1.1 Introduction

One of the central properties of words, from a phonological perspective, is their prominence structure. A word corresponds to a sequence of sounds, grouped into syllables that vary in the degrees of prominence, with the most prominent syllable characterized as the bearer of stress. The stressed syllable possesses phonetic properties that set it apart from its unstressed counterparts, such as an increase in intensity and duration. Stress is not a universal prosodic property, yielding a classification of languages into those that are, and those that are not characterized by this feature (see e.g. Reference Hyman and HymanHyman 1977). All Slavic languages clearly exhibit word stress but vary with regard to its typological properties.

From a typological perspective, stress can be fixed or free (see Reference TrubetzkoyTrubetzkoy 1939, Reference HayesHayes 1995: 31, among others). In fixed stress systems, the stress-bearing syllable occurs in a predictable position within a word, such as initial, final, or penultimate, while in free stress systems, stress may fall on any syllable, and thus, being unpredictable, calls for lexical specification (see e.g. Reference RevithiadouRevithiadou 1999: 11 and references therein). This classification is highly relevant for Slavic stress systems, which can be exhaustively classified as belonging to a fixed or free stress type (see e.g. Reference BethinBethin 1998: 112). As shown in example (1), West and South Slavic groups include languages with fixed as well as free stress, while all East Slavic languages are of the latter type. The two pitch accent languages, BCS and Slovenian, the only ones in Slavic, have been classified as free stress systems due to the many traits they share with other Slavic systems of free stress. The classification in (1) for the most part refers to standard languages, with the situation in non-standard dialects often departing from the standard idiom.

1. (1)

   Typology of Slavic word stress (Reference BethinBethin 1998: 112, 175–177)
   	East Slavic	West Slavic	South Slavic
   Fixed		Czech	Macedonian
   		Polish
   		Slovak
   		Southern Kashubian
   		Upper Sorbian
   		Lower Sorbian
   Free	Belarusian	Northern Kashubian	Bulgarian
   	Russian		Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS)
   	Ukrainian		Slovenian

Within this general classification, Slavic languages exhibit a diversity of stress patterns which is consistent with the broader, cross-linguistic range of attested systems of word stress. We will show this relying on metrical phonology, a subarea of theoretical phonology that investigates the universal properties of stress systems as well as modes of their cross-linguistic variation (for detailed surveys, see Reference Hyman and HymanHyman 1977, Reference HayesHayes 1995, Reference RevithiadouRevithiadou 1999). This aspect of Slavic word stress will be addressed in Sections 1.2 and 1.3, with Section 1.2 dedicated to the phonological organization of fixed, and Section 1.3 to the organization of free stress systems. Another important aspect of Slavic word stress, to be addressed in Section 1.4, is its diachrony, that is, how its diverse properties evolved over time, which has been researched by reconstructing its earlier structural stages.

1.2 Fixed Stress

A crucial property of fixed stress systems in general, as well as in Slavic, is that the distribution of stress is for the most part regular, and is unaffected by the morphological composition of words. According to Reference TrubetzkoyTrubetzkoy (1939), fixed stress primarily performs a delimitative function, marking off the edges of word units.

Cross-linguistically, fixed word stress predominantly falls on the initial, final, or penultimate syllable, and much less so on the syllable in peninitial or antepenultimate position, that is, second from the word’s beginning and third from the word’s end respectively (as reported in Reference Hyman and HymanHyman’s 1977 broad typological survey of stress systems). Only some of these systems are evidenced in Slavic: those with initial, penultimate, and the rarely occurring antepenultimate stress. These three types of fixed stress have been characterized in metrical phonology as having trochaic organization (see Reference HayesHayes 1995, Reference BethinBethin 1998: 175). That is, a trochaic foot, which corresponds to a disyllabic grouping with prominence on its leftmost syllable, is associated with one of the word edges: initial in systems with initial stress, and final in systems with penultimate and antepenultimate stress. (The two fixed stress systems that do not occur in Slavic, final and peninitial, are iambic.)

1.3 Free Stress

Slavic languages with free stress are found in all three major groups, and include one West Slavic, three South Slavic, and all East Slavic languages (see table in (1)). The general property of free stress systems is that no position within a word is predictably designated for stress. According to Trubetzkoy, free stress is potentially contrastive, that is, may serve as the sole basis for differentiating meanings of words, as in the Russian minimal pair ‘muka ‘torture’ vs. mu‘ka ‘flour’ (Reference TrubetzkoyTrubetzkoy 1939: 188). Nonetheless, Slavic free stress exhibits a significant measure of systematic, and thus predictable, organization. This becomes obvious if a substantial role is assigned to the morphological component: the place of stress is marked not on morphologically complex forms but, rather, on their simplex subparts; that is, on stems and affixes. Such markings, generally referred to as accent, are of an abstract nature: which accentual mark within a morphologically complex form is realized as stress depends on the accentual properties of the participating morphemes as well as the principles of their combination (see Reference GardeGarde 1976, Reference HalleHalle 1971, Reference RevithiadouRevithiadou 1999, among others).

1.4 Historical Perspective on Slavic Word Stress

The diachrony of Slavic word stress (or rather, Slavic accent) has been extensively researched, with important findings that shed light on the historical background of the typologically diverse modern Slavic stress systems (e.g. Reference StangStang 1957, Reference Illič-SvityčIllič-Svityč 1963, Reference GardeGarde 1976, Reference KortlandtKortlandt 1975, Reference Kiparsky, Halle and HymanKiparsky & Halle 1977, Reference DyboDybo 1981, Reference BethinBethin 1998, Reference JasanoffJasanoff 2017). It is broadly assumed that Common Slavic was a free stress system with a pitch component, and with an organization into accentual classes. This prosodic system, inherited from the Balto-Slavic, has been subject to changes that brought several innovative traits. An important change concerns the original pitch component, which has for the most part been lost. Nowadays, only two Slavic languages, BCS and Slovenian, have stress systems of the pitch accent type (Section 1.3.3). Two of those, the barytone and the mobile classes, were a historical legacy that Common Slavic inherited from the Balto-Slavic era. The oxytone class is a Slavic innovation. It resulted from a rightward accent shift that affected a subclass of accented stems, as described in Reference Illič-SvityčIllič-Svityč (1963) and Reference DyboDybo (1981); and referred to in the literature as either Dybo’s Law (see Reference JasanoffJasanoff 2017: 57, Reference KortlandtKortlandt 1975), or Illič-Svityč’s Law (Reference GardeGarde 1976: 16, 208, Reference Halle and KiparskyHalle & Kiparsky 1981: 175).

The set of Common Slavic pitch accent melodies included a rising and a falling pitch contour on long vowels, the former known as the acute, and the latter as the circumflex accent; and a falling contour on short vowels (see e.g. Reference BethinBethin 1998: 122, Reference JasanoffJasanoff 2017: 43). The accented syllable in the barytone class bore an acute accent, that is, a rising melody on a long vowel. The word-initial stress in the mobile class was a circumflex, and could fall on either a short or a long vowel. This accentual system was considerably reshaped by subsequent changes. One is the so-called shortening of the acutes, whereby vowels under the acute accent became short, thus eliminating the pitch contrast in long vowels (see Reference GardeGarde 1976: 214–217, Reference BethinBethin 1998: 127, Reference KapovićKapović 2015: 216–230). The reflexes of this change can be detected in BCS, where the High-toned vowels in the barytone class are generally short (see Reference ZecZec 1999), but have been partially obscured in Slovenian, due to secondary lengthening of stressed vowels in polysyllabic barytone forms (Reference KapovićKapović 2015: 223). In Czech, syllables corresponding to old acutes are long, indicating that the shortening never took effect (Reference GardeGarde 1976: 217, Reference KapovićKapović 2015: 226); or alternatively, that it was obscured by secondary lengthening (Reference KortlandtKortlandt 1978: 84).

Another significant change was brought about by the retraction of accent from high lax vowels, or yers (Reference StangStang 1957, Reference BethinBethin 1998: 129 and references therein). These vowels were elided in certain collocations (that is, when word-final or followed by a vowel other than yer), and if accented, their accent shifted to the immediately preceding syllable. Among relevant instances were nominal endings corresponding to a yer vowel. If a yer suffix was accented, as in the oxytone class, its loss caused accent retraction to the stem-final syllable. This is illustrated by the Russian genitive plural form gos‘pož ‘lady.gen.pl’ (see Section 1.3.1) whose ending, now null, used to correspond to an accented yer vowel, and whose accent, when it was lost, shifted to the stem. In sum, accent retraction from yers, while considerably affecting the distribution of stress, also disrupted the uniformity of the oxytone class, whose accent was no longer invariably associated with the ending.

In pitch accent languages, where accent markings correspond to High tones, retraction from a yer vowel resulted in the shift of a High tone to the immediately preceding syllable. In the Čakavian, Kajkavian, and Slavonian dialects of BCS (all non-standard), the High tone, when retracted to a long vowel, associated with its second mora, resulting in a rising pitch melody (Reference Lehiste and IvićLehiste & Ivić 1986: 75–90). This newly created accent is referred to in the literature as the neoacute because its pitch contour is comparable to that of the original acute accents, prior to their shortening (Reference StangStang 1957, Reference BethinBethin 1998: 129–135 and references therein; for a different view, see Reference KapovićKapović 2015: 363). Note that in most other BCS idioms, including the Neo-Štokavian, High tone retracted to the first mora of a long vowel, resulting in a falling pitch melody (see Reference Inkelas and ZecInkelas & Zec 1988, Reference ZecZec 1999 and references therein).

Slavic free stress prosodic systems were further modified by several stress shifts. In North Kashubian and Slovenian, stress shifted from the word-final syllable, resulting in the loss of the oxytone accentual class (see Sections 1.3.2 and 1.3.3.2). Slovenian underwent another stress shift: word-initial stress in the polysyllabic words of the mobile accentual class advanced to the second syllable. The shifted stress in polysyllables as well as the stress in monosyllables were subject to vowel lengthening, yielding in all cases long vowels with a falling pitch contour, that is, of the circumflex type. Vowel lengthening under stress was in fact a general change in the Slovenian accentual system, as evidenced by the lengthening of stressed vowels in the barytone class, which affected only the polysyllabic forms. Significantly, this case of vowel lengthening resulted in a rising pitch contour, thus obscuring an earlier phonological change (described above), the shortening of the acutes, which eliminated rising contours in long vowels (for details, see Reference Becker and BethinBecker & Bethin 1983, Reference KapovićKapović 2015: 223). Best known is the stress shift in BCS, referred to as the Neo-Štokavian stress shift, whereby stress retracted to the syllable immediately preceding the High-toned one, if such syllable was available (Reference IvićIvić 1985, Reference Lehiste and IvićLehiste & Ivić 1986, Reference Inkelas and ZecInkelas & Zec 1988). This stress shift created Rising accents, in addition to the already existent Falling accents, and significantly modified the overall organization of the pitch accent system, including its distribution and its pitch inventory. (See Section 1.3.3 for a synchronic perspective on the BCS and Slovenian pitch accent systems.)

The emergence of fixed stress systems, which is probably a Late Common Slavic innovation, constitutes a major prosodic change that affected West Slavic areas. Its result was a regular distribution of stress and elimination of the accentual classes (Reference GardeGarde 1976, Reference BethinBethin 1998: 172–175). According to Reference GardeGarde (1976: 294–295), initial stress in West Slavic developed by generalizing the placement of stress on word-initial syllables in unaccented forms. The outcome of this prosodic change was retained in Slavic languages with fixed initial stress, while Polish underwent a further change which resulted in fixed penultimate stress. Fixed stress in South Slavic is a more recent phenomenon. In particular, Macedonian acquired a system of antepenultimate stress, characterized by a trisyllabic stress window. This stress pattern, according to Reference KoneskiKoneski (1983: 19), can be viewed as related to the surrounding non-Slavic Balkan languages also characterized by a trisyllabic stress window, and possibly emerging under their influence, within the larger Balkan Sprachbund (see also Reference BethinBethin 1998: 295, n. 46).

2.1 Introduction

We assume that Proto-Slavic (or Balto-Slavic)Footnote ¹ developed from an Indo-European dialect in which there were no longer the so-called laryngeal segments.Footnote ² The merger of the short *o and *a into a, and of long *o: and *a: into a: was the first Slavic change to the original Indo-European dialect. As a result, a simple vocalic system emerged, which consisted of eight segments: four short ones and four long ones; four high ones and four low ones, with only two distinctive heights. The vowel system may have been as follows:

The vowel o emerged only later, in the initial period of the disintegration of the Slavic linguistic unity.

Proto-Slavic *e, both long and short, were relatively low vowels, which is supported by their further development, by the alternations of verbal stems, and, most importantly, by borrowings into other languages. Borrowings into other languages suggest also that the so-called jers (ь < short i, ъ < short u) emerged as late as after the sixth century.

