Proto-Uralic
Fully a work in progress. Mistakes may occur.
Abbreviations used on these pages: B. = Baltic, Cf. = 'compare', En = Enets, Er. = Erźa, Es. = Estonian, F. = Finnish, Gmc = Germanic, H. = Hungarian, Hi. = Hill Mari, IA = Indo-Aryan, IE = Indo-European, II = Indo-Iranian, K. = Komi, Ka. = Kamass, Kh. = Khanty, Li. = Livonian, Ma. = Mari, Me. = Meadow Mari, Mk. = Mokša, Mo. = Mordvinic, Ms. = Mansi, N = North, Ne. = Nenets, Ng. = Nganasan, P. = Permic, PU = Proto-Uralic, S. = Samic / South, Se. = Selkup, Smy. = Samoyedic, U. = Udmurt, Ve. = Veps, Võ. = South Estonian (Võro)
Now with a blog! NB: New URL
Development
- Sound changes to Finnish
- Sound changes to Mordvinic
- Sound changes to Proto-Samic
- Sound changes to Proto-Samoyedic
Data subpages
In the vowel tables, bold marks vocalic irregularities, italic uncertainties in what the regular vocalic reflex is, red consonantal irregularities.
| Close | *i • *ü | *ï? • *u |
| Mid | *e ~ *ê ~ *E | *o ~ *ô ~ *O |
| Open | *ä | *a, *ë |
Known derivativs with
Potential derivativs • Cluster issues • Co-occurrence of coronals • West-East discrepancies
Reconstructed phoneme inventory
- Vowels
*/i ü u e ë o ä a/ in the initial syllable. Only a two-way height-based contrast */I A/ is normally reconstructed in later syllables, which may have been realized as [i æ] after front vowels and [ɯ ɑ] after back vowels (ie. with vowel harmony); or as unalternating [ə a]. These pages will use the notation *a~*ä, *ə. A couple family terms suggest different vowels, including #nato "brother's wife", #kälü "spouse's sister", #wäŋü/#wiŋü "son-in-law".
Opinions vary on if (1st-syllable) *ë was [ɯ] or [ɤ], and *a [ɑ] or [ɒ]. As of July 2014 I (Tropylium) support [ɤ] for the former, as suggested by e.g. the substitution of Indo-Iranian *a by *ë in loans (unless these words are post-PU in date.) The latter seems like an open question; I am investigating the possibility of [ɒ] as the default value, [ɑ] as a positional allophone.
Several amendments have been proposed at times:
- Long vowels or equivalent entities have been a popular proposal, but the main evidence, from Finnic, has recently been adequately explained otherwise.
- A number of studies have proposed, on the basis of the Ugric evidence, to reinterpret several quality contrasts as quantity contrasts instead.[citation needed] No wholly systemic account of this idea seems to have been presented to this day.
- Korhonen (1988) proposes an *ï, which would have split at an early date to to front and back allophones, the former then developing into standard *ü.
- This *ï has been reshuffled into two "reduced" or "semi-rounded" vowels *ê *ô ([ɪ ʊ]?) by Häkkinen (2007), which also aim to explain some apparent exceptions in the development of *e and *o. In light of some recently identified conditional sound laws, this may not be a necessary hypothesis. (I still suspect that at least a raised allophone of *e might have existed though.)
- Consonants
Nasals */m n ń ŋ/, voiceless stops/affricates */p t ć č k/, voiceless sibilants */s ś š/, a "laryngeal" */x/ (a voiceless velar fricativ [x] seems like the most plausible sound value, though voiced [ɣ] is not ruled out), two "spirants" */d₁ d₂/ (traditionally interpreted as [ð] and [ðʲ] respectivly, though this is far from certain), two liquids */l r/ and two semivowels */w j/.
The existence of a distinction between *ć and *ś is not certain. *ć can be securely established only in the clusters *ćć, *ńć, where *ś is not found. The Proto-Uralic status of *š is also uncertain: most words with the consonant are not found in languages east to Permic, and frequently moreover probable Indo-European loanwords.
A palatal liquid *ĺ is also commonly found in old reconstructions (e.g. in the Uralisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch), but many of the etyma involved do not really behave. Some may be late inter-branch loans. Most others have been by now accounted for by a widespread development *l > *ĺ in Samoyedic. The "palatal spirant" *d₂ may thus have been the actual palatal liquid; obstruent reflexes are limited to western branches, and external comparisions generally involve laterals. (The "dental spirant" also develops to /l/ widely, but was certainly distinct from *l.)
Three further consonants of dubious nature were supported until the mid-20th century: the palatal shibilant *š́ (distinguished from regular *ś only in Mansi), and the retroflex sonorants *ṇ, *ḷ (distinguished from regular *n, *l only in Khanty).
- Phonotactics
A notable distributional feature was that *ŋ, *x and probably also *d₁, *r could not occur word-initially.
