Balto-Slavic Languages - Balto-Slavic Isoglosses

Balto-Slavic Isoglosses

The close relationship of the Baltic and Slavic languages is indicated by a series of exclusive isoglosses representing innovations not shared with any other branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family (especially in their phonology) and by the fact that the relative chronology of these innovations can be established, which is the most important criterion for establishing genetic relationship in historical linguistics. The most important of these isoglosses are:

• Winter's law (lengthening of vowels before Proto-Indo-European (PIE) voiced consonants, probably only in a closed syllable)
• Hirt's law (retraction of PIE accent to the preceding syllable closed by a laryngeal)
• identical reflexes of PIE syllabic sonorants
• rise of the Balto-Slavic acute before PIE laryngeals in a closed syllable
• replacement of PIE genitive singular of thematic nouns -*es(y)o with ablative ending *-ōd or -ād (Slav. vlьka, Lith. vil̃ko, Lett. vìlka); but OPrus has another ending, perhaps stemming from the IE Genitive: deiwas "god's", tawas "father's"
• Inst. Sg. *-ān in ā-stems, in contrast to Old Indian -ayā, archaic Vedic -ā; Lith. rankà is ambiguous, but the correspondence with East Lith. runku, Lett. rùoku point to Balt. *-ān; Lith. adjective mažąja (the form of adjective 'big'); OCS rǫkojǫ; OCS form rǫkǫ is perhaps archaic (van Wijk, Geschichte der altkirschenslavischen Sprache, §45 gives philological reasoning that it is rather an innovation).
• ending for instrumental plural of *-miHs; e.g. Lith. sūnumìs, OCS synъmi "with sons" (the respective OInd. ending is -bhis, as in pad-bhis; OInd. -bh- corresponds to Balto-Slavic and German -m- in Dat., Abl. and Instr. Pl.; thus, this feature is not very significant)
• formation of past tense with the ending *-ē (a type of Lithuanian preterite dãvė 'he gave', OCS imperfect bě 'he was')
• generalization of the PIE neuter *to- stem to the nominative singular of masculine and feminine demonstratives instead of PIE *so-, i.e. PIE demonstrative *só, *séh₂, *tód ("this, that") became PBSl. *tos, *ta, *tod (this generalization is rather natural so the feature is not very significant)
• formation of so-called definite adjectives with a construction that includes adjective and a relative pronoun, e.g. Lith. geràsis 'the good' as opposed to gẽras 'good', OCS dobrъjь 'the good' as opposed to dobrъ 'good'
• usage of genitive to state the object of a negated verb, e.g. Russ. knigi (ja) ne čital, Lith. knygos neskaičiau 'Book, haven't read'.

Common Balto-Slavic innovations include several other prominent, but non-exclusive, isoglosses, such as the Satemization, Ruki, change of PIE */o/ to PBSl. */a/ (shared with Germanic, Indo-Iranian and Anatolian branch) and the loss of labialization in PIE labiovelars (shared with Indo-Iranian, Armenian and Tocharian). A number of these, however, fit only in the relative chronology of other otherwise exclusive Balto-Slavic isoglosses, which makes them specific Balto-Slavic innovation.

Baltic and Slavic languages also show some correspondence in vocabulary; about 100 words are shared by Baltic and Slavic languages, either being a common innovation (i.e. not of PIE origin) or sharing the same semantic development from PIE root. For example:

• PBSl. *lḗjpā 'tilia' > Lith. líepa, Old Pr. līpa, Latv. liẽpa, Latg. līpa; PSl. *léjpā > Common Slavic *lipa (OCS lipa, Russ. lipa, Pol. lipa)
• PBSl. *ránkā 'hand' > Lith. rankà, Old Pr. rānkan (A sg.), Latv. rùoka, Latg. rūka; PSl. *ránkā > Common Slavic *rǭkà (OCS rǫka, Russ. ruká, Pol. ręka)
• PBSl. *galwā́ 'head' > Lith. galvà, Old Pr. galwo, Latv. galva, Latg. golva; PSl. *galwā́ > Common Slavic *golvà (OCS glava, Russ. golová, Pol. głowa)

Among Balto-Slavic archaisms notable is the retention of free PIE accent (with many innovations).