Talk:Slevan

Unresolved questions with the revision of Slevan

(for the two Jans primarily)

I have been thinking of how best to map the Vulgar Latin and Common Slavic vowel systems to each other. As Jan van Steenbergen pointed out to me it's quite unrealistic that VL ē maps to CS *ě and VL ĕ to CS *e; rather it should be the other way around with VL ĕ eventually becoming je, or to state it abstractly vowel quality should be more important than vowel quantity in the mapping of VL to CS!

OTOH I do think it's realistic to have VL ō become u since in CS *u₂ developed from *ō which in turn developed from *au, and VL au in fact merged with ō, so that the product of this merger could have been qualitatively identified with CS *ō < *au before this was raised to [u].

I'm now quite certain that unstressed VL ē and ō merge with ĭ and ŭ (*ь and *ъ) respectively -- except in absolute final position, since I need to "preserve" certain endings, notably the ablative singular of the second declension, the first person singular present indicative of verbs and the nom/acc plural of the third declension.

I've cheated with the liquid metathesis, having no qualitative change. As JvS pointed out Mrác's ancestors should have been MORTIUS rather than MARTIUS! Should I let myself get away with this?

---

Consonants: I have decided that VL dj and gj become j à la Slovene since Slvanjec badly needs postvocalic js. So dz is out; MEDIUS becomes mjej and Mr. Hrodzán becomes Hroján; also MAGIS becomes maj by way of *MAGIUS.

Last but not least I have cheated with the third palatalization and VL ct, assuming c, z in all contexts. Actually I'm not too keen on changing this because I want more cs. What do you think? Is such an over-generalization permissible in a hybrid language? BPJ 10:37, 16 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Jan I's comments

I have been thinking of how best to map the Vulgar Latin and Common Slavic vowel systems to each other. As Jan van Steenbergen pointed out to me it's quite unrealistic that VL ē maps to CS *ě and VL ĕ to CS *e; rather it should be the other way around with VL ĕ eventually becoming je, or to state it abstractly vowel quality should be more important than vowel quantity in the mapping of VL to CS!

Indeed, the other way around would be more logical. However, in Wenedyk I finally decided to stick with what I already had:

• VL ē and oe match with CS ě
• VL ĕ and ae match with CS e

I know it is against my own advise, and I seriously contemplated the change. But my ultimate conclusion was that it would change Wenedyk beyond recognisability. And frankly, also beyond my taste; strange enough almost every example I tried with the "new" system just felt plain wrong to my intuition. So I decided to keep the old system. And I'm happy with it. ;)

OTOH I do think it's realistic to have VL ō become u since in CS *u₂ developed from *ō which in turn developed from *au, and VL au in fact merged with ō, so that the product of this merger could have been qualitatively identified with CS *ō < *au before this was raised to [u].

I agree, that's totally realistic. Frankly, I can't see why there should by any tension between this and point 1. If anything, the fronted counterpart of this would be e > i, which frequently happens in Slezan.

I'm now quite certain that unstressed VL ē and ō merge with ĭ and ŭ (*ь and *ъ) respectively -- except in absolute final position, since I need to "preserve" certain endings, notably the ablative singular of the second declension, the first person singular present indicative of verbs and the nom/acc plural of the third declension.

That's an interesting thought. I haven't thought about that. Can you come up with a few samples? I just might adopt this idea into Wenedyk (provided that I won't have to rewrite 1/3 of my entire lexicon).

I've cheated with the liquid metathesis, having no qualitative change. As JvS pointed out Mrác's ancestors should have been MORTIUS rather than MARTIUS! Should I let myself get away with this?

Why not? Names tend to behave a little differently from "normal" vocabulary. Another thing is that often names are from much later date than the era of the Roman (even in romlangs). And finally, Mrác could have other sources in Latin as well: Mǐratius or whathaveyou.