The process of the delabialization of the long *u: began probably in the sixth century, which later resulted in the creation of the vowel *y: (initially a high back non-rounded vowel). If the Indo-European syllabic sonorants *r̩(:), *l̩(:),*n̩(:), *m̩(:) were also to be counted as functional vowels,Footnote ³ then their development in Proto-Slavic increased the occurrence of high vowels. They developed into *ir, *ur, *il, *ul, *in, *un, *im, *um, *i:r, *u:r, *i:l, *u:l, *i:n, *u:n, *i:m, *u:m. In the descriptive tradition of Slavic, these groups are referred to as diphthongs. The diphthongs *ɑi̯, *ɑu̯, *ei̯, *eu̯, *ɑ:i̯, *ɑ:u̯, *e:i̯, *e:u̯ existed in Proto-Slavic at least until the fifth century. From the systemic perspective, it is correct to interpret these groups as composed of two phonemes; and i̯ and u̯ are treated as combinatory non-syllabic allophones of the corresponding vowels. In later development, the long vowels in these diphthongs were shortened, similar to the case of syllabic sonorants. The long vowels in the diphthongs *e:r,*a:r, *e:l, *a:l were also shortened.

During the period of common development, diphthongs *ɑi̯, *ɑu̯, *ei̯, *eu̯ underwent monophthongization, producing long vowels. A new *u: emerged in this way (from *ɑu̯, *eu̯, *ou̯), filling in the systemic gap which appeared after the delabialization of the original long *u:. The lower vowels gradually changed their qualities, so that e and e: became lower, and a and a: became higher. Thus, around the seventh century, the late Proto-Slavic vowel system may have been as follows:

The vowel *y: later changed into *ɨ. Certainly, there also existed the nasal vowels *ę and *ǫ, which are interpreted as variants of the groups of phonemes ‘oral vowel + nasal sonorant’ before a consonant and in the word-final position. If we take into consideration that only open syllables (i.e. syllables ending in a vowel) existed at that time (see also Chapter 4 in this volume), then such a context for the occurrence of a nasal sonorant would be uncommon, which supports the interpretation of *ę and *ǫ as independent phonemes.

The Indo-European word-final consonants were phased out in Proto-Slavic and a series of metatheses resulted in the elimination of consonantal codas (cf. *kɑr-vɑ > *krɑ(:)-vɑ ‘cow’, etc.). The emergence of nasal vowels and the monophthongization of diphthongs also contributed to the opening of syllables. Another restriction was the so-called syllabic synharmonism – a kind of vocalic harmony. It required the agreement of all segments in the syllable with respect to the feature +/− palatal.Footnote ⁵ This caused the replacement of the back vowels with the front ones after palatalized consonants.Footnote ⁶ Until the very early Middle Ages, Slavic vocalism developed in a uniform manner. After the seventh century, further changes took place, some of which were still shared: short *i and *u became lower, and in the ninth century (possibly even later in East-Slavic) turned into ‘extra-short’ or ‘reduced’ vowels (a kind of schwa, front and back, marked in Slavic source material by ь and ъ respectively; these are known in Slavic linguistics as front and back jers). At that period, jers differed in pronunciation according to their position in a word: weak jers occurred in word-final position and in a syllable which immediately preceded a syllable with a full (non-jer) vowel or a strong jer. Strong jers occurred in a syllable before a weak jer. Due to this arrangement, the jers soon transformed into full vowels (in strong position, a change termed vocalization) or disappeared (in weak position). In an example like *sъnъ ‘dream’ the first jer was strong and the second one weak; thus, in Polish it gave sen, in Russian sоn, in Serbian san, etc. Seeming exceptions, in which a weak jer seems to vocalize, are to be otherwise explained.

Some scholars speak of ‘secondary jers’, but in fact these are vowels that do not come from an original jer but are inserted later to remedy a difficulty in syllable structure. The secondary inserted vowel need not be the same as the reflex of either one of the strong jers (cf. Mac. *mьgla > mgla > mаglа ‘fog’ with a and neither o nor e that are the reflexes of the strong jers; Bel. *krъvь > krоŭ ‘blood’ with o from strong back jer but kryvаvy ‘bloody’ with the secondary inserted vowel y between kr and v).

The most uniform were the vocalizations of strong jers in the East (including Bulgarian and Macedonian), where the front and back jers produced different reflexes. In the rest of the Slavic area, however, both jers developed in the same way (although they did not produce the same reflex in all languages); at most, in some West-Slavic languages, the softening of the consonant was preserved before the reflex of the front jer.

• The short *ɑ changed into *o.

• The low front long vowel *ɑ^e: (= Proto-Slavic *e:, later, the so-called jat: *ě) developed dialectal variants.

• The tautosyllabic groups *ɑr, *er, *ur, *ir, *al, *el, *ul, *il started to follow different developmental paths.

• The articulation of the back vowel *y shifted forward; it changed into *ɨ and then, in part of the Slavic area, into *i.

• The system of long and short vowels was reformulated as a result of the replacement of the original length contrast with value contrast and a series of shortenings and lengthenings.

After the emergence of jers and *o, but before the delabialization of *y and, possibly, further changes in the quality of low vowels, the vowel system may have been as follows:

The vowel referred to as jat (*ě) developed from the long *e:. Initially, it must have been relatively low (in Old Church Slavonic texts it was written in the same way as ɑ after a palatalized consonant and the group j+ɑ). Its quality soon started to differentiate. At present, it has various reflexes in different languages: higher or lower, monophthongal or diphthongal.

Most of the numerous later changes were geographically restricted and did not influence the phonemic inventory, but enriched allomorphism (e.g. numerous so-called dispalatalizations in the North – changes of front vowels into back vowels in specific contexts).

Towards the end of the Proto-Slavic period, further changes in the vowel duration took place: lengthenings of short vowels and shortenings of long vowels in certain positions (e.g. shortenings in final positions, lengthenings under the so-called new rising accent or under the new and old rising accent, depending on the dialect, and on the South of the Carpathians also lengthenings together with the metathesis in the Proto-Slavic groups *TarT,*TalT, *TerT, *TelT, *arT, *alT, *erT, *elT,Footnote ⁷ cf. Croatian mlijeko ‘milk’, krava ‘cow’, in Polish mleko, krowa^|; Croatian [ije] and [ɑ] are the reflexes of long vowels, Polish [ɔ] is a reflex of the short *ɑ). As a result, the correlation of the length was reconstructed – only jers lacked their long equivalents.

In the ninth century, the vowel system may have been as follows:

In the ninth century, *ɨ(:) was still phonologically independent, but on the South of the Carpathians, it may already have merged with *i. Also *ě(:) may have sounded different, depending on the dialect. Further shifts had taken place by the end of the thirteenth century. They changed the shape of morphemes, but only a few of them led to qualitative changes in the vowel system. Such were the elimination and vocalization of jers. The jers in the strong positions produced full vowels which already existed in particular Slavic dialects. Thus, the change consisted in the elimination of these phonemes, with the exception of Bulgarian, where the back jer preserved the quality of a schwa type. Other changes were restricted territorially.

2.2 Differentiation

Due to enormous territorial dispersion and the fact that Slavic tribes inhabited areas where other non-Slavic tribes lived, or where the Slavs neighbored non-Slavs, Slavic vocalism began to diversify. In some areas, certain archaic features were retained, in other areas, innovations appeared. Initially, mostly because of the phonetic development, three major groups formed: East-Slavic, West-Slavic, and South-Slavic. At present, this differentiation is reflected mostly in morphophonology. Further phonetic development led to a change in the typological arrangement. Today, with regard to phonetics, Slavic languages are divided into North-Slavic and South-Slavic (South-West), with the border line along the Carpathians (on the territory of Bulgaria, it runs across the Balkan Massif, where it becomes blurred). Typologically, Bulgarian is today counted in the North-East group. The former inclusion of Bulgarian in the South-Slavic group is reflected today in its morphophonology and syllable structure. Both Bulgarian and Macedonian are typologically the most varied from the geographical vantage point. The Bulgarian-Macedonian area constitutes a continuum, in which it is difficult to draw a well-defined boundary. The typologically different centers (which have given rise to present-day standard Macedonian and Bulgarian) are located in the West of Macedonia and in the East of Bulgaria. The contrast is more pronounced in the consonantism of the languages than in the vowel systems. It should be emphasized that in the South of the Slavic area there are no well-defined boundaries between languages – the boundaries are always formed by extensive transition bands.

Taking into consideration consonantal phonetic features, the North area seems more archaic, especially in the East, while the South-West languages have preserved more of the old vocalic features, especially vowel duration and accentual polytony, which is treated by some linguists as a vocalic segmental feature.

Apart from general differences of a systemic nature, smaller intersecting areas often emerged (characterized by specific features). This was caused by such factors as further changes in the vowel system, already geographically differentiated, phonotactic differences (especially in the structure of the syllable), the loss or preservation of assimilative palatality, and interaction with various non-Slavic dialects, especially in the area of the Balkan League.

In addition to the five mandatory so-called pure vocal segments, present-day Slavic languages have additional regional segments. Thus, we can distinguish at least the following: an area with long vowels, an area with a schwa-like vowel, an area with more middle vowels, an area with distinctive tonal features, an area with vowel reduction, an area with labiovelarization, an area with syllabic sonorants, an area with the so-called glottal stop, and areas with preserved nasalization.

The development of vocalism in North-West-Slavic languages is decidedly more complex. Here, the development of particular vowels was not only connected with the general developmental path of a given phone but was also conditioned by the length of the vowel and often by the consonantal context. As a result, several sources are reconstructed for most vowels. The most important consonantal features which influenced vowel changes are: +/− palatality, voicing, and, often, place of articulation.

2.3 Quantitative Relations

The above differences affected the quantitative relations. Phonological systems are usually divided into vocalic and consonantal ones (Reference IssatchenkoIssatchenko 1939–1940).

In general, all Slavic languages are consonantal languages. Nevertheless, certain differences are significant. Most often, a modest vowel system is accompanied by more elaborate consonantism, extended by additional palatal phonemes. Conversely, rich vocalism is accompanied by a more modest consonant system. For instance, the ratio of vowels to consonants in Serbian and Croatian phonemic inventories is approximately 1:2, in Czech 1:2.5, in Slovak 3:4, whereas in Russian and Bulgarian it is approximately 1:6. Exceptions to this apply to the periphery: in Macedonian, both subsystems are modest, in Kashubian both are relatively rich. Because all Slavic languages inherited mostly the same morphemes, the frequency ratio of vowels to consonants in text is not so varied. Nevertheless, it can be said that the south of the Slavic area is characterized by a greater proportion of vowels in text. On the basis of comparable samples, it has been determined that texts in the South-West-Slavic languages contain more than 45 percent vowels, whereas texts in the languages spoken North of the Carpathians and in Bulgarian and Slovenian include from 37 percent to 42 percent vowels (cf. Reference Korytowska, Sawicka and SawickaKorytowska & Sawicka 2007: 202). However, very significant differences relate to the occurrence of vowel groups. The languages with the lowest frequency of vowel groups are those that have partly preserved the Proto-Slavic consonant prostheses or have developed new prostheses (Sorbian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian). Balkan languages, on the other hand, have several times higher frequency of vowel clusters. Vowel groups in Slavic languages occur mostly in borrowings and on morphemic boundaries (this is why they are infrequent in the languages in which there are still consonant prostheses before morpheme-initial vowels). Sources of vowel groups are more numerous in the south of the Slavic area: in the post-Shtokavian languages the change of l into o at the end of the syllable, for example Ser. video ‘saw’; inflection of foreign words ending in a vowel, for example Ser. kupe ‘train compartment’, gen.sg kupea, dat.sg kupeu, etc.; in Macedonian and Bulgarian, there is a frequent elision of j before a front vowel in word-initial position and between two vowels. These processes have contributed to the exceptionally high frequency of vowel groups in all South-Slavic languages, except for Slovenian. For instance, in three pages of text in Serbian, there were 93 vowel groups, in Croatian 100, and in Macedonian as many as 173, whereas in Polish and Russian there were 30 vowel groups in each language, in Czech 25, in Slovak 17, in Ukrainian 6, and in Upper Sorbian only 4 (for details, see Reference SawickaSawicka 2007).

3.1 Introduction

This chapter reviews consonantism in Slavic. The main focus is on the common consonantal segments, their patterns, and the role they have played in phonological theory. Section 3.2 reviews the inventories of the 12 contemporary Slavic languages. As we will see, Slavic languages have relatively large consonant inventories, which is related to three factors: (i) most Slavic languages contrast plain vs. palatalized consonants, (ii) many Slavic languages have two sets of posterior coronal fricatives, and (iii) obstruents contrast voicing.

