Ruthenian: Difference between revisions

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 *If C2 is /l/, /m/, /r/, or /ts/, then the vowel is /ɛ/.
 *The combination /-stw/ is not broken up. Instead the final /w/ is devoiced to /ʍ/ or a schwa is inserted between /t/ and /w/ - [stəʊ̯].
+===Historical development===
+====Early Old Ruthenian====
+#The [[w:Slavic liquid metathesis and pleophony|metathesis and pleophony]] were two similar changes that had occured by the beginning of the Xth century. The outcome of metathesis, which happened only word-initially, was dependent upon the Common Slavic accent: in acuted syllables, the output was *a (*őrdlo "plough" became *rā́dlo), but on circumflexed syllables, the metathesized vowel did not lengthen (*ôrzumъ "mind, intelect" became *ròzum). Pleophony occured between consonants and the stress position depended on the pitch accent (*mȏltъ "hammer" became mòlot, *bérza "bich" became beréza).
+#The Common Slavic *ǫ raised to *ų, which later denasalized to *u or *ū depending on the pitch accent: *zǫ̑bъ → zùb ("tooth"), but *lǫ́ky → lū́ky ("meadow"). The new *ū then has become the allophone of the short *u in all dialects.
+#The Common Slavic *ę lowered and denasalized to *ä [æ]. This vowel gradually rose to [e] by the end of the XVth century in Western Ruthenian dialects, but merged with [ɑ] in Northern (Belarusian) and Southern (Ukrainian) ones. For example, *pętь became *pjäť ("five"), *telę became *teľä ("calf").
+#The weak yers disappeared, giving the vowel lengthening: *sȏlь "salt" became *sṑľ. The strong yers developed into full vowels in these positions: *vь̑lkъ "wolf" became *wòłk with a short vowel /o/. The strong front yer "ь" developed into *y in all positions, except before *l where it has given *o: *vь̃rxъ "top" became *wyrch /wɨrx/, while in Ukrainian and Belarusian it is верх/werch.
+#The *jь cluster became *ie and later merged *i (after the /ɪ/ sound appeared). However it disappeared instead if *jь was unstressed: *jьglà "needle" became hlà.
+#Early Ruthenian inherited the velar *g from Common Slavic. But by the end of the XIIth century it started changing into a fricative [ɣ]. The original *g has been preserved in the *zg consonant cluster, i.e. rṑzga. This partial preservation of *g probably allowed Late Ruthenian to adopt g in later loanwords: ґудзь/gudź or gùdz "knot".
+#The Common Slavic *ě turned into a diphthong *ie and later merged with *ē by the XIVth century (*sě̑no "hay" became *sḕno).
+#The long ending ''-ā'' in nominative plural of neutral grammatical gender became short ''-a'' like in genitive singular.
+====Late Old Ruthenian====
+This is the time, when Ruthenian became distinct from Ukrainian and Belarusian, developing its unique features.
+#The contraction happened at the end of words. Sequences of VjV, where V is a vowel, merged into one long vowel, i.e. *dòbroje → dòbrē "good", *žitije → žyťē "life", *maje "s/he has" → mā. This process was similar to the one in West Slavic languages, but it happened much later (around the XVIth century) and did not spread on all such sequences, but just the word-final ones.
+#The merge between *y and *i, which both became pronounced [ɪ] (*rỳba "fish" and *šîdlo "awl" became rỳba and szỳdlo. The *dl cluster typically preserved in Ruthenian, but simplified in both Belarusian and Ukrainian - szyla and szylo respectively). This process did not occure in the Hucul and Dolynian dialects, instead *i simply became /ɪ/ while *y remained distinct (either as [ɨ] or [ɤ]).
+#The debuccalization of /ɣ/ to /ɦ/ had occured by the XVIIth century. Its voiceless counterpart [x] did not loose its frication completely, but later allophonically changed into /h/ before voiceless plosives.
+#*š, *č, *ž and *dž lost their palatalization by the XVIIth century. In the XIXth and XXth centuries these sounds became retroflexed in the Upper Dnistrian dialect and thus in the standard language.
+#Since the old /i/ sound disappeared, new [i] developed from long /e/. This change did not involve [e] from *ä in most Ruthenian dialects.
+#[[w:Prothesis (linguistics)|Prothesis]] ocurred before vowels word-initially. The protetic consonant was either *w or *j depending on the vowel quality: *īsty "to eat" became jisty, *ōkno "window" became *wokno. The process usually applied to long vowels.
+#The rising and fronting of *ō to *ü: *wōkno "window" → *wükno. The changed was attested in the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries writings. The new phoneme *ü also developed from earlier *ie after *r: *striecza "meeting" → strücza, which is still pronounced this way in Dolinian Ruthenian dialects. In other dialects *ü became pronounced /i/: *nücz "night" → nicz.
+====Modern Ruthenian====
+#The /rʲ/ sound depalatalized to a plain /r/ in most dialects. In western dialects it gave a /rj/ sequence while in Hucul dialect it remained /rʲ/ before front vowels and became /r/ elsewhere.
+#The vowel /e/ began merging with /ɪ/ in most Ruthenian dialects: *teľě → *teľy. However it became /i/ after postalveolar (or retroflexed already) consonants: *szczěsťē → szczisťē.
+#Word-final palato-alveolar fricatives and affricates depalatalize to denti-alveolar ones. This process is still ongoing and irregular in most dialects except westernmost ones, where all consonants depalatalize word-finally.
 ==Morphology==
 ===Nouns===