Consonants: I have decided that VL dj and gj become j à la Slovene since Slvanjec badly needs postvocalic js. So dz is out; MEDIUS becomes mjej and Mr. Hrodzán becomes Hroján; also MAGIS becomes maj by way of *MAGIUS.

A very sensible choice! I didn't know it happens in Slovene as well, but I dó know that it is standard in (most?) Romance languages. In fact, I think it is a great improvement; according to my sources, dj and gj were already pronounced /j/ in the Vulgar Latin period (Italian forms like maggio IIRC seem to be later scientific reborrowings).
And of course, you always have the option of turning dj into dz anyway in certain cases, which then can very simply be explained as an early scientific reborrowing!

Last but not least I have cheated with the third palatalization and VL ct, assuming c, z in all contexts.

Could you please tell me what the exceptions are? I just might to change that in Wenedyk, because frankly, I think I ended up with a little too much of c!

Actually I'm not too keen on changing this because I want more cs. What do you think? Is such an over-generalization permissible in a hybrid language?

IMO it is. It's your language after all. Especially because Slvanjec is based on Slovak far more loosely than Wenedyk is based on Polish, I think you have quite some freedom in setting some of your own rules when that helps the final result.

Cheers, IJzeren Jan 14:43, 16 Jul 2005 (PDT)

BPJ's comments on Jan I's comments

On ē and ĕ

Indeed, the other way around would be more logical. However, in Wenedyk I finally decided to stick with what I already had:

* VL ē and oe match with CS ě

* VL ĕ and ae match with CS e

I think leaving things as they are would also decrease the number of medial jes, which from my æsthetic POV would be a Good Thing, since there are dj lj nj tj all over the place already -- it's becoming a bit too parodic!

On e and o becoming jers

I'm not too sure about Ē and Ō becoming ĭ and ŭ if I don't change the reflexes of Ĕ and Ē. I don't want to get jers all over the place and certainly not Ī and Ū coming up "strong" in the wrong places (where they wouldn't even be strong in Southern Romance) all over the place. BPJ 08:35, 17 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Slovene *dj > j

It's actually only *dj which becomes j in Slovene, but letting DJ and GJ behave the same makes sense from a Romance POV.

Still I'm not totally convinced by your argument on Italian DJ: why would mezzo be a borrowing?, and at least NDJ becomes nz everywhere! Cf. Old French where even MJ and NJ often become /ndʒ/ e.g. SIMIA > singe.

Exceptions to third palatalization

Basically when an u or o vowel follows. Strangely with following a the outcome is variable. One book I read suggested that it may have to do with wether a preceding *i was from PIE *ī or *ei and that following u is the only sure exception, but Jan II and his wife (who is the family linguist) wouldn't agree! BPJ 15:01, 16 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Jan I's comments on BPJ's comments on Jan I's comments

I think leaving things as they are would also decrease the number of medial jes, which from my æsthetic POV would be a Good Thing, since there are dj lj nj tj all over the place already -- it's becoming a bit too parodic!

Fully agreed. So that's settled then! :)

I'm not too sure about Ē and Ō becoming ĭ and ŭ if I don't change the reflexes of Ĕ and Ē. I don't want to get jers all over the place and certainly not Ī and Ū coming up "strong" in the wrong places (where they wouldn't even be strong in Southern Romance) all over the place.

Again, I agree. I've given it a little thought and finally decided against it. FWIW, in the development of Polish, stress didn't play a role at all.

Still I'm not totally convinced by your argument on Italian DJ: why would mezzo be a borrowing?, and at least NDJ becomes nz everywhere! Cf. Old French where even MJ and NJ often become /ndʒ/ e.g. SIMIA > singe.

Yes, that's true. I must check my resources.

Exceptions to third palatalization

Basically when an u or o vowel follows. Strangely with following a the outcome is variable. One book I read suggested that it may have to do with wether a preceding *i was from PIE *ī or *ei and that following u is the only sure exception, but Jan II and his wife (who is the family linguist) wouldn't agree!

