The Veps Language

[LoneWolf]

My first question to you Uralists on zbb would be, does Veps have overlenght like Estonian?

My second question is, what were the various outcomes of colliding consonant cluters and single consonants after syncope of vowels? I know this last question might be a little hard to answer so, perhaps someone could direct me to a source which may help answer my question.

All in all, I did search the web and it apppears information on the Veps tongue is very limited and even more so in English...

Thank you!

[Tropylium]

My first question to you Uralists on zbb would be, does Veps have overlenght like Estonian?

No, and it's fairly notorious among the Baltic-Finnic langs for some dialects not even having regular length (ie. all original long vowels are shorten'd; where there are new ones, they're from *ei i:, *ou *oɫ *uɫ u:).

I don't have a complete answer to the treatment of clusters, but in general there is no large-scale reduction (things like final /gl/ or /rʲj/, or medial /dnh/ are tolerated just fine). I don't recall any other cluster-specific changes aside from that adjacent obstruents in clusters are always devoiced. Are there any particular cases you wonder about?

[LoneWolf]

Thanks for your reply Tropylium!

That is indeed a very unusual thing that the long vowels just simply shortened. What is generally thought to have caused this shortening process to occur?

I don't have a complete answer to the treatment of clusters, but in general there is no large-scale reduction (things like final /gl/ or /rʲj/, or medial /dnh/ are tolerated just fine). I don't recall any other cluster-specific changes aside from that adjacent obstruents in clusters are always devoiced. Are there any particular cases you wonder about?

What would be the outcome of such sequences as sonorant-stop + homorganic stop (eg.: -lt + t, -mp + t, nt + t)?
What happpens to geminates + stops or nasals (eg.: -tt + p, -pp + n)?

By the way I've been able to view pdf bits and pieces of "Linguistica Uralica" online but can't find the whole document. It's a piss off because I have to go looking about downloading bit by bit. Would you or someone else perhaps have the whole document and could send it to me somehow? Infact any relevant Uralic pdfs would be welcomed now that I think of it!

[Tropylium]

Veps has general shortening of geminate consonants as well (plus voicing of medial consonants), so the latter cases don't come up I think. As for the former, they straightforwardly yield new geminates or clusters, eg.
*polttadak "to burn" *poɫtəda *powtda poutta (cf. Finnish polttaa)
*kantadak "to carry" *kandəda *kandda kantta (F kantaa)
*ampudak "to shoot" *ambəda *ambda ampta (F ampua)
(You can see that the clusters were indeed derived by devoicing: without a voiced stage at all, we'd get a regular geminate **kant-ta ˣkanta).

"Russian influence" is the catch-all explanation for everything odd in Veps (but I'm not really sold on that necessarily being the case always).

Infact any relevant Uralic pdfs would be welcomed now that I think of it!

Relevant to what? The Finno-Ugrian Society has some volumes of periodical and monograph series online at least:
http://www.sgr.fi/verkkojulkaisut.html

If you can read German, Russian or Hungarian, http://helimski.com/ has a ton of stuff.

Fell free to also check out my various notes on Uralic reconstruction (just added the Mator consonant changes from Helimski's site):
http://wiki.frath.net/Proto-Uralic

[LoneWolf]

You're a GENIUS ! Thank you so much for those ressources Azulene (aka Tropylium, why the name change?). I can tell you I just literally plundered my way through Helimski. I can't speak Russian, German, Finnish or Hungarain however so i must limit myself to whatever I can find in English. As for the Frathwiki Uralic sound change pages, I already knew about them. It is again, I must say a hugely appreciated ressource. Are you the author of all of the Uralic stuff on frathwiki by any chance?

Veps has general shortening of geminate consonants as well (plus voicing of medial consonants), so the latter cases don't come up I think. As for the former, they straightforwardly yield new geminates or clusters, eg.
*polttadak "to burn" *poɫtəda *powtda poutta (cf. Finnish polttaa)
*kantadak "to carry" *kandəda *kandda kantta (F kantaa)
*ampudak "to shoot" *ambəda *ambda ampta (F ampua)
(You can see that the clusters were indeed derived by devoicing: without a voiced stage at all, we'd get a regular geminate **kant-ta ˣkanta).

