ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA

LI (2004), 39 – 43

Old Prussian pronouns of the stan / sta type

Witold Mańczak

Cracovie

According to Daniel Petit (Baltistica 36, 2001, 173–188) Old Prussian had only the neuter pronouns stan ‘this’, kan ‘what’ and wissan ‘everything’, whereas the forms sta, ka and wissa were artificially 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 to frequency.

Daniel Petit (2001) a publié un article consacré aux pronoms neutres du vieux prussien stan / sta, kan / ka, wissan / wissa, stavīdan, kavīdan, stan subban, ainan et abbaien. A son avis,

“if we disregard these exceptions, for which a particular explanation is always possible, the rule appears to be observed everywhere: in pronouns, the ending -an specifically marks the neuter accusative, whereas the ending -a marks the nominative...

The distribution of the neuter endings -a and -an follows a precise syntactic rule (neuter nominative in -a, neuter accusative in -an) in the Third Catechism; it is not random. This conclusion invalidates the hypothesis, formulated by Smoczyński..., of “denasalized” forms. For if the variation between the endings -a and -an resulted from a phonetic process, one would expect the distribution to be purely random, which is not the case. The hypothesis of phonetic fluctuation is therefore ruled out, as is that of mere spelling variants.

The distribution postulated here cannot be ancient. The creation of a morphological distinction between the neuter nominative and accusative is, in fact, a typological aberration from the perspective of Indo-European linguistics; it is unlikely to correspond to a linguistic reality and to attest to an active tendency toward the disappearance of the neuter gender in Old Prussian. More plausibly, it reflects a particular translation rule established by Abel Will, based on the notion that the accusative should be characterized by a final nasal.

In our view, the emergence of the forms in -a is explained by what we call irregular phonetic development due to frequency. We arrived at the conclusion long ago that the form of words depends on three main factors: regular phonetic development, analogical change, and irregular phonetic development due to frequency. We have devoted three monographs to the latter (Mańczak 1969, 1977 and 1987), as well as numerous articles, some of which apply to the Baltic languages (Mańczak 1992, 1993, 1994 and 2001).

Six arguments can be cited in support of the theory of irregular phonetic development due to frequency.

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First argument. We examined Eaton’s frequency dictionary, which lists, among other things, the 6,000 most commonly used French words. Those that have undergone irregular reductions are presented as follows:

^er thousand 99 86% Test χ² 2^e thousand 9 8% 409,55 > 11,07 3^e thousand 4 3% 4^e thousand 2 2% 5^e thousand 1 1% 6^e thousand – –

This argument alone would suffice to prove that the theory in question is correct. But there are others as well.

Second argument. If a morpheme, word, or group of words appears in a language in two forms, regular and irregular, the irregular phonetic development due to frequency is characterized by the fact that the irregular form is generally more commonly used than the regular form, for example, nors is used more than noris, and the same is true of mat and matai, kuomet and kuo metu, or šiandien and šį dieną.

Third argument. If irregular phonetic changes due to frequency occur within an inflectional paradigm or a word family, reductions take place more often in the more frequent forms than in the less frequent ones. For example, in the future forms sakysiu, sakysi, sakys, sakysime, sakysite, the suffix -si-is reduced only in the third person because this person is used more than the others. The difference between the shortened form daug and the full form of this adverb in compounds such as daugiauamžis, daugiauakštis, daugiabalsis, etc., is explained by the fact that daug is used more than the compounds in question.

Fourth argument. Alongside irregular phonetic development due to frequency, there is another kind of irregular development consisting of phonetic accidents long known as assimilations, dissimilations, or metatheses, as well as hypercorrect or expressive forms. This entire irregular development is characterized by the fact that it occurs in different words in different languages. The Lithuanian word šėšuras < šešuras exhibits assimilation, the dialectal word dirgelė < dilgelė dissimilation, and krapas < Pol. koper metathesis; but it would be difficult to find, in an Indo-European language, a word meaning “father-in-law” with assimilation, a word meaning “nettle” with dissimilation, or a word meaning “fennel” with metathesis. In short, there is no parallelism among the irregularities called assimilations, dissimilations, metatheses, etc., that occur in different languages. In contrast to assimilations, dissimilations, etc., irregular phonetic development due to frequency occurs in various languages in a more or less parallel manner. This is explained by the fact that, despite the differences between linguistic communities, the most frequent words are more or less the same everywhere. For example, the word for sister undergoes irregular reductions in many languages; cf. Lith. sesuo, OCS sestra, English sister, Dutch zuster, French sœur, Provençal sor, etc., compared with German Schwester.

