{

"paper_id": "10.15388/baltistica.5.1.1721",

"source_pages": 3,

"license_notice": "Translated from Russian. Original: Jiří Marvan, “К вопросу о лингво-географическом положении балто-славянских языков”, Baltistica, 1969, vol. 5 no. 1, pp. 17–19, https://doi.org/10.15388/baltistica.5.1.1721. Published by Vilnius University Press; license CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) as deposited with Crossref by the publisher. Changes: translated into English.",

"title_en": "On the question of the linguo-geographical position of the Balto-Slavic languages",

"title_ru": "К вопросу о лингво-географическом положении балто-славянских языков",

"authors": [

"Jiří Marvan"

],

"abstract_en": "A discussion contribution responding to Falkenhahn's paper on the linguo-geographical position of the Balto-Slavic languages. The author argues that internal, systemic criteria must keep priority (illustrated by the Proto-Slavic law of the open syllable), but that external, adstratal criteria become indispensable for explaining why systemic changes arise. The main example is the Baltic relative mood (modus relativus), which grows out of a Balto-Slavic participial construction and finds a parallel in the Estonian oblique mood; further Balto-Finnic correspondences in local cases, gender loss, the reflexive pronoun, accusative/genitive versus accusative/partitive, and in plurale tantum nouns are listed.",

"abstract_source": "generated",

"translator_notes": [

{

"page": 1,

"note": "The Russian abbreviation ЗОС (закон открытого слога) is rendered LOS (law of the open syllable) throughout."

},

{

"page": 1,

"note": "Footnotes are printed at the foot of each page with raised numerals; they are kept on their pages, each marked \\*) with its number. Footnote 1's second title and footnote 5's Marvan title are printed in Russian and are translated, marked (Russian)."

},

{

"page": 2,

"note": "The construction schemes I–III use subscripts (V dic, Part 4, Pron refl); rendered with <sub>. The example table is printed as two columns with Russian glosses in low-high quotation marks; the Lithuanian and Old Church Slavonic forms are cited data and stay as printed; the Russian glosses are translated."

},

{

"page": 3,

"note": "In the plurale tantum table the Slavic column mixes Russian words cited as data (kept in Cyrillic in lang spans) with Russian glosses in quotation marks (translated into English in the last column). Language abbreviations фин., балт., лит., лтш., слав., укр., сх., южлс., поль., швед., нем. are expanded."

},

{

"page": 3,

"note": "The author's dateline “Praha” is kept as printed."

}

],

"produced_with": "Claude Fable 5.1 (Claude Code), reading the scan rendered to 250 dpi PNG with macOS PDFKit; no OCR.",

