Wendish

Phonology

Orthography

Palatalisation

The phonemic difference between hard and soft palatal sound is orthographically indicated by writing a digraph with <j> following the soft consonant.

bjolak /ˈbʲo.lɐk/, cjol /t͡sʲol/, djotka /ˈɟot.kɐ, gjölǫb /ɟœ.ˈlumb/, kjėnądz /ˈce.nɔndz/, ljotȯ /lʲo.ˈtʏ/, mjȧgla /ˈmʲɑ.glɐ/

Consonant assimilation

Assimil

Consonants

The Dravenian language has 29 phonemic vowels. Every consonant, except for /j/, which is always soft and the loan phonemes /f/ and /ʃ/, occurs in a hard unpalatlised and a soft palatalised variant.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Labio-dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasale	hard	m		n
	soft	mʲ		nʲ
Plosive	hard	p·b		t·d			k·g
	soft	pʲ·bʲ				c·ɟ
Sibilants	hard			s·z	ʃ
	soft					ɕ·ʑ
Fricative	hard	f·v					x
	soft	vʲ				ç
Lateral	hard			l
	soft			lʲ
Trill	hard			r
	soft			rʲ
Approxiamnt						j

Prosody

Stress

The stress of polabian words is predictable. The rule is, that it falls on the last syllable, if its vowels is full, but on the antepenultimate syllable if the last syllable’s vowels is reduced.

As the stress can be prected it is usally not indicated in writing. But as <a> and <e> can both represent a full and reduced vowels there are some instances of In these cases an acute accent is used to indicate a full and therefore stressed /a/ or /ɛ/ in a final syllable. pȯdpöldán wo wilkja gordé

Morphophonology

2.2 Morphophonemic alternations inherited from Proto-Slavonic

Among the oldest alternations are those of the velar consonants k, g, ch with c, z, s and с, j. They originated from the Proto- Slavonic first and second palatalizations.

The alternations resulting from the first palatalization were greatly reduced in Polabian and were chiefly limited to derivation: rpka (< *rpka) 'hand' versus rpcnek (< *греьткъ) 'towel', bug (< *bogb) 'God' versus biizac (< *botbCb) 'God (DIMIN)', тех (< *техъ) 'sack' versus mesak (< *mešbfo) 'little sack'.

Residual instances of the first palatalization are encountered in inflection. In nominal declension we find it only in the nouns v&t' й (< *(v)oko) 'eye' and vauxii (< *(u)xo) 'ear', compare vieai (< *(v)oči (NOM—ACC DU), vausai (< *( v)uši (NOM-ACC DU)). In conjugation it could be used to oppose the present-tense forms to past tenses or the infinitive: plocfi (< *plačp) 'I cry' versus plokol (< *р1ака1ъ) '(he) cried', plokat (< *plakati) 'to cry', р&кпё (< *ръкпегь) 'falls' versus pčci (< *ръеегъ (AOR) ) 'fell', muzes (< *mozešb 'you can' versus mug (< *mogb (AOR)) 'I POLABIAN 805 could'. For the most part, however, verbal stems tended to be levelled in the entire conjugation: joz rical-me (< *jazъ гес1ъ mu) T told him', nemezalo- jeg noit (< *ne motala jego najiti) '(she) could not find him', taucal-sa (< *Цс1ъ sę) 'it was haunted' (instead of *гек1ъ, * mogla, *ф1ъ sę on the model of rice, muze, tauci-sa (< *rečetb, *moietb, *tfčetb sę). In general, however, both consonantal and vocalic alternations (with the exception of stress alternations and the related alternations between nonreduced and reduced vowels) were considerably limited within the Polabian conjugation. Present-tense forms abandoned consonantal alternations completely: ricą (instead of rekp < *rekp) '(I) say', picą (instead of pekp < *pekptb) '(they) roast'.

The alternations k/c, g/j occurred in the declension of nouns, where they reinforced morphological oppositions: grauk (< *grufo) 'pear tree' versus graucai (< *gruci) 'pear trees', krig (from German Krieg) 'war' versus va krije (< *vb (krig-)-e), ntiga (< *noga) 'foot, leg' versus ntije (< *M>JE(NOM-ACC DU)) 'feet, legs'.

The opposition of hard and soft consonants, which originated from the depalatalization of consonants before front vowels, is the most frequent consonantal alternation in Polabian morphology. It occurred in the declension of nouns where it replaced the opposition of originally front vowels to originally back ones:

The declension of nouns also made use of the alternations k,g,ch and their soft counterparts, which originated through the Polabian palatalisation. This type of alternation is most noticeable in the inflection of adjectives, where it contributes, among other things, to the distinction of genders.

Vocalic alternations

The reduction of vowels brought about the most productive vocalic alternation in Polabian. This alternation was closely related to the alternation of stress and it affected both inflection and derivation as in the endings -o/-a (coso/zena < *čaša 'bowl', *tena 'woman') or in the derivative aibet' to kill' (< * ubiti) versus bait' to beat' (< *biti). It was, however, in conjugation that these alternations played the most essential role, thanks to the enclitic character of the reflexive particle sa (< *sę) and of the monosyllabic pronominal forms. Since the present-tense 8 0 6 WEST SLAVONIC LANGUAGES forms generalized the penultimate stress, the stress had to shift to the desinence when followed by an enclitic, given the Polabian limitation of stress to the penultimate syllable. In this way there arose the alternation of non-reduced and reduced vowels: aide(< *idetb) 'goes', biile(< *bolitb) 'it hurts' versus kok aidi-sa (< *kako idetb sę) 'how are you doing', btili-me (< *bolitb тьпе) 'it hurts me'.

Other vowel alternations were due to various metaphonies. Some of them occurred in Lechitic or early Polabian, others took place in later periods. To the former belong vowel-zero, е-о, a-p and ar-or alternations (as well as their variants stemming from the reduction of vowels), to the latter e-i, a-i, a-i, o-u, d-a, ai-a, di-a alternations. Owing to the different treatment of the weak jers in Polabian from that of other Slavonic languages, the vowel-zero alternations were practically limited to final/penultimate syllables and occurred mainly in the declension of nouns: d'olpbak (< *golpbъkъ) 'small pigeon' but d'olppt'e (PL) (< *golpbъky)9 pican (< *ресьпь) 'loaf of bread' but picne (PL) (< *ресьпе). The e-o alternation is attested mainly in the inflection of nouns: lotil (< * leto) 'summer, year' versus vd leta (< *vb lete) 'in summer'. We find some examples of the ar-or alternation in derivation: sdmart(< *sbmftb) 'disease of chicks' but dimorte (< *umfrbjb) 'dead', come (< *cfirbjb) 'black' but carnaića (< *čfnica) 'blackberry'. The ą- p alternation is found in some individual forms: plęisft (< *plęśp) '(they) dance' versus pipsat (< *plęsati) 'to dance', dispt (< *desętb) 'ten' versus diśpte (< *desętbjb) 'tenth'.

The vowel alternations due to later developments in Polabian were used in inflection: cesat 'to comb' but cise 'combs', woda

'water' but wo wida 'in water', smöla

'Hell' but va smȯla 'in Hell', pȧs (< *рь5ъ) 'dog' but pasai

'dogs', dipaustaix (< *upustixb) 'I dropped (AOR)' but dipaustdl

(< *upustih>) '(he) has dropped (PRF)'

Syntax