Roots generally had the form (C)V(C)C{A I}, with initial stress. A couple longer stems of the shape (C)V(C)C{A I}C(I) are also attested. Shorter CV roots occurred in grammatical words: pronouns, prepositions and the copula also CV; there was also a single lone-V root, the negativ verb *e-.
See below for allowed consonant clusters.
Basic consonant correspondences (gradation not included in Finno-Samic, asterisks for Mari and Mordvinic largely superfluous):
| C | Finnic | S. | Mordv. | Mari | Permic | Hung. | Ms. | Kh. | Smy. | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *m | *m | *m | *m, *v | *m | *m | m, -v- | *m | *m | *m | Sporadic lenition in Mo, H. Regular in suffixes in H. |
| *n | *n | *n | *n, *ń- / _F | *n, *-ń- / F_F |
*n | n | *n | *n | *n | |
| *ń | *ń | *ń, *n- /#_B |
*ń | ń | *ń | *ń | *ń | |||
| *-ŋ | *v, *ː | *ŋ | *j / F_, *v / B_ |
*ŋ | ń / F_, n / C_, m / B_ |
g | *ŋk | *ŋk | *ŋ | Irregularly split in ObU (the more general development is *ŋk) Retained in some Erzya & Udmurt dialects |
| *ŋ | *ŋ | |||||||||
| *w | *v | *v | *w | *v | v | *w | *w | *w | ||
| *-w- | *j / F_, ∅ / B_ |
∅ | *v → -ː- | *ɣ | *ɣ | ∅ | ||||
| *-x- | *ː | *k | *j | |||||||
| *-k- | *k | *j, *v | Mo. split by vowel backness/frontness | |||||||
| *k | k | *k | *k, *g | k, h /_B | *k | *k | *k | Stop voicing irregularly split in P. | ||
| *p | *p | *p | *p, *-v- | *p, *-w- | *p, *b | f, -v- | *p | *p | *p | |
| *č | *t, *h | *c | *č | *č | *č, *dž | č, š | *š | *č | *č | |
| *ć | *s | *č | *ś, *-ć- | *ć, *-ź- | *ć, *dź | č, s | *ć, *s | *ć, *s | *s | |
| *ś | ś, -ź- | *š, -ž- | *ś, *-ź- | *s, *š | s | *s | ||||
| *s | *s | *s, *-z- | *s, *-z- | ∅ | *t | *ɬ | *t | |||
| *š | *h | *š, *-ž- | *š, *-ž- | |||||||
| *t | *t | *t | *t, *tʲ | *t | *t, *d | t | *t | |||
| *-t- | *d, *dʲ | *ð | ∅ | z | ||||||
| *d₂ | *ð | *l, *-ð- | *ĺ | ɟ | *ĺ | *j | *j | |||
| *-d₁- | ∅ | *l, *-∅- | l | *l | *l, *-ɬ- | *r | lost in Permic only intervocally, not in clusters | |||
| *l | *l | *l | *l | *l | *l | *l, *j | In Kh. also irregularly *l → *ɭ | |||
| *j | *j, *ː | *j | *j | *j | *j | j, ɟ | *j | *j | *j | |
| *r | *r | *r | *r | *r | *r | r | *r | *r | *r |
Major consonant developments involving specific vowel environments include:
- the widespread loss of *w before non-open labial vowels, *j before non-open front vowels
- best retained in Permic and Khanty
- the labialization of *k, *ŋ, *x in Mansi to *kʷ, *ŋʷ, *w before and after labial vowels
- the assibilation of *t in Finnic (of any origin, i.e. < *t, *č, *d₁, *d₂) to *c before *i
Major soundlaws affecting consonant clusters include:
- the widespread loss or vocalization of *j and *w
- only Samic consistently retains these, though Finnic in most cases as well and Samoyedic also frequently
- the cluster *lj has widely coalesced to /lʲ/; in Mordvinic all j-clusters yield palatalized consonants
- Mansi and Khanty have retained a few direct traces of *w (generally as delabialized *ɣ)
- indirect traces of such clusters are widely found in the development of vowels
- the shortening of geminates everywhere except in Samic and Finnic
- generally leading to new medial voiceless stops/affricates, after the lenition of the original ones
- geminates other than *kk are merged with the corresponding singletons in Mari, Mansi, Khanty and Samoyedic
- the assimilation of *mt to *nt in Finnic, Mordvinic, Mansi, and probably Permic & Hungarian
- the denasalization of nasal + stop/affricate clusters to voiced stops/affricates in Permic and Hungarian
- the pre-Hungarian voiced affricates have lost their sibilancy: *nč *ńć > *[ʤ ʥ] > /r ɟ/
- the metathesis of *k in Mansi and Khanty, when following a heterorganic consonant
- the loss of *k in Samoyedic, under the same conditions
- after the loss of final vowels, the breaking of most heterorganic consonant clusters by an epenthetic schwa in Hungarian, Mansi and Khanty
- entirely general in Khanty, somewhat limited in Hungarian and Mansi; in many cases consonant clusters are still attested in Old Hungarian
- some traces of a similar process are found in Mari (for *ŋ + sibilant) and Finnic (for *kś) as well
- the loss of *p before other obstruents in Mansi
- the "palatality metathesis" (*Ć-lk, *d₂k, *d₂w >) *ĺɣ > /lɟ/ in Hungarian
- the assimilation of *lm (incl. earlier *d₁m) to *nm in Permic
- the merger and lenition of *pt *kt to *ht in Finnic, *ft in Mordvinic
- the simplification of *čč, *kš to *h in Finnic (via *th, *kh?)
