scholarly journals Phonetic and phonological aspects of Slavic sibilant fricatives

2003 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 175-213
Author(s):  
Marzena Zygis
Keyword(s):  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Perceptual Distance ◽  
Slavic Linguistics ◽  
Perceptual Contrast ◽  
Sibilant Fricatives

In this artiele I reanalyze sibilant inventories of Slavic languages by taking into consideration acoustic. perceptive and phonological evidence. The main goal of this study is to show that perception is an important factor which determines the shape of sibilant inventories. The improvement of perceptual contrast essentially contributes to creating new sibilant inventories by (i) changing the place of articulation of the existing phonemes (ii) merging sibilants that are perceptually very close or (iii) deleting them. It has also been shown that the symbol s traditionally used in Slavic linguistics corresponds to two sounds in the IP A system: it stands for a postalveolar sibilant (ʃ) in some Slavic languages, as e.g. Bulagarian, Czech, Slovak, some Serbian and Croatian dialects, whereas in others like Polish, Russian, Lower Sorbian it functions as a retroflex (ʂ). This discrepancy is motivated by the fact that ʃ is not optimal in terms of maintaining sufficient perceptual contrast to other sibilants such as s and ɕ. If ʃ occurs together with s (and sʲ) there is a considerable perceptual distance between them but if it occurs with ɕ in an inventory, the distance is much smaller. Therefore, the strategy most languages follow is the change from a postalveolar to a retroflex sibilant.  

Slavic constructed languages in the internet age

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-315
Author(s):  
Anna-Maria Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Slavic Language ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Internet Age ◽  
Slavic Linguistics ◽  
User Communities

Slavic constructed languages have been widely neglected by interlinguistics and Slavic linguistics so far; however, the number of projects for a common Slavic language has been growing since the 17th century, beginning with Juraj Križanić’s Ruski jezik (1666) and continuing up to Arnošt Eman Žídek’s Slovan (1940) and beyond. The construction of Slavic languages has recently been experiencing a revival through the spread of the internet since the 1990s. This has manifested itself mainly in three extensively elaborated projects with their own websites and user communities: Slovio (1999), Slovianski (2006) and Novoslovienski (2010). These three projects — one of them schematic, two of them naturalistic — are presented in the historical context of Slavic language construction from the 17th century up to the present and analyzed structurally in terms of their writing systems, their grammars and the composition of their lexicons. Although their chances of implementation in practice in the context of European language policy are currently rather marginal, they should be valued as a unique phenomenon in Slavic cultural history.

Contrast enhancement as motivation for closed syllable laxing and open syllable tensing

Phonology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-340
Author(s):  
Benjamin Storme
Keyword(s):  
Contrast Enhancement ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Perceptual Cues ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Perceptual Contrast

This paper proposes that closed syllable laxing and open syllable tensing of non-low vowels are motivated by conflicting strategies of contrast enhancement in vowel–consonant sequences. Laxing enhances the distinctiveness of consonant contrasts by allowing for more distinct VC formant transitions, in particular in sequences involving a non-low vowel followed by an oral labial/coronal/velar consonant (e.g. [p t k]). Tensing enhances the distinctiveness of vowel contrasts by providing more distinct formant realisations for vowels. Linguistic variation results from different ways of resolving the tension between maximising vowel dispersion and maximising consonant dispersion. Laxing typically applies before coda consonants as a way to compensate for the absence of good perceptual cues to place of articulation. The hypothesis that laxing enhances the distinctiveness of postvocalic place contrasts is supported by a study of mid-vowel laxing in French, which corroborates the general claim that perceptual contrast plays a role in shaping phonotactic restrictions.

scholarly journals Zbornik Studies in Formal Slavic Linguistics – prispevki formalnih opisov slovanskih jezikov (Nova Gorica 2006)

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreja Žele
Keyword(s):  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Slavic Linguistics

