Relative chronology in the language history

Galinskaya Elena Arkad'evna Doctor of Philology Professor; Faculty of Philology; Lomonosov Moscow State University 119991, Russia, Moscow, Leninskie Gory str., 1, p. 51, 962 eagalinsk@mail.ru

One of the important tasks of Slavic comparative historical linguistics is to establish the chronology of the phonetic processes that took place throughout the foreseeable period of the historical development of Slavic dialects since the Proto-Slavic era. In some cases, an absolute chronology can be established (as a rule, in relation to the time when written monuments already existed), in some cases – only relative, when in one way or another the results and conditions of the compared processes for pre-written languages are compared. Next, several options for constructing a relative chronology based on Slavic material will be demonstrated.

If we turn to the Proto-Slavic period, then a textbook example of determining relative chronology is a solution to the question of the time of the I and II palatalizations of the posterior consonants before the vowels of the front row: the second palatalization was carried out later than the first, since monophthongization of diphthongs lies between the I and II palatalizations, as a result of which the vowels of the front row developed from the diphthong *oi [y] and [i].

Almost the entire progressive history of phonetic changes in the Proto-Slavic language has been restored using relative chronology, but there are also issues on which researchers do not agree. Thus, in historical Slavistics there is no single point of view about what happened earlier — the qualitative differentiation of long and short vowels or the monophthongization of diphthongs. While most scientists believe that qualitative differentiation preceded monophthongization of diphthongs, some researchers place monophthongization of diphthongs on a chronological axis before the formation of new timbre differences of native monophthongs. This is written, in particular, by V. K. Zhuravlev ^{[7, pp. 8-12]}, there are indications of the reconstruction of such a relative chronology in G. Lant ^{[18, pp. 19, 28]}. and F. Kortlandt even believes that a number of processes lie between the monophthongization of diphthongs and the appearance of new timbre differences in vowels ^{[17, pp. 266-269]}. However, one can cite a consideration that calls into question such a relative chronology: in this case, the vowel [u] from *ou would coincide with *ou, and in Slavic languages the reflexes *ou and *ou differ, which means that first *ou changed to [y], and then *ou changedit went to [u], that is, the qualitative differentiation of long and short vowels nevertheless, apparently, preceded the monophthongization of diphthongs.

There are phonetic phenomena that already belong to the written era, but due to the non-reflection of comparable phenomena or the late reflection of one of them in the monuments of ancient Russian writing, their chronology relative to each other can only be established by comparing the results of phonetic processes.

Thus, in the Old Russian phonetic system, namely in its future Great Russian part, at some point a closed vowel appeared, which developed from the open [o] native under autonomous stress ^{[11, p. 173]}. In ancient Russian business and household writing, there was no tradition to designate the original [o] and the newly formed [o] with different letter signs. The first monument, which reflects the distribution of the Great Russian type, belongs to the Church Slavonic language sphere, and this is the manuscript "The Measure of the Righteous" of the XIV century, studied by A. A. Zaliznyak ^[10] (a large number of later texts have come down to us, where this distribution is reflected), but it is quite possible which appeared much earlier than the XIV century. It is possible to determine how the occurrence of the Great Russian type and the clarification of strong reduced ones correlate in time. In the position where [a] appeared, that is, under autonomous stress, there could also be a strong [b], for example, bydri, lzhka, pilzati. In those monuments of writing that reflect the opposition <ô> and <of the Great Russian type, as well as in Russian dialects, where such an opposition still persists, any sound [o] ascending to a strong [b], and, importantly, including that [b] which stood under autonomous stress, is mainly reflected as <about>. Consequently, [y] appeared before the clarification of strong reduced ones, because otherwise, that is, if [y] in a strong position coincided with the vowel [o] before [y] was formed, the reflexes of a strong [y] would have turned out to be different in Russian dialects distinguishing two types of o, depending on it depends on whether he was under autonomous stress or not.

In addition to the Great Russian type, the Old Russian language also formed the South Ukrainian type: it arose in newly closed or, according to another terminology, rearranged syllables, namely in such syllables, after the vowel of which in the early Ancient Russian language there was a syllable with a reduced in a weak position, subsequently lost ^{[11, p. 173]}. It can be stated that the sound of the South Ukrainian type, as well as the sound of the Great Russian type that arose in completely different conditions, appeared before the clarification of strong reduced ones, since [o], ascending to [b], in a newly closed/rearranged syllable in normal cases does not give reflexes of a closed [See all this in more detail [4].

