Abstract: One of the tasks of Slavic historical linguistics is to establish the relative chronology of the linguistic processes. For the Proto-Slavic language, this is practically the only way to identify the history of phonetic changes. It can be concluded that the qualitative differentiation of long and short vowels preceded the monophthongization of diphthongs, since otherwise the vowel [u] from *ou̯ would have coincided with *ū. There are, however, phonetic phenomena that date back to the written era, but due to the lack of reflection of the compared phenomena or the late reflection of one of them in the Old Russian writing, only a relative chronology can be established for them. This method determines that the closed [ô] of the Great Russian and South Ukrainian types arose in the early Old Russian period before the transformation of reduced vowels into full ones. The same method is used to chronologize some phonetic phenomena of the period of the separate existence of the East Slavic languages. For example, it is established that the change [ʧ’] into [ʃ’] in the western South Russian dialects occurred after the hardening of the old [ʃ’]; the hardening of consonants before [e] and [i] in Ukrainian is not an ancient process, since it took place after the secondary softening of consonants. And, finally, if we turn to morphology, we can state that the coincidence of the Nom. and Acc. Pl. in nouns denoting male persons occurred before the development of the category of animacy of these nouns. Thus, relative chronology turns out to be a necessary method not only in reconstructing the Proto-Slavic phonetic system in its dynamics, but also in determining the order of certain linguistic processes in the written period of the history of the East Slavic languages.

Keywords: accusative case, hardening of consonants, reduced vowels, akanye, Russian dialects, historical morphology, historical phonetics, Old Russian language, Proto-Slavic language, relative chronology

Abstract: The present study applies to the /i/ status in Turkish and Kazakh in the field of phonology and phonetics. Turkish and Kazakh are both Turkic languages with a common origin. This study aims to explain the difference between the acoustic realization of the /i/ proto-phoneme in Turkish and Kazakh by analyzing the historical development of the phoneme and its modern acoustic characteristics in both languages. The comparison of acoustic and articulation peculiarities of [i] in Turkish and Kazakh reveals the difference in the movement of the speech organs in these languages. Different tongue movements make realizations of /i/ in the languages to sound different. Analysis of texts which is done in the framework of this study showed that this difference existed during at least 150 years. Moreover, as it is shown in the study it is typical not only for the realizations of the /i/ phoneme but also for realizations of other phonemes in Turkish and Kazakh. However, in spite of the different acoustic characteristics the /i/ phoneme is understood easily by native Turkish and Kazakh speakers. This fact is analyzed at the end of the article. The actual reason for the difference between Turkish and Kazakh languages is contained in the field of the issue that makes this articulation difference existent.

Keywords: Old Turkic, speech organs, pronunciation habits, articulation system, consonant, vowel, Kazakh, Turkish, proto-phoneme, вокальная система