PERIODO Vil LA MATRIX INFERNAL
UNA BASE NETAMENTE CIENTÍFICA Parte Norte del Estado área Apizolaya.
1.4.3.1. The Uralic velar spirant *γ
The velar spirant *γ has a complicated research history. While this phoneme was reconstructed for Proto-Uralic in the UEW too, it was later connected to a laryngeal phoneme that was behind the long vowels of Proto-Finnic according to Janhunen (1981). Janhunen and Sammallahti (1988) denoted this laryngeal as *x. In Sammallahti’s Proto- Ugric reconstruction the reflex of this spirant was denoted as *g, although no reasons were given for this. As Aikio (2012a) has shown that this *x has little to do with the development of the Finnic long vowels, it is more logical to mark the spriant by *γ in the more traditional way. This is the practice most widely used (Aikio 2015b; Zhivlov 2014), and I will follow it in this work.
1.4.3.2. The reconstruction and development of the PU affricates and sibilants
This issue is crucial for the stratigraphy and dating of the loanwords. Although the later Iranian layers can, in principle, also be distinguished on the basis of the vocalism, the differences between the Proto-Indo-Iranian, Proto-Iranian and earliest post-Proto-Iranian stages are so little that the development of Indo-Iranian affricates and their substitutions
in Uralic are often the best way to distinguish the Proto-Indo-Iranian loans from the later ones.
1.4.3.3. PU *ć and *ś
The two PU phonemes *ć and *ś are reconstructed by the UEW and many sources, but Zhivlov (2014) has recently noted that these two sounds might represent only one phoneme. Zhivlov bases his assumption on Sammallahti (1988), who reconstructs only *ś because the etymologies with *ć have no cognates in Samoyedic. Zhivlov argues that typologically *ć would be more suitable than *ś.
In the assumed Proto-Indo-Iranian loanword layer, both the traditionally assumed *ś and *ć appear as the substitute for PII *ć (from PIE *ḱ; see below for the reconstruction of the PII affricates). These instances are mostly cases where there are no minimal pairs between the traditional *ś and *ć. The reason for PII *ć being substituted by PU *ś can be the following: 1) *ś was in reality an affricate *ć; 2) there is no affricate *ć in PU, so *ś, a palatal sibilant, is the “nearest” sound to PII *ć; 3) in certain positions (such as word- initial) there is no opposition between PU *ś and *ć, and this explains the high number of substitutions by *ś; PII *ć is not an affricate but a sibilant (unlikely, see below).
The development of *ć and *ś in Ugric and Samoyed is a further complicated issue. It is usually assumed that *ś becomes *s in all the Ugric languages as well as in Proto-Samoyed. This is a chain-like development, with *s and *š developing into Mansi, Samoyed t, Khanty
l and Hungarian Ø, probably through an intermediary stage of *θ. The reflexes of
(traditional) *ć are in Ugric, as in most languages, usually identical to those of *ś, although a limited number of counter-examples can be shown, at least in Hungarian, where *ć > cs [č] in *śolmi > csomó ‘knot’. Also some consonant clusters show apparent counter- examples, as Hungarian s [š] possibly reflects *ćk or *śk in some cases, such as mos ‘to wash’ < PU *mośki-.
A number of apparent exceptions to the Ugric sound change can be found in all branches. Regarding Mansi, the few exceptions are probably based on false reconstructions only (Ms säj ‘Eiter’ < PU *säji is an irregular Uralic etymology; for Ugric *säptä ‘seven’, see the entry *säptä) and it can be argued that the change *s > *t was complete in this branch. In Proto-Mansi the phoneme *s seems to have split into *s and *š under unknown conditions. Honti (1999: 125–130) reconstructs this development already for Proto- Ob-Ugric, but because Khanty does not provide any kind of evidence for this assumption, it is probable that the development *s > *š is a late development in Mansi (as argued also by Vértes 2003: 275, 278).
In Khanty, it seems clear that the sibilant-assimilation *s–ś > *ś–ś (PU *sükśi ‘autumn’ > Pre-Kh *śükśi > PKh *söγəs) took place before the Ugric shift *s > *θ, which heavily points to the conclusion that the latter has to be an areal change. In Hungarian, the reflex of PU *pesä ‘nest’ (> Hu fészek) is a well-known example of irregular development, but it might mean that in Hungarian *s was retained in word-internal position.
For Samoyed, the situation seems to be more or less the same as with Mansi, with *s > t being a regular change. Because *ś develops to *k in Mator, Mikola (2004: 27–36) has attempted to establish a separate proto-phoneme *č̒, which would produce Mansi š and
Samoyed k, but this idea is based only on a very few (irregular) etymologies,3 and this idea
should be rejected.
Many loanwords in Ugric and some in Samoyed were clearly acquired before this change took place, as they show similar reflexes as inherited words. Some loans may have been acquired while the change took place, which has led to anomalous correspondences between the Ugric forms (see *aćtVrV, *säptä).
If the sibilant changes in Ugric and Samoyed are late, areal innovations, then these changes have less relevance for the dating of the loanwords. If Proto-Uralic split up into two dialects, as J. Häkkinen (2009) assumed, a loan in Mansi which predates the change *s > *t must have originally had a cognate in Samoyed too. If the change spread areally, the loans that show the change *s > *θ, *ś > *s in Khanty, Mansi, Hungarian and Samoyed can have been acquired independently by these branches.
1.4.3.4. Reflexes of PU *č and *š
Contrary to earlier views that were still followed by Koivulehto in his studies of Iranian loanwords, Aikio (2015b: 44) has shown that Finnic h cannot reflect Proto-Uralic *č (cf. also Sammallahti 1999: 76; Saarikivi 2007: 340–344). This means that the reconstructions of many Proto-Uralic or West Uralic words in which Koivulehto reconstructed *č are reconstructed with *š here, if Finnic shows h.
For the development of *š in the Ugric languages, see above.