For a later period, in particular with regard to the time of the separate existence of the East Slavic languages, some phonetic phenomena are also chronologized relative to each other by comparing the results of the corresponding changes. Thus, in the history of the Russian language, the hissing consonants [sh] and [w] hardened, and at the same time, in western South Russian dialects, the closure of the affricate [h’] was lost (i.e. [h’] > [sh’], for example, daughter > daughter). Undoubtedly, the change [h’] > [sh’] occurred after the hardening of the [sh’] that embodied the phoneme from ancient times <sh>, since this is evidenced by the preservation in those South Russian dialects, which are being discussed here, of the distinction between the phoneme <sh> and phoneme <w’>, acting in place of the former phoneme <h> (see about it ^{[12, p. 302]}).

An important fact from the history of the Ukrainian language is established by comparing some phenomena of modern Ukrainian phonetics. Before the original [e] and [i], hard consonants are now represented in the Ukrainian language, for example: biti [bíti] ‘beat', zvertati [zvertáti] ‘turn'. If we consider the Ukrainian language in the context of the entire Slavic language world, that is, to take into account languages in which the originally hard consonants before the vowels of the front row remained hard (Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian), then the question arises about the nature of the described phenomenon: was there a secondary softening of consonants in the ancient Eastern Slavic dialects, which later formed the basis of the Ukrainian language, consistently, and only then did the consonants harden before [e] and [i], or before these vowels, the secondary softening did not take place at all. It turns out that there is an indisputable argument in favor of the first solution to the problem. The fact is that in the forms of 2 persons of the plural imperative mood, such as rob i, ber i, the final consonant is palatalized. Historically, there was inflection in the imperative mood -those, that is, before the sound [e] was lost, the consonant in front of it managed to survive a secondary softening, otherwise the softness at the absolute end of the word would not have been preserved. Thus, the hardening of consonants before [e] and [i] is not an ancient process, since it took place some time after the secondary softening of consonants, which occurred initially in all ancient Eastern Slavic dialects.

The data of the modern Russian language and its dialects allow us to determine the relative chronology of the change [ky], [gy], [xy] in [k'i], [g'i], [x'i] and the clarification of tense reduced. It happened after [y] reduced in the position before [j] changed in most of the Great Russian dialects to [o], because in these dialects (including in the literary language) there are forms of the nominative case of the singular masculine gender of adjectival declension words such as dry, such, other, and if if phonetic changes did not occur in the specified sequence, there would be forms of dry, takey, and others^[1].

In historical Russian studies, considerable attention is paid to the problem of the origin of the akanya, which is now common in South Great Russian dialects and parts of Central Russian dialects, as well as in the Belarusian language. There are a number of hypotheses about how akanye could have arisen. Thus, V. I. Lytkin believed that akanye has a substratum origin and arose under the influence of the Pramordian or Ancient Kokshansky languages [13 p. 44-52], however, V. I. Lytkin does not provide the necessary amount of specific material. The Bulgarian scientist V. Georgiev assumed that akanye is a phenomenon dating back to the deep Proto—Slavic antiquity, but later it was preserved only in certain Slavic dialects. According to V. Georgiev, which radically diverges from the generally accepted point of view in Paleoslavistics, the Indo—European *ŏ and *a coincided not in [o], but in [a], but then this [a] changed in [o], and in the surrounding dialects in any conditions, and in the surrounding ones - only in the stressed syllable ^{[5, pp. 20-29]}. This hypothesis does not seem to have any serious grounds, in particular, because it does not in any way deduce the indistinguishability of the vowels of the non-upper rise after soft consonants, which also refers to akan in the broad sense of the word.

The reductive theory of the origin of akanya, developed by A. A. Shakhmatov ^{[16, pp. 331-343]}, which explains the occurrence of akanya after both hard and soft consonants, and also takes into account the dissimilative models of akanya and yakanya, seems to be more justified. The starting point of the reduction theory is the thesis about the reduction of Proto-Slavic longitudes in vowels first in unstressed syllables, as a result of which reduced sounds appear, and then in stressed syllables, which leads to a compensatory elongation of the reduced vowels of the first pre-stressed syllable before the stressed vowels of the upper and middle-upper elevation. The disadvantage of this theory is that A. A. Shakhmatov proceeds from the Proto—Slavic opposition of long and short vowels, whereas akanye could develop only after the fall of the reduced ones - the process of the Old Russian era. This relative chronology was indisputably proved by R. I. Avanesov ^{[1, pp. 138-139]}, whose arguments are as follows.

1. The development of akanya led to the appearance of reduced vowels, so if the original reduced [b] and [b] were still present in the language system, the new reduced ones would coincide with them and share their future fate, but this did not happen.

2. In all types of dissimilative ack and yak in the 1st pre-stressed syllable, the vowels of the non-upper rise, which were originally in the 1st pre-stressed syllable, and the vowels that fell into the 1st pre-stressed syllable only as a result of the loss of those reduced in weak positions, and before that stood in the 2nd pre-stressed syllable, are equally realized.

