Definiteness in Slavic, Baltic, and Germanic

ABSTRACT

This paper offers an exploration of a European linguistic area at the dawn of history and of shifting convergence zones (Sprachbünde) in Europe since prehistoric times. Its main focus is on the development of Adjective-Phrase Definiteness marking in Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic (§1). Traditionally this commonality among the three language groups has been considered a coincidence. But in recent years several comparativists have proclaimed it a result of areal convergence. This is an attractive idea for several reasons (§2), not least because Definiteness is a category that easily spreads through language contact, as the Standard Average European development shows (§3). The paper addresses the question how Adjective-Phrase Definiteness marking might have arisen or been propagated among these three language groups, and several hypothetical contact scenarios are worked out in detail (§§4–5). An excursus highlights the conceptual apparatus applied here and some outstanding issues (§6). The conclusion evaluates the alternative hypothetical scenarios of change (§7).

KEYWORDS:

• Balto-Slavic
• borrowing
• calquing
• definiteness
• functional equivalence
• Germanic
• innovation types
• Iranian
• language contact
• morphological renewal
• morphologization
• propagation
• Standard Average European

Notes

1 Notational conventions, terms, and abbreviations.

Notational conventions. Actually attested forms are written in italics; italics are used also for “normalised” OCS forms. Reconstructed forms and underlying representations are written in normal font, without asterisques or bracketing; consistent labeling makes these unnecessary.

Proto-Slavic is used for the inventory of reconstructed Slavic roots, affixes, and lexemes. Common Slavic refers to chronological stages of prehistoric Slavic, conceived as a community language. The terms Proto and Common are used similarly for other language groups.

Languages: Av. (Avestan), CS (Common Slavic), ChS (Church Slavonic), Da. (Danish). Fr. (French), Gk. (Greek), Gm. (German), Gmc. (Germanic), Go. (Gothic), Lat. (Latin), Li. (Lithuanian), Lv. (Latvian), o. (old, obsolete), O (old), OCS (Old Church Slavonic), OHG (Old High German), OIcel. (Old Icelandic), OPr. (Old Prussian), OR (Old Russian), P (Polish), PIE (Proto Indo-European), R (Russian), Sw. (Swedish).

Grammatical terms: act (active), AdjP (adjective phrase) all (allative), aor (aorist), acc (accusative), def (definite), Definite (Definiteness as category), f (feminine), gen (genitive), idef (indefinite), ins (instrumental), lit. (literally), L_cm (community language), L_ct (contact language), L_r (recipient language), LCS (Late Common Slavic), loc (locative), m (masculine), Mod (modern), NP (noun phrase), nom (nominative), nt (neuter), st. (standard), ptcp (participle), pl (plural), ppp (past passive participle), prosp (prospective), prs (present), prt (preterite), res (resultative), sg (singular), sub (Subordinator).