The Western South Slavic change l > o/ a and attendant phenomena: diachronic, diatopic, terminological, and typological considerations
Issue Date
2020-12Author
Greenberg, Marc L.
Publisher
Sveučilište u Zadru, Matica hrvatska, Ogranak Matice hrvatske u Zadru
Type
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Among the changes characteristic of the Western South Slavic dialect area is the weakening of syllable- and word-final ‑l > o, which is part of the many changes in phonological systems and syllabic structures that followed from the loss of weak jers. The specific outcome of ‑l > ‑o (as well as ‑a, ‑e) is focused mostly in the Štokavian and is accordingly characteristic of the Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard languages. It occurs also in some Kajkavian and Slovene dialects. This paper examines the processes that have led to variation. Four processes are identified following the loss of weak jers (Havlík’s law): (1) Weakening of ł to w, (2) Vocalization of w to o, (3) Assimilation of ‑ə/ao to ‑ō, ‑ā (“contraction”), (4) Intercalation of palatal glide (‑ijo/‑ija). Some discussion of the traditional term sažimanje ‘contraction’ for change (3) is offered and it is suggested that the term ‘assimilation’, which is occasionally used as a synonym, better denotes the change.Zapadnojužnoslavenska promjena ‑l > ‑o/‑a i popratne pojave: dijakronijska, dijatopijska, terminološka i tipološka razmatranja
Sažetak
Promjena ‑l > o jedna je od mnogih promjena koje su se dogodile nakon i zbog gubljenja slabih jerova i koje su imale posljedice u daljnjem razvitku fonoloških sustava i strukture sloga. Specifični rezultat ‑l > ‑o (kao i ‑a, ‑e) nalazimo uglavnom u štokavskome i u skladu s tim on je karakterističan za bosanski, hrvatski, crnogorski i srpski standardni jezik. Javlja se i u nekim kajkavskim govorima i slovenskim narječjima. Ovaj rad ispituje procese koji su doveli do varijacije. Izdvajaju se četiri procesa nakon gubitka slabih jerova (Havlíkov zakon): (1) slabljenje ł > w, (2) vokalizacija w > o, (3) asimilacija ə/ao > ō, ā (“kontrakcija”), (4) umetanje palatalnog aproksimanta (‑ijo/‑ija). Uzgredno se raspravlja o tradicionalnom izrazu sažimanje za promjenu (3) te se pokazuje da termin asimilacija, koji se povremeno koristi kao sinonim, bolje određuje promjenu.
Collections
- Slavic Linguistics [70]
Citation
Greenberg, Marc L. 2020. “The Western South Slavic change l > o/ a and attendant phenom-ena: diachronic, diatopic, terminological, and typological considerations.” Josip Bratulić, Gordana Čupković, Josip Galić, eds. Dijalekti, jezična povijest i tradicija: Zbornik u čast Josipu Liscu: 279-296. Zadar: Sveučilište u Zadru, Matica hrvatska, Ogranak Matice hrvatske u Zadru.
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