And есть (estĭ) alone was not compelling, because irregular, although there is an argument that irregularities allow for reconstruction of regular features, that is what I meant with “from the irregular one reconstructs”. The other question stands whether there are terms where South Slavic has ę but North ě – other than in feminine plurals of soft-stems – so we can assess whether page-titles should have the rarely seen character ę̇. Fay Freak (talk) 18:09, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Old East Slavic language does not exist, since this construct is destroyed by accentology and dialectology. It's strange to compare it. Gnosandes (talk) 20:28, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

@Fay Freak From what i've seen, *ę̇ is only reconstucted from declension of soft m. o-stem and a-stem nouns. Besides South vs North Slavic, you can find some words with "ě/ę" in Vasmer's dictionary: Proto-Slavic *prěmъ/*pręmъ, Lithuanian sė̃bras : Proto-Finnic *sepra / Proto-Slavic *sębrъ, Proto-Slavic *stěgъ / Old East Slavic стѧгъ (stęgŭ) (unless borrowed from Old Norse stǫng). —Игорь Тълкачь (talk) 17:50, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

ablaut alternations and stress in verb conjugation

I was looking at the verbs *vỳti (accent paradigm c), *mỳti (accent paradigm a), and *pìti (accent paradigm c), wondering about the origins of Russian pres. stem forms (вою, мою, as if from *vъjǫ, *mъjǫ with vocalized yer, but пью from *pьjǫ with the yer lost). Russian sometimes vocalized strong tense yers when stressed (hence the masc. nom. sg. stressed -ой vs unstressed -ый adjectival ending from *-ъjь). But then I see that the declension table for *mỳti gives only *myjǫ, while there are two alternative tables for *vỳti, with either *vyjǫ and vъjǫ, the table for *pìti gives only the yer-form *pьjǫ.

The alternations of y with ъ and i with ь are the regular ablaut alternations with BSl. neo-lengthened grade (← *ū / *u; *ī / *i).

I understand the conjugation is reconstructed mostly from Old Church Slavic forms. In OCS texts *myti seems to always show the long form/tense-yer development (ie. basically always мꙑѭ), *vyti is attested in Russian(?) manuscript of Vita Constantini in ꙗко и влъческы воюще, but *piti shows both original yer and tense development (both пиєтъ and пьєтъ etc. among citations in gorazd.org dictionaries). In Olander’s accentological list all have long-grade/tense-yer: *myjǫ, *vyjǫ, *pijǫ.

I don’t know what accent patterns are reconstructed for verb conjugation, but from the Russian forms I would guess they all must have had yers in the present tense stem, and *vъjǫ, *mъjǫ were stressed on the first syllable while pьjǫ on the second (like in modern Russian, мо́ю, во́ю, пью́) – but that’s just a random guess, that could be wrong esp. since *pìti and *vỳti are assigned the same accent paradigm in Olander’s list, and *mỳti a different one (and I guess Russian could have undergone some later paradigm levelling).

So, overall, I wonder if there’s a reason to treat present stem of *mỳti and *vỳti differently (the former with -y- only, the latter with either -y- or -ъ-). They’re both with *y in most languages, including OCS, but stressed /o/ in Russian. And how they differ from *pìti (only -ь- forms in the table; yer lost in Russian, OCS either lengthening tense yer, or not; other languages generally with /pi-/). // Silmeth ^@talk 15:46, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

@Silmethule Conjugations are based on what you can find in sources. Problem is that sources can just omit/avoid reconstruction without explanation as if it was self-evident or difficult to reconstruct (e.g. 'воя' in Anikin, '*biti' in ESSJa, 'выть' in Vasmer).

• *myti/*myjǫ (per ESSJa, Vasmer, Chernykh)

  Per Chernykh: Russian о́й < ы́й (like ой < ы̆й < ъй) in мы́ть/мо́ю (mýtʹ/móju), кры́ть/кро́ю (krýtʹ/króju).

