“jakobson’s remarks on the evolution of russian (how to read remarques sur l’evolution...

8/10/2019 Jakobsons Remarks on the Evolution of Russian (How to read Remarques sur levolution phonologique du russe compare celle des autres langues slaves

1/30

Jakobsons Remarks on theEvolution of Russian and the Slavic

Languages:Its significance and How to Read it

Presenter: Ronald Feldstein

1


2/30

2


3/30

3


4/30

Jakobsons Purpose

To bring structural methods of phonological analysis tohistorical linguistics.

de Saussurefelt that linguistic history was due to haphazard

accidents. Jakobson tried to prove that certain systematic principles

determined the split of Common Slavic into zones and that it

was not haphazard. Jakobson (1929): the first phonemic linguistic history, giving

systematic reasons for sound changes; rejects blind changes.

4


5/30

Jakobsons work never got the recognition some

expected. Why? 1. The Russian original was lost in World War II and

only a French translation survived.

2. Trubetzkoy told Jakobson his style was overlymetaphorical and difficult, relying on terms like thebattle, duel, or conflict between phonological

oppositions.

5


6/30

Sample of Trubetzkoys comments in a letter to Jakobson:

All these defects, the result of haste and not enoughrestraint when you deal with an extremely strong torrent ofideas, become twice as bad in translation.

Because of all this, the book is very hard to read. To someextent, it's the Russian linguistic tradition. But yourunreadability is different than Fortunatov's or Bubrikh's.

The thoughtful reader will overcome this difficulty, and ifnot for the stilted translation, your book would have made agreat impression. But only a thoughtful reader will see andappreciate this, and that's the minority. A mediocre linguist(like Beli) won't understand a thing. By the way, with a littleeffort you could have made it comprehensible even for every

mediocre linguist. Of course, you'll never change. 6


7/30

Original Russian:

7


8/30

Jakobsons Letter in Reply to Trubetzkoy: Unfortunately, I have to agree with what you say about my

written style. True, the translation takes a lot away from thebook. The original is much more succinct. But, my inability to

develop a thought remains. Only its not the result of haste. On the contrary, the more I

work on something, the more attention it gets. If I re-work achapter, I inadvertently fill it with more and more ideas that

come into my mind. If you wish, its the Ushakov School. Not the linguist Dmitry

Ushakov, but the icon painter Simon Ushakov. The sense of how

one section relates to the whole work gets lost. Howeverharmful this is to my work, its extremely hard to get rid of itpsychologically, except by writing short articles on singlesubjects.

8


9/30

Original of Jakobsons reply:

9


10/30

Metaphors for Relative Chronology

Jakobsons difficult metaphors often are ways of expressing relativechronology. Almost everything in the book hinges on whethercertain things occur before or after the loss of final short vowels(called jers) in Slavic languages.

One ordering can mean an absence of conflict and that certain

types of phonological changes result, but the opposite orderingmeans that conflict and other sorts of linguistic changes occur.

10


11/30


12/30

12


13/30

13


14/30

General Stages in Jakobsons Concept of Phonological Change

1. A change occurs that may be very common or near universal, but is notnecessarily the result of incompatible features. One assumes that thephonological features prior to this change are internally compatible andthe system is in balance. (Example: loss of final short high jer vowels.

Possible cause: reduction of redundancy in allegro style of speech.)

2. The new change may then cause the coexistence of features which areincompatible or universally inadmissible in natural languages. In this case,

the language development is not haphazard, but responds to the firstchange on the basis of its system at the given time. Or, it anticipates thechange from a nearby dialect and changes the system in advance.

3. In a group of contiguous related languages (like Slavic), the relativemoment of the first change produces different types of compatible orincompatible feature combinations, so relative chronology takes on agreat importance.

14


15/30

The phonological trigger for change in all Slavic

zones: loss of weak jers (short high vowels, front andback: and , as in [dan] vs. [dan]. This started inthe SW of Slavic, moving NW and East.

Prior to this, consonants before front vowels hadbecome palatalized, symbolized here by [n].

If the vowels / were to drop, a new kind of

palatalized phonemic opposition could come about.This is characteristic of Russian and some other Slaviclanguages, but not Slovene, Serbian, Croatian, etc.

Jakobsons principles of compatibility address this.

15


16/30

Most of the principles address how vowel accents

interface with the possibility of newly palatalizedconsonants, coming from jer-fall.

In Common Slavic, the first syllable could have two

different accented types: rising and falling. Vowelscould be long or short, but had to be long for therising/falling opposition. Jakobson treated long

vowels as consisting of two halves or moras: = . Falling tone was equal to accent on the first mora

()and rising was an accent on the second mora

(). Accents on other syllables were set off by risingtone, so the accent was called tonal.

16


17/30

Rule 1: Vowel tone requires quantity (2 moras) and implies

that stressed vs. unstressed is based on high pitch ortone, not loudness.Rule 2. Phonemic dynamic stress (non-tonal) and vowelquantity are mutually exclusive, because if there are

moraic longs with free stress, the different stresses equaltone. (A language cant have free stress across syllables butnot inside moraic syllables.)

Rule 3: If a moraic tonal opposition inside a syllable isabsent, then stressed vs. unstressed must be based onloudness, not vowel tone. (Although pitch can exist non-

phonemically.)Rule 4: Consonant palatalization and vocalic tone aremutually exclusive. A language cant have bothconsonantal and vocalic tone. Relates to jer-fall.

