Chronology Of Word-Final Devoicing In Czech

From: Petr Hrubis
Message: 41611
Date: 2005-10-26

Hello,

Recently, we've had a discussion with someone on the
Nostratic-L list. The point we discussed there was to
what extent the change of {h > x} is common, if
possible at all.

In my opinion, it is possible and my example, although
not a perfect one, was the following:

Czech /h/ ([H] voiced (!) laryngeal fricative) < PS
*/g/. All voiced consonants (except /l,r,m,n,j/) are
devoiced when word-final, so we have /bod/ [bOt],
/raz/ [ras], /dob/ [dOp] etc. As for the word-final
/-h/, it not only gets devoiced, but also its place of
articulation changes: /svah/ [svax], /hloh/ [HlOx],
/li'h/ [li:x], /br^eh/ [br^Ex]. I.e. laryngeal >
velar.

So, how did the /h/ develop in Old Czech? And when
exactly? When the devoicing phenomenon appeared?

I could imagine the following scenarios, accepting
only one feature change at a time:

SCENARIO A

1. PS [g] > early (or Pre-) Old Czech (Slovak?
Ukrainian?) [Y]
2. eOCz (Svk, Ukr) [Y] > [H]
3. WORD-FINAL DEVOICING [-H] > [-h]
4. VELAR SHIFT [-h] > [-x]

SCENARIO B

1. PS [g] > early (or Pre-) Old Czech (Slovak?
Ukrainian?) [Y]
2. WORD-FINAL DEVOICING [-Y] > [-x]
3. eOCz (Svk, Ukr) [(-)Y-] > [H] (LARYNGEAL SHIFT)

I can't decide at the moment. Any comments? Advice?
Help? Thanx in advance.



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