Slavų kalbų morfologijos istorijos bruožai

the approximate date of Iranian contacts. From a methodological point of view, this is very important, because toponymy and archaeology, working together, can provide very important information about the earliest period in the history of peoples. What is interesting in this case is that toponymy played the role of a scout: following in its footsteps, researchers in other fields not only avoided error, but also confirmed the preliminary conclusions of toponymy. A. Vanagas FEATURES OF THE HISTORY OF SLAVIC LANGUAGE MORPHOLOGY П. С. Кузнецов, Очерки по морфологии праславянского языка, Москва, 1961, 144 р. P. Kuznecovas, a prominent specialist in Slavic languages, examines in his book questions concerning the formation of the Proto-Slavic nominal and verbal inflectional systems, and touches on certain aspects of their development during the Proto-Slavic period. The author analyzes linguistic phenomena by relating them to one another. This enables him to trace rather successfully the causes that gave rise to the phenomena under analysis. The formation and development of the Proto-Slavic morphological system cannot be understood without the Baltic languages. In P. Kuznecovas’s book, the analysis of data from the Baltic languages occupies a very important place. Of all the Indo-European languages, the Proto-Baltic morphological system is closest to the Slavic morphological system. For this reason, P. Kuznecovas, perhaps somewhat exaggerating this closeness, uses the term “Common Baltic-Slavic language” (общеславянобалтийский язык). The “Common Baltic-Slavic language” (or proto-language) has not been reconstructed in either phonetics or morphology. Nor did the author of the book under review succeed in reconstructing it. The morphological systems of the Baltic and Slavic languages are similar, but not identical. For instance, the nominal inflectional systems contain a considerable number of endings that P. Kuznecovas does not consider to have derived from a single source: Lithuanian gen. sg. rank-os (where -os from *-as) and OCS žen-y (where -y P. Kuznecovas derives from *-om+-s); Lithuanian instr. sg. sūnu-mi (where -mi is most likely from *-mī; this would be indicated by the Samogitian -mi) and OCS rabo-mъ (where -mъ from *-mi); Lithuanian gen. pl. vilk-ų (where -ų from *-ōn) and OCS rab-ъ (where -ъ from *-on, since *-ōn would yield -ą in Slavic); Lithuanian instr. pl. vilk-ais (where -ais from *-ōis) and OCS rab-y (-y from *-ōis could not have arisen phonetically). The inflectional differences listed here may be very old, inherited from the Indo-European linguistic community. In general, nominal inflection in the Baltic and Slavic languages is very similar, but this similarity did not arise from shared innovative changes in Baltic and Slavic, but because the Baltic and Slavic languages inherited it from the Indo-European linguistic community. In view of this, the term “Common Baltic-Slavic language” seems unjustified. On reading the book, it is clear that the author intends to find a common basis for a number of morphological facts and phenomena in the Baltic and Slavic languages, even when they differ. For instance, P. Kuznecovas argues (albeit very cautiously) that “the Common 1 K. Būga, Rinktiniai raštai, I, Vilnius, 1958, p. 566 (išnaša). 16. Lietuvių kalbos gramatinė sandara 241 Baltic-Slavic language” inherited the formant -s- not only for the formation of the aorist, but also of the future tense (p. 132). This would mean that the Baltic languages once had a sigmatic aorist, which they later lost. This claim, however, is contradicted by the fact that no traces of a sigmatic aorist are found in the Baltic languages. The Baltic languages, like the Germanic languages, most likely never had one. In the Baltic languages, the formant -s- is used to form the future tense, whereas in Slavic it is used to form the aorist and, later, the imperfect. Since the formant -s- became a marker of past tenses in the Slavic languages, it presumably could no longer have been used to form future-tense forms. P. Kuznecovas is one of those scholars who adhere to the hypothesis that the Slavic languages, like the Baltic languages, had a sigmatic future tense. For this reason, he devotes an entire chapter to the problem of the sigmatic future tense in the Slavic languages (pp. 127–132). However, forms with -s- meaning future tense are not attested anywhere in the Slavic languages. The only sigmatic formation taken as evidence that the Slavic languages had a future tense with the formant -s- consists of the participles byšę (masc.), byšęšti (and byšąšti; fem.), byšę (common gender). However, they are found only in East Slavic Church texts. The phonetic structure of these participles suggests that they most likely came from Old Church Slavonic (Bulgarian–Macedonian dialects). But they are not found in Old Church Slavonic