Zbornik Studies in Formal Slavic Linguistics (v nadaljevanju FDSL-zbornik) obsega devetnajst angleško napisanih prispevkov in je še pisna predstavitev znanstvene konference Formalni opisi slovanskih jezikov oz. Formal Descriptions of Slavic Languages, ki je od 1. do 3. decembra 2006 potekala na Univerzi v Novi Gorici. Od enaintridesetih predstavljenih prispevkov jih je tu objavljenih devetnajst.

scholarly journals The role of prefixes in the formation of aspectuality

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Verbal Aspect ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Slavic Linguistics

One of the most widely debated topics in Slavic linguistics has always been verbal aspect, which takes different forms because of the various grammaticalization paths which led to its emergence. In the formation of the category of aspect in Slavic languages, a key role was played by the morphological mechanism of prefixation (a.k.a. preverbation), whereby the prefixes (which originally performed the function of markers of adverbial meanings) came to act as markers of boundedness. This volume contains thirteen articles on the mechanism of prefixation, written by leading international scholars in the field of verbal aspect. Ancient and modern Slavic varieties, as well as non-Slavic and even non-Indo-European languages, are represented, making the volume an original and significant contribution to Slavic as well as typological linguistics.

scholarly journals (Non)retroflexivity of Slavic affricates and its motivation: evidence from Polish and Czech

2005 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 69-115
Author(s):  
Marzena Żygis
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Results ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Perceptual Distance ◽  
The Common

The goal of this paper is two-fold. First, it revises the common assumption that the affricate <č> denotes /t͡ʃ/ for all Slavic languages. On the basis of experimental results it is shown that Slavic <č> stands for two sounds: /t͡ʃ/ as e.g. in Czech and /ʈʂ/ as in Polish. The second goal of the paper is to show that this difference is not accidental but it is motivated by perceptual relations among sibilants. In Polish, /t͡ʃ/ changed to /ʈʂ/ thus lowering its sibilant tonality and creating a better perceptual distance to /tɕ/, whereas in Czech /t͡ʃ/ did not turn to /ʈʂ/, as the former displayed sufficient perceptual distance to the only affricate present in the inventory, namely, the alveolar /t͡s/. Finally, an analysis of Czech and Polish affricate inventories is offered.  

Tense, mood and aspect in the first grammar of Croatian (Kašić 1604)

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zvonko Pandžić
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Semantic View ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Slavic Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Humanistic Tradition

Summary This paper deals with the first Croatian grammar published in 1604 by the Jesuit Bartul Kašić (1575–1650). Within the framework of a multi-level approach of historical hermeneutics, the author investigates both the linguistic and the philosophical presuppositions of this grammar. After having established Kašić’s humanistic sources (Manutius, Giambullari, Linacre, Álvares, Gretser), the paper sketches the historical background of the grammatization process of Slavic languages in general. It then analyses the verbal categories of tense, mood and aspect within this humanistic tradition as well as the immanent semantics of Kašić’s work. The focal point of the paper is Aristotle’s definition of time that Thomas Linacre (1524) had reintroduced into the description of verbs and which was taken over by Kašić through the work of Giambullari (1552). This notion of time, however, served not only to portray verbal tenses in vernacular grammars but also those of Greek and Latin (Apollonius Dyscolus, Diomedes, Augustine, Priscian, etc.). As the author tries to demonstrate, Kašić’s work constitutes the genuine crystallising point of the so-called onto-semantic view of language and grammar. Furthermore, Kašić’s analysis of verbal moods is shown to follow the humanistic tradition and that of the grammatization of Slavic moods. Kašić’s attempt to relate the eminently important category of aspect in Slavic to ‘Aristotelian’ and ‘Varronian’ aspects of Latin grammar may be regarded as pioneering in the history of Slavic linguistics.

scholarly journals Uwagi o ekwiwalencji słów kluczowych w systemie informacyjnym iSybislaw (na przykładzie wybranych terminów gramatycznych)

2014 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 203-218
Author(s):  
Iwona Łuczków
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Retrieval System ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Parallel Corpora ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Slavic Linguistics ◽  
On Line ◽  
System Information ◽  
Academic Information ◽  
Key Terms