I just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. So first single voiceless stops would have voiced. Then, syncope would occur and new voiced geminates would arise this way. By that time there would therefore be two coexisting sets of geminate stops: voiced and voiceless. Voiceless geminate stops would then degeminate, and for some slightly odd reason voiced geminate stops would devoice while remaining geminates. A sloppy way of representing what I mean with a dental stop would be:

VtV> VdV
VttV> VtV
VddV> VttV

Did I get that right?

Also can you point me to any pdf works describing the historical developments of Veps?

[Nortaneous]

for some slightly odd reason voiced geminate stops would devoice while remaining geminates.

Might just be that it's harder to hold voice in geminate stops? Happens in Yup'ik or something in that general area also, I think.

[Tropylium]

You're a GENIUS ! Thank you so much for those ressources Azulene (aka Tropylium, why the name change?).

Just having fun with the name change option as long as it's there…

As for the Frathwiki Uralic sound change pages, I already knew about them. It is again, I must say a hugely appreciated ressource. Are you the author of all of the Uralic stuff on frathwiki by any chance?

Pretty much, yep.

Veps has general shortening of geminate consonants as well (plus voicing of medial consonants), so the latter cases don't come up I think. As for the former, they straightforwardly yield new geminates or clusters, eg.
*polttadak "to burn" *poɫtəda *powtda poutta (cf. Finnish polttaa)
*kantadak "to carry" *kandəda *kandda kantta (F kantaa)
*ampudak "to shoot" *ambəda *ambda ampta (F ampua)
(You can see that the clusters were indeed derived by devoicing: without a voiced stage at all, we'd get a regular geminate **kant-ta ˣkanta).

I just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. So first single voiceless stops would have voiced. Then, syncope would occur and new voiced geminates would arise this way. By that time there would therefore be two coexisting sets of geminate stops: voiced and voiceless. Voiceless geminate stops would then degeminate, and for some slightly odd reason voiced geminate stops would devoice while remaining geminates. A sloppy way of representing what I mean with a dental stop would be:

VtV> VdV
VttV> VtV
VddV> VttV

Did I get that right?

Schematically, that would work, but a better chronology is this:
1) Single voiceless stops (also *s) are voiced
2) All geminates shorten (this includes voiced geminates *mm, *nn, *ll, *rr as well)
3) Syncope creates new geminates (which are generally voiced)
4) Clusters or geminates with two voiced stops become voiceless

Also can you point me to any pdf works describing the historical developments of Veps?

The historical development of the Baltic Finnic languages from Proto-Finnic had pretty much been settled by the 1930s so I don't think there is such a thing. Perhaps as a class handout… (There is this "Veps in a Nutshell" from an Introduction to Uralistics course, but it has only a phoneme inventory, numerals, and a few declension tables; if you kno the Finnish forms you could get something out of it however: )

[LoneWolf]

Thanks for that "Veps in a Nutshell" document. I guess indeed that I'll have to do the comparative work myself. Thank god Finnish is a rather conservative language (or so they believe) making the task considerably easier.

As for syncope and apocope in Veps, from what I can tell it looks pretty much the same as in Estonian am I correct? So basically short vowels found after an original heavy syllable delete and long vowels simply shorten. This rule applies for both apocope and syncope but apocope would probably occur first as in Estonian, right?

To the difference of Estonian, however there does also appear to be final high front vowel deletion regardless of the preceeding syllable's weight. In fact it appears to be quite similar to the situation seen in some Finnish and Estonian dialects as well as in Livonian where the vowel basically leaves palatalization on it's onset consonant before disappearing. What happens with clusters? Do all the consonants get palatalized systematically via a process of palatal contamination eg.: CC'>C'C'?

To sum all of this up:

1)i> zero /_# (and the preceeding consonant is palatalized, what happens to consonant clusters?)
2)V, V:> zero, V / {heavy syllable}_#
3)V, V:> zero, V / {heavy syllable}_(C)C(V)...

Just tell me if I got that right according to you. My rules look a bit messy, sorry for that!