• *vyti/*vyjǫ (per Anikin), *vyti/*vъjǫ (per Anikin)
• *piti/*pьjǫ (per Chernykh)

Here is list of what you can find in some dictionaries. —Игорь Тълкачь (talk) 17:23, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Notation of yers

Any thoughts on using ĭ and ŭ instead of ь and ъ? This would bring Proto-Slavic in line with our transliteration of Old Church Slavonic, Old East Slavic and Old Novgorodian. The mix of Latin and Cyrillic can be a bit jarring at times, especially in words like *napьrstъkъ, *krъvьnъ, *vъnǫtrьnъ, etc. IMO *napĭrstŭkŭ, *krŭvĭnŭ, *vŭnǫtrĭnŭ are a lot easier on the eyes. And more importantly they don’t require readers to have a knowledge of Cyrillic to parse. Rhemmiel (talk) 07:32, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

“A lot easier on the eyes” is a very relative thing. I’m much more used to seeing the Cyrillic characters in this contexts, so for me *napьrstъkъ is much quicker to parse than *napǐrstŭkŭ (as I just don’t expect the i and u glyphs for reduced vowels in Slavic, so the latter looks like gibberish to me for the first few seconds). But sure, that’s just a matter of getting used to one or the other way. // Silmeth ^@talk 20:02, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

The bigger problem with using ĭ, ŭ is that the breves on top collide with other accentuation marks used by Proto-Slavic. AFAIK this a major reason that this convention is so popular in the literature to begin with. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 00:53, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Verbs conjugation

Can someone check if conjugation for verbs is correct? I'm working Polabian and Polański gives different reconstruction for some words. He mentions 3rd present pl of *plęsati as plęšǫtъ, we have it as plęšǫtь, he mentions 3rd present sg of *ukrojiti as ukrojitъ, we have it as ukrojitь. Looks like we have wrong yer in there? Sławobóg (talk) 16:58, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

@Sławobóg: I have also thought thus, since both Old Church Slavonic and Old East Slavic expose ъ, but in a discussion I have been informed that we take ь from the irregular есть etc. and the expected outcome from Proto-Indo-European. Above. Fay Freak (talk) 17:20, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Why is our stuff different again from professional dictionaries? It's frustrating... Googling plęšǫtь gives nothing. Sławobóg (talk) 17:37, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

@Fay Freak, Sławobóg: It’s not just “irregular есть”. Old East Slavic, as well as modern East Slavic languages, point to regular ending -ть.

Singular: OESl. несеть; належить; Аще ся въвадить волкъ в овцѣ, то выносить все стадо, аще не убьють [note plural too] его; modern Ukrainian: стоїть; Belarusian: робіць;

Plural: OESl. несуть; глагол҄ють; проклѣють и стають; и не поустѧть тебе в землю свою; еда не пустять мене людье киевьстии; and in modern languages: Ukrainian роблять, Belarusian знаюць.

Since this is also the historically expected form, it doesn’t make much sense to reconstruct -(ǫ-/-ę)tъ just on the basis of Old Church Slavonic (and modern Russian under its influence? – though I’m not sure what the story behind modern Russian hard -т is) // Silmeth ^@talk 20:28, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Same/different sources can have different spellings. In this source in most cases, 3sg *-etь is *-etъ and sometimes *-etь (can be typo, bad OCR, compilation or just inconsistency):

• 3sg *-etъ/*-etь: *idetъ/*idetь (39/40), *tľ̥četъ~*tl̥četъ/*tl̥četь (77/40), *prędetъ/*prędetь (65/66), ?*xъtjetъ/*xъtjetь (?61/67)
• 3sg *-etъ: ?*-ajetъ (35), ?beretъ (55), ?*bьjetъ (56), *tęgnetъ (56), ??*jьmetъ (56),*češetъ (61), *tręsetъ (65), *uvęžetъ (65), *zavęžetъ (65), *pečetъ (65), *povǫšajetъ (65), *vęžetъ (70), *žľ̥knetъ (77), ...
• 3sg *-etь: *větjetь (54), ?*lьjetь (56), *kǫsajetь (65), ?*plęšetь (70), *jьmajetь (76).