Some remarks on the equivalence keywords in the iSybislaw system information (based on selected grammatical terms)The article focuses on one of the issues connected with the development of the information retrieval system iSybislaw. The system contains a biographical database of Slavic linguistics which is available on­line at www.isybislaw.ispan.waw.pl. An important element of the system are key words, and the main aim of the international team of Slavist linguists developing the iSybislaw system in cooperation with the Slavic Academic Information Centre (CSIN) is to create a multilingual dictionary of terms related to various areas of Slavic linguistics, that is to establish terminological equivalents in Slavic languages and in the English language. Establishing multilingual terminological equivalents is essential not only for Slavic theoretical linguistics but also for language corpora which require morphosyntactic marking, especially parallel corpora. The analysis presented here allows for drawing the conclusion that the dictionary of multilingual key terms of Slavic linguistics for the iSybislaw system should be developed (or at least verified) by specialists in individual areas of Slavic linguistics (phonetics, morphology, syntax, word formation, dialectology, ethnolinguistics, etc.). Because of the adopted principle that Polish keywords are used as descriptors in the iSybislaw system, the linguists should compare the Polish system of terms with the terminology used in other Slavic languages. Thanks to such “specialization” we could be quite sure that the person establishing the equivalents knows various descriptive traditions of linguistics, and in the future this would allow us to avoid many of the mistakes connected with the differences in the range of the term or the lack of appropriate equivalent in another language. Uwagi o ekwiwalencji słów kluczowych w systemie informacyjnym iSybislaw (na przykładzie wybranych terminów gramatycznych)W artykule przedstawiono jeden z problemów związanych z budowaniem systemu informacyjno-wyszukiwawczego iSybislaw. System ten prezentuje bibliograficzną bazę danych światowego językoznawstwa slawistycznego, dostępną on-line pod adresem www.isybislaw.ispan.waw.pl. Ważnym elementem tego systemu są słowa kluczowe, a jednym z istotnych celów międzynarodowego zespołu slawistów współpracujących z Centrum Slawistycznej Informacji Naukowej (CSIN) nad rozwijaniem iSybislaw jest stworzenie wielojęzycznego słownika terminów z zakresu różnych dziedzin językoznawstwa słowiańskiego, a więc ustalenie ekwiwalentów terminologicznych w językach słowiańskich i w języku angielskim. Ustalenie wielojęzycznych ekwiwalentów terminologicznych ma znaczenie nie tylko wyłącznie dla slawistycznego językoznawstwa teoretycznego. Istotne jest ono również dla wymagających znakowania morfosyntaktyczngo korpusów językowych, a zwłaszcza dla korpusów paralelnych. Podstawowy wniosek wynikający z przedstawionej analizy sformułować można następująco: tworzeniem słownika słów kluczowych językoznawstwa slawistycznego w różnych językach (a przynajmniej jego weryfikacją) na potrzeby systemu iSybislaw powinni zajmować się specjaliści w zakresie poszczególnych działów językoznawstwa (fonetyki, morfologii, składni, słowotwórstwa, dialektologii, etnolingwistyki i in.). Ze względu na przyjętą ogólną zasadę, że deskryptorami w systemie iSybislaw są słowa kluczowe w języku polskim, najlepiej byłoby, gdyby językoznawcy ci zajmowali się konfrontacją polsko-innosłowiańską. Dopiero taka „specjalizacja” daje większą pewność, że osoba ustalająca odpowiedniki zna różne tradycje opisu, co pozwoli w przyszłości uniknąć większej ilości błędów wynikających z różnego zakresu terminów lub braku odpowiedniego terminu w innym języku.

scholarly journals Wielojęzyczny system informacyjno-wyszukiwawczy językoznawstwa slawistycznego iSybislaw: wyzwania, osiągnięcia i możliwości

2014 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 28-43
Author(s):  
Zofia Rudnik-Karwatowa
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Retrieval System ◽  
Main Tool ◽  
Semantic Organization ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Slavic Linguistics ◽  
Multilingual Information Retrieval ◽  
Efficiency And Effectiveness