[Tropylium]

Thanks for that "Veps in a Nutshell" document. I guess indeed that I'll have to do the comparative work myself. Thank god Finnish is a rather conservative language (or so they believe) making the task considerably easier.

As for syncope and apocope in Veps, from what I can tell it looks pretty much the same as in Estonian am I correct? So basically short vowels found after an original heavy syllable delete and long vowels simply shorten. This rule applies for both apocope and syncope but apocope would probably occur first as in Estonian, right?

AFAIK it's approximately the same, yes. I'm afraid I'm not aware of the arguments for dating of apocope vs. syncope.

To the difference of Estonian, however there does also appear to be final high front vowel deletion regardless of the preceeding syllable's weight.

If you're thinking of viž kuź "5 6", this is just regular trimoraic apocope with long vowel shortening applying later (from *viici *kuuci). The loss of final -n is similar to Estonian too (everywhere except the genetiv and 1PS).

Also unstress'd long vowels never arise; in F and E they're always from loss of a weak medial *h, *ɣ, *ð, *β, which in Veps remain as h, g, d, b.

A further difference viz. Est. unstress'd syllables is that *ü becomes /u/ rather than /i/ (hence *käpü, *kä(v)üdä 'pinecone', 'to walk' Est. käbi, käia; Veps käbu, kävuda; Fi. käpy, käydä). I suppose this may even be a retention, as in Finnish -U defaults to /u/ when the stress'd vowel is /i/ or /e/.

There's two waves of palatalization: first s/z š/ž when *after* /i/ or /j/. Then, concomitant with apocope all coronals are palatalized *before* /i/, including clusters (I dunno whether other consonants have palatalized allophones). Hence /viž/ vs. /kuź/.

So… why the particular interest in Veps, anyway?

[LoneWolf]

To the difference of Estonian, however there does also appear to be final high front vowel deletion regardless of the preceeding syllable's weight.

If you're thinking of viž kuź "5 6", this is just regular trimoraic apocope with long vowel shortening applying later (from *viici *kuuci). The loss of final -n is similar to Estonian too (everywhere except the genetiv and 1PS).

Ok that makes perfect sense now. Since we're talking about numerals I did note that *kolme turns up as koume without trimoraic apocope. I figure it must have to do with vocalization of l which still would be weird in view of the fact that vocaliztion of l shouldn't make the syllable any less heavier than it already was. I wonder how a word such as *śilmä would turn out in Veps?

So… why the particular interest in Veps, anyway?

Why not? There are a few reasons why I'm interested in the Veps language and as well as Uralic linguistics in general. The first is simply that I'm fascinated by these languages and their people, history and culture (both old and new). The second is that I'm presently creating a language family (a conlang project) that ressembles very mildly in some respects the Uralic languages (both phonologically and typologically). So I'm seeking inspiration as well as knowledge in how such languages could develop.

With respects to the Veps language, I was interested because I had noticed (at least superficially) how similar the syncope/apocope patterns were to Estonian. Now overlength in Estonian has often been attirbuted (or so I recall reading) to a massive compensatory lengthening process due precisely to apocope. And interestingly enough, overlength apparently does not exist in Veps. Rather the opposite thing happens, long vowels accross the board shorten. So perhaps Estonian and Veps simply developped different "repare solutions" after the arrival of overlong cluster generated by apocope? My crazy theory is that Estonian would have tolerated extra length, where as Veps wouldn't. Veps would have "corrected" over heavy syllable situations by applying closed syllable shortening of long vowels. This shortening process for some reason eventually would have spread to all forms including those which do not have closed syllables. Well I think that is maybe a bit of a crazy on the spot theory especially considering the fact that I still know relatively little about Uralic linguistics. I'll let you judge, you seem to know a hundred times more about this stuff than I afterall. It's just something I had thought of. I'm probably wrong.

May I ask you a question as well Azulene, if it's not to indiscrete to ask, have you studied in linguistics on your own or have you learned through higher studies? I'm just curious. As for me I'm a mixture of both. I'm presently doing a BA in linguistics but I had studied that stuff on my own ever since highschool.

[Tropylium]

Since we're talking about numerals I did note that *kolme turns up as koume without trimoraic apocope. I figure it must have to do with vocalization of l which still would be weird in view of the fact that vocaliztion of l shouldn't make the syllable any less heavier than it already was.