I can't give any conclusive answer. From what I understood from Grzegorz Jagodziński's pages (if I recall correctly), third palatalisation happens very irregularly and most often doesn't take place at all.
But the way you formulated it, I got the impression that there are also exceptions to the KT > TS rule. I that true?

Cheers, IJzeren Jan 12:30, 18 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Basically that same book as had strange ideas on the contexts of palatalization also had the idea that originally only *kti/*ktī becomes ci.

The idea with the preceding monphthong/diphthong was of course meant to explain why 3d palatalization is irregular -- basically claiming that it is regular, but that it actually precedes monophthongization, and this influences its occurrence, to which the Havlišes objected. BPJ 13:41, 18 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Jan II.'s comments

I am far from being competent to introduce your Slavo-romance discussion, but I can add some hints on history of Slavic lang:

On III. palatalisation:

It happens after i, soft jer and e-nasal if the palatalised consonant is followed by vowel. If there is cluster V-C-hard jer (grěšnica X grěšnikU) or V-C-y (kUne.ndzI X kUne.gyni), the terminal hard jer or y prevented palatalisation of C, when V fulfils conditions for it. Quite often morphological “equilibration” has happened (nom. grěšnikU, gen. grěšnika). Quite often appeared doubletons (je.ga/je.dza). It should happen along with II. palatalisation, although there are not unified opinions on when in happened. It is also unclear when it begun. What is sure, it happened almost 100 years after monophthongisation.

And here is the discussed topic, the Slavic glottochronology. The source 2 is newer and I found it more competent because of other issues. And for sure, source 2 knew source 1 and used it.

source 1 – G. Shevelov, The historical phonology of Common Slavic, 1964

source 2 – A. Lamprecht, The Common Slavic, 1987

type of change	source 1	source 2
s > ŝ (š, ch)	before 400 EC	before 400 EC
k’, g’ > s, z	before 400 EC	before 400 EC
a, o > å	before 400 EC	before 400 EC
I. palatalisation	400-500 EC	400-475 (±25) EC
monophtongisation	500-600 EC	510-585 (±15) EC
II. palatalisation	500-600 EC	575-650 (±25) EC
III. palatalisation	600-850 EC	575-675 (±25) EC
palatalisation of alveolars	N/A	675-750 (±25) EC
epenthetic l’	N/A	710-785 EC
metathesis of liquids	700-850 EC	750-825 (±25) EC
appearance of nasals	600 EC	750-825 (±25) EC
appearance of jers	800 EC	800 EC
dispalat. ‘ě > ‘a in Pol.	N/A	850-925 EC
extinct. of nasals	N/A	950-1025 EC
contraction VjV	900 EC	875-950 EC
vocalisation of jers	900-1150 EC	950-1025 EC

Benct's comments to Jan II's comments

happens after i, soft jer and e-nasal if the palatalised consonant is followed by vowel.

Check. So far I got things right in Slvanjec.

terminal hard jer or y prevented palatalisation

Alas I wasn't aware of this restriction, hence the name of the lang is not Slvanjek < SILVÁNICUM, and because the name of the lang is quite well established I'm very reluctant to "correct" this. Perhaps it will be permissible to over-apply 3. palatalization in a hybrid language, since having -ICUM become -jec rather than -jek gives a more distinct "flavor" to the language compared to other Romance languages!

One possible reason might be that the Roman contingent in the original mix of peoples didn't grasp the restriction and over-generalized the palatalization, but alas that doesn't tally very well with the dating you give -- even though I'm suspicious of any absolute dating of pre-historic changes!

Another possibility is that Vulgar Latin short U (hard jer) became a schwa-like sound earlier than what happened in true Slavic languages and so failed to block the 3. palatalization.

