The Prehistory of the Slavic Vowel System

Abstract

The methodological differences between Kapović and myself are threefold: (1) He disregards the chronological aspects of linguistic developments. As a result, he mixes up elements from different stages of development. (2) He disregards the linguistic system in which developments take place. As a result, he reconstructs typologically improbable linguistic systems. (3) He multiplies the input criteria of his rules in order to arrive at the correct output. The larger the number of input distinctions, the easier it becomes to generate any desired output. A combination of these devices renders his treatment opaque and confuses the issues at hand.

On the Reflection of Unaccented Length and the Short Neo-Acute in Slavic, the kȍkōt Type Lengthening in Štokavian/Čakavian and Other Issues

“…in nominal ā-stems 31 or e-presents, he ignores the remnants of pretonic length in West Slavic such as Czech klíti 'to curse' (but see below) and gen sg devíti 'nine', desíti 'ten' 32 . The same goes for his assertation (Kortlandt 2020) that "pre-Dybo pretonic length was restored in rúka (c) on the analogy of the barytone forms acc.sg. rȗku and nom.acc.pl.…”

“…Kapović 2011) and thus this remark makes no sense at all. The same goes for Kortlandt's (2020) next claim that I do not explain "the difference between the short vowels of màlina and jèzik and the long vowels of zábava and národ". Now, it is one thing to say that he does not agree with my analysis, but to imply that I do not explain this at all is both very incorrect and factually untrue.…”

“…28 On the other hand, the supposedly expected kortlandtite **rùka (or **trèseš) is nowhere attested in Štokavian (nor old **rŭkȁ, **trĕsȅš or their reflexes in Čakavian or Kajkavian 29 ). Concerning this supposed and very suspicious analogical reintroduction of length, Kortlandt never discusses the details and problems, not even in his third article (Kortlandt 2020). That is another example of his modus operandi with him simply asserting a supposed solution, without details, without discussing the problems or really engaging with critiques of his ideas.…”

“…This article is the latest instalment in an ongoing discussion between Frederik Kortlandt and the author of this paper on various topics of Western South Slavic (Štokavian/Čakavian/Kajkavian/Slovene), Western Slavic (Czech/Slovak and Slovincian), Slavic and, to a lesser extent, Balto-Slavic and Indo-European, accentuation. The discussion started with Kortlandt 2016 (: 478-479), followed by Kapović 2017a, Kortlandt 2018, Kapović 2019, Kortlandt 2020 and now this paper.…”

“…This is true, indisputable and widely known, but completely irrelevant for the crux of the discussion because nobody disputes that forms like glàvama (dat/loc/instr pl 'heads') are original. Completely puzzling is what follows, where Kortlandt (2020) says that I do "not explain the difference between the accent patterns of rúka (c) and trúba (b)". What is there to explain, that is not generally known and acknowledged, of the difference of accentual paradigm b and c in ā-stems?…”