Correlation of Phonetic and Morphological Systems of Indo-European Languages

Abstract

The article is dedicated to a quantitative (correlational and factor) typology of 31 language features (13 phonetic and 31 grammatical) as represented in 38 Indo-European languages and a corresponding differentiation between Slavic, Germanic, Romanic, Indic and Iranian language groups. The language features are grouped into 3 clusters: two contraposed “polar” clusters and an intermediate “medial” cluster. At the basis of the opposition between the two polar clusters 1 and 2 lies and a delimitation of “vocal” and “consonantal” language types, vowels constituting more than 30% of the phonetic system in the first case, in distinction to the second. The diagnostic features of Germanic and Romance languages pertain mainly to cluster 1, those of Slavic languages - to cluster 2. A further differentiation between Germanic and Romance languages is determined by the relevant role of the article, perfect, future-in-the past, diphthongs and long vowels in the first language group and the gerund, continuous tenses, nasalized vowels in the second. Indic languages are positively correlated with the Slavic group on the morphological level and with Germanic languages on the phonetic, Iranian languages correlate with the Slavic group on the phonetic level and are opposed to all the other language groups in their positive correlations with the morphological invariability of the noun, adjective, pronoun and verb. A general conclusion of the investigation is an ascertainment of a high degree of independence of the phonetic and grammatical systems of the languages concerned.