The remaining sections look at alternations affecting consonants. Section 3.3 examines palatalization, which is particularly extensive in Slavic. In particular, I review velar palatalization (and related processes of velar fronting and iotation) as well as secondary palatalization. Section 3.4 examines two common laryngeal alternations: final devoicing and voicing assimilation. A typical Slavic language has final devoicing and regressive voicing assimilation within obstruent clusters, but there are languages without final devoicing and languages that allow clusters of voiced and voiceless obstruents. Section 3.5 examines other local processes affecting consonants, such as place assimilation, dissimilation, and decomposition.

Finally, Section 3.6 discusses patterns in which consonants affect one another at a distance. Consonant harmony is a pattern in which sibilants must agree in some property within a word; it is found in two Slavic languages. Consonant co-occurrence restrictions (described as the effect of the Obligatory Contour Principle, OCP) constitute the opposite: two instances of a segment (or a class of segments) cannot co-occur across a vowel or within a word.

3.2 Consonant Inventories

Most contemporary Slavic languages have larger than average consonant inventories. This can be attributed to the inherited contrasts of the Proto-Slavic inventory as well as additional subsequent contrasts.

The Late Proto-Slavic consonant inventory distinguishes five places of articulation, voicing of obstruents and affricates in addition to stops and fricatives, and a range of sonorants (Table 3.1). Notable is the abundance of palatalized consonants and the asymmetries in fricatives: there is no voiceless labiodental fricative or voiced velar fricative. This inventory has 27 consonantal phonemes, which is considered to be moderately large among the languages of the world (Reference Maddieson, Dryer and HaspelmathMaddieson 2013).

On the whole, the contemporary Slavic languages have inherited the Proto-Slavic inventory contrasts, with changes mostly affecting the palatalized consonants. In fact, many contemporary languages have secondary palatalization of consonants which can affect almost all consonants (such as in Russian and Bulgarian). Table 3.2 summarizes the phoneme inventories across the 12 contemporary standard Slavic languages. The segments are color-coded by frequency.Footnote ¹ This table is meant to provide a general overview of what a typical Slavic consonant inventory looks like, despite the potential drawbacks of this approach, which minimizes the discrepancies among the existing descriptions and ignores dialectal variation. All languages distinguish three pairs of stops /p, b; t, d; k, ɡ/, four fricatives /f, s, z, x/, the affricate /ʦ/, two nasals /m, n/, and the palatal glide /j/. These phonemes are mostly inherited from Proto-Slavic (although subject to sound change, see the following sections). Only /f/ was introduced predominantly through borrowing, though in some languages it also derives from *xv or other groups, for example Macedonian [fati] ‘grab’ < *xvatiti.

Table 3.2 Phoneme inventories of contemporary standard Slavic languages, shaded by frequency

Note. The approximants [w] and [w^j] are labiovelar.

Most Slavic languages (except Czech, Macedonian, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian or BCS, and Slovenian) distinguish secondary palatalization. Phonetically, secondary palatalization is realized with a raised or fronted tongue body (Reference KochetovKochetov 2002). Along with postalveolars, palatalized consonants arose in Proto-Slavic as a result of various phonological processes. The contemporary Slavic languages differ in terms of how many of the original contrasts they have maintained (Reference KochetovKochetov 2006, Reference Kavitskaya, Goldstein, Whalen and BestKavitskaya 2009, Reference Kavitskaya, Iskarous, Noiray, Proctor, Reich, Babyonyshev and KavitskayaKavitskaya et al. 2009, Reference Iskarous and KavitskayaIskarous & Kavitskaya 2018). In fact, not all palatalized consonants are equally attested across Slavic: palatalized labial nasal and oral stops are found in more languages than palatalized velars and coronals. Cross-linguistically, palatalized rhotics are marked (Kavitskaya et al. 2009; Iskarous & Kavitskaya 2010; Hall & Hamann 2010; Howson 2018). Palatalized postalveolars are rare. The processes affecting secondary palatalization will be reviewed further in Section 3.3.

Posterior sibilants differ phonetically and phonologically across the Slavic languages (Reference ŻygisŻygis 2003, Reference HamannHamann 2004). While the majority of Slavic languages have postalveolar affricates and fricatives, some Slavic languages have retroflex fricatives and affricates (e.g. Lower Sorbian), others have both (Russian), while a third group displays significant dialectal variation (Polish, BCS). Lower Sorbian, Polish, and BCS also have an additional set of alveopalatals.

One striking difference among the Slavic languages is the status of /v-w-ʋ/, which can vary phonetically from a voiced fricative to an approximant. This phoneme behaves like a sonorant in many Slavic languages (e.g. BCS, Belarusian, Ukrainian); in other Slavic languages it can behave as a fricative or sonorant depending on context (e.g. Czech, Slovak), or as an obstruent entirely (Polish). The voiced labiovelar sometimes assimilates in voicing, but other times it does not affect voicing assimilation. In many Slavic languages, the voiced labiodental has multiple allophones. For instance, in Ukrainian it is realized as [ʋ] in onsets, but as [w] in codas. The voiced labiodental is discussed further in Section 3.4.

In terms of obstruent voicing, most place and manner combinations have a voiced–voiceless pair, with some notable gaps: phonemic voiced velar fricatives are only found in Belarusian, and while all languages have a phonemic /ʦ/, only five have its voiced counterpart /ʣ/. In other languages, the missing voiced obstruents are allophones, appearing before voiced obstruents.

Among the rhotics, most Slavic languages are described as having the alveolar trill. Three languages have other rhotics: Slovenian has a flap (Reference Šuštaršič, Komar and PetekŠuštaršič et al. 1995), Upper Sorbian has a uvular trill (Reference HowsonHowson 2018), and Czech has an additional trill-fricative [r̞] (Reference HowsonHowson 2017).

Overall, many Slavic languages show substantial positional, dialectal, and interspeaker variation in rhotics, which is sometimes mirrored in the descriptions of the standard varieties.

Not shown in the inventories above are the geminates, or long consonants. Most Slavic languages allow geminates across a morpheme boundary, where they can be variantly pronounced as singletons in casual speech. Perhaps the most extensive inventory of geminates is found in Russian. The Russian geminates arise due to morpheme concatenation (e.g. [vːos] ‘import’, [rɐsːkas] ‘story’) or morpheme-internally in loanwords ([bɐrokːə] ‘baroque’, [sumːə] ‘sum’). Reference Dmitrieva and KubozonoDmitrieva (2017) demonstrates that the Russian geminates have systematically longer duration than singletons. Russian geminates display some of the cross-linguistically common properties, such as the rarity of sonorant geminates or geminates appearing next to another consonant. At the same time, Dmitrieva identified several language-specific idiosyncrasies, such as the relative robustness of word-initial and voiced-obstruent geminates. Geminates are also very common in Belarusian and Ukrainian because of the historical change Cj > C^jː, for example Ukrainian [ʒɪt^jːa] ‘life’ < *ʒitje.

This concludes the overview of consonant inventories in Slavic languages. In the following section, we move on to the alternations affecting consonants.

3.3 Palatalization Processes

One of the most striking properties of all contemporary Slavic languages is the various palatalization processes. Palatalization is defined as the pronunciation of consonants in the palatal or postalveolar, and more broadly in the coronal region (Reference BatemanBateman 2007, Reference Kochetov, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceKochetov 2011). This description encompasses both secondary articulation (e.g. k → k^j) and change in place of articulation (e.g. k → ʧ).

To illustrate the phonological and morphological properties of palatalization, let us examine palatalization in BCS. The language involves several different palatalizations (Reference de Brayde Bray 1980, Reference Browne, Comrie and CorbettBrowne 1993, Reference MorénMorén 2006), which BCS inherited from Proto-Slavic. The first type of palatalization (1a) applies to stem-final velars which become postalveolars before the vocative suffix. All three velars are affected (1a-i), and the alternation changes the manner of two obstruents, but not of [x]. Voicing is maintained. The triggers of palatalization are specific suffixes which most commonly contain front vowels, as the vocative. However, not all suffixes that begin with a front vowel trigger palatalization (1a-ii) and not all triggering suffixes have front vowels (1a-iii). Thus, it is best to describe these triggers as morphological. Finally, velar palatalization is not fully productive and does not apply to all stem-final velars when followed by the triggering suffixes. In fact, sometimes palatalization applies variably (1a-iv).

The second type of palatalization affects two alveolars which become postalveolar (1b). In BCS, this alternation is also found with the vocative suffix (1b-i) and the nominative plural -ɔʋi/-ɛʋi. With the latter we can see that the velars are not affected. There are also a number of exceptions. Coronal palatalization is less productive in BCS and affects only a handful of suffixes.

1. (1)

   BCS palatalization patterns (Reference Browne, Comrie and CorbettBrowne 1993, Reference MorénMorén 2006; prosody omitted)
   Velar palatalization: {k, x, ɡ} → {ʧ, ʃ, ʒ}
   a.	i.	uʧɛnik	‘pupil’	uʧɛniʧɛ	‘pupil.voc’
   		bɔɡ	‘god’	bɔʒɛ	‘god.voc’
   		sirɔmax	‘poor man’	sirɔmaʧɛ	‘poor man.voc’
   	ii.	ʋɔjnik	‘soldier’	ʋɔjnikɛ	‘soldier.acc.pl’
   	iii.	pɛku	‘bake.3p.pl’	pɛʧɛm	‘bake.1p.sg’
   		kruɡ	‘circle’	kruʒiti	‘circle.inf’
   		nɔɡa	‘leg, foot’	nɔʒurda	‘big ugly foot’
   	iv.	ruka	‘hand, arm’	ruʧiʦarukiʦa	‘small hand’
   Coronal palatalization: {ʦ, z} → {ʧ, ʒ}
   b.	i.	striʦ	‘uncle’	striʧɛ	‘uncle.voc’
   		knɛz	‘prince’	knɛʒɛ	‘prince.voc’
   	ii.	striʦ	‘uncle’	striʧɛʋi	‘uncle.nom.pl’
   		ʋuk	‘wolf’	ʋukɔʋi	‘wolf.nom.pl’
   		ʋɔz	‘cart’	ʋɔzɔʋi	‘cart.nom.pl’
   Velar fronting: {k, x, ɡ} → {ʦ, s, z} – i
   c.	i.	aɡnɔstik	‘agnostic’	aɡnɔstiʦi	‘agnostic.nom.pl’
   		bubrɛɡ	‘kidney’	bubrɛzi	‘kidney.nom.pl’
   		ɔrax	‘walnut’	ɔrasi	‘walnut.nom.pl’
   	ii.	junak	‘hero’	junaʦima	‘hero.dat/LOC/INSTR.PL’
   		pɛku	‘roast.3p.pl’	pɛʦijax	‘roast.imperf’
   		ruka	‘hand, arm’	ruʦi	‘hand, arm.dat/loc’
   	iii.	maʧka	‘cat’	maʧki	‘cat.dat/loc’
   		milka	‘(name)’	milki	‘(name).dat/loc’

The third type of palatalization also affects velars, but this time they turn into anterior coronals (1c-i). All suffixes that trigger velar fronting start with an [i], as shown in (1c-ii). Velar fronting is not without exceptions: it can be blocked phonotactically (e.g. *[maʧʦi] ‘cat.DAT/LOC’) and there are also lexically conditioned exceptions such as personal names (1c-iii). The final palatalization alternation in BCS is iotation (2). Historically, iotation applied before [j], but in contemporary Slavic languages [j] is generally no longer present. The difference between the palatalizations in (1) and iotation is in the number of segments affected: iotation applies to most segments. As in velar palatalization, velars become postalveolars (2a), while anterior coronals become posterior coronals (2b). Notice the difference between stops, which become alveopalatal (t → ʨ), and fricatives/affricates, which become postalveolar (s → ʃ).Finally, labials do not palatalize: instead the palatal lateral [ʎ] is inserted (2c).

1. (2)

   BCS iotation (Reference Browne, Comrie and CorbettBrowne 1993, Reference MorénMorén 2006)
   a.	{k, x, ɡ} → {ʧ, ʃ, ʒ}
   	skakati	‘to jump’	skaʧɛ	‘jump.3p.sg’
   	tix	‘quiet’	tiʃi	‘quieter’
   b.	Coronals: {t, d, s, z, ʦ, n, l} → {ʨ, ʥ, ʃ, ʒ, ʧ, ɲ, ʎ}
   	ʋratiti	‘to return’	ʋraʨɛn	‘returned’
   	nɔsiti	‘to carry’	nɔʃax	‘carry.imperf’
   	baʦiti	‘to throw’	baʧɛn	‘thrown’
   	xʋaliti	‘to praise’	xʋaʎɛn	‘praised’
   c.	Labials: ∅ → ʎ {p, b, f, m, ʋ} –
   	ɡlup	‘stupid’	ɡlupʎi	‘more stupid’
   	ʎubiti	‘to kiss, love’	ʎubʎɛn	‘kissed, loved’
   	zaʃrafiti	‘to tighten’	zaʃrafʎɛn	‘tightened’
   	kraʋa	‘cow’	kraʋʎi	‘bovine’

The crucial difference between the palatalization patterns in (1) and iotation in (2) is that the set of triggering suffixes is different. Among all the palatalizations in BCS, only for velar fronting do all triggering suffixes share a clear common property: they all begin with [i]. As regards iotation, most suffixes are front, but not all (e.g. [nɔʃax] ‘carry.imperf’).