In a way I would now have liked Slevan to agree better both with Wenedyk and the Slavic languages in this respect, but OTOH I feel a reversal of this feature to be too drastic at this point. Also I don't want there to be too few instances of c and z in Slevan, and input to the 2. palatalization is already scarce as it is. What do you (both) think? BPJ -- written at the library and hence no proper log-in or signing! :-(

Why not to implement some "morphological equilibrations"? E.g. the genitive forms underwent the palatalisation and had affected the nominatives... thus it would be _slvanjec_ and not _slvanjek_ (I deduce, that NOM.SING had ending -ekU, but the genitive had vowel other than U or y). Or you may simply ignore this restriction (see, only one vowel _u_ in both forms u /ECSL/ > U /CCSL/ or u: > y stopped the III. palatalisation). Jan II.

There was analogical leveling out between the second and fourth declension, so that at some point the gen.sg. of all words from the 2. declension became -y, e.g. slváncy; otherwise it would be **slvánczi. Also the -ICU ending does not become -ekU, but the je is from a strong soft jer. I looks like I will simply ignore this restriction, but I still would like an explanation for doing so. BPJ 09:26, 19 Aug 2005 (PDT)

Jan I's comments on Jan II's comments and on Benct's comments to Jan II's comments

First of all, thanks for the interesting scheme you provided, Jan. If I may ask: which of the two columns has your own preference? And where do prof. Večerka's opinions fit?

Regarding third palatalisation: like I said before, I don't use it very often in Wenedyk. Grzegorz Jagodziński's pages were not clear about the circumstances under which it occurs, and therefore I mostly adopted the notion that it happens "irregularly". In other words, I use it when it fits my taste. Jan II's input might cause some changes, though: I didn't know all that either, but it makes sense.

All in all, I think the principle of "analogical levelling" gives us plenty of space to follow our own tastes. Indeed, both Wenedyk and Slezan use something based on Slьvanьkъ, fem. Slьvanьka. That might have spawned something like *slvanjek, *slvanjca, which then became Ślewanik, Ślewańka in Wenedyk and Slvanjec, Slvanjca in Slevan.

Of course, there is a remote possibility of having the whole pair. Say, slvanjek for the adjective, and slvanjec for the language (from LINGUA SILVANICA > *lęgva sьlvanьka > ljadzva slvanjca).

Since I recently got into contact with Grzegorz himself, I might as well ask him personally what he thinks about 3rd palatalisation.

--IJzeren Jan 06:25, 20 Aug 2005 (PDT)

Benct's comments on Jan I's comments on...

Of course it is not the 3. palatalization that applies irregularly, but analogical levelling that happens irregularly!

It is a very good idea that analogy in Slevan may have started from the feminine. I didn't think of that! Alas the name of the language can hardly be derived from LINGUA SILVANICA: that would be adjectival use while language names in Latin are normally neuter; that's why you have Latinum, Italiano, Español, Français, not Latina, Italiana, Española, Française. BTW the current form of the feminine is Slvánca -- one of the changes between version 3 and 3.5. BPJ 13:07, 20 Aug 2005 (PDT)

Jan II's comments on Jan I's comments on Jan II's comments and on Benct's comments to Jan II's comments

First of all, thanks for the interesting scheme you provided, Jan. If I may ask: which of the two columns has your own preference? And where do prof. Večerka's opinions fit?

As I said, the second column has my definite preferences. Our old Slavistic/Indoeuropeistic gang in Brno (Večerka-Lamprecht-Blažek) seems to be quite reliable. They included lots of new findings, which made their work quite rigorous. The is already a new generation (Rejzek-Palasová), with them I am in contact (although it looks they are not happy with any slaviconlanging). I have also ordered within amazon.co.uk a book about Slavic glottochronology by Alexander M. Schenker, but amazon is VERY slow in obtaining the copy for me.

Problems with III. palatalisation might be that different Slavic langs treated differently the new forms, as mentioned above. Jan II.

