Les pronom vieux prussiens du type « stan / sta »

ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA LI (2004), 39 -43 Old Prussian pronouns type stan du sta / WITOLD MANCZAK Cracovie According to Daniel Petit (Baltistica 36, 2001, 173-188) Old Prussian had only the neuter pronouns stan ‘his’, kan ‘what’ and wissan ‘everything- ’, whereas the forms sta, ka and wissa were articificially created by the translator of the Enchiridion. The present writer argues that the forms sta, ka and wissa are genuine and arose from stan, kan and wissan as a result of what he calls irregular phonetic development due frequency. Daniel Petit (2001) published an article on the Old Prussian neutral pronouns stan | sta, kan | ka, wissan | wissa, stavidan, kavidan, stan subban, ainan and abbaien. In his opinion, “if we neglect these exceptions, for which a particular explanation to is always possible, the rule seems to be observed everywhere: in pronouns, the ending -an marks specifically the neutral accusative, while the ending -a marks the nominative… The distribution of the neutral endings -a and -an obeys, in the Third Catechism, a precise syntactic rule (neutral nominative in -a, neutral accusative in -an); It is not a matter of chance. This conclusion invalidates the hypothesis, formulated by Smoczynski.- .., of "denasalized" forms. For, if the variation of the -a and -an endings were the result of a phonetic process, one would expect the distribution to be purely random, which is not the case. Hypothesis of a phonetic float is therefore excluded, as well as that of simple graphic variants. The distribution postulated here cannot be old. The creation of a morphological distinction between the nominative and the neutral accusative is, in fact, a typological aberration from the point of view of Indo-European linguistics; it is unlikely to correspond to a linguistic reality and testifies to an active trend towards the disappearance of the neutral gender in Old Prussian. More likely, it reflects a particular rule of translation established by Abel Will, a rule based on the feeling that the accusative must be characterized by a final nasal.” In our opinion, the birth of the -a forms is explained by what we call an irregular phonetic development due to frequency. We have long since come to the conclusion that the form of words depends on three main factors: regular phonetic development, analogous evolution and irregular phonetic development due to frequency. We have devoted three monographs (Mañczak 1969, 1977 and 1987) and numerous articles to the latter, some of which apply to the Baltic languages (Manczak 1977, 1987). 1992, 1993, 1994 et 2001). Six arguments can be cited in support of the theory of irregular phonetic development dû à la frequency. 40 | WITOLD MANCZAK First argument. We stripped the frequency dictionary of Eaton, which indicates, among others, the 6000 most used French words. Those who have suffered irregular reductions are as follows: 1 thousand 99 86% Test x? 2nd thousand 9 8% 409.55 > 11.07 3rd thousand 4 3% 4th thousand 2 2% 5th thousand 1 1% 6th mile —— This argument alone would be sufficient to prove that the theory in question is correct. But there are still others. Second argument. If a morpheme, word or group of words appears in a language in a dual form, regular and irregular, the irregular phonetic development due to frequency is characterized by the fact that the irregular form is, in general, more used than the regular form, for example nors is more used than norįs and the same is true for mat and matai, kuomet and kuo metu or šiandien and šią dieną. The third argument. If irregular phonetic changes due to frequency occur within a flexion paradigm or word family, reductions occur more often in more frequent forms than in less frequent ones. For example, in the future forms sakysiu, sakysi, sakys, sakysime, sakysite, the suffix -si is reduced only to the 3rd person because it is used more than the others. The difference between the abbreviated form daug and the full form of this adverb in compounds such as daugiaamzis, daugiaaukstis, daugiabalsis, etc. is explained by the fact that daug is used more than the compounds in question. Fourth argument. In addition to the irregular phonetic development due to frequency, there is another irregular evolution that consists of phonetic accidents known for a long time as assimilations, dissimilations or metatheses, into hypercorrect forms or expressive forms. All this irregular evolution is characterized by the fact that it takes place, in different languages, in different words. The Lithuanian word Sesuras < se$uras presents an assimilation, the dialectal word dirgélé < dilgélé a dissimilation, krapas < pol. koper a metathesis, but it would be difficult to find, in an Indo-European language, a word meaning “father-- in-law” with an assimilation, a word meaning “nettle” with a dissimilation or a word meaning “fennel” with a metathesis. In short, there is no parallelism between the irregularities called assimilations, dissimilations, metatheses, etc., which occur