Fifth argument. When one has access to a frequency dictionary and a reverse dictionary, one can examine series of words that begin or end with the same letter or letters—

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with. It is significant, for example, that in English, among 700 words ending in -iness, business is the only word with a reduced pronunciation, and that this word is more commonly used than all the other derivatives in -iness. Among words that once began with a Germanic h-, English it < hit is the only word that has lost its initial consonant in standard spelling; at the same time, it is more commonly used than all the words (numbering more than a thousand) that have retained the h-. A connection between the reductions business > [biznis] and hit > it and frequency is evident.

Sixth argument. When one has access to a linguistic atlas, one can observe that of two or more changes explained by irregular phonetic development due to frequency, the most frequent one has a wider area than the other(s). In French, final r is retained (aurum > or, flōrem > fleur, etc.), but many infinitives exhibit irregular loss of -r. Examination of ALF maps shows that the area where r has been lost in -er verbs is larger than that where r has disappeared in -ir verbs, and that the latter area is larger than that where r has been lost in -oir verbs. This is explained by the fact that -er verbs are the most frequent, -ir verbs are less commonly used, and -oir verbs are the least commonly used.

As for the Old Prussian neuter pronouns sta, ka, wissa (< stan, kan, wissan), they are explained by irregular phonetic development due to frequency, in support of which the following arguments can be adduced.

1. Similar changes occurred in Lithuanian. Traces of neuters such as visa gera or gražu exhibit irregular denasalization of final vowels.

A similar state of affairs is found in the Slavic languages. As for Old Church Slavonic, in our view, when the same phonetic development occurs in final position as in medial position, we are dealing with regular phonetic change. But when this is not the case, it is most often irregular phonetic development due to frequency. Here are some examples.

In medial position, the diphthongs *oi, ai become ē, and the same development occurred in forms such as dative singular rǫc-ě, nominative dual rǫc-ě, locative singular rab-ě, nominative dual lět-ě, or in the isolated verbal form věd-ě. By contrast, irregular development occurred in forms such as nominative plural rab-i, dative singular rab-u, instrumental plural rab-y, second-person singular indicative nese-ši, da-si, or second-person singular imperative ber-i.

In medial position, *o remains unchanged, and the same development occurred in final position in Old Church Slavonic words such as t-o or slov-o. By contrast, irregular development of *o occurred in final position in forms such as nominative singular rab-ъ, vrač-ъ, dative plural rabo-mъ, or first-person plural bere-mъ.

In medial position, the sequence oral vowel + nasal consonant yields a nasal vowel in Old Church Slavonic, and the same development occurred in final position in forms such as nominative singular im-ę, otroč-ę, accusative singular rǫk-ǫ, instrumental singular toj-ǫ, accusative plural duš-ę, vrač-ę, third-person plural byš-ę, běach-ǫ, or present participle zna-ję. By contrast, irregular development occurred in final position in forms where the Indo-European sequence oral vowel + nasal consonant was transformed into an oral vowel. These include forms such as nominative singular lět-o, accusative singular rab-ъ, vrač-ъ, genitive plural glav-ъ, accusative plural rab-y, pǫt-i or syn-y (Manćzak 1999).

In our view, irregular phonetic development due to frequency occurred not only in Old Prussian wissa, but also in Lithuanian visa gera and Old Church Slavonic lět-o.

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2. In Die altpreussischen Sprachdenkmäler by Trautmann, there is an index. We counted all the forms discussed by Daniel Petit, and they are as follows:

Nom. sing. Acc. sing. Total Percentage of abbreviated forms stan / sta sta 55 sta 2 stan 40 97 59% kan / ka ka 36 ka 11 kan 4 51 92% wissan / wissa wissa 1 wissan 2 wissan 10 13 8% stawīdan stawīdan 6 6 – ainan ainan 4 4 – stan subban stan subban 4 4 – kawīdan kawīdan 3 3 – abbaien abbaien 1 1 –

We can therefore see that there is a link between the irregular reductions that occurred in stan > sta, kan > ka, wissan > wissa and frequency: only the most frequently used words underwent irregular reductions, while the less frequent words remained unchanged.

3. Here is another quotation from Daniel Petit’s article:

“The question remains as to what the translator based himself on in creating a morphological distinction between a neuter nominative and accusative, when no such distinction existed in German, probably not in Prussian either, and, still less, in any of the neighboring languages (e.g. Polish). One may think that the translator, who did not fully master Prussian declensions, tended to establish elementary rules for himself, the simplest of which was that the accusative should be marked by a final nasal; he could then have been tempted to apply these rules sometimes even outside their domain, in this case to neuter forms. In a sense, one might speak here of a phenomenon of hypercorrection.”