"body_md": "<!-- source-page: 001 -->\n\nBALTISTICA V (1) 1969\n\nJ. MARVAN\n\n# ON THE QUESTION OF THE LINGUO-GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION OF THE BALTO-SLAVIC LANGUAGES\n\nI should like to draw attention to the questions investigated by Prof. Falkenhahn concerning Balto-Slavic relations within a broader linguistic area¹. These questions, already touched upon by Prof. Kiparsky², are exceptionally important; it suffices only to recall how much wasted effort the disregard of such an area costs.\n\nIf, however, we consider, for example, the Proto-Slavic monophthongization (in the absence of this process in Baltic), we must not forget that we are dealing with a more general \"internal\" law of the open syllable (LOS), which, moreover, operates in other cases indicated by the speaker. Here too belong the change *tj*, *dj* > *č*, *ć*, *c*…, *ž*, *ʒ*, *z*… and the palatalizations of the velars, which are only part of the general process of affrication of all series of plosive obstruents, including the labials (*bj*… > *blʹ*…). It is appropriate to emphasize that the endings in forms of the type Serbo-Croatian <span lang=\"sh\">разумем</span>, Czech *rozumím* and the like are entirely conditioned by systemic development, i.e., by the contraction connected in its turn precisely with the LOS.\n\nThus one cannot but express once more the demand for a proportional investigation of the internal and external factors of development. In doing so one must in no case depart from the principle of the priority of systemic criteria. On the other hand, however, it should be noted that although we have succeeded, thanks to systemic principles, in discovering the LOS, we shall hardly succeed by the same path in uncovering its causes. It is precisely at such a moment that external criteria may prove fruitful.\n\n\\*) ¹ V. Falkenhahn, Die sprachgeographische Lage der balto-slawischen Sprachen, Zeitschrift für Slawistik, XIII (1968), Heft 2, 227–235, and by the same author, The linguo-geographical position of the Baltic-Slavic languages as the cause of their peculiarities (Russian), VI. mezinárodní sjezd slavistů v Praze 1968, resumé přednášek, příspěvků a sdělení, Academia Praha 1968, 120.\n\n\\*) ² V. Kiparsky, Neue Aussichten der Baltisch-slavischen Etymologie, VI. mezinárodní… 85.\n\n<!-- source-page: 002 -->\n\nTo develop this idea, allow me to give one example. Well known is the Balto-Slavic construction (or bundle of constructions)\n\nI. V_dic [N Part]₄ →\nII. V_dic [Pron_refl Part]₄ →\nIII. (V Pron_refl ⇒) V_{dic refl} Part₁,\n\nwhere V_dic… Verbum dicendi, sentiendi, sciendi…; Part₄, Part₁… Participium in accusativo, resp. nominativo; Pron_refl… Pronomen reflexivum,\n\ne.g.,\n\n| | Baltic (Lithuanian) | Slavic (Old Church Slavonic, Old Czech) |\n|---|---|---|\n| I. | *mato tėvą negalintį* \"sees the father, that he cannot\" | *slyšite gospodь glagolǫštь* |\n| II. | *mato save negalintį* \"sees himself, that he cannot\" | … |\n| III. | *matosi negalįs* \"is seen to be unable\" | = *vida sě nemoha* |\n\nThe question arises: why precisely only in the (East) Baltic languages does there arise, on the basis of construction III, the so-called relative mood (modus relativus), for example Lithuanian *jis žinąs*, Latvian *viņš zinot* \"he, they say, knows\", Lithuanian *tėvas ateinąs*, Latvian *tēvs atnākot* \"the father, they say, is coming\". For such an emancipation of the second predication there exist models in the Estonian oblique mood (modus obliquus), cf. *isa tulevat* \"the father, they say, is coming, will come\", where *tulevat* is the partitive form of the present participle. Pisani³ points to such a correspondence. The initial construction for the oblique mood is the phrase *sanoo isän tulevan* = Lithuanian *sako tėvą ateinantį* \"says that the father is coming\", where (if the object partitive is identified with the Lithuanian accusative) a complete correspondence is observed. However, to construction II there corresponds the phrase *sanoo tulevansa*, where there is not a reflexive pronoun but the possessive suffix *-sa* on the participle, which preserves the partitive form. Despite the functional similarity, the Estonian oblique mood differs from the Baltic relative mood in diachronic and synchronic (partitive form of the participle) respects. The systemic conditions prove to be primary, the adstratal ones secondary, modifying. However, no criterion taken by itself, whether genealogical, internal (Endzelin⁴ and others) or adstratal, external (Pisani⁵), proves able to uncover the heart of the matter. I think that the speaker's basic idea of the inevitability of drawing on adstratal phenomena is entirely justified.\n\n\\*) ³ V. Pisani, Zu einer baltisch-estfinnischen Partizipialkonstruktion, Rakstu krājums veltījums… Jānim Endzelīnam, Rīgā, 1959, 215–217.\n\n\\*) ⁴ J. Endzelin, Lettische Grammatik, Riga, 1922, 757 ff.\n\n\\*) ⁵ Op. cit.; cf. also Jiří Marvan, On some predicative functions of the Lithuanian participle (Russian), Kalbotyra, IV, Vilnius, 1962, 33–42, esp. 40.\n\n<!-- source-page: 003 -->\n\nLet us note, however, that the results of this work have not yet penetrated into Baltic studies and Balto-Slavic studies. Thus, for example, neither Otrębski nor Stang in their fundamental works⁶ note such Balto-Finnic correspondences as the presence of a system of local cases (including their agglutinative formation) or the gradual disappearance of gender depending on geographical proximity to the Finnic languages. Also of interest is the question of the reflexive pronoun in the Scandinavian-Finno-Balto-Slavic area, the question of the distribution of accusative/genitive (including the genitive of negation) in the Balto-Slavic languages and of accusative/partitive in the Finnic languages.\n\nIn conclusion let us note a series of Balto-(Slavo-)Finnic correspondences in the domain of number, namely correspondences in the plurale tantum:\n\n| | Finnish | Baltic (Lithuanian, Latvian) | Slavic | |\n|---|---|---|---|---|\n| 1. | *häät* | *vestuvės*, *kāzas* | | \"wedding\" |\n| 2. | *hautajaiset* | *laidotuvės*, *bēres* | <span lang=\"ru\">похороны</span> (but Ukrainian <span lang=\"uk\">похорон</span>, Serbo-Croatian <span lang=\"sh\">погреб</span>, etc.) | |\n| 3. | *länget* | *kamantai*, *sakas* | | \"horse collar\" |\n| 4. | *sakset* | *žirklės*, *šķēres* | <span lang=\"ru\">ножницы</span> | |\n| 5. | *ratas* sg. | *ratas* sg., *rats* | South Slavic <span lang=\"sh\">коло</span> | \"wheel\" |\n| | *rattaat* | *ratai*, *rati* | <span lang=\"sh\">кола</span> | \"cart\" |\n| 6. | *vanhempi* sg. | *vecāks* sg. | | \"older, elder\" |\n| | *vanhemmet* | *vecāki* | | \"parents\" |\n\nLet us note that in Swedish and German all the corresponding words have the singular. Deserving of special attention is the pluralization of borrowings: 3. Polish *chomąt* → Lithuanian *kamantai*, 4. Swedish *(en) sax* → Finnish *sakset*, German *(eine) Schere* → Latvian *šķeres*, which testifies to the non-triviality of such correspondences.\n\nIt proves not superfluous to repeat once more the basic methodological requirement, the methodological axiom: to proceed materially from the system (in the comparative plane, from genealogy), and to reckon with adstratal (substratal) systems as with modelling systems.\n\nPraha\n\n\\*) ⁶ J. Otrębski, Gramatyka języka litewskiego, III, Nauka o formach, Warszawa, 1956, 3–4, 76–81; Chr. S. Stang, Vergleichende Grammatik der Baltischen Sprachen, Oslo–Bergen–Tromsö, 1967, 228–232, 175–176, 179.\n"

}