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

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)