BCS inherited all four palatalizations from Proto-Slavic. This is why we also find palatalization in most other Slavic languages. Many of the patterns observed in BCS are similar to the ones found in the other languages, but there are also some key differences; I review these parallels in the remainder of this section. First, each palatalization type is morphologically conditioned, and the set of triggering suffixes may all share a phonological property (e.g. front vowels). Palatalization may also interact with morphology in another way: the suffix may display allomorphy, including the choice of inflectional paradigm, that is conditioned by the stem-final consonant.

Second, the outcome of palatalization is conditioned by the segmental inventory of the language. Notable in BCS is the relationship between the postalveolar and alveopalatal affricates. A more complex case is Polish, which has more sibilants and five distinct palatalization processes (see Reference Rubach, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceRubach 2011 for an accessible overview).

Third, most types of palatalization apply at morpheme boundaries. This type of alternation is termed a Derived Environment Effect (Reference Kiparsky, Hargus and KaisseKiparsky 1993, Reference Burzio, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceBurzio 2011). In the history of generative phonology, morphologically derived environments were treated together with phonologically derived environments, where an alternation applies only to a segment that is already derived by a different rule. A famous example of this type of is found in Polish, where /ɡ/ palatalizes to [ʤ] and then spirantizes to [ʒ] in specific environments: /bɔɡ-ɛ/ → [bɔʒɛ] ‘god-voc’. Underlying /ʤ/, however, does not undergo spirantization and surfaces faithfully. This type of pattern presents a substantial theoretical problem in rule- and constraint-based approaches.Footnote ² In some cases, however, palatalization is phonologically triggered, such as secondary palatalization in Polish and Russian. In Polish, secondary palatalization is triggered by [i, j] not only at morpheme boundaries but also within morphemes (e.g. [m^jit] ‘myth’) and across word boundaries ([dɔm] ‘home’ versus [dɔm^j] Iwana ‘Ivan’s home’; Reference Rubach, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceRubach 2011).

Fourth, palatalization may be lexically restricted, which means that it does not apply to certain lexical items which meet the morphological and phonological requirements. Loanwords are a particularly likely source of exceptionality both in lacking expected palatalization (as in BCS) and showing a different set of facts. In Polish, for instance, secondary palatalization applies to postalveolars [ʒ, ʃ] but only in loanwords (e.g. [suʃ^ji] ‘sushi’, [ʒ^jigɔlak] ‘gigolo’; see Reference GussmannGussmann 2007: §3.12). This sort of lexical exceptionality sometimes leads authors to conclude that a particular type of palatalization is no longer productive. In fact, Reference KapatsinskiKapatsinski (2010) shows how velar palatalization in Russian has lost productivity before a subset of suffixes. In Slovenian, velar palatalization is highly variable, but Reference Jurgec and SchertzJurgec & Schertz (2020) show that native speakers favor palatalization in nonce stems when followed by palatalizing suffixes.

Fifth, palatalization is subject to phonological restrictions, as is common in other types of sound patterns. In BCS, palatalization is blocked by certain clusters. When palatalization is variable, BCS adheres to Reference GuionGuion’s (1998) cross-linguistic generalization: /k/ palatalizes more often than the other two velars (Reference Browne, Comrie and CorbettBrowne 1993). I return to this point in Section 3.6.

3.4 Voicing Alternations

All Slavic languages contrast two sets of obstruents: voiced and voiceless. Phonetically, voiced stops are produced with voicing during the closure. Voiceless obstruents are typically unaspirated, although [k^h] is aspirated in Upper Sorbian (as an allophone of /x/; Reference Ševc ŠusterŠevc Šuster 1984: 26–27)Footnote ³ and Slovenian (Reference Srebot-RejecSrebot-Rejec 1990); aspiration is not a factor in voicing alternations. The contrast between the two types of obstruents is not maintained in all contexts, and the neutralizing environments differ from language to language.

In word-final position, the voicing contrast is preserved in BCS and Ukrainian. All other Slavic languages display final devoicing, a process in which word-final obstruents are realized as voiceless. Standard Slovenian has final devoicing, but many dialects do not. Šmartno Slovenian presents an intermediate situation (3). In Šmartno, the root-final contrasts are maintained before sonorant-initial suffixes, as in the instrumental singular. Obstruents devoice word-finally, as in the nominative. The key generalization applies in the high vowel cases, such as the genitive. Roots with mobile stress paradigms, such as ‘dust’, shift stress to the suffix, but roots with fixed paradigms do not and as a result the word-final high unstressed vowel deletes. The newly final obstruent fails to devoice (/ˈbrieɣ-i/ → [ˈbrieɣ], not *[ˈbriex]). The interaction of devoicing and vowel deletion is opaque rather than transparent, because devoicing does not apply to all word-final obstruents on the surface.

1. (3)

   Šmartno Slovenian opaque voicing (Reference JurgecJurgec 2019; vowel length omitted)
   		Mobile		Fixed
   		/prax/	/snieɣ/	/ˈsmiex/	/ˈbrieɣ/
   Instr	/-m/	ˈpraxm̩	ˈsnieɣm̩	ˈsmiexm̩	ˈbrieɣm̩
   Nom	/-∅/	ˈprax	ˈsniex	ˈsmiex	ˈbriex	(final devoicing)
   Gen	/-ˈi/	praˈxi	sneˈɣi	ˈsmiex	ˈbrieɣ	(no final devoicing)
   		‘dust’	‘snow’	‘laughter’	‘coast’

While the traditional phonological analyses of final devoicing posit full neutralization between final voiced and voiceless obstruents, phonetic work has shown that the neutralization is incomplete in many languages (Reference ChenChen 1970, Reference Dinnsen and Charles-LuceDinnsen & Charles-Luce 1984, Reference Port and O’DellPort & O’Dell 1985, Reference Warner, Jongman, Sereno and KempsWarner et al. 2004). This means that while the contrast between voiced and voiceless obstruents is weaker than in presonorant positions, it is nevertheless still statistically significant in perception and production experiments. In this discussion, Russian has played an important role. Reference ShragerShrager (2012) and Reference KulikovKulikov (2012) demonstrate that voicing leaves traces in phonologically devoiced stops. Reference KharlamovKharlamov (2014) shows that this phonetic effect is dependent on the task: minimal pairs and orthographic presentation of stimuli are more likely to result in neutralization being incomplete. Reference Bishop, Oh, Zhou, Calhoun, Escudero, Tabain and WarrenBishop et al. (2019) extend the findings to Bulgarian, where neutralization is also incomplete.

The second alternation that is common across Slavic languages is voicing assimilation. In most Slavic languages, obstruent clusters must agree in voicing, with the rightmost obstruent determining the voicing of the entire cluster. This can be seen in the case of Russian prefixes (4). The presonorant position reveals the underlying voicing of the prefix-final obstruent, which can be either voiceless (4a) or voiced (4b). The distinction is neutralized before obstruents: all obstruents surface as voiceless before voiceless obstruents and voiced before voiced obstruents. This applies across morpheme boundaries, within morphemes, and across word boundaries – but not across pauses where final devoicing applies instead. Note that voicing assimilation is not inherently linked to final devoicing. For example, although BCS lacks final devoicing, it exhibits the same voicing assimilation patterns found in Russian.

1. (4)

   Russian voicing assimilation (Reference Padgett, Borowsky, Kawahara, Shinya and SugaharaPadgett 2012)
   Before a sonorant		Before a voiceless obstruent		Before a voiced obstruent
   ˈs-jexətj	‘to ride down’	s-prɐˈsjitj	‘to ask’	ˈz-djelətj	‘to do’
   ɐt-ˈjexətj	‘to ride off’	ɐt-stuˈpjitj	‘to step back’	ɐd-ˈbrosjitj	‘to throw aside’
   pəd-njiˈstji	‘to bring to’	pət-pjiˈsatj	‘to sign’	pəd-ˈzeʧj	‘to burn’
   iz-lɐˈɡatj	‘to state’	is-kljuˈʧjatj	‘to exclude’	iz-ˈɡnatj	‘to drive out’

Voicing assimilation in Russian is symmetrical: obstruents assimilate regardless of their underlying voicing. In contrast, Ukrainian shows asymmetrical assimilation, a fact that has played a key role in our understanding of obstruent voicing typologies (Reference ButskaButska 1998, Reference LombardiLombardi 1999, Reference Wetzels and MascaróWetzels & Mascaró 2001). As shown in (5a), Ukrainian allows word-final voiced obstruents and thus does not exhibit final devoicing. In obstruent clusters, voiceless obstruents become voiced (5b), but voiced obstruents do not devoice (5c): /liʒko/ → [liʒko], not *[liʃko].

1. (5)

   a.	No final devoicing
   Ukrainian voicing assimilation (Reference Padgett, Borowsky, Kawahara, Shinya and SugaharaButska 1998)
   	ʋas	‘you.acc.pl’	ʋaz	‘vase.gen.pl’
   	plit	‘fence’	plid	‘fruit’
   b.	Regressive voicing assimilation
   	prosɪtɪ	‘to request’	prozjba	‘a request’
   	borotɪ	‘to struggle’	borodjba	‘struggle’
   c.	No assimilation to voicelessness
   	liʒok	‘bed.gen.pl’	liʒko	‘bed’
   	ridɪtɪ	‘to rarefy’	ridko	‘rarely’

Voicing of obstruents may also interact with sonorant voicing in several ways. First, in Polish (Reference Rubach and BooijRubach & Booij 1990, Reference RubachRubach 1996) and Russian (Reference JakobsonJakobson 1978, Reference Hayes, Aronoff, Oehrle, Kelley and Wilker Stephens.Hayes 1984, Reference KiparskyKiparsky 1985, Reference Petrova and SzentgyörgyiPetrova & Szentgyörgyi 2004, Reference RubachRubach 2008b), it has been reported that at word boundaries, voicing assimilates even across sonorants (e.g. [ɐd mɡlɨ] ‘from the haze’). Recent experimental studies have, however, revealed that sonorants are not transparent and that there is a contrast in the presonorant position in these cases (Reference StrycharczukStrycharczuk 2012, Reference KulikovKulikov 2013).

Second, obstruents typically devoice word-finally if the following word starts in a sonorant. Slovak is the exception (along with Lower Sorbian and south-western Polish): word-final obstruents are voiced if the following word starts in a sonorant (6a), even though morpheme-internally obstruent voicing is contrastive in pre-sonorant position (6b).

1. (6)

   Slovak presonorant voicing at the end of the word (Reference BlahoBlaho 2008)
   a.	Pre-sonorant voicing across word boundaries
   	vɔjaka		‘soldier.gen.sg’	vɔjaɡ idɛ	‘the soldier goes’
   	lɛsɛ		‘forest.loc.sg’	lɛz jɛ	‘the forest is’
   b.	Contrastive voicing before sonorant word-internally
   	mɔkra:	‘wet’		puzdrɔ	‘case’
   	tlak	‘pressure’		dlaɲ	‘palm’

Third, specific segments can behave exceptionally with respect to voicing assimilation. Shared among many Slavic languages is the v-sound, which behaves like a sonorant in some positions, but like an obstruent in others. This may have to do with its phonetic properties. For instance, Reference PadgettPadgett (2002) suggests that Russian has a ‘narrow approximant’ [ʋ̞] which explains its ambivalent behavior. In Slovenian, the labiovelar sonorant is realized simply as rounding on some consonants when not adjacent to a vowel: [^wzeti] ‘take’ (Reference Srebot-RejecSrebot-Rejec 1981).

To illustrate the unusual behavior of some consonants, consider Czech (7). The basic facts in Czech are identical to the ones in Russian (4): voicing assimilation applies regressively. The prefix /s-/ ‘with’ surfaces faithfully before a sonorant, but voices before a voiced obstruent (7a). The prefix /z-/ ‘from’ again surfaces faithfully before a sonorant, but devoices before a voiceless obstruent (7b).

