Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 109. kötet (2013)
Tanulmányok - Simoncsics, Péter: Linguistic gestures: On negation, with special reference to the Permian languages 151
160 SlMONCSICS, PÉTER Udmurt is in the geographic centre and seems to have been also the centre of the innovation where *e- changed to o-. Phonologically a change from a Proto- Finno-Ugric *e- stem to a Pre-Proto-Permian o- stem seems natural, if we imagine the economy of the process so that the force which produces it step by step is measured by the least possible amount of effort required: (step 1) the back of tongue moves forward horizontally creating a larger space in the back of the buccal cavity resulting ё- (front > back change), and (step 2) a concomitant movement of the lips, whereby an illabial vowel (é'-) changes to a labial one (o-). This phase, which I would call supralinguistic, is dominated by a gestural move, a facial grimace, i.e. lip-rounding expressing negative feelings (surprise, distantiation, rejection, abhorrence etc.) concomitant with denial or negation in general. Once this gesture of lip-rounding became integrated into the system of negation, in other words, once it was „petrified”, it became available for participation in intra-linguistic processes. To demonstrate the overall tendency of о to change to и we may consider such pairs as Komi on (dialectally also un) and Udmurt am ’dream’, Komi olem and Udmurt и lem ’life’, Komi gérd ’red’ and Udmurt gord ’id.’, Komi ker ’log, beam’ and Udmurt kor ’id.’ where о seems to be the archaic original. The ethnonym ud-murt itself throws light on a similar development: the Mari ethnonym odo-mari ’Udmurt’ contains the original labial mid vowel. (Hajdú 1981: 44). Note, in this connection, the widespread and translinguistic use of the labial vowel о to express surprise, recoil, being taken aback: Komi ok ok o! k'is-ké táj i te taccé voém'id?! ’Oh, oh, oh! From where have you come here?!’ Rédei (1978: 100). As for Mordvinian as a representative of the o-zone consider on ’dream’, od ’new, young’, nolams ’to lick’, with etymological correspondences in Permian also. Thus a further development can be seen in Udmurt where Proto-Permian-Volgaic o- has changed to u- by another natural process (step 3) where the tongue moves vertically from low position to high. According to a well-established tenet of language geography centres are prone to be innovative, while peripheries are usually conservative. Applying this to the languages in question Komi and Mari belong to the periphery by having retained o- as the result of steps 1 and 2, while Udmurt seems to be the centre, having developed it further to u- (step 3). Seen from a Permian angle the most conservative languages are those where the original Uralic negative stem remained illabial, *e- or i.e. Mordvinian, Balto-Finnic, Hungarian, Samoyedic and partly even Ob-Ugrian, which form the outer circles of the periphery. The change from e- to o-, continuing to u- in Permian and Mari, on the other hand, is not just a historical, but also a synchronic, a living and productive process, as attested by Steinitz. At first glance, it may seem that negative o-stem is also found in the imperative. In fact, ostensible imperatives like Komi med oz set ’let him/her not give; may (s)he not give’, med oz setn'i ’let them not give; may they not give’ and ogé
