Proto-Finnic declension

Proto-Finnic declension

In reply to your comments at Wikipedia:

  1. Yes, *s : *h is not attested in radical gradation at all. It only applies as suffixal gradation, i.e. regardless of syllable closure (hence essive forms such as *hambas : *hambahe-na > Fi. hampaana). I believe this had at the PF level already been analogically extended to trisyllabic forms like *kuniŋgas. OTOH *mees-nä > miessä has been attested for "man", so this root seems to have remained non-gradating for some time.
  2. Chronologically *-t- has been proposed to be more original, but per Lauri Hakulinen in Suomen kielen rakenne ja kehitys, also *-tt- must've existed in Proto-Finnic already. He mentions a derivation based on forms where *-tt- is segmentable, with the 1st *-t- being from the stem.
    (The causatives with *-tt- are not related — these are either from PU *-pta, or from stacking two instances of PU *-ta, as in Fi. mätä ('rotten') → mädätä ('to rot', itr.) → mädättää ('to rot', tr.))
  3. An interesting idea. Hakulinen reports some similar effects from the plural genitives of *k-stems, such as *estek-ten > estetten (modern Fi has *estek-i-ten > esteiden, and the analogical esteitten). This is well into OR territory though, and it's a problem that stem-medial *-kt- > *-tt- in South Estonian does gradate (*vakto-n > vatu, vs. Fi. vaahdon).
    (I think this would even fit well into an article I am working on. It's not likely to come out in a few years, but I'll take a mental note to credit you if this turns out to not have been noticed before!)
  4. It's possible that we might need to still reconstruct *-sna for (Middle) Proto-Finnic, yes — especially since the variant *-hna is also attested from the Southern Ostrobothnian dialect of Finnish (alongside *-ssa there). I'd want to see some sources for this though, since I don't know what South Estonian does for the potentials and essives of *s-stems (as in Fi. pestä : *pes-ne-(pi) > pessee; *tois-na > toissa). It's possible that rather than a cluster simplification, this involved the influence of the gradation *s : *h, perhaps via a contamination with the illative (*-zen, *-sna > *-zen, *-zna > *-hen, *-hna).
  5. The conditional is a relatively complicated issue, as one needs to account for the Samic languages having the supposedly innovative form with *-ńćə- (and not *-k-ńćə-). I don't think though that an imperfect conditional has been attested anywhere in Finnic.
    — OTOH yes, Hakulinen reports that 1PP -meˣ and 2PP -eˣ (and even -maˣ and -aˣ with an open vowel!) in the imperfect and conditional are attested from Finnish dialects.

Other comments that come to my mind:

  • The present passive originally ended in *-k-sen (according to Hakulinen, per Estonian, Votic and Veps), with *-(t)ta-hen in Finnish being a later innovation formed after the imperfect and the participles.
  • Marking half-long consonants with an apostrophe seems confusing. I suggest either sticking with traditional t̆t or IPA /tˑ/.
  • You'll probably need to add consonant-stem partitives for words like *hooneh 'room' (> *hoonehta). The Finnish forms like huonetta are remodelled after the *-k-stems, as are many other parts of the *-h-stems' inflection.
  • If we're working with Middle Proto-Finnic, the abessive ought to still be *-ktA.

Cheers!

Tropylium (talk)23:44, 21 August 2014

If *s : *h gradation is suffixal rather than radical, then that means the rule is that it weakens at the beginning of every non-initial odd-numbered syllable, right? But then, as you say, it was analogically extended to trisyllabic forms, and it apparently was extended to *mees as well. On the other hand, when I applied the older radical gradation rule for *s, out rolled the illatives *kuninkasehen and *kuninkasihen, which explain -s- of the Finnish forms kuninkaaseen and kuninkaisiin very well indeed. So in this case, the *-s- cannot have been gradated and must have remained. If that's true, then it begs the question why *s was analogically gradated to *h in all the other cases but not in this one. I really wonder what rules, if any, applied to *s : *h gradation in Proto-Finnic times.