1. (7)

   	Czech regressive voicing assimilation (Reference HallHall 2003, Reference Hall, Arnaudova, Browne, Rivero and Stojanović2004)
   	Before a sonorant		Before a voiceless obstruent		Before a voiced obstruent
   a.	slesem	‘with a forest’	spolem	‘with a field’	zdomem	‘with a house’
   b.	zlesa	‘from a forest’	spole	‘from a field’	zdomu	‘from a house’

Turning to [v], we see that it behaves like an obstruent when followed by a consonant: it is underlyingly voiced but becomes devoiced before voiceless obstruents (8a-i). When [v] is rightmost in a cluster, it devoices after voiceless obstruents in some dialects, but in any case does not trigger voicing regressively (8a-ii); [v] is voiced when following a voiced obstruent (8a-iii). Another exceptional segment in Czech is the trill-fricative [r̞], which shows a different pattern: it devoices after voiceless obstruents (8b). Across word boundaries, the trill-fricative can trigger voicing, although there is some interspeaker variation (Reference PalkováPalková 1997).

1. (8)

   Czech anomalous segments (Reference HallHall 2003, Reference Hall, Arnaudova, Browne, Rivero and Stojanović2004)
   a.	i.	vlese	‘in a forest’
   		fpole	‘in a field’
   		vdomɲe	‘in a house’
   	ii.	tvor̞̥it	‘in a field’
   		tfor̞̥it
   	iii.	dvor̞̥it	‘to court’
   b.	i.	pr̞̥i	‘near’
   	ii.	br̞̥ex	‘shore’

3.5 Other Local Interactions

In the languages of the world, the vast majority of alternations affecting consonants are local, meaning that a consonant is affected by an immediately adjacent segment. This is the case for palatalization and voicing assimilation discussed so far. In this section, I review other local alternations affecting consonants. I limit these discussions to those that are not clearly affected by the sonority restrictions on syllable structure. For instance, obstruent-sonorant complex onsets are much more common that the reverse, and some Slavic languages do not allow complex onsets consisting of a sonorant followed by an obstruent (Sonority Sequencing Principle; see Reference Clements, Kingston and BeckmanClements 1990 for a comprehensive history and overview). Syllable restrictions on consonant combinations are reviewed in Chapter 4 in this volume.

I begin with the place of articulation of nasals in consonant clusters, which is restricted in many Slavic languages. Consider the example from Polish in (9), where I omit that palatal nasal /ɲ/ for simplicity. We can see that an underlying /m/ is possible before stops regardless of their place of articulation. This is not the case for /n/, which assimilates to the same place of articulation as the following stop, even across word boundaries. For instance, [pan] ‘mister’ alternates with [pam] when followed by a word starting in a labial stop. Before fricatives, the situation is more complex, with nasal glides surfacing in some positions. Words with historical nasal vowels have largely the same distribution as /n/.

1. (9)

   Polish nasal place assimilation (Reference Czaykowska HigginsCzaykowska Higgins 1989, Reference Czaykowska Higgins1992, Reference PadgettPadgett 1994)

   Before stops

   m

   n

   Ṽ

   Labial

   bɔmba

   ‘bomb’

   pam buk

   ‘Lord God’

   zɔmp

   ‘tooth’

   Coronal

   kɔmtur

   ‘commander’

   blɔnd

   ‘blond’

   z̢ɔndu

   ‘government’

   Dorsal

   klamka

   ‘doorknob’

   baŋk

   ‘bank’

   vɛŋɡjɛl

   ‘coal’

   Before fricatives

   Labial

   trɪuw̃f

   ‘triumph’

   kɔɱflikt ∼ kɔw̃flikt

   ‘conflict’

   (no data)

   Coronal

   xamski

   ‘boorish’

   ʃansa ∼ ʃaw̃sa

   ‘chance’

   mɔw̃ʂ

   ‘husband’

Nasals are also involved in another alternation in Polish and Upper Sorbian. In the latter, shown in (10), the palatal nasal [ɲ] in the prevocalic (or syllable onset) position alternates with the sequence [jn] in the position before a consonant or end of the word (in the coda). Note that the sequence [jn] can also appear in the prevocalic position [kɔmbajnɨ], while the [ɲ] can never occur before a consonant or the end of word. Assuming an underlying /ɲ/, the motivation for decomposition into [jn] is the retention of palatality and nasality in the coda where [ɲ] is illicit (Reference RubachRubach 2008a). Polish displays a similar pattern that is driven by segmental environment, not syllable structure: decomposition applies before stops and fricatives.Footnote ⁴

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   Upper Sorbian nasal decomposition (Reference RubachRubach 2008a)
   kamjɛɲa	‘stone.gen.sg’	kamjɛjn	‘stone.nom.sg’
   kɔɲa	‘horse.gen.sg’	kojn	‘horse.nom.sg’
   waɲa	‘bathtub.nom.sg’	wajnʧka	‘small bathtub.nom.sg’
   kɔmbajnɨ	‘threshing machine.nom.pl’	kɔmbajn	‘threshing machine.nom.sg’

Next, several Slavic languages show dissimilation, a pattern in which one segment alternates when next to a similar segment. Consider Macedonian (11). Coronals (and [ɡ]) turn into labiodentals before the suffix -ʧɛ. The key generalization is that a non-labial becomes labial when next to a non-labial. This process is not fully general and applies only to this specific environment. In this sense dissimilation in Macedonian is similar to palatalization in BCS, applying in specific morphological environments.

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   Macedonian diminutive -ʧɛ dissimilation (Reference LuntLunt 1952:17, Reference Friedman, Comrie and CorbettFriedman 1993: 259−260)
   vɔz	‘cart’	vɔfʧɛ	‘small cart’
   vɔʃka	‘louse’	vɔfʧɛ	‘small louse’
   mɔst	‘bridge’	mɔfʧɛ	‘small bridge’
   ʃamija	‘scarf’	ʃamifʧɛ	‘small scarf’

This concludes the short survey of the other local consonant patterns in Slavic languages. Further local consonant alternations are described in Chapter 5 of this volume.

3.6 Long-Distance Interactions

The alternations reviewed so far are local. For instance, the segments involved in voicing alternations are adjacent. At least two Slavic languages also involve long-distance interactions among consonants, which will be reviewed next.

The first long-distance interaction is consonant harmony (Reference HanssonHansson 2001, Reference Hansson2010, Reference Rose and WalkerRose & Walker 2004), which has been reported for Russian and Slovenian. Consonant harmony is a process in which consonants within a word must agree in some feature, such as voicing, minor place, or nasality. The most common type of consonant harmony is sibilant harmony. Most typically, a posterior sibilant (e.g. [ʒ, ʂ]) cannot co-occur with an anterior sibilant (e.g. [ʦ, z]). These restrictions may result in alternations but this is not necessarily so. Some are simply static restrictions on the shape of morphemes (or Morpheme Structure Constraints). Moreover, many cases of consonant harmony are strong tendencies rather than exceptionless generalizations (Reference Kochetov, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceArsenault & Kochetov 2011, Reference Ozburn and KochetovOzburn & Kochetov 2018).

In Russian, many words historically contained a sequence of an anterior and a posterior sibilant, but these were subsequently harmonized (e.g. [ˈs̢ɛrs̢ɨn^j] ‘hornet’ from Old Russian sьɾʃenь). Reference Kochetov, Radisic, Reich, Babyonyshev and KavitskayaKochetov & Radisic (2009) investigate whether there is a phonetic basis for such a pattern. They asked Russian speakers to repeat words containing different sibilants. In total, 18 percent were mispronounced. Most of the mispronunciations were assimilatory, such as the target [sap ʃap] being pronounced as [ʃap ʃap]. Anterior sibilants more likely assimilate to posterior than vice versa, and plain sibilants more likely assimilate to palatalized than vice versa. While these experiments do not show that Russian has consonant harmony, they demonstrate a potential mechanism for the genesis of consonant harmony.

More systematic sibilant harmony is found in some varieties of Slovenian, particularly the western dialects. Even though Standard Slovenian does not display sibilant harmony, it is nevertheless encountered occasionally, as in (12). Note that the underlined sibilants alternate even though they neighbor the same segments. What causes this alternation? In the first column, we see that alveolar sibilants are not followed by another sibilant. When a postalveolar appears towards the end of the word as a result of velar palatalization – as in BCS (1) – the alveolars earlier in the word harmonize and become postalveolars (underlined). In short, an alveolar sibilant becomes postalveolar when followed by a postalveolar within the same word, even though it could be several segments away. This process is directional, as the reverse order is not restricted, as in [ʒelezniʦa].

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   Sibilant harmony in Slovenian
   slux	‘hearing’	ʃliʃim	‘hear.1p.sg’
   ɾazlika	‘difference’	ɾaʒliʧiʦa	‘variant’
   ʒelezniʦa	‘railroad’	ʒeleʒniʧki	‘railroad.adj’

The individual dialects differ, and the pattern is in decline (e.g. Reference SteenwijkSteenwijk 1992 for Resian). The key issue under discussion in the literature has been whether sibilant harmony can apply across consonants, and if so, whether a subset of consonants block it. Reference JurgecJurgec (2011) describes a variety in which only coronal stops block sibilant harmony, while Reference BonBon (2017) and Reference MisicMisic (2018) identified varieties with other kinds of blockers. Blocking is exceedingly rare in consonant harmony, and so these patterns have played a key role in the literature (see Reference Hansson and AronoffHansson 2020 for a comprehensive review).

A consonant co-occurrence restriction is another type of long-distance interaction that we find in Slavic. In Russian, for instance, roots cannot consist of two homorganic consonants (Reference PadgettPadgett 1992). In particular, roots with two labials, two dorsals, or two types of a subset of coronals are reported to be impossible or at least vastly underrepresented (13a), but roots consisting of combinations of these groups co-occur freely (13b).

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   Russian roots (Reference PadgettPadgett 1992)
   a.	Impossible or exceedingly rare
   	*map	(two labials)
   	*kaɡ	(two dorsals)
   	*lor	(two coronal sonorants)
   	*sjoz	(two coronal fricatives)
   	*dat	(two coronal stops)
   b.	Commonly attested
   	ɡrjeb	‘dig’	brat	‘brother’
   	koz	‘goat’	tolk	‘explain’
   	poln	‘full’	sad	‘sit’
   	bod	‘awake’

Similar OCP effects are also found elsewhere in Russian. Reference Linzen, Kasyanenko and GouskovaLinzen et al. (2013) look at the variation in Russian prepositions, which can be pronounced with or without a vowel [sə mnoʐəstvəm] ∼ [s mnoʐəstvəm] ‘with a large amount’. Adjacent identical segments tend to be avoided, so the additional vowel is more common if the preposition contains the same consonant as the following word. There is a second, weaker generalization: non-adjacent identical consonants are also avoided. So, the extra vowel is more common if the second consonant of the noun is the same as the preposition (14).

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   Non-local OCP in Russian prepositions (Reference Linzen, Kasyanenko and GouskovaLinzen et al. 2013)
   More common variant		Less common variant
   və dvɐreʦ	‘into the palace’	kə dvɐrʦu	‘to the palace’
   və dvɐre	‘into the yards’	sə dvɐrom	‘from the yard’

Thus, the OCP effect is a driver of the vowel alternation in prepositions, resembling the overall tendency observed in the roots.

A similar restriction is found in Slovenian, where multiple non-adjacent posterior sibilants are dispreferred within a word – recall that the opposite is found in western dialects discussed above. The co-occurrence restriction can be seen when looking at palatalization. Much like in BCS (Section 3.3), palatalization in Slovenian is found with specific suffixes which turn velars into postalveolars (15). This process is variable, and the percentages below present the number of palatalized tokens in the corpus.

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   Slovenian palatalization (Reference JurgecJurgec 2016)
   Stem		Non-pal.	Palatalized	%pal	Tokens
   baɾok	‘baroque’	baɾok-ən	baɾoʧ-ən	99.8	10,466	‘adj’
   stɾaŋk-a	‘party’	stɾaŋk-iʦa	stɾanʧ-iʦa	88.3	206	‘dim’
   ɡɾax	‘pea’	ɡɾax-ək	ɡɾaʃ-ək	55.7	341	‘dim’
   kɾok	‘circle’	kɾoɡ-əʦ	kɾoʒ-əʦ	9.0	4,804	‘dim’

When the stem contains a postalveolar, however, the palatalization rates are much lower. Often, palatalization is completely blocked (16).