Input from Grzegorz Jagodziński

I asked Grzegorz Jagodziński (whose pages about Polish sound changes were a major inspiration to me in the creation of Wenedyk) about his opinion. He tried to edit this page himself, but was blocked for some reason. After that, he sent me a long mail instead. For now, I'll reproduce the Polish text below (sorry Bengan, but I though that's better than nothing); tomorrow, I hope to translate it into English. --IJzeren Jan 13:11, 22 Aug 2005 (PDT)

On III. palatalisation
It happens after i, soft jer and e-nasal if the palatalised consonant is followed by vowel.

According to the handbooks it also happens after syllabic ŕ̥ (< ьr < ir). I know only two examples from OCS (Old Church Slavonic): mŕ̥cati 'to grow dusk' and rastŕ̥zati (rastŕ̥ʒati) 'to tear up'. Equivalents in other Slavic languages (including Polish) don't have palatalisation (Old Polish mierzkać, now zmierzchać się with irregular ch instead of k). Perhaps this is due to the fact that in West Slavic sonants appeared later, while in East Slavic they never appeared at all. After all, palatalisation ought not to take place after the group -ьr-; and it didn't.

Not surprisingly, there were also differences between dialects: even the 2nd palatalisation didn't take place identically in all Slavic languages: *kwaita- > *květъ || *cvětъ (Polish kwiat, but Russian cvet). Besides, forms like kěna instead of Common Slavic cěna are known in the neighbourhood of Novgorod. So, perhaps there were dialects that did not undergo 2nd palatalisation at all.

If there is cluster V-C-hard jer (grěšnica X grěšnikU) or V-C-y (kUne.ndzI X kUne.gyni), the terminal hard jer or y prevented palatalisation of C, when V fulfils conditions for it. Quite often morphological “equilibration” has happened (nom. grěšnikU, gen. grěšnika). Quite often appeared doubletons (je.ga/je.dza).

If 3rd palatalisation was indeed prevented by y or ъ, we would have expected it when followed by another vowel. But -ika and -ica occur almost equally often! Likewise, we can equally often encounter -ьca and -ьka, -ьce and -ьko, etc. For example: *polьʒa 'use' (OCS), but *ulьga 'relief' (Polish, with a different prefix); Old Polish has simultaneously jajce and jajko 'egg', miejsce and miastko ('place'; < *městьce || *městьko), etc.

In my opinion one needs to look for: 1) morphological conditions (as assumed already by Jan Otrębski, who died in 1971), 2) dialectal differences. Here are a few examples:

• *děvica, but *děvьka (OCS děvica 'virgin, girl', Pol. dziewica 'virgin', dziewka 'girl' (a little oldfashioned) - note that neither *děvikъ nor *děvьkъ exists,
• *žitnica 'stodoła' (OCS, żytnica was known even in Old Polish, I think), but (OCS) bližika 'close relative', ǫžika 'id. (relative)' - one can see that -ica is an impersonal noun and -ika a personal noun; however, we also have *děvica (personal!),
• OCS has naricaty 'to be called', dviʒati 'to move', Polish has only narzekać (with an entirely different meaning), dźwigać,
• the hard jer didn't prevent palatalisation at all: *otьcь 'father', *zajęcь 'hare', *měsęcь 'month, moon', *pěnęʒь 'coin' (borrowed from Germanic), *kъnęʒь 'prince', *vьśь 'whole, entire' - all these words are derived from forms with hard stems: *otьkъ, *zajękъ, *měsękъ, *pěnęgъ, *kъnęgъ, *vьxъ - and none of these forms was preserved in any of the Slavic languages.

As you can see, it cannot be said that -ъ stops 3nd palatalisation automatically. Of course, we almost exclusively have forms on -ikъ, and if the word in question is a male person , then the female equivalent is -ika, not -ica. This is of course mainly a matter of equalising the forms of both genders. However, when the masculine form has a different meaning than the feminine form, or when only one of these forms exists, then this equalisating does not take place (compare Polish kierownik 'boss, chief' (person) with kierownica 'steering wheel' - the female person is kierowniczka).

