American Contributions to the 14th International Congress of Slavists. Ohrid 2008

On Quantity Dissimilation in East Slavic

Christina Y. Bethin, ed. American Contributions to the 14th International Congress of Slavists, Ohrid, September 2008. Vol. 1: Linguistics. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 21–38. On Quantity Dissimilation in East Slavic* Christina Y. Bethin In many East Slavic dialects, the vowel in the immediately pretonic position has special prosodic status. For example, in standard Russian moderate type of akan!e the reduced vowel in immediately pretonic position is longer than are reduced vowels elsewhere (Bondarko et al. 1966); in standard Belarusian, an [a] in immediately pretonic position is longer than it is in other unstressed positions (Padluzhny 1977: 104; Iakusha! 1975); in Gdov and Novgorod dialects, the immediately pretonic vowel has greater duration and intensity than do other unstressed vowels (Stroganova 1970; Kasatkina 1996, 1997). A similar prosodic profile has been identified in the VladimirVolga Basin and Kazan! dialects (Zakharova 1970; Vysotskii 1973; Zlatoustova 1962; Al!mukhamedova and Kul!sharipova 1980), where the duration of the vowel in immediately pretonic position also equals or surpasses that of the stressed vowel. This paper focuses on the special status of the pretonic syllable as exemplified by alternations in vowel duration and proposes a possible explanation for this phenomenon . The alternation of vowel duration may be extrinsic, as in the Snov River Basin dialects (Belaia 1974; Voitovich 1972) where pretonic vowels may be substantially longer than stressed vowels, or intrinsic, an alternation between high and low vowels found in some dissimilative akan!e/jakan!e patterns (Avanesov and Orlova 1965: 44– 66). Because the relationship between the tonic and immediately pretonic vowel is implemented in terms of opposing quantity relations in that a short or high vowel occurs before a stressed long or low vowel and vice versa, it has been analyzed as a type of “quantity dissimilation” in the literature (Shakhmatov 1915, Broch 1916: 57–59; Voitovich 1971, 1974; Czekman 1975, Chekmonas 1987; Nazarova 1977; Kasatkina 1996; Kniazev 2000, and references therein).1 The proposal here is that alternations in vowel duration are not necessarily phonetic or phonological dissimilation but rather a * This research was supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (FA– 52398–06) in 2006–07. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. 1 The term “quantity dissimilation” is interpreted differently, ranging from a type of compensatory lengthening (Shakhmatov 1915) or intersyllabic isochrony (Timberlake 1993: 435) to alternations in intrinsic vowel durations (Broch 1916: 57–59; Kniazev 2000). Kurylo 1928 proposes that pretonic vowel length is due to expiratory stress, which began on the pretonic syllable. 22 CHRISTINA Y. BETHIN way to optimize the implementation of a fixed tonal contour over the two syllables (Bethin 2006). The position of the pitch peak, either on the tonic or the pretonic syllable , is key to the alternations in vowel quantity. It is hypothesized that “quantity dissimilation ” may be an intermediate stage in the prosodic realignment of a pitch peak with stress, from an older stage in which the pitch rise on the pretonic syllable was taken to be prosodically prominent to one in which strong expiratory stress predominates and the peak moves to coincide with stress. The presence of a tonal contour over the tonic and immediately pretonic syllable is compatible with the loss of vowel contrasts in immediately pretonic position, but in the form of vowel neutralization rather than vowel reduction. Alternations in vowel duration may be manifested as changes in vowel quantity, as changes in both vowel quantity and quality, or primarily as changes in vowel quality .2 The dialects of the Snov River Basin in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine (also known as the A!tsiuki/Ovtiuki dialects in Belarus) present a clear case of alternating quantity because changes in vowel duration are significant (Kurylo 1924, 1928; Kryvitski 1959; Bila 1970, Belaia 1974; Voitovich 1972; for a similar case among Pskov dialects, see Chekmonas 1998: 122–25). Non-high vowels in immediately pretonic position are much longer before a stressed high or high mid vowel than before a stressed non-high vowel: CV: CV" [high = i, u, e, o] // CVCV" [non-high = #, $, a], and the duration of the pretonic vowel systematically exceeds that of the stressed high vowel. This system is exemplified by the dialect of Malyia A!tsiuki, Homel! oblast, Belarus (Voitovich 1972: 20, 22). (1) Malyia A!tsiuki: CV: CV" [high] // CVCV" [non-high] [s’#strá] ‘sister’ [travá] ‘grass’ [p$sm$´tryc’] ‘to take a look’ [s’#: strú] ‘sister,’ acc sg [tra...