in different languages. Unlike assimilations, dissimilations, etc., the irregular phonetic development due to frequency takes place in different languages in a more or less parallel manner, which is explained by the fact that, despite the differences that separate the linguistic communities, the most frequent words are everywhere more or less the same. For example, the name of the sister has irregular reductions in many languages, cf. lit. sesuo, v. slave sestra, angl. sister, neerl. zuster, fr. seeur, prov. sor, etc. in front of the all. Sister. Fifth argument. When you have at your disposal a frequency dictionary and a reverse dictionary, you can examine series of words that begin or end with the same letters. THE V. PRUSIAN PRONOUNS OF THE TYPE stan /sta | 41 nent par la ou Il is significant for example that in English, among 700 finished words en -iness, business being the only le word whose pronunciation is reduced, la which word is more used than all other et derivatives ce en -iness. Among the words that once began with un 4of Germanic origin, English if < hit is the only word in the le official spelling that has lost its initial consonant; at the same time, is more used than all la words en il (in le excess of 1,000) who have kept le /1-. Un link between business discounts > [busineset s] hit > it et la frequency is obvious. Sixth argument. When we have at our disposal a linguistic atlas, we can observe that of two or more changes explained by an irregular phonetic development due to frequency, the one that is more frequent has a larger area than the other or the others. In French, the final r is maintained (aurum > or, florem > fleur, etc.), but many infinitives have an irregular fall of the -r. ALF map examination shows that the area where ler fell in -er verbs is larger than the area where ler disappeared in -ir verbs, and that the latter is larger than the area where r fell in -oir verbs. This is explained by the fact that -er verbs are the most frequent, -ir verbs are the least common, and -or verbs are the least common. As for the Prussian v. neutral pronouns sta, ka, wissa (< stan, kan, wissan), they are explained by an irregular phonetic development due to frequency, in support of which the following arguments can be made. 1. Similar changes have taken place in Lithuanian. Traces of neutrals such as visa gera or gražu show irregular denasalization of the final vowels. There is a similar situation in the Slavic languages. As far as the Slavic v. is concerned, in our view, when there is the same phonetic development in the final position as in the median position, we are dealing with a regular phonetic evolution. But when this is not the case, it is most often an irregular phonetic development due to frequency. Here are some examples. In the middle position, the diphthongs *oi, ai pass to é and the same development has taken place in forms like dat. sing. roc-¢, nom. duel rpc-é, loc. sing. rab-ē, nom. duel lėtė or in the isolated verb form vėd-ė. On the other hand, irregular development has occurred in forms like nouns. plur. rab-i, dat. sing. rab-u, instr. plural rab-y, 2° pers. sing. ind. nese-ši, da-si ou 2° pers. sing. emperor. ber-i. In the middle position, the *o remains as it is and the same development has taken place, in the final position, in Slavic v. words like 7-0 or slov-o. On the other hand, an irregular development of *o has occurred, in final position, in forms like noun. sing. rab-6, question-- b, that. plur. rabo-ma or 1" pers. plur. bere-ma. In the middle position, the oral vowel + nasal consonant group ends approx. Slavic has a nasal vowel and the same development took place, in final position, in forms like noun. sing. im-¢, orphan-¢, acc. sing. rpk-p, instr. sing. toj-p, acc. plural dus-e, vraë-e, 3¢ pers. plural bys-¢, béach-¢ or part. prés. He knows it. On the other hand, an irregular development occurred, in the final position, in the forms where the Indo-European group oral vowel + nasal consonant became an oral vowel. It is about forms as a name. sing. slow-o, acc. sing. rab-8, vraëb, gen. plur. glav-8, acc. plur. rab-y, pot-i ou syn-y (Mañczak 1999). In our opinion, an irregular phonetic development due to frequency took place not only in pruss. v. wissa, but also in bed. all right et v. Slave slow-o. 42 | WITOLD MANCZAK 2. Dance The old Prussian Language monuments de Trautmann, il y a un index. We have y counted all the forms that deals with Daniel Small they et present as se follows: Name. sing. Acc. sing. Total 2000-2001 | Percentage de abbreviated forms stan sta sta sta | stan 55 2 40 97 | 59% can / ka ka 36 ka 11 can 4 51 | 92% wissan | wissa| wissa 1 wissan 2 wissa 10 13 | 8% stawidan stawidan 6 6 — ainan ainan 4 4 — stan subban stan subban 4| 4 — kawidan kawidan 3 3 — abbaien abbaien 1 1 — On Therefore, it sees that it y a un link between the irregular abbreviations that are produced in stan sta, kan se ka, wissan wissa > > > et la frequency: only the most frequently used words were subjected to irregular reductions, while the less frequent words remained unchanged. 