As for palatalisation being prevented by -y, things get more complicated. There are preciously little formants that start with -y-. Above all, we have the formant -y, gen. -ъve (f.ex.: *kry, *krъve) or -ene (f.ex. *kamy, *kamene), as well as the formant -yni. Little nouns of this type existed in Common Slavic, and their inflection was complicated and not very transparant. Therefore a tendency existed to preserve the forms without 3rd palatalisation. However, things are more complicated than that. In Polish we have for example the masculine nouns obrońca, władca 'defender' resp. 'ruler' with their female equivalents obrończyni, władczyni. It is hard to tell whether these forms are Common Slavic - the Polish forms would suggest a rivalling affix -ini (and 1st palatalisation): *obornьca, *voldьca : *obornьčini, *voldьčini < *-ikā : *-ikīnī.

Obviously -y does not prevent palatalisation when it constitutes an ending: instr.pl. *vĺ̥ky 'wolves', ale *otьci 'fathers'. When necessary OCS adds the endings of the soft declension like in the acc.pl. *otьcę (according to *mǫžę), but *vĺ̥ky. This also testifies that the choice between palatalised and non-palatalised forms is conditioned morphologically rather than phonetically.

As for these dialectal differences: forms with 3rd palatalisation occur in Old Church Slavonic more frequently than in Polish, where either the process was weaker or the effect of analogy was stronger. Polish remained unwritten for a longer time, and as long as there was no literary tradition, it was easier to replace forms with 3rd palatalisation by equalised forms without palatalisation.

It should happen along with II. palatalisation, although there are not unified opinions on when in happened. It is also unclear when it begun. What is sure, it happened almost 100 years after monophthongisation.

It is generally assumed that the 3rd palatalisation took place later than the 2nd, in the period when Common Slavic unity was falling apart, because the phenonemon is less universal. Besides, theorically it ought to take place also after -e-, -ě-, but as far as I know, there is not a single example of that.

And here is the discussed topic, the Slavic glottochronology. The source 2 is newer and I found it more competent because of other issues. And for sure, source 2 knew source 1 and used it.

source 1 – G. Shevelov, The historical phonology of Common Slavic, 1964
source 2 – A. Lamprecht, The Common Slavic, 1987

type of change	source 1	source 2
s > ŝ (š, ch)	before 400 EC	before 400 EC
k’, g’ > s, z	before 400 EC	before 400 EC
a, o > å	before 400 EC	before 400 EC
I. palatalisation	400-500 EC	400-475 (±25) EC
monophtongisation	500-600 EC	510-585 (±15) EC
II. palatalisation	500-600 EC	575-650 (±25) EC
III. palatalisation	600-850 EC	575-675 (±25) EC
palatalisation of alveolars	N/A	675-750 (±25) EC
epenthetic l’	N/A	710-785 EC
metathesis of liquids	700-850 EC	750-825 (±25) EC
appearance of nasals	600 EC	750-825 (±25) EC
appearance of jers	800 EC	800 EC
dispalat. ‘ě > ‘a in Pol.	N/A	850-925 EC
extinct. of nasals	N/A	950-1025 EC
contraction VjV	900 EC	875-950 EC
vocalisation of jers	900-1150 EC	950-1025 EC

The opinions differ strongly here. Czesław Bartula (Podstawowe wiadomości z gramatyki staro-cerkiewno-słowiańskiej na tle porównawczym, PWN Warszawa 1981) gives:

• 1st palatalisation: beginning of our era (1 A.D.) - turn of the 2nd/3rd century (200 A.D.)
• 2nd palatalisation: 4th - 6th century
• 3rd palatalisation: end of 7th century

Zdzisław Stieber (Zarys gramatyki porównawczej języków słowiańskich, Warszawa 1969) gives a different chronology:

• 1st palatalisation: 3rd and 4th century
• 2nd palatalisation: "after the 6th century", i.e. the 7th of 8th century
• 3rd palatalisation: beginning of the 8th century

