Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 96. kötet (1998-1999)

Tanulmányok - Dezső László: Typological Comparison of Root Structuring in Uralic and Early Indo-European. [Az uráli és korai indoeurópai tőstruktúrák tipológiai összevetése] 3

26 LÁSZLÓ DEZSŐ and CVR -> CaR where both эК and RÍ? -> R, e.g. IE *t'ey-kfhJ

•' t'dy-kW -> *tikL"J : Lat dictus. In CVC structures, laryngeals, following or preceding the reduced vowel, formed a syllable with it: e.g. IE *t 'oH°- : *t 'эН°—» / 'H-, Lat. do: and datus (Past participle). In the same structures with obstruents, the reduced vowel could not form a vowel with the neighbouring consonants and appears as o: IE *gßJos-tfhJi Lat. hosti-s, sometimes e: *nebl^Jes- (< mbWes), Old-Church-Slavic nebo, nebese. The ablaut system was completed with the long vowels corresponding to normal and reduced ones. Thus, the Indo-European ablaut system could have a major role in grammar. (For details cf. Gamkrelidze - Ivanov 1984: 152-194). The change from prelanguage to Proto-Indo-European was completed by a full-fledged ablaut system of a classical system of vowels: i, u, e, o, a and by melodic accent which had no impact on vowel quality. After having transmitted their palatal or velar-labial quality to the neighbouring vowels the laryngeals became neutral. The transition to late protolanguage is very well presented by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1984: 170-214), and by Lehmann (1993: 117-139). I have focused on an important characteristic of Pre-Indo-European: the impact of consonants on vowel system. In a triangular system with a minimum number of vowels, this could be more important, producing a number of variants from which a fuller system may arise. Proto-Semitic had a typical triangular /', u, a system, but Brockelmann (1908: 14) notes „Unter den sonantischen Vokalen des Semitischen lassen sich für die Zwecke der Grammatik zunächst nur die drei Hauptklangfarben a, i, и mit ihren Längen a:, i:, u: aussondern, deren mannigfache Nuancen im wesentlichen durch die umgebenden Konsonanten bedingt werden." The Indo-European triangular system was not a typical one: the phonetic realization of V was not constant, therefore, the /, w, V did not constitute a proper phonological system and was not stable. I think, it was transitory between two fuller, rather „classical" vowel systems: early Pre-Indo-European and Proto-Indo-European. The impact of consonants on vowels is a common phenomenon and was also characteristic to Uralic according to Collinder (1965: 94): „In all the Uralic languages it has occurred that a vowel has been palatalized, labialized or velarized through the influence of a neighbouring consonant or the vowel of the second syllable." Probably, a similar impact also existed in the proto-language. If the quality of a root vowel under accent cannot be reconstructed, its front or back character can often be established in UEW. There is another, no less general tendency: the impact of vowels on consonants. If the triangular system of Pre-Indo-European was preceded by another with cardinal vowels and without radical reduction of unstressed vowels as hypothesized by Greenberg 1990, then its „classical" vowels could have influenced the consonants which resulted in palatal, neutral, back and rounded vari-