3. Here is another quote borrowed from the à article de Daniel Small: “The question remains as to what the translator de relied on to create a morphological le distinction between nominative and accusative neutre, when such a distinction did not exist in un the et un ni en German, ni probably Prussian, en nor, for a greater à reason, in any of the neighboring languages (e.g. en Polish). On may think that the translator, le who did not fully master the Prussian ne declinations, tended to establish for himself elementary rules, the a eu simplest of à which was that the accusative had to be marked by a final nasal; could, therefore, be la tempted to apply these rules sometimes even outside their domain, the occurrence in neutral forms. il en de en En un sense, could speak On here of a phenomenon of hypercorrection.” A in our opinion, le translator did not invent anything, but served se reduced forms sta, ka, wissa, which existed Prussian. en v. When irregular un phonetic development frequency dû à la produces the se inside of a à paradigm, it often happens that the more il used forms undergo irregular reductions, while the less frequent forms remain intact. Here are some examples. Le nominative is more used than the accusative this et explains why the reduced forms sta, ka, wissa are attested much more often nominative than the accusative. au à La same explanation applies to the masculine: au noun. sing. il y a deiwas et deiws as well as rikijs (deiws et rikijs are abbreviated forms), but the acc. a sing. deiwan, rikijan (which are regular shapes). En Latin, le nominative is more used than ablative this explains abbreviatiet on irregular nominative un du a au et le maintien du 4 à l’ablatif: noun. 100 mg/ et m2/ day mensa. In all languages, singular is more le frequently used than plural this explains why Russian says plural deti, le detej, etc., et while in the singular en on au on Prussian V. pronouns of the type stan /sta | 43 dit ditja, etc., that is, in the singular the e has suffered a reduction in the degree of opening of the vowel, characteristic of the irregular phonetic development due to frequency. The Polish word księżę “prince” has a normal plural declination, while some singular forms have irregular reductions: ksigzecia > ksiecia, ksigzeciu > ksieciu, etc. The same explanation applies to the difference in Czech between prätelé “friends” and pritel “friend” (in the singular, we are dealing with a reduction in the degree of opening of the vowel, characteristic of irregular phonetic development due to frequency). The same applies to the difference in German between zum Vater, zur Mutter, ins Feld, etc. on the one hand and zu den Vätern, zu den Miittern, in die Felder, etc. on the other. In French, we say ai, as, a, avons avez, ont, i.e. there are 3 irregularly abbreviated forms in the singular and only one (have) in the plural. A similar situation exists in Italian: ho, hai, ha, abbiamo, avete, hanno and in other Romance languages. If we compare, in Lithuanian, the singular forms of the type dirbi, dirba with those of the plural of the type dirbame, dirbate, we see that the gap between the Proto-Indo-European and Lithuanian forms is smaller in the plural than in the singular, which is explained by the fact that the singular has undergone an irregular phonetic development due to frequency to a greater extent than the plural. A similar state of affairs is found in other languages, cf. in Polish robisz, robi in front of robimy, robicie or in Greek roudevetc, maudede in front of rurdedouev, moudederte (Mañczak 1992a). REFERENCES MANCzAK, W. 1969: Phonetic development of Romance languages and frequency, Krakow: Uniwersytet Jagiellañski. MANCzAK, W. 1977: Slavic historical phonetics and attendance, Krakow: Jagiellonian University. MaNczak, W. 1987: Frequency-related irregular sound change in Germanic languages, Wroclaw: Ossolineum. MaNczak, W. 1992: Frequency-related irregular sound changes in Old Prussian. Smoczyñski, W., Holvoet, A., eds., Colloquium Pruthenicum primum. London: University of London Press, 23-29. MANczAK, W. 1992a: The desinences of Greek gėpetę and pépet. Brogyanyi, B., Lipp, R., eds., Historical Philology: Greek, Latin and Romance. Papers in Honor of Oswald Szemerényi 11. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 67-75. MaANCzAK, W. 1993: Ancient Prussian brote, brati, duckti. Baltistica 28, 55-63. MANCzAK, W. 1994: Irregular phonetic development due to frequency in Lithuanian. Baltistica 4 (appendix), 92-99. MANczAK, W. 1999: Irregularities in the Old Church-Stowian settlements. Mieczkowska, H., ed., In memoriam A. Zareba and J. Reczek. Krakow: Polish Academy of Sciences, 2005. 109-113. MANCZAK, W. 2001: A look at the Lithuanian frequency dictionary. Linguistic and philological monograph dedicated to M. Hasiuk. Edenda curaverunt J. Marcinkiewicz et N. Ostrowski, Poznan: Uniwersytet Adama Mickiewicza, 47-53. Petit, D. 2001: Neutral pronouns and the SVO rule in Old Prussian. Baltistica 36, 173-188. Witold Mañczak Gauta 2004 12 07 Zakatek 13/59, 30-076 Krakow, POLAND [email protected]