Carpathian ablaut: Difference between revisions

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==Lengthened grade==
==Lengthened grade==
Late Proto-Indo-European had two long vowels (''*ē'' and ''*ō''), the sources of which were manifold. In the dialect of disintegrating Proto-Indo-European, which later became Carpathian, the length contrast led to a morphological alternation. The separate lengthened grade existed for both monophthongs and diphthongs, but later in Proto-Carpathian the full grade of diphthongs (''*ai'' and ''*au'') was reanalysed as the addition of ''*a'' to a full vowel (''*i'' and ''*u'' respectively), which led to the addition of ''*a'' to the original ''*e'' and ''*a'', which resulted in lengthening of those vowels. The loss of laryngeals further contributed to the establishment of the lengthened grade.
The lengthened grade is present in the inflectional morphology, although no longer productive:
*Consonant-stem declension in nouns: nominative ''pīl'''ē'''n'' — genitive ''pīl'''e'''ntis'' “chicken”.
*Sigmatic aorist of verbs without a thematic vowel: ''n'''e'''stei'' “to carry” — ''n'''ē'''ssun'' “I carried”, ''w'''e'''stei'' “to lead” — ''wēssun'' “I led”.
*Prefix and preposition doublets: ''par(a)-'' “towards” and ''parā(h)-'' “before, proto-”, ''pa'' “after” — ''pā-'' “later, secondary”, ''ba'' “for, because” — ''bā'' “indeed, as”.
In derivational morphology, the lengthened grade is scattered and does not form regular patterns the same way, as the full and zero grades do. Some nominal derivation involves root vowel lengthening:
*Substantives, ending in ''-is'' from verbs with full-grade root vowels, denoting product or result of an action: ''rektei'' “to say” — ''rēkis'' “speech”, ''dwestei'' “to breathe” — ''dwēstis'' “living being”, ''tartei'' “to speak” — dial. ''tāris'' “language” (standard ''tāra'' instead).
The legthened grade can be involved in qualitative ablaut in the same way as the full grade, such as to create causative verbs: ''r'''ē'''žetei'' “to cut” — ''rōžītei'' “to strike”.
===ū- and ī-grades===
===ū- and ī-grades===
Unlike in Proto-Indo-European, in Carpathian '''u''' and '''i''' were full vowels and took part in quantitative alternations alongside '''o''' and '''e'''. Resulting mostly from the loss of laryngeals "ū" and "ī" gave rise to a lengthened grade, which later spread by analogy and was employed in several morphological categories:
Unlike in Proto-Indo-European, in Carpathian '''u''' and '''i''' were full vowels and took part in quantitative alternations alongside '''o''' and '''e'''. Resulting mostly from the loss of laryngeals "ū" and "ī" gave rise to a lengthened grade, which later spread by analogy and was employed in several morphological categories:
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