The confusion of PIE a, o > a is generally considered a very old phenomenon, dating back to the Proto-Indo-European era. After all, the vowels a and o kept their distinctness only in the Italic and Celtic languages as well as in Greek; everywhere else they got confused (even in Anatolian and in Tocharian). One should of course add PIE schwa here (with the exception of syllables near the end of a word, where it usually disappeared). Also, there is no reason at all to reconstruct å in the old days: even in the period of Slavic expansion it was most certainly pronounced as a short a! Personally I believe that the rounding of Slavic a > o is a phenomenon dating back to the years 700-800, shortly before the appearance of the oldest written sources in Slavic.

In any case, 1st palatalisation was already dead when the Slavs got in touch with the Goths. Indeed, at the moment I can think of only one example of a Germanic loan that underwent 1st palatalisation: *šelmъ (Old Polish szłom, nowadays only hełm 'helmet', from Germanic *xelmaz). Otherwise, words of Gothic descent only have 2nd palatalisation: ocьtъ 'vinegar' from Gothic aket, *cęta from Gothic kintus 'name of a small coin'. 1st palatalisation was most certainly already dead by the time of Slavic expansion, which could have started a little before the year 500 A.D. In any case, when the ancestors of the Slovenians reached the territories where they live nowadays, they borrowed the name of the river Gīla as Zilja.

Also, I don't understand why Lamprecht dates the appearance of nasals so late. As it seems, at least the appearance of ę must have preceded 3rd palatalisation: after all, it's easier to imagine the process -ęk- > -ęc- niż -enk- > -enc-. The disappearance of nasals happens of course not in all Slavic languages: even nowadays nasals exist in Polish, and also in certain Slovenian dialects (hardly known to anybody).

Finally, the contraction VjV was an irregular process, conditioned by usage frequency or by morphological factors. Even nowadays we have Russian stojat' = Polish stać. And even in Polish we have, next to the infinitives wiać, stać, bać się, the uncontracted forms wieje, stoję, boję się. Numerous other forms did not undergo contraction at all: kajać się, krajać, even though contraction of -aja- seems easier than contraction of -oja- (*stojati, *bojati sę) or -ěja-.

At last, the "vocalisation of jers" is a very imprecise concept. First of all, it didn't follow the same pattern in the various languages: in Russian and Polish the strong jers (on the even positions counting from the end of a word) mixed with other vowels. But in Bulgarian the hard jer kept its own, different pronunciation. In Polabian, on the other hand, jers in the first syllable were preserved as vowels with a particular colour. In some cases initial jers were kept in the East Slavic languages. In Kashubian and in the Sorbian languages there is the principle, that in words with more than two syllables the two final jers are weak. Thus, the changes of the jers happened differently (and in different times) in the various Slavic languages, and they don't have much in common with the Common Slavic era.

Similar remarks can be made about "metathesis" of liquids, which in East Slavic was no metathesis at all (but the insertion of a full vowel instead). We know that something similar happened also in Old Polish, namely f.ex. *-or- > *-ъro-, and not immediately -ro- as it was once assumed. OCS kept a number of unmetathesised forms (albeit alkati). Likewise -ar- is the norm in Kashubian, and certain words were kept in Polish until recently (karw, now entirely out of use and supplanted by wół 'ox' and byk 'bull').

Jan II.'s comments on Input from Grzegorz Jagodziński

My Polish is nothing special, but I already see there few issues:

1) Polish did not preserve old Slavic nasals, but they appeared de novo in similar or same position. That is what you can read in any historical glottochronology of Slavic, AFAIK.

2) Pleophony (polnoglasie) also went through metathesis of liquids, but went further (better, different way), according to my knowledge.

Definitelly, I need to read it in English :p and with Shevelov and Lamprecht by the hand ;) Anyway, if Slavists agree on anything one day, that would be a reason for a big festivity with flags, brass band and gallons of mead :)))) Jan II.