For *-etь, check books of 20th and 21th century. —Игорь Тълкачь (talk) 17:33, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Nationalities

Since we decided given names/theonyms/toponyms to be capitalized (eg. *Bogъdanъ, *Jaroslavъ, *Žiroslavъ, *Perunъ, *Dъněprъ, *Rimъ), I propose to do same with nationalities. These would be the following changes:

• *slověninъ → *Slověninъ
• *grьkъ → *Grьkъ
• *volxъ → *Volxъ
• *židъ → *Židъ
• *ǫgъrinъ → *Ǫgъrinъ

It should be discussed if *němьcь and *sьrbъ also should be moved or split depending on their actual PS meaning. *němьcь could be moved to *Němьcь (“German”) with "from previous *němьcь (“foreigner”)" in etymology section. Sławobóg (talk) 15:38, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Passerby comment: a lot of (most?) modern Slavic languages don't capitalize nouns of nationality, and they aren't capitalized in the Proto-Slavic etymological dictionaries. 98.170.164.88 15:44, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

I agree with IP: these are nouns, not proper nouns. Thadh (talk) 15:49, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

But I think most modern Slavic languages do capitalize? Sławobóg (talk) 15:56, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Also, nationalities not being written with a capital letter is a false argument because: (1) given names are also written with a lowercase (yet we have adopted otherwise), (2) in publications it is easy to find names or nationalities written with a capital letter (1, 2). Sławobóg (talk) 16:15, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Support (but it raises question how to spell adjectives). Judging by Wikipedia articles in d:Q40477, noun spelling is:

• Upper case: mk:Словени, sr:Словени, hr:Slaveni, bs:Slaveni, sl:Slovani and cs:Slované, sk:Slovania, hsb:Słowjenjo, dsb:Słowjany, csb:Słowiónie, pl:Słowianie and rue:Славяне.
• Lower case: bg:славяни and ru:славяне, uk:слов'яни, be:славяне, be-tarask:славяне.

It is different in old books (+/-: upper/lower case):

• [-ru]: І. Вашкевичъ (1905.02) “Переводъ П. А. Кулиша на украинскій языкъ манифеста 19 февраля 1861 года и Положенія о крестьянахъ.”, in Кіевская Старина, volume 88, Кіевъ: Типографія Императорскаго Университета св. Владиміра Акціон. О-ва печ. и изд. дѣла Н. Т. Корчакъ-Новицкаго, Меринговская улица, page 324: “украинцевъ”
• [-ru]: “Болга́ринъ”, in Словарь русскаго языка составленный Вторымъ Отдѣленіемъ Императорской Академіи Наукъ‎^[4] (in Russian), volume 1:1, Saint Petersburg: Типографія Императорской Академіи Наукъ, 1891, page 234: “болга́ре ― bolgáre”
• [-ru]: Dal, Vladimir (1905) “1. Нѣ́мецъ”, in Толковый Словарь живого великорусскаго языка (in Russian), 3rd edition, volume 2, товарищество М. О. Вольфъ, page 1459: “германецъ ― germanec”
• [-ru]: Dal, Vladimir (1881) “Нѣмо́й”, in Толковый Словарь живаго великорускаго языка (in Russian), 2nd edition, volume 2, Publication of the bookseller-typographer Wolf, M. O., page 579: “германецъ ― germanec”
• [-ru]: Dal, Vladimir (1865) “Нѣмо́й”, in Толковый Словарь Живаго Великорускаго Языка (in Russian), 1st edition, volume 2, page 1145: “германецъ ― germanec”
• [+ru]: Sreznevsky, Izmail I. (1912) “Словѣнинъ = Словенинъ = Словѧнинъ”, in Матеріалы для Словаря древне-русскаго языка по письменнымъ памятникамъ‎^[5] (in Russian), volume 3 (Р – Ꙗ и дополненія), Saint Petersburg: Department of Russian Language and Literature of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, column 421
• [+ru]: Sorokin, Yury S., editor (1985), “Болга́ры”, in Словарь русского языка XVIII века (in Russian), volume 2, Leningrad: Nauka. Leningrad Branch, page 95
• [+be]: I. I. Nosovič, editor (1870), “Ляхъ”, in Slovarʹ bělorusskago narěčija‎^[6] (in Russian), volumes 1–2, Saint Petersburg: The Imperial Academy of Sciences, page 276
• [-bg]: Nayden Gerov, Тодор Панчев (1908) “Ке́ковецъ”, in Допълнение на българския рѣчникъ‎^[7] (in Bulgarian), volume 6, Plovdiv: Печатница "Трудъ" на Петко Бѣловѣждовъ, page 161
• [±bg]: Nayden Gerov (1895) “Блъ́гаринъ”, in Рѣчникъ на Блъгарскꙑй язꙑкъ. Съ тлъкувание рѣчи-тꙑ на Блъгарскꙑ и на Русскꙑ.‎^[8] (in Bulgarian), volume 1, Plovdiv: Дружествена печꙗтница "Съгласие.", page 49
  • w:bg:Геровски правопис
• [-bg]: “VI. По правопиниіа въпрос”, in Български Преглед, списание за наука, литература и обществен живот, number 4, Софиіа: дружеството "Общи трудъ", печатница Вълков, 1893.12, page 210: “българинът” —Игорь Тълкачь (talk) 15:14, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