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   Palatalization blocked by a distant postalveolar (Reference JurgecJurgec 2016)
   Stem		Non-pal.	Palatalized	%pal	Tokens
   ʒaɡ-a	‘saw’	ʒaɡ-ən	ʒaʒ-ən	0.0	15	‘adj’
   ʃʧɪɾk-a	‘daughter’	ʃʧɪɾk-iʦa	ʃʧɪɾʧ-iʦa	0.0	5,335	‘dim’
   ʃpɛx	‘fat’	ʃpɛx-ək	ʃpɛʃ-ək	0.0	18	‘dim’
   ʧuk	‘owl’	ʧuk-əʦ	ʧuʧ-əʦ	0.0	405	‘dim’

Reference Jurgec and SchertzJurgec & Schertz (2020) demonstrate that the speakers extend these generalizations to derived and non-derived nonce words: the acceptability of nonce words with two postalveolars is lower than other combinations of sounds, including two velars. The authors also found a separate identity avoidance effect, mirroring the Russian preposition facts.

Only in recent decades have long-distance interactions been a major focus of phonological research. It is likely that this research will uncover similar patterns in other Slavic languages.

3.7 Conclusions

This chapter provides an overview of the most common sound patterns involving consonants in Slavic. We have seen that the inventories of contemporary Slavic languages are quite similar, with the chief differences being in the number and realization of coronals and in the presence of palatalized consonants. Slavic languages display a great range of palatalizations, which involve either primary or secondary place, and which can be conditioned by various phonological, morphological, and lexical factors. Voicing alternations have received attention in the phonological literature and display key typological differences. Finally, this chapter reports on several long-distance interactions between consonants, including consonant harmony and the OCP.

4.1 Introduction

The syllable is a basic unit of phonological structure above the level of the segment (consonant or vowel) and below the level of the word. A syllable can consist of one or more segments, while a word can consist of one or more syllables. For example, the Russian word odinakovyj [ʌ.dʲi.na.kʌ.vɨj]Footnote ¹ ‘similar’ consists of five syllables, with each syllable containing one, two, or three segments. Importantly, syllable boundaries do not necessarily map onto morphological boundaries, as morpheme-final consonants syllabify with the following vowel, as is the case in our word example (/odʲin-ak-ov-ij/ → [ʌ.dʲi.na.kʌ.vɨj]).

Within the syllable, segments are organized into three major constituents: onset, nucleus, and coda. The nucleus, or the peak of the syllable, is an obligatory component. It is the most sonorous (loudest and most prominent) part of it, typically a vowel or, less commonly, a sonorant consonant – a liquid (lateral or rhotic, e.g. /l/ or /r/), or a nasal (e.g. /m/ or /n/). Onset and coda are syllable margins. They consist of one or more segments that are less sonorous than the nucleus. Syllable structure refers to the organization of consonants and vowels into syllable constituents (nuclei, onsets, and codas), based on general phonological principles (such as sonority) and language-particular phonotactic rules.

The goal of this chapter is to provide an overview of the Slavic syllable structure from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. In doing this, an attempt is made to situate the patterns characteristic of Slavic in the context of cross-linguistic typology of syllable structure, as well as to highlight important differences among individual Slavic languages. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 4.2 presents some general phonological background on the syllable, reviewing the concepts of syllabification and sonority. Several subsequent sections are devoted to specific aspects of syllable structure: single onsets and codas (Section 4.3), onset clusters (Section 4.4), coda clusters (Section 4.5), heterosyllabic (medial) clusters (Section 4.6), and nuclei (Section 4.7). Section 4.8 concludes the chapter by reviewing recent experimental and corpus work on Slavic syllable structure.

4.2 The Syllable: Background

Among the key issues related to syllable structure are general types of syllable constituents, division of words into syllables (syllabification), and the concept of sonority. As mentioned above, the nucleus is an obligatory component of the syllable. Onset and coda, however, are optional. That is, there are syllables that do not have onsets (e.g. at), codas (ta) or either of them (a). Onsets, nevertheless, are universally preferred over codas, and may be in fact required in some languages. That is, all known languages have a CV syllable, but only a subset of languages has syllables as CVC or VC (Reference HooperHooper 1976, Reference Zec and de LacyZec 2007, Reference Maddieson, Dryer and HaspelmathMaddieson 2013, Reference GordonGordon 2016, among others).

Syllable margins can be simple or complex, corresponding to one or more consonants in them. Multiple consonants in onsets and codas are referred to as clusters. Such clusters are tautosyllabic, occurring within a syllable (e.g. trat, tart, or ta.tra). Clusters can also be heterosyllabic, spanning two syllables (e.g. tar.ta). Like margins, nuclei can be simple or complex, consisting of a short monophthong or a long monophthong or a diphthong, respectively (tat vs. taːt or tawt). Languages that have complex margins and nuclei also have simple ones. Syllables that do not have a coda are called ‘open’, while syllables ending in a coda are called ‘closed’ (e.g. ta vs. tat).

As we saw above, putting syllables or morphemes together within a word can trigger resyllabification of consonants. A single consonant occurring between vowels is typically syllabified with the following vowel, ata → a.ta (not at.a).Footnote ² When we have two or more consonants, the situation is more complex, and may vary from language to language. By default, a cluster of two consonants is split between two syllables (i.e. at.pa or ar.ta), becoming heterosyllabic. However, if this combination of consonants is among those permitted in onset clusters in a given language (see Section 4.4), the entire cluster would be associated with the following vowel (e.g. atra → a.tra), thus being tautosyllabic. Compare, for example, the syllabification in the Russian words dobryj [do.brɨj] ‘good, kind’ and čërnyj [ʧor.nɨj] ‘black’, given the fact that [br-] is a possible onset in the language, while [rn-] is not.

When describing constraints on combinations of segments in syllables, phonologists make use of the concept of sonority. Essentially, some segments are more sonorous, auditorily prominent than others, and this roughly corresponds to the relative loudness of the sounds and the degree of opening of the vocal tract. Vowels are the most sonorous sounds, while obstruent consonants – fricatives, affricates, and stops (plosives) – are the least sonorous. Other manners of articulation fall on a scale from vowels to obstruents: glides (e.g. /j/ and /w/), liquids, and nasals.

Sonority profiles for syllables in the previous Russian examples are illustrated in Figure 4.1, where sonority is defined on a scale from 1 to 5 (Reference Clements, Kingston and BeckmanClements 1990, Reference Parker, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceParker 2011). Note that each syllable has only one peak, which is its nucleus. Sonority increases from the onset to the peak and decreases from the peak to the coda (if present). This is the so-called ‘sonority sequencing principle’ (SSP). There are other sonority-related generalizations. For example, single consonants in codas tend to be more sonorous than in onsets (as seen in the current examples), and consonants in clusters show preferences for certain profiles: rising sonority in onsets and falling sonority in coda, as will be discussed further below.

Figure 4.1 Relative sonority of sounds in the syllables of the Russian words dobryj and čërnyj

With these phonological concepts in mind, we will turn to the discussion of common patterns and historical development of the syllable in Slavic. When referring to modern Slavic languages, our focus will be on standard (literary) varieties. Dialect-specific phenomena of interest, if mentioned, will be relegated to footnotes.

4.3 Slavic Simple Onsets and Codas

In many languages, systematic regularities exist in the distribution of single consonants in onsets and codas (Reference Zec and de LacyZec 2007, Reference GordonGordon 2016). Typically, most (if not all) consonant phonemes can occur in onset, but only a subset of them (if any) can occur in coda. Those that occur in coda tend to be more sonorous – most typically nasals, liquids, and glides, rather than obstruents.

This was in fact the case at some stage in the development of Proto-Slavic (PSL). The comparative reconstruction method allows us to determine that PSL at its earliest stage could tolerate coda consonants of various kinds (Reference DerksenDerksen 2008), as did its ancestor, Proto Indo-European (PIE; Reference FortsonFortson 2011). Later, however, the proto-language began to undergo a series of changes collectively known as the ‘law of open syllables’ (Reference ShevelovShevelov 1964, Reference CarltonCarlton 1991, Reference Sussex and CubberleySussex & Cubberley 2006). One of the first changes was the elimination of coda obstruents – the stage that is reflected in the Late PSL inventory shown in Table 4.1a. Note that stops and fricatives were present among onset consonants, while being absent from the coda set. The prohibition on final obstruents was resolved in PSL in a number of ways: through simple deletion (e.g. tep.ta > te.ta, tet.na > te.na), dissimilation with resyllabification (e.g. ted.ta or tet.ta > te.sta; see Sections 4.4–4.6 on clusters), and j-palatalization with resyllabification (tek.ja or tet.ja > te.ca, tep.ja > te.pʎa). At a later stage, the prohibition on codas was extended to sonorants: nasals underwent vocalization giving rise to nasal vowels (vowel nasalization: ten.ta, tem.ta > tẽ.ta), liquids metathesized (el.ta > le.ta, tel.ta > tle.ta or te.le.ta), and glides merged with preceding vowels (monophthongization; e.g. tejta > ti:ta, tawta > to:ta). The final stage of this process resulted in fully open syllables – no coda consonants of any kind, as illustrated in Table 4.1b.Footnote ³ Historically, this was the state of the consonant system at the time of the disintegration of Late PSL into the South, West, and East Slavic dialectal entities (which took place in the sixth to ninth century; Reference CarltonCarlton 1991).

Table 4.1 Positional consonant inventories for two stages of Late Proto-Slavic, Slovak, and Bulgarian

Note. ‘’ and shading indicates consonants not permitted in word-final coda; vls. = voiceless, vd = voiced; lab. = labial, dent. = dental; pal. = palatal; vel. = velar; lar = laryngeal.

(Based on Reference CarltonCarlton 1991, Reference Short, Comrie and CorbettShort 1993b, and Reference Bojadžiev, Georgieva, Penčev, Stankov and TilkovBojadžiev et al. 1998)

A highly important subsequent change – ‘the fall of weak jers’ – proceeded during the period of disintegration of the Common Slavic dialect continuum into distinct languages (the tenth to mid-twelfth century; Reference ShevelovShevelov 1964, Reference CarltonCarlton 1991). The process refers to the deletion of extra-short centralized vowels – the jers ь and ъ (IPA /ɪ̆/ and /ʊ̆/) – in certain word-medial and all word-final positions. The process had profound consequences for the syllable structure of all Slavic languages, as all or most consonants now became possible in coda (e.g. PSL > Rus: *bykъ [bɨ.kʊ̆] > byk [bɨk] ‘bull’, *gǫsь [gɔ̃.sɪ̆] > gus’ [gusʲ] ‘goose’, *koňь [ko.ɲɪ̆] > kon’ [konʲ] ‘horse’, *orьlъ [o.rɪ̆.lʊ̆] > orel [ʌ.ˈrʲoɫ] ‘eagle’). Further changes in individual languages involved word-final devoicing of voiced obstruents (in word-final codas) and loss of secondary palatalization in coda for some or all palatalized consonants (where such phonemes occurred).Footnote ⁴ As we can see in Table 4.1c and Table 4.1d, the modern languages Slovak and Bulgarian permit syllable-final consonants of all manners of articulation. They do, however, impose positional restrictions with respect to voicing (both languages) and/or palatalization (Bul.) (e.g. PSL > Slk: *dǫbъ [dõ.bʊ̆] > dub [dup] ‘oak’; PSL > Bul.: *koňь [ko.ɲɪ̆] > kon [kon] ‘horse’). Thus, these languages still conform to the cross-linguistic generalization that fewer consonants occur in coda than in onset.

The restriction on final voicing of the same kind is observed in all modern Slavic languages except BCS and Ukrainian (Reference Browne, Comrie and CorbettBrowne 1993, Reference Shevelov, Comrie and CorbettShevelov 1993). Some degree of avoidance of palatalized consonants in coda (both medial and final) is characteristic of all languages that have the contrast, being most extensive in Bulgarian and most limited in Russian (Reference CarltonCarlton 1991, Reference KochetovKochetov 2002, Reference Iskarous and KavitskayaIskarous & Kavitskaya 2018). (For more information on Slavic consonant systems, the reader is referred to Chapter 3 of this volume.)

4.4 Onset Clusters

Not all world languages allow consonant clusters, whether in onset or in coda. Those that do permit onset clusters, typically have those composed of two consonants (56 percent of 486 languages surveyed in Reference Maddieson, Dryer and HaspelmathMaddieson 2013), or less commonly three or more consonants (31 percent). Allowing complex onsets rarely means having completely free combinations of consonants. As noted above, the sonority sequencing condition favors clusters showing an increase in sonority. It also favors consonants in clusters being relatively distinct from each other in sonority, as well as distinct from the nucleus (‘sonority distance’; Reference Parker, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceParker 2011). For example, a sequence obstruent + liquid (1-3-5; e.g. pla) is more optimal in this respect than either of the clusters obstruent + nasal + vowel (1-2-5; e.g. pna) or liquid + glide + vowel (3-4-5; e.g. lja). An important exception to this generalization is the cross-linguistic preference for sibilant fricatives, and /s/ in particular to occur as the first consonant in two- and three-consonant clusters, and particularly preceding a stop (e.g. spa, sta, spla, skwa, etc.).

