Old Church Slavonic phonemes

The problem of /j/ and /ě, a/ after palatals

Autor/innen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13173/WS.67.2.296

Schlagworte:

Old Church Slavonic, Phonology, Urkirchenslavisch, Archiphonemes, Glagolitic

Abstract

In Glagolitic Old Church Slavonic (OCS) there is no unambiguous device to represent ja or ńa, ĺa, ŕa. Where Cyrillic OCS can use the 〈ꙗ〉 letter, Glagolitic OCS must use its 〈ѣ〉 letter, the primary function of which is to denote ě, and this, I argue, is because in the language on which original OCS was based, and for which the Glagolitic alphabet was invented, Early Common Slavonic and after palatal consonants did not become a, but ě. Such a development allowed also for the removal of phonemic /j/, and this is why the Glagolitic Alphabet has no device to represent /j/. Most attested Glagolitic OCS, however, is based on dialects which do have a after palatals, and which therefore kept /j/. An exception are the Kiev Folia, which are based on a dialect with ě after palatals and no /j/, and the Kiev Folia are thus the closest we have to original OCS. To illustrate these conclusions, I offer phonemic transcriptions from Zographensis and the Kiev Folia, and translations of both into reconstructed original OCS.

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Veröffentlicht

28.03.2022

Zitationsvorschlag

Winslow, Joseph J. 2022. Old Church Slavonic phonemes: The problem of /j/ and /ě, a/ after palatals. Die Welt der Slaven: Internationale Halbjahresschrift für Slavistik 67(2). 296–323. (DOI: 10.13173/WS.67.2.296.)

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