Ablaut and transitive softening in the Russian verb - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2023

Ablaut and transitive softening in the Russian verb

Ora Matushansky

Résumé

Transitive softening in Russian is a type of consonant mutation resulting from an underlying [CjV] cluster. There exist two closed classes of verbs where it occurs in the present tense in the absence of a clear source for a glide: five verbs with the thematic suffix ‑o‑, which can be illustrated by the verb kolótʲ ‘to stab’, and some 100 verbs with the thematic suffix ‑a‑, which can be illustrated by the verb pisátʲ ‘to write’. To explain how [o] and [a] end up as glides, I propose that the vowels in question change into their front counterparts as a result of the same process as that responsible for the stem ablaut in the verb molótʲ ‘to grind’ (1sg: melʲú). I argue that the hypothesis that ablaut can apply to thematic vowels as well as to stems makes it possible to account for another Russian verb exhibiting an unexpected behavior in the present tense (revétʲ ‘to bellow’). Since the latter part of the argument introduces ablauts involving more than one feature, the remainder of the paper is dedicated to the discussion of how multiple feature changes should be formalized.

Domaines

Linguistique
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
AMP2022-UCLA.pdf (392.41 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers éditeurs autorisés sur une archive ouverte

Dates et versions

hal-04383671 , version 1 (18-01-2024)

Licence

Paternité

Identifiants

Citer

Ora Matushansky. Ablaut and transitive softening in the Russian verb. Noah Elkins; Bruce Hayes; Jinyoung Jo; Jian-Leat Siah. Proceedings of the 2022 Annual Meeting on Phonology / Supplemental Proceedings, AMP, 2023, ⟨10.3765/amp.v10i0.5446⟩. ⟨hal-04383671⟩
36 Consultations
6 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More