IPA pronunciation?

THEY-DID-WRITE-LONG-VOWELS (talk) 20:27, 8 November 2022 (UTC) A standard broad IPA transcription for entries would be more useful than wiktionary's notation, although both the IPA and wiktionary's notation should be used for conveniance simply because writing in IPA is not very practical. I believe enough knowledge has been gathered for such an IPA transcription and it will eventually have to be done so the earlier the better.

Redundant notation

Proto-slavic accent on wiktionary is noted according to sound changes (etymology), when proto-slavic (common slavic) most likely contrasted only between rising and falling accent. I believe this is a major issue in reconstruction because noting accent by etymology amounts to nothing because later accent changes are not influenced by the prior history of the accent. There also seems to be an unnecessary distinction between long and short accents, as well as between initial medial and final, unless proto slavic had overlong vowels? THEY-DID-WRITE-LONG-VOWELS (talk) 09:26, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I’m not well versed in Proto-Slavic accentology at all, so I’m not entirely sure about it all, but it seems to me that there are some instances of descendant languages inheriting Proto-Slavic length that aren’t explainable via compensatory lengthening and other regular sound change. Eg. Polish mąka (“flour”) (ą < long ꟁ̄) from *mǭka, instead of *męka (from short ꟁ), cf. actual męka (“torment, misery”) from short *mǫka. Same with Czech mouka vs muka. // Silmeth ^@talk 13:41, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

More arguments for heads

Can we have more arguments for PS heads just like Polish? Eg. |f=*dupa prints (feminine *dupa). For noun we need m, f, n, aug, dim and argument for derived adjective. For verbs we need perf, imperf, and arguments for determinate, indeterminate, frequentative. Sławobóg (talk) 22:26, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

RFC discussion: January 2017

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Proto-Slavic Reconstructions

• Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/veprь
• Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/pěsъkъ
• Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/šestъ
• Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/vъnukъ

Not an expert, so I can't really judge if these contributions from the same anon are unpolished gems or candidates for speedy deletion. Any takers? --Robbie SWE (talk) 18:40, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/šestъ appears to be a candidate for speedy deletion, since we have Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/šestь. The others I can't comment on with certainty. — Kleio (t · c) 18:51, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/vъnukъ appears to be a gem, so it needs to be polished. Mulder1982 (talk) 16:15, 14 January 2017 (UTC)