I've now added alternative forms of the passives with both *t and *tt in the ending, and applied syncope to the former one as usual. But the present passive connegative is a bit tricky. If the regular present passive was *-ksen, then the expected equivalent form of the connegative would be *-ktAk. Is this right?

As for gradation of tt < *kt in South Estonian, that could very easily be analogical. After all, *ht : *hd in Finnish is analogical as well, isn't it? I don't think you can put too much weight on that.

I don't know a lot about the inflections of other Finnic languages than Finnish and Estonian. I know that Finnish has a potential, but I thought it was a typically northern feature, so is it attested in South Estonian at all? Also, was contraction of *-sen- > *-sn- > *-ss- regular in the inessive? Given that it was regular in the potential, I assume so.

When I created the conditional forms, I assumed that the sibilant in the mood marker was *c and that it may have formed through assibilation. But I did that because otherwise, with the radical gradation of *s, it would end up as *h more often than not. If *s was not subject to radical gradation after all, then *s could of course be the real phoneme here, rather than *c. But Sami has what seems to be a precursor to *c, so is *c right after all?

I've now adjusted the non-present 1pl and 2pl ending to have a single consonant instead of a geminate. But of course, the single *t in the 2pl would have triggered syncope of a preceding *e. This would include at least the optative *-tedek > *-t'ek, and the potential *-nedek > *-ndek. But of course if the *-n- of the potential marker also contracts with the preceding consonant in some cases, so what would happen in this case? *-lndek, *-nndek, *-sndek don't seem like allowable combinations, so they must have either simplified, or contraction of one syllable must have blocked the other from doing the same. What do you think is most likely here?

How regular was contraction of *-het- (< *-šet-) and *-ket-? In Finnish it rarely appears at all, only clearly affecting tehdä and nähdä. Is it safe to assume that contraction of at least *-het- > *-ht- was regular?

CodeCat00:31, 22 August 2014

The illatives of *s-stems are actually from forms like †kuninkaasen < *kuninkahe-sen with the stem in the weak grade as expected, and hence the ending in the strong grade. The long-vocalic endings -seen, -siin are by analogy to diminutives like punaiseen < *punaise-hen.

The sibilant in the conditionals has certainly been *-c-, yes. The mood marker ,has been explained to have developed from the continuative verbal suffix *-ice-, as in ilo 'joy' : iloitse- 'to revel'.

On syncope:

  • I'm not sure what you mean by "contraction in the inessive". We have no evidence of any former vowel between *s and *n in the ending.
  • Loss of two subsequent vowels is not attested anywhere, no. I guess the analogy of the other personal endings would have kept the 2PS potentials from contracting.
  • IIUC there is no original *-te- element in the optatives: the long vowels are shaped after the relatively frequently used 3PS forms. Hence *-gotek, etc.
  • I think *-ht- < *-šet- is pretty much regular, yes. Though of course this is not found in the inflection of words like hanhi or karhi where another consonant precedes. CCC contracted forms like *kante-ta- > *kantta- > *katta- 'to cover' were fossilized already by Proto-Finnic.
  • Syncope before *k is exceptional and indeed does not seem to have occurred anywhere else than in nähdä, tehdä and their passives nähnyt, tehnyt. I wonder if the fact that all other -ke-stem words are back-vocalic (e.g. lukea, pukea) or nominals (e.g. mäki, väki) has something to do with this. It may also be relevant that these verbs have an exceptional inflection in Livonian, based largely on the monosyllabic stems nǟ-, tīe- (which look like as if they were from *näxə-, *texə- and not *näkə-, *tekə-).
Tropylium (talk)01:02, 23 August 2014

Thank you for your answers. I meant essive not inessive, sorry about that.

For *s : *h gradation, should I apply the following rules?

  • If the stem ends in -Vse- and the nominative ends in -s, then it always weakens when a vowel follows it. The following illative -s- will appear in the strong grade.
  • In all other cases, the illative -s- weakens to -h-.

Would these rules give the correct inflections, or are there other considerations? What about verbs with -Vse- stems?

CodeCat01:29, 23 August 2014