The Slovene Sound System Through Time

Abstract

The paper sketches selected changes discussed in Marc L. Greenberg’s A Historical Phonology of the Slovene Languages (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Carl Winter, 2000) in which innovative explanations shed new light on the complexity of the developments in the early stages of the emergence of the Slovene speech territory. The sketch of selected changes, which depart in a number of ways from traditional explanations for Slovene sound changes, illustrates the dynamic nature of the development of the Slovene linguistic territory, which, after being settled by heterogeneous Proto-Slavic dialect speakers, emerged gradually by virtue of unifying changes that, in turn, had their roots in broader Proto-Slavic or South Slavic areal changes. The changes discussed illustrate the necessity of viewing sound changes as long-term and driven by competing factors including structural change, cognitive reinterpretation, and sociolinguistic pressure.