In our opinion, the translator invented nothing, but used the reduced forms sta, ka, wissa, which existed in Old Prussian. When a frequency-driven irregular phonetic development occurs within a paradigm, it often happens that the more commonly used forms undergo irregular reductions, whereas the less frequent forms remain intact. Here are some examples.

The nominative is more frequently used than the accusative, and this explains why the reduced forms sta, ka, wissa are attested much more often in the nominative than in the accusative. The same explanation applies to masculine nouns: in the nom. sing., there are deiwas and deiws as well as rikijs (deiws and rikijs are abbreviated forms), but in the acc. sing. deiwan, rikijan (which are regular forms). In Latin, the nominative is more frequently used than the ablative, and this explains an irregular shortening of ā in the nominative and the retention of ā in the ablative: nom. mēnsa and abl. mēnsā. In all languages, the singular is used more frequently than the plural, and this explains why in Russian the plural is deti, dete j, etc., whereas in the singular one

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says ditja, etc.; that is, in the singular the e underwent a reduction in vowel openness, characteristic of irregular frequency-driven phonetic development. The Polish word książę “prince” has a normal declension in the plural, whereas some singular forms exhibit irregular reductions: książęcia > księcia, książęciu > księciu, etc. The same explanation applies to the difference in Czech between přátelé “friends” and přítel “friend” (in the singular, we are dealing with a reduction in vowel openness, characteristic of irregular frequency-driven phonetic development). 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 Müttern, in die Felder, etc., on the other. In French, one says ai, as, a, avons avec, ont, that is, there are three irregularly shortened forms in the singular and only one (ont) in the plural. A similar situation exists in Italian: ho, hai, ha, abbiamo, avete, hanno, and in the other Romance languages. If we compare, in Lithuanian, singular forms of the type dirbi, dirba with plural forms of the type dirbame, dirbate, we see that the difference between Proto-Indo-European forms and Lithuanian forms is smaller in the plural than in the singular, which is explained by the fact that the singular underwent irregular frequency-driven phonetic development to a greater extent than the plural. A similar state of affairs is found in other languages; cf. Polish robisz, robi as opposed to robimy, robicie, or Greek παιδεύεις, παιδεύει as compared with παιδεύομεν, παιδεύετε (Mańczak 1992a).

RÉFÉRENCES

MAŃCZAK, W. 1969: Le développement phonétique des langues romanes et la fréquence, Kraków: Uniwersytet Jagielloński.

MAŃCZAK, W. 1977: Słowiańska fonetyka historyczna a frekwencja, Kraków: Uniwersytet Jagielloński.

MAŃCZAK, W. 1987: Frequenzbedingter unregelmässiger Lautwandel in den germanischen Sprachen, Wrocław: Ossolineum.

MAŃCZAK, W. 1992: Frequenzbedingter unregelmässiger Lautwandel im Altpreussischen. Smoczyński, W., Holvoet, A., eds., Colloquium Pruthenicum primum. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 23–29.

MAŃCZAK, W. 1992a: Les désinences de grec φέρεες et φέρετε. Brogyanyi, B., Lipp, R., eds., Historical Philology: Greek, Latin and Romance. Papers in Honor of Oswald Szemerényi II. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 67–75.

MAŃCZAK, W. 1993: Ancien prussien brote, brāti, duckti. Baltistica 28, 55–63.

MAŃCZAK, W. 1994: Le développement phonétique irrégulier dû à la fréquence en lituanien. Baltistica 4 (priedas), 92–99.

MAŃCZAK, W. 1999: Nieregularności w końcówkach staro-cerkiewno-słowiańskich. Mieczkowska, H., ed., In memoriam A. Zaręba et J. Reczek. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Oddziału Polskiej Akademii Nauk w Krakowie (Prace Komisji Slawianoznawstwa, 51), 109–113.

MAŃCZAK, W. 2001: Coup d’œil sur le dictionnaire de fréquence du lituanien. Munera linguistica et philologica M. Hasiuk dedicata. Edenda curaverunt J. Marcinkiewicz et N. Ostrowski, Poznań: Uniwersytet Adama Mickiewicza, 47–53.

PETIT, D. 2001: Pronoms neutres et règle SVO en vieux prussien. Baltistica 36, 173–188.

Witold Mańczak Zakątek 13/59, 30-076 Kraków, Pologne mań[email protected]

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