Medial consonant clusters
Includes chiefly the words from the appendix in Häkkinen (2007).
Cf. Sammallahti (1988): http://books.google.fi/books?id=TM2NQ78dP2wC&pg=PA492&dq=phonotactics+of+PFU
| 2nd → 1st ↓ |
p | t | č | k | s | ś | š | d₁ | l | r | w | j | m | n | ŋ | ∑ | Notes | Frequency color code | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N | m | mp | mt | … | ms | mś | N/A | N/A | 8 | mostly i-stems except *kompa *ńimśa | single root | ||||||||||
| n | nt | nč | nś | … | 16 | mostly back-harmonic a-stems; *ns → *nč? | two roots | ||||||||||||||
| ŋ | ŋt | ŋk | ŋs | … | 9 | back-harmonic or *ä | 3-4 roots | ||||||||||||||
| P | p | pp | pt | ps | pś | … | pd₁ | … | 7 | 5-6 roots | |||||||||||
| t | … | tk | 3 | all front-harmonic ə-stems | 10+ roots | ||||||||||||||||
| č | … | čč | čk | 3 | Most suspiciously none | ||||||||||||||||
| ć | … | … | … | ||||||||||||||||||
| k | kt | … | kk | ks | kś | kš | … | … | 13 | but *mekšə "bee" probably separate loans in FP and H. | |||||||||||
| S | s | … | sk | N/A | 2 | both o_ə | |||||||||||||||
| ś | … | śk | 5 | mostly ə-stems + *wäśka | |||||||||||||||||
| š | … | … | … | ||||||||||||||||||
| L | l | … | lt | … | lk | lw | lj | lm | … | lŋ | 25 | *lw *lj only a-stems; *lt may be derived ← *-lk-t- | |||||||||
| r | rp | rt | … | rk | rw | … | rm | … | … | 11 | mostly back-harmonic | ||||||||||
| (?) | d₁/d₂ | d₁k | d₂w | dₓm | 3 | ||||||||||||||||
| sV | w | … | ws | wd₁ | wl | wj | wn | wŋ | 9 | after e ä a o only | |||||||||||
| j | … | … | … | jw | … | jm | … | jŋ | 6 | after ä a o only | |||||||||||
| ∑ | 5 | 19 | 7 | 37 | 8 | 10 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 5 | 8 | 1 | 5 | ||||||
Not all blank'd cells were necessarily impossible: some roots of limited distribution have examples of *kč, *pš, *kš, *pl, *ćl, *kl, *kr, *čt, *tt, *st, *śt, *št, *šk, *ćk, *nš, *ŋš, *mč, *lp, *lč, *ln, *rč, *rj, *rn, *rŋ, *jp, *jt, *jr, *jj, *jń, *wt (mark'd with an ellipsis in the table).
Literature
- Current standard literature
- Janhunen, Juha (1981): Uralilaisen kantakielen sanastosta
- Janhunen, Juha (1982): On the structure of Proto-Uralic
- Sammallahti, Pekka (1988): Historical Phonology of the Uralic languages
- Nonstandard proposals
- Häkkinen, Jaakko (2007): Kantauralin murteutuminen vokaalivastaavuuksien valossa. Master's thesis. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe20071746
- Korhonen, Mikko (1988): Uralilaisten kielten jälkitavujen vokaaliston historiaa
- Dated reconstructions
- Collinder, Björn (1960): Comparative Grammar of the Uralic languages
- Itkonen, Erkki (1946): Zur Frage nach der Entwicklung des Vokalismus der ersten Silbe in den finnisch-ugrischen Sprachen, insbesondere in Mordwinischen. Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen 29.
- Steinitz, Wolfgang (1944): Geschichte des finnisch-ugrischen Vokalismus. Stockholm.
- Sammallahti, Pekka (1979): Über die Laut- und Morphemstruktur der uralischen Grundsprache. Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen 43.
| This article is one of quite a few pages about Natlangs. Indo-european natlangs:
Uralic Natlangs: Finnish * Khanty * Mansi * Mordvinic * Proto-Uralic
Isolate Natlangs: Basque * * |