However, the era after the fall of the reduced, into which akanye developed, is a broad concept. In northern Russian dialects, the loss of non-finite weak reduced ones began in the second quarter of the XII century ^{[8, p. 58]}, and the final weak reduced ones disappeared even earlier ^{[9, p. 264]}. The first, absolutely isolated, examples of reflection of the akanya date back only to the second half of the XIV century. Therefore, it makes sense to take a closer look at the relative chronology of the appearance of the akanya and the course of another phonetic process from the history of the Russian language — the change [e] to [o] after hard consonants before soft ones, the reflection of which is found in the monuments of ancient Russian writing since the second half of the XII century. The establishment of this relative chronology is helped by referring to the data of modern Russian linguistic geography, namely, to the spread in South Russian dialects of some models of dissimilative, assimilative-dissimilative and moderately dissimilative yakking. We are talking about the dissimilative yak of Shchigrovsky, Sudzhansky and Mosalsky types, about the assimilative-dissimilative yak of all types (Novoselkovsky, Kidusovsky, Orekhovsky and Kultukovsky) and about the moderately dissimilative yak of Novoselkovsky and Kidusovsky types.

These models of vocalism are characterized by the fact that in them, before the stressed vowels of the middle rise, the indistinguishable vowels of the non-upper rise have different implementations in the 1st pre–stressed syllable — [’a] and [i], for example, [d'i r'evn'b] - [l'a juice] The other types of dissimilative yakking (archaic, Zhizdrinsky, Donskoy, Dmitrovsky) are characterized by the same realization of the vowels of the non-upper rise in the 1st pre-stressed syllable before the stressed vowels of the middle rise ^{[6, map 8]}, so they do not provide material for further reasoning.

The vocalism models we are interested in can be divided into two groups, depending on how the vowels of the first pre–stressed syllable react to the stressed [’o] (from *e, *b) - in the same way as to [e], which has not passed into [’o], or in the same way as to [o], located after hard consonants.

The first group of models includes Shchigrovsky and Sudzhansky types of dissimilative Yakan, Novoselkovsky and Kidusovsky types of assimilative-dissimilative yakan, as well as moderately dissimilative yakan of Novoselkovsky and Kidusovsky types. Here [i] is pronounced both before [e], which has not passed into [’o] (e.g., [d'i r'evn'b]), and before [’o] from *e, *b (for example, [v'i c'olj]), whereas before [o] open, standing after a solid consonant (in the non-first syllable of the word, it can only be the former strong [b]), in the 1st pre-stressed syllable [’a] sounds (for example, [l'a juice]).

The Orekhovsky and Kultukovsky types of assimilative-dissimilative yak and the Mosalsky type of dissimilative yak belong to the second group of models. Here, the reaction of the vowel of the first pre-stressed syllable to [e], which did not pass into [’o], and to [’o] from *e, *b is different: on the one hand, [d'i r'evn'b] is pronounced, and on the other hand, [v'a c'olj] — sothe same as [l'a juice].

A comparison of the reaction of the vowel of the 1st pre-stressed syllable to the stressed [’o] from *e, *b clearly demonstrates the following relative chronology: in dialects of the first type, yak developed before the transition [e] to [’o] took place, and in dialects of the second type – after, that is, then when [o], which stood after hard consonants, and [’o] from *e, *b, which was after soft consonants, still represented one unit.

The models assigned to the first group (with different reactions of the vowel of the first pre-stressed syllable to ['o] and [o]) occupy a vast territory of the central part of the South Russian dialect, in the east there are only separate "islands" with such types of vocalism. At the same time, the Kultukovsky and Orekhovsky types of assimilative-dissimilative yakan belonging to the second group of models are localized on the extreme eastern periphery of the South Russian dialect — in the eastern and partially central part of the Ryazan group ^{[6, map 8]}. The Mosala type of dissimilative yakking, which is equally included in the second group of models, has an extremely small distribution and is represented by several point "islands" in the southwestern dialect zone, coexisting mainly with the Zhizdrinsky dissimilative yakking.

So, the following generalizations can be made. The overwhelming array of dialects of the central part of the South Russian dialect is characterized by models of vocalism of the first group, where the vowel of the 1st pre-stressed syllable reacts differently to the [’o] and [o] stressed syllable. In the east, models from the second group are common, where in the 1st pre-stressed syllable the same vowel is pronounced before [’o] as before the stressed [o]. And finally, in the west, in the zone of distribution of the Zhizdrinsky dissimilative yakan (which is not indicative for our reasoning, since here before all the vowels of the middle rise in the first pre-stressed syllable ['a] sounds in place of the indistinguishable vowels of the upper rise), the Mosal type of dissimilative yakan is also represented, although by single small scattered "islands". the second group.

