Velar palatalisation in Common Slavic: evidence from the Kryvorivnja dialect of Ukrainian

Abstract

Abstract This article revisits a mechanism of the first two primary palatalisations of velar stops before unrounded front vowels and in the clusters *ki̯ and *gi̯ in Common Slavic. I ground the discussion in the analysis of the new acoustic data from Kryvorivnja (Southeast Hutsul) Ukrainian that I collected during my 2019–2022 fieldwork in the Carpathian Mountains. Similar to Common Slavic, the Kryvorivnja dialect lacks a phonological contrast between /k/ and /k j / and highly ranks one and the same phonological constraint, namely, the tendency towards intrasyllabic harmony Constraint, which is responsible for, e.g., velar palatalisation in Common Slavic. I show how this constraint changed from a constraint on surface forms in Common Slavic to a constraint on underlying forms in the Kryvorivnja dialect. I argue that the intermediate stages for the primary velar stop palatalisation were ambiguous [k j ∼t j ] and [g j ∼d j ], consequently targeted by spirantisation, and that, having become allophones of /t/ and /d/, they imposed the later primary palatalisation of the Proto-Ukrainian *ti̯, *di̯ sequences. In turn, the surfacing of /t j / → [k j ∼t j ] 2 and /d j / → [g j ∼d j ] 2 in the Kryvorivnja dialect illustrates the case of hyper-correction based on [k j ∼t j ] 1 attributed to the fourth palatalisation of velars.