texts. It would be most appropriate to regard these participles as present-tense desiderative forms2. The author's thesis that a Baltic-Slavic language once existed sometimes entails a treatment of linguistic phenomena that raises doubts. For instance, on the basis of the fact that Lithuanian esù replaced the old athematic form, the author argues that thematic inflection was generalized already in the “Common Baltic-Slavic language” (p. 89). Yet its generalization in Lithuanian seems to have begun rather late, since athematic inflection is still fairly well preserved in old Lithuanian texts3. One would also like to pause over a small matter concerning nominal inflection. The question of the origin of the genitive singular endings of o-stem nouns in the Baltic and Slavic languages (Lithuanian vilk-o, OCS rab-a)4 is one of those that have generated the largest amount of literature and a variety of hypotheses (see pp. 35–43). It is interesting that P. Kuznecovas considers K. Kapaus’s view the most reliable: the genitive singular case of o-stem nouns arose anew in the Baltic-Slavic language, when a postposition was attached to the nominal stem, which later functioned as a preposition and prefix in the Baltic and Slavic languages; cf. Lithuanian at-, OCS ot(ъ)5. P. Kuznecovas explains the emergence of Lithuanian -o and Slavic -a in the genitive singular as follows (p. 35): the stem-final o and the postposition o (the author's view that in early Baltic and 2 A. Мейе, Общеславянский язык, Москва, 1951, p. 193. 3 Chr. S. Stang, Das slavische und baltische Verbum, Oslo, 1942, p. 99—104: A. Sabaliauskas, Atematiniai lietuvių kalbos veiksmažodžiai, kn.: Kai kurie lietuvių kalbos gramatikos klausimai, Vilnius, 1957, p. 77—114. 4 This ending is not Common Baltic, since the Prussian language seems to have preserved the old inflection -s; cf. Prussian deiwas “god” and Hittite antuhšas “man.” 5 C. Kappus, Der indogermanische Ablativ, Marburg, 1903, p. 14. 242 In periods of the development of the Slavic languages, the phoneme o existed and, as we must agree, gave rise through contraction to ō, which, being fairly open, merged with ā. This phonetic explanation raises many doubts: it is unclear why a long vowel arising through contraction (even from open o) should have been open. It seems that the quality of the newly arisen long vowel does not depend on the quality of the vowels undergoing contraction: in old Lithuanian texts, the two open vowels e and a yield a long ō (cf. noteit from ne-ateit). The forms Lithuanian vīlko and Old Church Slavonic raba are usually associated with the ablatives of other Indo-European languages (cf. Old Indic vṛkāt, vṛkād) and are therefore regarded as old singular ablative forms (with a phonetically lost -d), which acquired the meaning of the singular genitive in the Baltic and Slavic languages. At first glance, however, phonetics seems to contradict this association: in other Indo-European languages there is ō here (cf. Old Latin Gnaivōd and Greek Foíkō ‘von Hause’, and therefore Old Indic -āt, -ād derives from *-ōd), whereas Lithuanian has -o here, which is thought to derive from *-ā. This phonetic discrepancy gives rise to all sorts of explanations and conjectures. This phonetic discrepancy, however, seems to be only apparent. In recent years, a very plausible idea, readily supportable by facts, has been put forward: that Indo-European ō became uo in Lithuanian in stressed position, while in unstressed position it merged with Indo-European ā6. The singular genitive forms of Baltic and Slavic o-stem nouns were barytone not only in paradigms with fixed root stress, but also in mobile-stress paradigms (cf. the form vīlko, which belongs to a mobile-stress paradigm). Therefore Lithuanian -o (Latvian -a) most likely derives from Indo-European ō. If this assertion should prove correct, there would no longer be any basis for doubting that the singular genitive of Baltic and Slavic o-stem nouns is genetically related to the old ablative. The observations made here stem from differing views of the phenomena under discussion and therefore, understandably, do not in any way indicate that P. Kuznecov’s interpretation is erroneous. P. Kuznecov’s book contains a great many sound ideas. The author explains quite convincingly many of the phenomena under examination, for example, why the Slavic languages lost the old imperfect and formed a new one. On the whole, P. Kuznecov’s book is a highly valuable outline of the history of Slavic morphology and, to a considerable extent, of Baltic morphology as well. S. Karaliūnas 6 И. Казлаускас, К развитию общебалтийской системы гласных, ВЯ, 1962, № 4, р. 24; В. Мажюлис, Заметки по прусскому вокализму, кн.: Вопросы теории и истории языка (Сборник в честь Б. А. Ларина), Ленинград, 1965, р. 195—196; Remarques sur le vocalisme du vieux prussien, „Acta Baltico-Slavica“ t. 2, Białystok, 1965, p. 53—59. 16* 243