North Slavic -ě vs. South Slavic -ę: A Problem of Forward Reconstruction

The long problematic correspondence of North Slavic -ě ~ South Slavic -ę in the jo-stem accusative plural and jā-stem genitive singular and nominative and accusative plural is best explained by positing a Proto-Slavic contrast within the soft jā-stems between gen. sg., nom. pl. *-ē and acc. pl. *-ę̄...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Slavic linguistics 2019, Vol.27 (1), p.1-26
Main Author: Kim, Ronald I.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Baltic languages
Declension
Grammatical case
Language reconstruction
Prehistoric era
Proto languages
Slavic languages
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The long problematic correspondence of North Slavic -ě ~ South Slavic -ę in the jo-stem accusative plural and jā-stem genitive singular and nominative and accusative plural is best explained by positing a Proto-Slavic contrast within the soft jā-stems between gen. sg., nom. pl. *-ē and acc. pl. *-ę̄, which was leveled in different directions as NSl -ě and SSl -ę. With its nasal vowel, the acc. pl. ending must go back to *-jāns, thereby demonstrating that the PIE eh2 -stem desinence *-eh2s > *-ās was remade to *-āns after the other declensional classes in the early prehistory of Slavic. The Baltic facts are consistent with a Proto-Balto-Slavic date for this innovation.
ISSN:1068-2090
1543-0391
1543-0391
DOI:10.1353/jsl.2019.0000