Re: Finnic substrate in Slavic?!

> > I've seen Torsten mention this a few times. I've also never seen
> > anyone else even suggest this…
> >
> > From the "dive" topic:
> >
> > > 1. For "have", Slavic has a prepositional phrase with a locality
> > > preposition, Finnic has a local case (neither has dative as in
> > > Latin)
> > > 2. For the object of negative statements Slavic uses genitive,
> > > Finnic partitive.
> > > 3. Slavic m.n. genitive is derived from the old PIE ablative
> > > which ended in -t, the Finnic partitive suffix is *-ta (IIRC)
> > >
> > > And I'm talking all of Slavic.
> >
> > I don't see how that suggests a substrate.
>
> For the purpose of explaining such striking correspondences between
> languages A and B,

The thing is they don't seem very striking to me. Preliminarily I'm not ruling out pure chance, or milder contact influence.

At least 2 & 3 should rather be one entry, not two: "uses a case derived for an ablativ for the object of negativ statements". As the case in question is otherwise different.

Unfortunately WALS does not have anything on these particular topics, so that leaves me in the blind on how cross-linguistically typical or atypical arrangements these are.

> For the purpose of explaining such striking correspondences between
> languages A and B, it is common to posit a substrate, either as
> 1. some language related to A was a substrate of B, or
> 2. some language related to B was a substrate of A, or
> 3. some language unrelated to either was a substrate to both.

What leads you to choose a Finnic substrate in Slavic over a Balto-Slavic substrate in Finnic? Now this contrary view I HAVE seen previously suggested in literature (and it has some support from the considerable amount of Baltic loanwords in Finnic, a situation which has no parallel for Slavic).

> > Also the phonetical similarity (cognancy?) of these case-markers
> > exists between IE and Uralic as a whole, not just Finnic and
> > Slavic.
>
> IIRC, the -d/-t ablative suffix is documented only in Italic and
> Indo-Iranian.

I do not presume you're suggesting an Uralic substrate in those (+ Celtic?) however. This parallel at least is either chance or of older origin.

> > Also, what does Baltic do here?
>
> The once bipartite Balto-Slavic is now considered tripartite West Baltic - East Baltic - Slavic.

I'm aware, but it's still a convenient shorthand for "non-Slavic Balto-Slavic" (tho perhaps it would be less misleading if "Baltic" was restricted to refer to East Baltic, and West Baltic renamed something else.)

> East Baltic and Slavic have a m.n. gen. -a from the partitive, West Baltic doesn't.

And would this be a case of retention or common innovation in EB and S?

I figure an Uralic substrate in Balto-Slavic in general would be less problematic than a Finnic substrate in Slavic only (as, well, Slavic used to be separated from Uralic by Baltic).

And again, a BS substrate in Finnic even less so.

> BTW, how widespread within Uralic are the features I mentioned?
>
> Torsten

The partitiv case is a Finnic innovation. I'm not sure about 1 & 2, but IIRC no westerly Uralic language has a dativ case at all.

John Vertical