In the context of cross-linguistic preferences for onset clusters, PSL was a rather typical language. It allowed two- or three-consonant onset clusters, with the prevocalic consonant being always more sonorous than the preceding consonant, unless the latter was a sibilant. This pattern is schematized in Table 4.2a, referring to major sonority classes of C1 and C2 (the first and the second consonants in a cluster): obstruents (O), nasals (N), liquids (L), and glides (G). Obstruents are further subdivided into stops (St, including affricates) and sibilant or other fricatives (Fr), given their distinct patterning in onsets. Late PSL examples of these categories include the O-N clusters in *gnězdo [gnæ.zdo] ‘nest’, *gniti [gni.ti] ‘to rot’; O-L clusters in *plugъ [plu.gʊ̆] ‘plow’, *brodъ [bro.dʊ̆] ‘ford’, *gruša [gru.ʃa] ‘pear’, klenъ [kle.nʊ̆] ‘maple’, *zmьja [zmɪ̆.ja] ‘snake’, *sněgъ [snæ.gʊ̆] ‘snow’, *slabъ [sla.bʊ̆] ‘weak’, *xrěnъ [xræ.nʊ̆] ‘horseradish’; O-G clusters in květъ [kwæ.tʊ̆] ‘flower’, gvězda [gwæ.zda] ‘star’, *svinьja [swi.nɪ̆.ja] ‘pig’, zvěrь [zwæ.rɪ̆] ‘beast’, *xvala [xwa.la] ‘glory’; and sibilant-initial O-O clusters in *skotь [*sko.tʊ̆] ‘cattle’, *spěti [spæ.ti] ‘to ripen’, *stert’i [ster.ci] ‘to guard’ (Reference CarltonCarlton 1991).

Table 4.2 The composition of two-consonant onset clusters in terms of sonority classes in Late PSL, BCS, Lower Sorbian, and Russian

Note. C1 = first consonant; C2 = second (prevocalic) consonant; ‘✓’ = permitted combinations; shading = their absence.

(Based on Reference CarltonCarlton 1991 for PSL, Reference SurdučkiSurdučki 1964 for BCS, Reference StarostaStarosta 1999 and Reference Stone, Comrie and CorbettStone 1993 for Lower Sorbian, and the author’s own unpublished data on Russian)

In contrast to PSL, all modern Slavic languages exhibit more complex onset patterns. Consider, for example, those characteristic of Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (Table 4.2b), Lower Sorbian (Table 4.2c), and Russian (Table 4.2d). Compared to PSL, BCS onset clusters cover additional combinations of obstruents with other obstruents, combinations of nasals with other nasals and glides, as well as liquid + glide clusters (e.g. Serbian gdȅ [gde] ‘where’, tvórnica [tvor.ni.ʦa] ‘factory’, xtȅti [xte.ti] ‘to want’, mnòžiti [mno.ʒi.ti] ‘multiply’, rjȅčnīk [rjetʂ.nik] ‘dictionary’; Reference SurdučkiSurdučki 1964). All of these additions belong to either sonority-rising or sonority plateau types – that is, containing consonants equal in sonority (O-O or N-N). While adding the same new cluster types, Lower Sorbian and Russian go further, introducing some sonority reversal (falling sonority) clusters – those combining nasals and obstruents, liquids and obstruents or nasals (in Rus.), and even glides and obstruents (in LSo.) (e.g. Rus.: mčat‘sja [mʧa.ʦa] ‘to rush’, rvat‘ [rvatʲ] ‘to tear’, l’na [lʲna] ‘flax, gen.sg’; LSo.: mša [mʂa] ‘mass (religious)’, ldžej [ldʐej] ‘lighter’, łdža [wdʐa] ‘lie’, jsyšćo [jsɪ.ʂʨo] ‘village’). Such sonority reversal patterns are considered exceptional, rarely attested in world languages (Reference Scheer, Compton, Goledzinowska and SavchenkoScheer 2007, Reference GordonGordon 2016). It should be noted that there is no agreement among phonologists as to how one should formally analyze clusters violating SSP (see Section 4.2). Some researchers consider such clusters structurally possible, albeit marked; others treat word-initial (and word-final) consonants in clusters as extrasyllabic (not part of the syllable structure), and thus not presenting a problem for SSP (see Reference Bethin, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceBethin 2011 for a review of different approaches to Polish syllable structure). Here we will take the former view, as more consistent with the descriptive focus of this chapter.

How representative are the onset cluster patterns of BCS, Lower Sorbian, and Russian? Table 4.3 provides an overview of attested sonority profiles (without distinguishing stops and fricatives) in major literary Slavic languages, compared to Late PSL. We can see that all languages have onsets with rising sonority, and all modern languages have plateau-type onsets (at least O-O, N-N, and L-L).Footnote ⁵ Only East (with a partial exception of Belarusian) and West Slavic languages, however, have sonority reversal clusters. Among the latter, N-O and L-O/N combinations are most widespread, while G-O/N combinations are limited to West Slavic (partly arising from /ɫ/ > /w/, e.g. Pol. łkać [w̥kaʨ] ‘to sob’; but see also Cze. jdu [jdu] ‘I go’). None of the languages have G-L clusters (e.g. jl-, jr-, wl-, wr-).

Table 4.3 Major sonority-type combinations in two-consonant onset clusters in Slavic languages

Note. ‘✓’ = permitted combinations; shading = their absence. This and the following tables are based on a variety of sources, including those mentioned in the note to Table 4.2, as well as Reference Bojadžiev, Georgieva, Penčev, Stankov and TilkovBojadžiev et al. (1998), Reference Burlyka and PadlužnyBurlyka & Padlužny 1989, Reference Kučera and MonroeKučera & Monroe 1968, Reference Srebot-RejecSrebot-Rejec 1975, Reference Sussex and CubberleySussex & Cubberley 2006, Reference TolstajaTolstaja 1968, language descriptions in Reference Comrie and CorbettComrie & Corbett 1993, and available online dictionaries for some of the languages. The BCS patterns (based on Reference SurdučkiSurdučki 1964) vary in the presence or absence of C + j sequences depending on the dialect (i/jekavian vs. ekavian). The presence of L-G clusters in Cze. and Slk. is indicated in parentheses, as the liquids there can be regarded as syllabic.

Like with single coda consonants discussed above, the stark difference between PSL and modern Slavic languages is due to the ‘fall of weak jers’. Deletion of the extra-short /ɪ̆/ and /ʊ̆/ (ь and ъ) in initial syllables resulted in a variety of clusters. Some of the new clusters showed rising sonority, and thus were identical to the already present clusters (e.g. *tьrǫ [tʊ̆.rõ] > [trõ] ‘I rub’, *zъlъjь [zʊ̆.lʊ̆.jɪ̆] > [zlʊ̆.jɪ̆] ‘angry’, *sъpati [sʊ̆.pa.ti] > [spa.ti] ‘to sleep’). Others were of the plateau or reversal types. For example, the PSL form *tъkati [tʊ̆.ka.ti] ‘to weave’ contained two stops which occurred heterosyllabically. The loss of /ʊ̆/ resulted in a plateau (stop-stop) cluster /tk-/, and this cluster is still present in most modern languages (e.g. BCS tkȁti [tka.ti], Ukr. tkaty [tka.tɪ], Sln. tkáti [tka.ti], Cze. tkáti [tkaː.ti], Rus. tkat’ [tkatʲ], Slk. tkat’ [tkac], Bel. tkac’ [tkaʦʲ], Pol., USo. tkać [tkaʨ], LSo. tkaś [tkaɕ], and Mac. tkae [tka.e]; Reference CarltonCarlton 1991: 342–343). The loss of jer in PSL *lъgati [lʊ̆.ga.ti] ‘to lie’ has resulted in a sonority reversal cluster, which is still manifested as such in many West and East Slavic languages: Cze. lhát [lɦaːt], Pol. łgać [wgaʨ], Kashubian łgac [wgaʦ], Rus. lgat‘ [ɫgatʲ], and Ukr. lhaty [ɫɦa.tɪ]. In contrast, in the corresponding South Slavic forms, the two consonants are consistently heterosyllabic: Bul. lъža [lə.ʒa], Mac. laže [la.ʒe], BCS làgati [la.ga.ti], and Sln. lagati [la.ga.ti] (Reference Scheer, Compton, Goledzinowska and SavchenkoScheer 2007). In these languages, thus, sonority reversal clusters were either ‘repaired’ by epenthesis, or the process of jer deletion was blocked in the first place.

These observations do not necessarily mean that all plateau clusters were preserved across Slavic and all reversal clusters were uniformly maintained in West and East Slavic. Outcomes varied from word to word, and from language to language. For example, the *tъkati cluster was ‘repaired’ by epenthesis in Bul. (tъka [tə.ka]) and Polabian (tåkăt [tø.kat]; Reference CarltonCarlton 1991). Unlike their closely related languages, Slk. and Bel. repaired the *lъgati cluster by medial or initial epenthesis (luhat‘ [lu.ɦac] and ilhać [il.ɣaʦʲ], respectively), while LSo. and USo. resorted to consonant epenthesis and assimilation or fusion (łdgaś ~ dgaś [wdgaɕ ~ dgaɕ] and fać [faʨ], respectively; Reference Scheer, Compton, Goledzinowska and SavchenkoScheer 2007).

Clusters of obstruents that disagreed in some features (e.g. voicing or place) often underwent assimilatory or dissimilatory changes, sometimes resulting in a wide range of language-specific manifestations. This is the case for the bʧ- cluster of the original *bъčela ‘bee’: it resulted in a fully voiceless stop-affricate cluster in Rus. pčela [pʧɪ.ˈɫa], Mac. and Bul. pčela [pʧe.la], and Bel. pčala [ptʂa.ɫa], in a voiced stop-affricate cluster in Ukr. bdžola [bʤo.ɫa], in a voiceless fricative-stop cluster in Cze. and Slk. včela [fʧe.la], and in a voiceless stop-fricative-affricate cluster in Pol. pszczoła [pʂtʂowa]). In some cases, the cluster was simplified by C1 deletion in Polabian (celə [ʦe.ɫə]) and (optionally or colloquial speech) in BCS (pčèla ~ čèla [ptʂe.ɫa ~ tʂe.ɫa]) and LSo. pcoła ~ coła [pʦo.wa ~ ʦo.wa]), while in others it underwent metathesis and epenthesis in Sln. (čebệla [ʧə.be.la]) (Reference CarltonCarlton 1991: 336–337).Footnote ⁶ Spirantization of rhotics in some West Slavic languages, combined with voicing assimilation, has resulted in new obstruent-obstruent clusters, as for example in LSo. kšyś [kʂɪɕ] (< *kryti), pšosyś [pʂo.sɨɕ] (< *prositi), kśidło [kɕi.dwo] (< *kridlo), and pśi [pɕi] (< *pri) (Reference CarltonCarlton 1991: 270–272).

Overall, plateau-type clusters of two stops/affricates are well represented in all modern Slavic languages, as shown in Table 4.4.Footnote ⁷ This makes Slavic clearly stand out among its Indo-European (e.g. Germanic and Romance languages) and non-Indo-European neighbors (Finno-Ugric, and Turkic languages). Interestingly, however, even Slavic languages show certain sequential restrictions. Specifically, most clusters shown in Table 4.4 involve coronals (dentals, alveolopalatals, etc.), either C1 or C2, or both. Clusters without coronals are either rare (velar-labial) or absent altogether (labial-velar). It is not clear whether these are accidental gaps (e.g. due to the absence of PSL words beginning in *pъk, etc.) or there is some systematic avoidance of such sequences. Example (1) illustrates some of these cluster types found in BCS (based on Serbian in Reference SurdučkiSurdučki 1964).