This allows us to conclude about the relative chronology of the occurrence of akanya-yakanya and the transition [e] to [’o] after hard consonants before soft ones: having developed after the fall of the reduced ones, it occupied the central part of the South Russian dialect before the transition [e] to [’o] and only later spread to the east — after the specified the transition. Apparently, the akanye-yakanye also came to the west later, when [e] after hard consonants before soft ones had already changed to [’o].

Above, we were talking only about historical phonetics, for which the use of the method of relative chronology is an indispensable condition for determining the time of a number of processes that took place both in the pre-written and in the written period. But there are also morphological phenomena that existed in an era when written monuments already existed, but nevertheless require researchers to turn to the method of relative chronology.

In the history of the Russian language, drastic changes have occurred with the accusative case. These changes have led to the fact that it differs very slightly from other cases and now has its own forms only for nouns of the I declension in the singular. In all other nouns, it coincides either with I.P. or R.P., so that it can be attributed to the class of "weakly differentiated" cases ^{[14, p. 174]}.

The prerequisites for this were already laid down in the Proto-Slavic language: the coincidence for phonetic reasons of I. and V. pp. in masculine words *ŏ-, *ŭ- and *ĭ-declensions in the singular (e.g., table, son, guest); the action of the "rule of the neuter gender", which provided for a coincidence in.p. with I.P. in the plural (e.g., villages); coincidence I.-V. pp. for feminine words in the plural (e.g., mountains), and for words *ĭ-declensions of the feminine and singular (e.g., bone). The next step was, apparently, in the pre-written era, the coincidence of I.P. with V.P. in nouns of the consonant declension: kami > stone (M.R. ed.ch.); mother, mother-in-law, brve > mother, mother-in-law, brvi (J.R. mn.ch.). Thus, in the Old Russian language the distinction between the forms of I. and V. pp., not counting the singular *a-declension, remains only for masculine words in the plural. Cf.:

However, even here, as a result of unification according to the solid variant of the declension of the sword-type form, under the influence of the table-type forms, the tables received the ending -and and coincided with the forms of I.P.

The next step towards the transformation of VP into a "weakly differentiated" one took place already in the written period: In this group of nouns, the nominative forms have been replaced by accusative forms. Cf. modern I.P. tables, nails, ice, days. The question arises as to how the described process correlates in time with the development of the category of animacy in words denoting males in the plural. The fact is that such nouns of the hard declension variant in I.P. mn. ch., as well as inanimate ones, have replaced the ending -and ending -s (for example, smrdi > smrdy)^[2]. Obviously, the relative chronology here should be as follows: the coincidence of I.P. with V.P. mn.h. in nouns denoting males occurred before the development of the category of animacy in them, otherwise in I.p. mn.h. they would not have received the inflection -s. Indirectly, this is confirmed by the monuments of writing of the XIII century, in isolated cases containing forms with the ending -s in I.P. mn.ch. (for example, the Holy Ambassadors of Novg. gr. 1268), and later texts of the XIV century. with the forms of R.P. with the meaning of V.P. (for example, they sent their ambassadors Peremirnaya gr. great Prince of Lithuania Algirdas Gediminovich with great Prince Dmitry Ivanovich in 1371). But by themselves, examples from written sources cannot be completely evidentiary, since, as is known, monuments of writing, including business, had a grammatical norm inherent in them, which in many cases was conservative (see about this ^{[15, p. 25]}, so that forms such as V.P. mn. ch. proverbs could and not reflected immediately as soon as they began to appear in the language. Therefore, reliance on relative chronology is more reliable here.

So, relative chronology turns out to be a necessary method not only for the reconstruction of the Proto-Slavic phonetic system in its dynamics, but also for determining the order of some linguistic processes, including morphological ones, in the written period of the history of the East Slavic languages.

^[1] Contrary to the instructions of R. I. Avanesov, who wrote that the forms would be such, dry, other and under ^{[2, p. 255]}.

^[2] There are, however, several words whose base in the singular ends in a hard consonant, and the form of I.P. mn.ch. retains the ancient inflection of I.P. ‑and in the form of [and], and, consequently, the consonant before it is soft. These are modern nouns neighbor – neighbors and devil – devils. The presence of the ending [and] in these nouns has led to the fact that the basis of the sub-paradigm of the plural has become soft in all case forms. Cf. modern. neighbor–neighbor–neighbor, etc., on the one hand, and neighbors – neighbors – neighbors, etc., on the other. See more about this ^{[3, pp. 221-222]}.