The lack of the change *e i / _# should be a clue — the original BF form for this word is *kolmet. Votic still has kõlmõd, and some Finnish dialects testify for the same as well.

No sign of that *-t comes up elsewhere in Uralic however, or in BF inflection for that matter, so I wonder what IS it doing there? A generalization from the plural? The -(e)n in 7, 8, 9, 10 is a similar nominativ-only formant.

I wonder how a word such as *śilmä would turn out in Veps?

I would predict /sium/… let's see… ah, close: süum. (Quoth Häkkinen's Nykysuomen Etymologinen Sanakirja.)

With respects to the Veps language, I was interested because I had noticed (at least superficially) how similar the syncope/apocope patterns were to Estonian. Now overlength in Estonian has often been attirbuted (or so I recall reading) to a massive compensatory lengthening process due precisely to apocope. And interestingly enough, overlength apparently does not exist in Veps. Rather the opposite thing happens, long vowels accross the board shorten. So perhaps Estonian and Veps simply developped different "repare solutions" after the arrival of overlong cluster generated by apocope? My crazy theory is that Estonian would have tolerated extra length, where as Veps wouldn't. Veps would have "corrected" over heavy syllable situations by applying closed syllable shortening of long vowels. This shortening process for some reason eventually would have spread to all forms including those which do not have closed syllables. Well I think that is maybe a bit of a crazy on the spot theory especially considering the fact that I still know relatively little about Uralic linguistics. I'll let you judge, you seem to know a hundred times more about this stuff than I afterall. It's just something I had thought of. I'm probably wrong.

I wouldn't discount the fact that overlength in Estonian (as in Samic) is link'd to consonant gradation, which also doesn't exist in Veps.

Northern Veps still preserves /i: y: u:/, regardless of syllable weight IIUC.

May I ask you a question as well Azulene, if it's not to indiscrete to ask, have you studied in linguistics on your own or have you learned through higher studies? I'm just curious. As for me I'm a mixture of both. I'm presently doing a BA in linguistics but I had studied that stuff on my own ever since highschool.

[/quote]
I'm a pure amateur. Being a Finnish-speaking student at the University of Helsinki has its perks however — I can just walk into the Finno-Ugristics section of the library, pick a few books, and start reading… Or even leech stuff from the uni's articles database.

[Tropylium]

I don't think I mention'd this online wordlist of Veps yet?
(Watch out for the inclusion of a number of Ludic words as well, however… they're the ones from the village of Sununsuu)

[LoneWolf]

I don't think I mention'd this online wordlist of Veps yet?
(Watch out for the inclusion of a number of Ludic words as well, however… they're the ones from the village of Sununsuu)

Thanks for that Azulene. The only little problem is I can't read Finnish (I'm probaly going to have to learn a Uralic tongue sooner or later...) But I can still kind of make my way around the word list. There also seems to be some problems reagarding the fonts, I guess I'll to fix that!

Aside from that, I'm probably in the near future going to be coming up with a list of sound changes for Veps. I'd be happy to add them to your own list of Uralic sound changes on Frathwiki if by that time you haven't come up with your own list for Veps.

Anyhow, I'd write more but I'm in a real hurry presently. I got a class starting soon, so ya.

See ya!

[Tropylium]

I don't think I mention'd this online wordlist of Veps yet?
(Watch out for the inclusion of a number of Ludic words as well, however… they're the ones from the village of Sununsuu)

Thanks for that Azulene. The only little problem is I can't read Finnish (I'm probaly going to have to learn a Uralic tongue sooner or later...) But I can still kind of make my way around the word list. There also seems to be some problems reagarding the fonts, I guess I'll to fix that!

Yeah the UPA uses some fairly non-standard diacritics. And many wordlists tend to be very closely transcribed.

Aside from that, I'm probably in the near future going to be coming up with a list of sound changes for Veps. I'd be happy to add them to your own list of Uralic sound changes on Frathwiki if by that time you haven't come up with your own list for Veps.

Feel free to. I did have a few quick notes on some of the particulars, but there is much that could be expanded on.