Multilingual information retrieval system of Slavic linguistics iSybislaw: challenges, achievements and opportunitiesIn multilingual information retrieval (IR) system iSybislaw we introduce a number of solutions enlarging its efficiency and effectiveness with the main tool, which presents the keyword language. In this paper the applicability and consistency of the accepted approach in the presentation of the content of documents and IR is being discussed. We use natural language (professional language based on linguistic terminology) in the construction of the keyword language and implementation of the tools of semantic organization and access to multilingual informational database. The core task is to make allowance in the retrieval database for relations of equivalence between the keywords in different Slavic languages and in the English language, which will enable the simultaneous search in different languages. Implementation of the natural language enables optimization of the IR language but on the other hand it creates problems connected with synonymy and polysemy of the terms used as keywords. Such problems are being solved with implementation of the classes of equivalent keywords, pairs and more complicated units of monosemantic keywords presenting the terms linked with each other by semantic relations.Burst-type increase of written documents in the field of linguistics requires taking effort in speeding up the processing of the growing number of repre­sentations of these documents into search database. So we decided to call upon the users (the authors of the works considered in the system) to take part in creation of the IR language in the iSybislaw system through tagging. Wielojęzyczny system informacyjno-wyszukiwawczy językoznawstwa slawistycznego iSybislaw: wyzwania, osiągnięcia i możliwościZgodnie z koncepcją użytkownikami wielojęzycznego systemu iSybislaw są przede wszystkim językoznawcy slawiści, w mniejszym zakresie badacze języków niesłowiańskich, historycy, literaturoznawcy. Budowany system informacji bibliograficznej powinien więc zaspokajać potrzeby informacyjne tej grupy specjalistów. W systemie iSybislaw zastosowano szereg rozwiązań umożliwiających zwiększenie jego efektywności i sprawności podstawowego narzędzia informacyjno-wyszukiwawczego, jakim jest język słów kluczowych. W artykule przedstawiona została przydatność i spójność przyjętej metodologii w opisie treści dokumentów i wyszukiwaniu informacji, czyli wykorzystanie języka naturalnego (języka specjalistycznego opartego na terminologii językoznawczej) do budowy języka słów kluczowych, oraz zastosowanie narzędzi semantycznej organizacji i dostępu do wielojęzycznego zasobu informacyjnego. Zadaniem kluczowym jest  uwzględnienie w zbiorze wyszukiwawczym relacji równoważności (ekwiwalencji) między słowami kluczowymi z różnych języków słowiańskich, a także z języka angielskiego, co umożliwi przeszukiwanie jednocześnie w wielu językach. Wykorzystanie języka naturalnego daje możliwości optymalizacji języka informacyjno-wyszukiwawczego, ale z drugiej strony stwarza problemy związane z synonimicznością i wieloznacznością terminów, przetwarzanych w słowa kluczowe. Problemy takie są rozwiązywane poprzez stosowanie klas ekwiwalentnych słów kluczowych oraz par lub więcej jednoznacznych słów kluczowych reprezentujących terminy, połączone ze sobą relacją znaczeniową (pojęć).Lawinowy przyrost piśmiennictwa z dziedziny językoznawstwa wymaga usprawnienia działań przyspieszających proces opracowywania coraz większego zbioru opisów tych dokumentów do zbioru wyszukiwawczego. Dlatego podjęliśmy decyzję włączenia autorów prac uwzględnianych w systemie do współtworzenia języka informacyjno-wyszukiwawczego w systemie iSybislaw poprzez możliwość tagowania.

Typology of Slavic languages

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivetta Manoucharyan
Keyword(s):  
Historical Aspect ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Slavic Linguistics

The book provides with a description of the Slavic world: Slavic countries, Slavic peoples, systems of Slavic writing. A typological description of modern Slavic languages is presented: their lexical, phonetic, grammatical features are considered, including some categories of sentences and text. The study is implemented in a comparative historical aspect, which makes it possible to identify universals and individuals, the logic and dynamics of their appearance and preservation in the linguistic systems of the Slavic world. The book is addressed to bachelors and masters, PhD students of philological faculties, linguists, as well as everyone who is interested in the Slavic world and the problems of Slavic linguistics.

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