Voicing of obstruents in Old Polish: An analysis of compensatory lengthening

Ewa Wojciechowska

doi:10.18290/rh.2015.63.11-8

Ewa Wojciechowska The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Humanities

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh.2015.63.11-8

Keywords: voicing; elements; Compensatory Lengthening; CVCV phonology; Licensing; phonological representation; vowel length

Abstract

In this paper it is suggested that in the ancestral stages of the system, Polish obstruents were characterized by the presence of an H element responsible for voicelessness instead of an L element, interpreted phonetically as full voicing, postulated for Present-day Polish and other Slavic systems. This claim is made on the basis of a CVCV analysis of Compensatory Lengthening—a process which affected the majority of the Slavic world in the period when particular Slavic languages were evolving from Common Slavic.

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