O.k., I re-submitted and edited my post to get rid of the smilies.
Maknas: yes, I know about writing in word first and submitting then. First, I wanted to post about the vowels only, but the post grew and grew...
Maknas wrote:
Does anyone know about sound changes in Russian? I need to know for a conlang I'm starting on
Which ones? In the development towards Russian, the following stages can be distinguished:
PIE > Proto-Slavic > Old Russian > Modern (Standard) Russian.
I'll start with the vowels:
PIE (I'll use a notation without laryngeals; in the history of the Slavic languages, the influence of the laryngeals is mostly on accentuation, which I won't touch here) > PS:
a, o > Balto-Slavic /a/ > PS /o/; > e after /j/
@ : same as a,o or > 0
e > e
i > ь (reduced front vowel)
u > ъ (reduced back vowel)
a:, o: > a
e: > ě ("yat'")
i: > i
u: > y (X-Sampa /1/)
ei, e:i > i
ai, oi > ě (i after /j/)
a:i, o:i > ě, sometimes a
Syllabic /l/, /r/ > ьl / ъl, ьr / ъr
Syllabic /m/, /n/ > ьm / ъm, ьn / ъn in open syllables, e~ / o~ in closed syllables
Some conditional developments:
1. ě > a after palatal fricatives and and affricates
2. e( : ), i( : ) before nasals in closed syllables > e~
a( : ), o( : ), u( : ) before nasals in closed syllables > o~
3. o > ъ in some instances in final syllables
4. oi > i in some instances in final syllables
Consonants:
PIE Media and Media Aspirata merge, while the Tenues are kept:
p, t, k > p, t, k
b / bh, d/dh, g/gh > b, d, g
The labiovelars become plain velars:
kw, gw/gwh > k, g
The palatal stops become dental fricatives (probably via a stage of palatal fricatives in Balto-Slavic):
k', g'/g'h > s, z
All other consonants remain unchanged generally.
Some conditional developments:
1. Law of open syllables:
Proto-Slavic allows syllable-initital consonant clusters, but not syllable-final consonants except for liquids. So every syllable-closing stop and fricative (Late PIE had only /s/) vanishes without trace, while syllable-closing nasals vanish leaving nasalised vowels as a trace.
2. iurk-rule:
PIE /s/ > /x/ after (PIE) i, u, r, k
3. 1st palatalisation
k, g, x > /t_C/, /Z/, /S/ before PIE e( : ), i( : ), e( : )i
4. 2nd palatalisation
k, g, x > /t_s/, /d_z/, /s/ before PS ě, i from PIE ai, oi
5. 3rd palatalisation
k, g, x > /t_s/, /d_z/, /s/ after some syllables with front vowels
(The names 2nd and 3rd palatalisation are due to scientific history; nowadays it's mostly assumed that the 3rd came before the 2nd palatalisation.)
Combinatoric changes with /j/:
/sj/, /zj/ > /S/, /Z/
/kj/, /gj/, /xj/ > /t_S/, /Z/, /S/
For /m/, labial and dental stops see below; in all other cases the combination resulted in strongly palatalised consonants.
Diverging developments in the Slavic branches:
Some developments which show similar tendencies in all Slavic branches but different results are normally assigned to a stage called Common Slavic. Those are:
1. The result of the 2nd palatalisation of /x/ is /s/ only in Eastern and Southern Slavic, in Western Slavic it's /S/.
2. In Western Slavic, the 2nd palatalisation does not aply to the sequence Kw': Polish
kwiat Russian
cvet "flower", Polish
gwiazda Russian
zvezda "star"
3. The sequence -VTlV- (T = t,d) gives /VdlV/ in Western Slavic, /l/ in Eastern and Southern Slavic: Polish
mydło, Russian
mylo "soap".
4. The sequence Vr, Vl, in closed syllables gives the following results (so-called "metathesis of liquids"):
or: Czech, Slovak, South Slavic /ra/, Polish /ro/; Russian /oro/ (in word-initial position Polish and Russian sometimes also have /ra/, depending on accentuation - the same is true for the other combinations also)
ol: Czech, Slovak, South Slavic /la/, Polish /ło/; Russian /olo/
er: Czech, Slovak, South Slavic /rě/, Polish /rze/; Russian /ere/
el: Czech, Slovak, South Slavic /lě/, Polish /le/; Russian /olo/
5. Outcomes of /mj/:
Western Slavic /m'/; Eastern and Southern Slavic /ml'/
Polish
ziemia, Russian
zeml'a "Earth, land"
EDIT: The same is valid for labial stops; cf. Russian
kupl'u "I buy" with Polish
kupię
6. Outcomes of /tj/, /dj/; /kt/ + PIE front vowel, /gd/ + PIE front vowel
Eastern Slavic /t_S/, /Z/; Western Slavic /t_s/, /d_z/; Bulgarian /St'/, /Zd'/; Serbo-Croatian /t_C/, /d_j\/; Makedonian /k'/, /g'/
That's it for today; I'll post something on the further developments to Russian later.
Best regards,
Hans-Werner