Metatony In Baltic

During the past decades Balto-Slavic accentology has become increasingly important for the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European. This study tries to provide an explanation for the phenomenon of metatony in Baltic, i.e. the phenomenon that in certain Baltic forms a morpheme shows the reflex of the Balto-Slavic circumflex intonation where we would expect the reflex of the acute intonation (métatonie douce) or vice versa (métatonie rude). The subject necessarily involves an inquiry into the origin of the Lithuanian and Latvian tone systems. Furthermore, it requires the assessment of a large number of etymologies. In the final chapter of the book, the developments which are considered to be relevant to the rise of metatony are incorporated into a relative chronology. The investigation is based on a comprehensive collection of data, including evidence from Lithuanian and Latvian dialects and Old Lithuanian. In comparison with earlier studies on the subject, the Latvian evidence plays an essential role. This book tries to demonstrate that the value of Latvian data for Balto-Slavic accentology has hitherto not been fully recognized.

During the past decades Balto-Slavic accentology has become increasingly important for the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European. This study tries to provide an explanation for the phenomenon of metatony in Baltic, i.e. the phenomenon that in certain Baltic forms a morpheme shows the reflex of the Balto-Slavic circumflex intonation where we would expect the reflex of the acute intonation (métatonie douce) or vice versa (métatonie rude). The subject necessarily involves an inquiry into the origin of the Lithuanian and Latvian tone systems. Furthermore, it requires the assessment of a large number of etymologies. In the final chapter of the book, the developments which are considered to be relevant to the rise of metatony are incorporated into a relative chronology. The investigation is based on a comprehensive collection of data, including evidence from Lithuanian and Latvian dialects and Old Lithuanian. In comparison with earlier studies on the subject, the Latvian evidence plays an essential role. This book tries to demonstrate that the value of Latvian data for Balto-Slavic accentology has hitherto not been fully recognized.

The accentual systems of the Baltic and Slavic languages continue to intrigue scholars of general and historical linguistics. They play an important role in the reconstruction of the linguistic ancestor of Baltic and Slavic, but also in the typological study of accentual systems. This volume contains contributions related to the accentology of the Baltic and Slavic languages by leading scholars in the field. They discuss the accentual systems that are attested in Baltic and Slavic dialects and texts, and the historical developments that led to these systems. The volume further contains contributions on similar accentual systems and developments in other languages, such as Abkhaz and the Mordvinian languages. A number of papers also deal with the role of the Balto-Slavic accents in the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European. The volume reflects the progress that has been made in the field of Baltic and Slavic accentuation during the last decades. It forms a major source for anyone interested in the latest developments and insights in the study of accentuation.

This book offers a comprehensive introduction to Proto-Indo-European, Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic accentology; a branch of diachronic linguistics dealing with the development of syllable stress, intonation, and quantity at the word level. Of particular interest in the book is its detailed summary of the major approaches and solutions to accentology of the last thirty years. Furthermore, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of research on accentuation of the Indo-European proto-language and the accentuation of Balto-Slavic languages. Such research is integral to our knowledge of how accentual patterns developed from the reconstructed proto-language to the modern Indo-European languages.

The development of the prosodic system from Indo-European to Balto-Slavic is dominated by two major innovations: the rise of mobility and the rise of acuteness. This book provides a new account of the latter. It stands out from previous works for being informed by recent advances in phonological typology and tonogenesis and, especially, for its comprehensiveness. All matters related to the rise of acuteness are treated in detail. As a result, the book includes new insights on several issues of Balto-Slavic historical phonology and morphology as well.

The second volume in the VARGReB series deals with voice in the wider sense, encompassing both alternations that preserve semantic valency, with passives as the most typical instance, and valency-changing devices such as the causative. Regarding the former, special attention is given to event-structural conditions on passivization, non-canonical passives, and the relation between passives and (active) impersonals. Papers dealing with causatives focus on valency patterns and argument marking in canonical as well as extended uses of causative morphology. Other articles consider converse constructions and the argument structure of middles, which seem to hold a position between voice in the narrow sense and valency-changing operations. An introductory article provides background information on the repertoire of voice alternations in Baltic from a cross-linguistic perspective. Representing different approaches and methods, the contributions to this volume offer fine-grained analyses of data from contemporary Latvian and Lithuanian.

In The Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Celtic, Nicholas Zair for the first time collects all the words from the Celtic languages which contained a laryngeal, and identifies the regular results of the laryngeals in each phonetic environment.