1

I don't speak any Slavonic languages and am merely seeking a fuller understanding of what R.G.A. De Bray has to say in his book ' Guide to the Slavonic Languages ' . For one thing , on page 369 , he mentions ' The palatal consonants of Czech and Slovak : ť , ď , ň , ř ( Czech only ) ... but on page 442 he tells us about ' the palatalized ď , ť , ň , ř , and j ... ' My question , please , is simply : why does he call the SAME individual four consonants ď , ť , ň , ř ' palatal ' on the first of those two pages but ' palatalized ' on the second page ? Assuming these two terms are not synonymous , it puzzles me that he applies two somewhat similar but nonetheless DIFFERENT terms to the very SAME individual consonants . There ought to be a rational explanation .

1 Answer 1

1

I suppose "palatal" is a misnomer. In Slavic languages themselves, they are termed, literally, "soft consonants" (Czech: měkké souhlásky, Slovak: mäkké spoluhlásky). While palatalisation is sometimes called "softening", one doesn't customarily speak of "softened" consonants, but of soft/hard "pairs" or "counterparts". This Slavic choice of adjective referring, as it were, to being and not becoming, may have influenced the author's not-quite-correct choice of "palatal" instead of "palatalised".

Also, I don't think it's correct to call j palatalised, when it obviously has no non-palatalised counterpart. Also, if those quotes are complete, they fail to mention the Slovak-only ľ. So I'd put this down to simple carelessness.

7
  • Thank you . It looks like I shall just have to accept that where De Bray says ' palatal ' he ought to have said ' palatalized ' instead . For the record I should point out that where he cites j in my quote he does so after the word ' and ' , and so it's conceivable that he didn't mean to apply the term ' palatalized ' to j : he may perhaps simply have tagged j on to the list because his topic is actually the changing of certain vowels after the palatalized consonants and such changes occur also after j . Mar 11, 2018 at 16:56
  • Czech and Slovak put aside, since you spoke about the Slavic languages in general I should note, that Ukrainian has both palatal (Ukr. м'які, Ru. мягкие) and palatalized (Ukr. пом'якшені, Ru. смягчённые) consonants. It means in Ukrainian some consonant phonemes (like /n/, /t/, /l/, /s/, etc.) have palatal counterparts (/nʲ/, /tʲ/, /lʲ/, /sʲ/, etc.), while other consonant phonemes (like /m/, /p/, /b/, /f/, etc.) don't, still they have palatalized allophones before the front vowel /i/: [mʲ], [pʲ], [bʲ], [fʲ].
    – Yellow Sky
    Mar 11, 2018 at 22:18
  • So in Ukrainian the description ' palatalized consonant ' may be correctly applied to the consonant phonemes that have palatal counterparts while the description ' palatal consonant ' may equally correctly be applied to those consonant phonemes that do NOT have palatal counterparts . I take it that you're saying that the description ' palatal consonant ' ought not be applied to ANY consonant in ANY of the other ten Slavonic languages recognized in De Bray's chapter headings : Russian , Byelorussian , Bulgarian , Macedonian , Serbocroatian , Slovenian , Czech , Slovak , Polish , and Lusatian . Mar 11, 2018 at 23:34
  • @YellowSky They can be called změkčené/zmäkčené too, but the thing is, in at least three of the four languages mentioned so far (can't speak for Ukrainian), it's not a common way to talk about them. One does not immediately think of them as "-ized" as opposed to just "being this way". And that might explain De Bray's choice of terminology. Mar 12, 2018 at 0:18
  • 1
    As a native Czech speaker (but non-linguist), I can say I see terms soft/hard (literal translation of měkké/tvrdé) almost exclusively. I've probably once heard of palatization in this meaning, before reading this question. When speaking about soft consonants, there are more than those listed as palatized: ž [ʒ], š [ʃ], č [t͡ʃ], ř [r̝]/[r̝̊], ď [ɟ], ť [c], ň [ɲ]. They correspond to letters with caron (háček), except ě.
    – v6ak
    Mar 13, 2018 at 17:41

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.