17


18/30

18


19/30

If the language had tone to start with and then

consonant palatalization developed at the momentof jer-fall, it was possible for the language to haveconflicting features that could not combine, so

something had to be lost. Conflicting features meant that the language had

to get rid of one or the other, or both.

A Slavic language could either avoid all conflicts bychanging its system prior to jer-fall, or deal with a

set of phonological conflicts otherwise.

19


20/30

Jakobson named two types of conflict: A

occurred if consonant and vocalic tone clashed inthe same system (due to palatalizing jer-fall againstthe backdrop of tonal accent).

In this case, the vowel tone was lost, but thenvowel quantity was paired with non-tonal accent,which also could not combine, producing ConflictB. This meant that either phonemic vowelquantity or phonemic stress accent (non-tonal)could not co-exist. One or both had to beeliminated.

20


21/30

The major Slavic zones changed their systems either

before or after jer-fall. Thus, Jakobsons theory of phonological conflicts can

be treated as differences of relative chronology.

Jakobsons zones can be depicted as an isogloss forjer-fall that is moving from SW to both Northeast andEast, and which may or may not be preceded by

another isogloss for loss of phonemic tone. You can analogize it to a race where the person in the

lead changes back and forth.

The following charts shows the direction of thesechanges across the Slavic map.

21


22/30

22


23/30

23


24/30

The SW (Slovene, Croatian/Serbian/Bosnian) was the

only zone that kept vocalic tone and has the leastevidence of consonantal palatalization.

Jakobson assumed that this zone eliminated consonantal

palatalization prior to jer-fall, so no conflicts occurredhere. I.e. they depalatalized all consonants precedingfront vowels, never developing the phonemic

opposition.

24


25/30

The SW relative chronology looks like this:

1. Loss of palatalized consonants before frontvowels. dan/dandan/dan2. Fall of weak jers: merger into dan.

The two areas which experienced jer-fall after the SWare Czech/Slovak to the north, and West Bulgarian to

the east. They lost both consonant palatalization and vowel

tone, evidence of Jakobsons Conflict A.

In Conflict B, Czech/Slovak retained quantity and lostphonemic stress, but West Bulgarian lost phonemicquantity, keeping intensity stress.

25


26/30

The relative chronology here would be somewhat the

opposite of the SW: 1. Jer-fall, with potentially phonemic consonant

tonality, clashing with vowel tone.

2. Loss of vowel tone and change to dynamic stress;loss of consonant palatalization.

3. Conflict of quantity and dynamic stress, in favor ofquantity (Czech/Slovak) or stress (West Bulgarian).

Let us now contrast this with the extreme opposite

end of the Slavic map, represented by the NE(Russian and Belarusian).

26


27/30

In Russian/Belarusian, we find full systems of consonant

palatalization and dynamic stress. This implies no phonological conflict.

Jer-fall must have been preceded by the loss of

phonemic tone and quantity, leaving a clear path for theinstitution of phonemic palatalization and dynamicstress.

Implied relative chronology: 1. Loss of vocalic tone (change to dynamic stress) and

loss of quantity.

2. Jer-fall, with introduction of phonemic consonantpalatalization.

27


28/30

There were important nuances in the intervening

languages, such as East Bulgarian and Ukrainian. They can be viewed as transitional zones between

intermediate Czech/Slovak/West Bulgarian and Russian.

Consonant palatalization was not eliminatedphonemically, but was partially curtailed in certainenvironments:

In Ukrainian and East Bulgarian, the opposition ofconsonant palatalization was lost in front of certain vowelgroups, such as mid vowels.

In Jakobsons terms, Conflict A may have occurred, but

with less drastic results than in Czech. So, relativechronology alone does not address all of the nuances ofdevelopment in all of the Slavic languages.

28


29/30

Nevertheless, Jakobsons system give us a very useful tool

for understanding the major developments in the changeof Common Slavic to the modern Slavic languages.

Linguists have written papers pointing out individualerrors in Jakobsons general principles.

Pavle Ivi pointed out that dynamic stress and quantity co-exist in a small dialect zone of Montenegro (Oldtokavian), without the new tone of Neo-tokavian).

However, this does not negate the value of Jakobsonsanalysis, which accurately applies to virtually all of theSlavic zones in terms of the phonemic systems involved.

It is one of the most important pioneering works in thehistory of linguistics and certainly the most importantwork of historic linguistics of the Prague School.

29


30/30

Appendix

Table of 3 feature combination typesMutually exclusive features

(Cannot co-occur)

1. Consonant Palatalization and

Vocalic ToneE.g. Russian, Polish, Bulgarian have

only the former (consonant

palatalization);

Slovene/Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian

have only the latter (vocalic tone)

2. Dynamic Stress and Vowel

Quantity

E.g. Russian, Bulgarian have

dynamic stress but no quantity;

Czech/Slovak have vowel quantitybut no phonemic stress.

Features that must be combined

1. Vocalic Tone and Vocalic

Quantity.E.g. Slovene,

Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian have

both.

2. Vocalic Tone and Tonal Stress.

E.g. Slovene,

Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian

Features that may be combined or

not


Dynamic Stress.E.g. Russian, Bulgarian.


Vowel Quantity.

E.g. Old Polish (before loss of

quantity)

3. Consonant Palatalization Without

Phonemic Stress or Vowel Quantity

E.g. Modern Polish.

4. Vowel Quantity Without

Phonemic Stress or Consonant

Palatalization

E.g. Czech/Slovak

30

“jakobson’s remarks on the evolution of russian (how to read remarques sur l’evolution...

Documents