Balto-Slavic Apophony
Indo-European ablaut has been significantly reworked in Balto-Slavic. Prominence of lengthened-grade has been significantly increased, as opposed to PIE in which it was used only for rare vrddhi-formations, nominative singulars of some consonant-stem nouns and sigmatic aorist.
Proto-Slavic abundantly used lengthened-grade in morphology. For example:
- PSl. *slāwā 'fame, glory' (OCS slava) vs. PSl. *slawa 'word' (OCS slovo)
- PSl. *twāri 'substance' (OCS tvarь) vs. PSl. *twarītej 'to form, create' (OCS tvoriti)
Similarly, in Lithuanian:
- Lith. prõtas 'intellect, mind' (< *prāt) vs. Lith. pràsti 'to understand'
- Lith. gė̃ris 'goodness' (< *gēr-) vs. Lith. gẽras 'good'
On the basis of already-present apophonic oppositions beween Balto-Slavic the long */ā/, */ē/, */ō/ and the short */a/ and */e/, new oppositions in arose between the long */ī/, */ū/ and the short */i/, */u/. This latter type of apophony was not productive in PIE. Compare:
- Lith. mū̃šis 'battle' vs. mùšti 'to kill, hit'
- Lith. lỹkis 'remainder' vs. lìkti 'to stay, keep'
This new type of apophonic length was especially used in Proto-Slavic in the formation of durative, iterative and imperfective verbs. Compare:
- PSl. *dirātej > OCS dьrati vs. PSl. *arz-dīrātej 'to tear' > OCS razdirati
- PSl. *birātej 'to pick' > OCS bьrati vs. PSl. *bīrātej 'to choose' > OCS birati
Read more about this topic: Proto-Balto-Slavic Language