Slavic Liquid Metathesis and Pleophony - Law of Open Syllables

During the Common Slavic period, a tendency known as the law of open syllables created the series of changes that completely eliminated closed syllables. This was evident in OCS, which had no closed syllables at all. Some of these changes include the monophthongization of diphthongs, loss of word-final consonants (e.g. 3rd person singular aorist OCS reče < *reket, OCS N sg of o-stems -ъ < *-us etc.), simplification of some medial consonant clusters (e.g. OCS tonǫti < *topnǫti etc.) and the formation of the nasal vowels *ǫ and *ę from *am/*an and *em/*en respectively.

Another change involved liquid consonants (R) *l or *r in closed-syllable *eRC and *aRC clusters, which were eliminated. The application of the law of open syllables for such clusters differed amongst the already differentiated Slavic dialects, but characteristically manifested in a number of dialects as the metathesis of liquid consonants, and is therefore called the liquid metathesis.

Read more about this topic:  Slavic Liquid Metathesis And Pleophony

Famous quotes containing the words law of, law, open and/or syllables:

    To expect to increase prices and then to maintain them at a higher level by means of a plan which must of necessity increase production while decreasing consumption is to fly in the face of an economic law as well established as any law of nature.
    Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)

    They are free, but not entirely free. For Law is despot over them, and they fear him much more than your men fear you.
    Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)

    A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue. Then he is instructed in what is set above him. He learns that his being is without bound; that to the good, to the perfect, he is born, low as he now lies in evil and weakness.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    This is the poem of the air,
    Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
    This is the secret of despair,
    Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
    Now whispered and revealed
    To wood and field.
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)