P. LAVROVSKYI ABOUT NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE REDUCED VOWELS

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P. LAVROVSKYI ABOUT NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE REDUCED VOWELS

Journal Title: Scientific journal «International Journal of Philology» - Year 2016, Vol 1, Issue 248

Abstract

A famous Russian and Ukrainian linguist P. Lavrovskyi (1827 – 1886) together with M. Maxymovych and Y. Holovatskyi became one the first representatives of the comparative historic method in Ukraine. Lavrovskyi researched the history of phonetic phenomena of Eastern Slavonic languages fruitfully. He made a great contribution to the study of nature and origin of the reduced vowels ъ, ь in the Old Russian language. Although, this problem in the history of linguistics still remains unsolved. It is known that the study of ъ, ь was started by A. Vostokov. He was the first to come to the conclusion that ъ, ь in old Cyrillic texts denoted definite sounds different from о, е in the Eastern Slavonic languages. Upon that Vostokov used the material of the Modern Slavonic languages that have different vowels instead old ъ, ь. Vostokov called ъ, ь «semivowels» and stressed their vocal nature. The term semivowels subsequently started to be used by N. Grech. G. Pavskyi regarded ъ, ь as «breathed sounds». The first linguist who called ъ, ь properly vowels was Sreznevskyi. He admitted that they were short. The vowel ъ was used in «hard syllables» and ь – in «soft ones». Upon that in the history of Eastern Slavonic languages о, е appeared from ъ, ь, but not conversely. The last statement was very significant taking into account the fact that Maxymovych reconstructed the shift о, е > ъ, ь along with this he treated о, е as Common Slavonic archetypes, but ъ, ь – as specific innovation of the Old Slavonic language. The ideas of Sreznevskyi about the nature of ъ and ь became an important breakthrough. It was necessary to represent these ideas in detail giving the critical evaluation of the works of the contemporaries. Lavrovskyi, the follower of Sreznevskyi, set himself this task. As well as Vostokov and Sreznevskyi, Lavrovskyi regarded ъ, ь as Common Slavonic heritage in the Old Slavonic language. Lavrovskyi thought that Vostokov used improper term semivowels. He found it necessary to call ъ, ь vowel sounds. Lavrovsky proved that Pavskyi speaking about «breathed sounds» in fact defend the consonant nature of ъ and ь. However, the discrepancy of Pavskyi’s treatment of ъ, ь doesn’t end with it. Pavskyi further writes that ъ and ь in the most ancient Cyrillic texts were used for defining hardness and softness of the consonant sounds as well as for substitution of vowels that fall together. Lavrovskyi stressed that here the insensibility of meanings of the letters ъ, ь in the Old Russian and the Modern Russian languages can be traced. Lavrovsky paid a great attention to the origin of the sounds ъ, ь. Making reference to the works of F. Mikloshych, V. Kopitar, F. Buslayev, where the parallels from the Sanskrit, Latin, Gothic and Lithuanian languages are given, Lavrovskyi stated that Common Slavonic ъ originated from Proto-Indo-European short u, and Common Slavonic ь – from Proto-Indo-European short i. So Lavrovskyi gave the most overall for its time record of Old Russian ъ, ь from the point of their nature and origin.

Authors and Affiliations

V Hlushchenko

Keywords

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