Ossetian diachronics
- Frislander
- Avisaru
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Ossetian diachronics
This may have been asked before, but does anyone have any good sources/papers on Ossetian diachronic phonology, particulaly with regards to the development of ejectives. I just want to incorporate something on that in an essay I'm writing on language contact but I haven't been able to find any good sources, at least in English (all the more reason I should start learning Russian I guess).
- Nortaneous
- Sumerul
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Re: Ossetian diachronics
My impression is that the only source of ejectives in Ossetian is loaning -- not just from Caucasian languages with ejectives, but also from Russian, where plosive MOA is not reliably preserved in the loaning process and sometimes plain unvoiced stops end up as voiced or ejective, e.g. bulk'on < polkovnik.
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.
Re: Ossetian diachronics
The Ossetian chapter in Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum has a brief outline. On ejectives in particular:
Fridrik Thordarson wrote:4.2.5.2.2.3 The glottalics (ejectives; p' etc.) have penetrated into Ossetic from the adjacent
Caucasian languages. They are frequent in loanwords: I. k'uɨri, D. k'uære "week" < Georg.
k'vira "id., Sunday".
In Russian loanwords the unvoiced stops and affricates seem as a rule to be rendered by
their homorganic glottalic counterparts, although this is not always shown by the orthogra-
phy: p'alet (thus written) "épaulette" < Russ. èpolet; p'arti (written parti) "party" < Russ. partija.
In a few Iranian words glottalics represent ancient voiceless stops; this is especially
the case after s: I. xuɨsk' (D. xuskat) "dry", cf. Av. huska-; I. st'alɨ, D. (æ)st'alu "star", cf. Av. star-.
There is some fluctuation between the glottalics and their non-glottalized (voiced, voice-
less) counterparts; to a certain extent the variation is dialectal: I. ʒix, D. ʒux or c'ux
"mouth" (loanword); I. færsk, D. færsk'æ "rib" (cf. fars "side").
In contradistinction to the Caucasian languages, the functional load of the glottalization is
insignificant. While, e.g., in Georgian minimal pairs of the type p'uri "bread" : puri "cow"
are easily found, such oppositions are rare in Ossetic.
[ˌʔaɪsəˈpʰɻ̊ʷoʊpɪɫ ˈʔæɫkəɦɔɫ]
- Salmoneus
- Sanno
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Re: Ossetian diachronics
Something conlangers don't do enough of, I think: contrasts that are relatively unimportant, with low functional load.
Blog: [url]http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/[/url]
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
Re: Ossetian diachronics
Thanks, I'll take t hat as a compliment since Khulls has a lot of marginal consonants that arose primariy from clusters .Salmoneus wrote:Something conlangers don't do enough of, I think: contrasts that are relatively unimportant, with low functional load.
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is it possible that hte ejectives appear more often in areas where the Russian stops are deaspirated? i.e. theyre picking up on allophones that would be unimportant in Russian but are important to Ossetian?
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