And comments from Grzegorz Jagodziński himself

My cordial greeting to everyone here,

1) Polish DID preserve old Slavic nasals. I do not know what literature you have studied but you (and the authors of the books) are simply wrong. However, there are two things everybody should know if he wants to tell people things on Polish nasals. a) There were 2 nasal vowels in Common Slavic (or, Late Proto-Slavic), that is nasal e and nasal o (there are views according to which there were 4 nasals initially, those two plus nasal i and nasal u but it is nowhere attested). At the very end of Proto-Slavic language community there were 4 nasals again, as the two vowels both had two variants - a short one and a long one (it was connected with Slavic intonation) [anyway, it was so in the Western and Southern branches]. In prehistoric Polish (prehistoric means before any written documents were written) the nasals merged, preserving their length. So, in the Middle Age we had two nasals: a short one and a long one. Notice that they had never lost their nasality up to those time and the view that they appeared "de novo" is exotic. In the beginning of the Modern Age all pairs of short and long vowels differentiated in their pronunciation place or / and level while the length became the same for all vowels. Some of the differences have survived until the modern language: ó (earlier long o) is pronounced just like u now, and the previous long nasal is ą ("nasal o" - the spelling is confusive) while the previous short nasal is ę ("nasal e"). b) To tell the truth, in modern Polish, no nasal vowels exist at all (contrary to French for example). Instead, groups of a slightly nasalized vowel and a consonant are pronounced. For example, trąba reads [tromba], and kąta (gen.sg. of kąt 'corner') and konta (nom.pl. of konto 'account') are pronounced the same. Before a spirant (mainly s, z) and word-finally a nasal diphthong is pronounced, the second part of which is a kind of nasal [w] or a kind of fricative [ŋ] (nga). c) Despite the point b, it is commonly said that Polish is the only Slavic language which has never lost nasals. It is so because nasals became oral vowels in all the other Slavic languages (except some Slovene dialects, to be exact, but not in the literary Slovene). Even if old Slavic nasal vowels are not nasal vowels any longer in Polish, they are still nasal.

2) The hypothesis about polnoglasie is also wrong. The argument is the development of Polish prepositions. As you surely know, a yer was in a weak position when the next syllable contained a "full" vowel, a strong yer, or if the yer was a final vowel (a vowel in a final syllable). And a yer was strong before a syllable with a weak yer. Some Polish propositions have two variants, one of them were used before a word with a weak yer in the initial syllable, and the other were used elsewhere. It is because the composoition of a preposition and a noun developed as a single word. For example we/w, ze/z, pode/pod etc. Compare pode mną < podъ mьnojǫ 'under me' and pod tobą < podъ tobojǫ 'under you'. In modern Polish analogical development and tendency to eliminate the -e variants blurred the picture but in Middle Aged Polish we can see clearly what I said. And, if there was a metathesis in the first syllable, the preposition is always in the strong version. If there is a consonant cluster but no yer and no metathesis, the preposition is in the weak version, so the test is correct. Example: *(jь)zъ korljestva > *(jь)zъ kъroljestva > ze krolestwa (today z królestwa).

Please forget any Western literature on Slavic, it is useless most often, especially if you do not know any of the native Slavic literature. It is very pitiful but sometimes the Western authors do not even know any Slavic language. And, as a rule, they heve not even read one book written in a Slavic language. Contrary, the literature on Slavic in Slavic languages is abundant. If you are really interested in Polish historical grammar, you really should start from Gramatyka historyczna języka polskiego by Z. Klemensiewicz, T. Lehr-Spławiński and S. Urbańczyk, edited many times by PWN (I have the 4th edition from 1981). It is the absolutely basic source of knowledge. Of course it IS in Polish and no one could do anything with this. If you are interested in a (existing) language X, you really must learn it, next you should acknowledge yourself with the literature written in this language. And only then compare your knowledge with the stuff written by Western writers.