Table 4.4 Sonority plateau onset clusters with two stops/affricates in Slavic languages

1. (1)

   Examples of BCS onset clusters with two stops/affricates
   Labial-coronal	ptȉče [pt-] ‘fledgling’		pčèlińāk [ptʂ-] ‘beehive’			bdȅnije [bd-] ‘midnight mass’
   Coronal-labial	ǯbûn [dʐb-] ‘shrub’
   Coronal-coronal	čtêc [tʂt-] ‘acolyte’
   Coronal-velar	tkâč [tk-] ‘weaver’	dgȕńa [dg-] ‘quince’			čkâĺ [tʂk-] ‘weed’		ǯgȍĺav [dʐg-] ‘bare-boned’
   Velar-coronal	kćî [kʨ-] ‘daughter’			gdȅ [gd-] ‘where’

Turning to clusters with three consonants, cross-linguistic surveys suggest that these tend to be more severely restricted, showing combinations of just a handful of consonant sequences (Reference GordonGordon 2016). In most cases, C1 is a sibilant fricative, and often just an /s/. C2 and C3 are typically drawn from the set of possible (in that language) two-consonant clusters with rising sonority. This is, for example, the case in English: spring, strike, scream, squeak (but no onsets with C1 other than /s/, C2 other than a stop, and C3 other than a liquid or glide). This was also the case for PSL, with the additional permission for /z/ (and later /ʃ/ and /ʒ/) to appear as C1 when C2 was voiced (e.g. spr-, zbr-, str-, zdw-, skl-, zgl-, skw-, etc.; Reference CarltonCarlton 1991: 101). As with two-consonant clusters, the fall of weak jers considerably enlarged cluster inventories of modern Slavic languages. Most notably, this applies to West and East Slavic languages. In many cases, new three- and four-consonant clusters arose from the prefixes v- and s- (or their combination) plus root-initial onsets (e.g. Russian v-drug [vdruk] ‘suddenly’, s-pryg-n-u-t‘ [sprɨ.gnutʲ] ‘to jump off’; v-s-pom-n-i-t‘ [fspo.mnʲitʲ] ‘to recall’). The resulting three-consonant clusters are, therefore, typically of the shape fricative-stop-liquid or fricative-fricative-stop (agreeing in voicing), that is, exhibiting either a partial sonority rise or a sonority plateau. While less common, partly sonority-reversing clusters are also attested, and these are typically tautomorphemic (e.g. Rus. mgl-a [mgɫa] ‘mist’, mzd-a [mzda] ‘bribe’, l‘st-i-t‘ [lʲsʲtʲitʲ] to ‘flatter’; Pol. mgła [mgwa] ‘mist’, krtań [kr̥taɲ] ‘larynx’, drgać [drgaʨ] ‘vibrate’; but note also partially heteromorphemic clusters: Rus. tk-n-u-t‘ [tknutʲ] ‘to poke’; Pol. tknąć [tknoɲʨ] ‘to touch’).

Finally, at least some Slavic languages have words with four-consonant clusters. In Russian, the set of such clusters is rather small, and all of them combine the prefixes v- or vz- and sonority-rising tautomorphemic clusters (e.g. vz-bres-ti [vzbrʲe.sʲtʲi] ‘to occur’, vz-gljad [vzglʲat] ‘glance’, vs-kry-t‘ [fskrɨtʲ] ‘to open up’, vs-xlip [fsxlʲip] ‘sob’). Thus their overall shape is limited to fricative-fricative-stop/fricative-liquid sequences. The set of four- (and three-) consonant clusters in Polish is more diverse (e.g. pstrzyć [pstʂɨʨ] ‘make gaudy’, wzgląd [vzglond] ‘consideration’, wskrzesić [fskʂe.siʨ] ‘to resurrect’, drgnąć [drgnoɲʨ] ‘shudder’, źdźbło [ʑʥbwo] ‘blade (of grass)’; see Reference Cyran, Gussmann, van der Hulst and RitterCyran & Gussmann 1999, Reference Bethin, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceBethin 2011), in part due to the above-mentioned rhotic spirantization. Overall, such clusters are highly unusual in the cross-linguistic context. In particular, languages with onsets of at least three obstruents or four consonants of any kind are classified as exhibiting a ‘highly complex syllable structure’ (Reference EasterdayEasterday 2019). Russian and, particularly, Polish thus qualify to be included in this category, together with other, notoriously complex syllable structure languages Georgian, Tashlhiyt, and Nuu-chah-nulth.

4.5 Coda Clusters

It has been observed that languages tend to put a stricter limit on numbers of consonants in coda, compared to onsets. For example, those that permit two- or three-consonant clusters in onsets tend to permit only simple codas or at maximum two-consonant codas (Reference GordonGordon 2016). Languages with longer codas, as, for example, English (cf. texts [tɛksts]) are much less common. In this respect, Early PSL conformed to this cross-linguistic generalization. The language allowed three-consonant onsets and almost exclusively single codas. A few cases of two coda consonant clusters were limited before suffixes (e.g. *bergti [berk.ti] ‘to protect’, *stergti [sterk.ti] ‘to guard’). The onset-coda asymmetry became further enhanced in Late PSL, with the elimination of all coda consonants, including the most sonorous glides (see Section 4.3).

The fall of jers not only reintroduced single codas, but also gave rise to two- and occasionally three-consonant codas. One source of coda clusters included onset clusters followed by a weak jer. Recall that onset clusters in PSL belonged to two types: those showing rising sonority (obstruent + sonorant), and those showing a sonority plateau, with C1 being a sibilant fricative (fricative + stop). In principle, this could produce various coda clusters with rising and plateau sonority in separate Slavic languages (as shown in (2)). The situation with the former cluster type, however, is more complicated. Some of the original word-medial onset clusters had been already broken up by epenthesis (jer-like ‘fill vowels’) prior to the fall of jers (e.g. *ogńь [o.gɲɪ̆] > *ogьńь [o.gɪ̆.ɲɪ̆]; Reference Sussex and CubberleySussex & Cubberley 2006: 114–115, Reference HolzerHolzer 2007). This process occurred most consistently in the South Slavic dialectal area, resulting in the complete absence of rising sonority clusters (e.g. PSL *myslь [mɨ.slɪ̆] ‘thought’ > *mysъlь [mɨ.sʊ̆.lɪ̆] > Bul. misǎl [mi.səɫ], BCS mȋsao [mi.sa.o]; PSL *mog-lъ [mo.glʊ̆] ‘can, past sg’ > *mogъlъ [mo.gʊ̆.lʊ̆] > Bul. mogǎl [mo.gaɫ], BCS mȍgao [mo.ga.o]). In West and East Slavic languages, where the use of fill vowels was more limited, rising sonority coda clusters became possible. They were subsequently retained in most cases, while being subject to ‘repair’ by epenthesis or deletion in others (e.g. Pol. myśl [mɨɕl̥], mógł [mugw ~ mukf]), but ogień [o.ɟeɲ] ‘fire’; Rus. mysl’ [mɨsʲlʲ] but mog [mok], ogon’ [ʌ.gonʲ]; Reference Sussex and CubberleySussex & Cubberley 2006). In contrast to rising sonority clusters, the sibilant-initial plateau clusters (O-O; see (2b)) were relatively well-integrated into syllable systems of all Slavic languages (albeit with some variation in South Slavic; e.g. BCS mȏst [most] ‘bridge’ but vȍsak [vo.sak] ‘wax’ from *mostъ [mo.stʊ̆] and *voskъ [vo.skʊ̆]).

1. (2)

   A maximally possible set of coda cluster types resulting from the fall of jers (with Late PSL forms based on based on Reference DerksenDerksen 2008)
   			Late PSL			Potential cluster
   a.	Rising	O-N	*ogňь	[o.gɲɪ̆]	>	[-gɲ]	‘fire’
   			*plěsnь	[plæ.snɪ̆]	>	[-sn(ʲ)]	‘mold’
   			*těsnъ	[tæ.snʊ̆]	>	[-sn]	‘narrow’
   		O-L	*teplъ	[te.plʊ̆ ]	>	[-pl]	‘warm’
   			*bobrъ	[bo.brʊ̆]	>	[-br]	‘beaver’
   			*větrъ	[wæ.trʊ̆]	>	[-tr]	‘wind’
   			*svekrъ	[swe.krʊ̆]	>	[-kr]	‘wife’s father-in-law’
   			*krǫglъ	[krõ.glʊ̆]	>	[-gl]	‘round’
   			*myslь	[mɨ.slɪ̆]	>	[-sl(ʲ)]	‘thought’
   		O-G	*terzvъ	[ter.zwʊ̆]	>	[-zw]	‘sober’
   		O-O-L	*ostrъ	[o.strʊ̆]	>	[-str]	‘sharp’
   			*bystrъ	[bɨ.strʊ̆]	>	[-str]	‘fast’
   b.	Plateau	O-O	*mostъ	[mo.stʊ̆]	>	[-st]	‘bridge’
   			*gvozdь	[gwo.zdɪ̆]	>	[-zd(ʲ)]	‘nail’
   			*voskъ	[vo.skʊ̆]	>	[-sk]	‘wax’
   			*mozgъ	[mo.zgʊ̆]	>	[-zg]	‘brain’
   			*xrǫsťь	[xrõ.scɪ̆]	>	[-sc]	‘cockchafer’
   			*dъždžь	[dʊ̆.ʒʤɪ̆]	>	[-ʒʤ]	‘rain’
   			*berstъ	[ber.stʊ̆]	>	[-st]	‘elm’
   c.	Falling	L-O	*sьrpъ	[sr̩ʲ.pʊ̆]	>	[-rp]	‘sickle’
   			*žьlčь	[ʒl̩ʲ.ʧɪ̆]	>	[-lʧ]	‘bile’
   			*vьlkъ	[wl̩ʲ.kʊ̆]	>	[-lk]	‘wolf’
   			*vьrxъ	[vr̩ʲ.xʊ̆]	>	[-rx]	‘top’
   		L-N	*xъlmъ	[xl̩.mʊ̆]	>	[-lm]	‘hill’
   			*čьlnъ	[ʧl̩ʲ.nʊ̆]	>	[-ln]	‘boat’
   			*gъrnъ	[gr̩.nʊ̆]	>	[-rn]	‘hearth’
   		L-O-O	*pьrstъ	[pr̩ʲ.stʊ̆]	>	[-rst]	‘finger’

Another potential source of coda clusters were sequences of syllabic liquids with obstruents or nasals. In Slavic dialects where these syllabic consonants had decomposed into jer + lateral or rhotic sequences (rather than remaining syllabic), falling sonority clusters became possible (liquid + obstruent; see (2c)). In these cases, L-O and L-N clusters tended to be accepted without major modifications, given their preferred (falling) sonority pattern (e.g. *sьrpъ [sr̩ʲ.pʊ̆] ‘sickle’, > Bul. sǎrp [sərp], Pol. sierp [ɕerp], Rus. serp [sʲerp]; *xъlmъ [xl̩.mʊ̆] ‘hill’ > Bul. xǎlm [xəlm]; USo. chołm [kʰowm], Rus. xolm [xoɫm]). A further influx of Greek/Latin-based and other Western European borrowings (where coda clusters were less restricted; cf. e.g. Reference Lehmann and CalboliLehmann 2005 on Latin) had added considerably to the present inventory of complex codas of all three major types. Rising sonority clusters became fairly common (e.g. -tr, -kl), and plateau clusters could now include combinations of stops (albeit quite limited: -pt and -kt).

To illustrate the development of some major patterns observed in modern languages, Table 4.5 shows two-consonant coda combinations in (a) Late PSL, (b) BCS, (c) Lower Sorbian, and (d) Russian. As discussed above, Late PSL lacked coda clusters altogether (having eliminated the few earlier existing cases, e.g. *berg-ti [berk.ti] > ber-t’i [ber.ci] ‘to protect’). In contrast, BCS permits a variety of coda clusters, most of which are of falling sonority (N-O, L-O, L-N, G-O, and G-N – mainly from recent loans). There are also sonority plateau clusters (O-O, with the exception of two fricatives), and one type of rising sonority clusters (O-L, stop + liquid). The latter clusters occur exclusively in recent loanwords (e.g. dúbl [dubl] ‘doubles (in tennis)’, bicìkl [bi.ʦikl] ‘bicycle’), where the sonorants could be pronounced as syllabic. Native rising sonority clusters are absent due to the application of epenthesis (‘fill vowels’, discussed above; e.g. *bystrъ > bȉstar [bi.star] ‘clear’, *dobrъ > dȍbar [do.bar] ‘good’, *myslь > misao [mi.sa.o] ‘thought’, *plěsnь > plijesan [pli.je.san] ‘mold’). Moreover, clusters in some borrowings have also undergone simplification (e.g. tèātar [te.a.tar] ‘theater’).

Table 4.5 The composition of two-consonant coda clusters in terms of sonority classes in Late PSL, BCS, Lower Sorbian, and Russian

Note. C1 = first (postvocalic) consonant; C2 = second consonant; ‘✓’ = permitted combinations; shading = their absence.

Lower Sorbian and Russian have maintained and considerably expanded the cluster set inventory, which now involves large sets of falling sonority combinations. In the case of Lower Sorbian, this was at least in part achieved through deletion of unstressed vowels and partly through large-scale borrowings from German. The former process is of particular interest, as it resulted in combinations of essentially any consonant + /k/ or /ʦ/ (of the original diminutive suffixes -ek and -ec) (Reference StarostaStarosta 1999). This has considerably increased the inventory of falling sonority clusters (mork [mork] ‘moor, dim.’, kulojc [ku.lojʦ] ‘round building’, domk [domk] ‘house, dim.’, afeńc [a.feɲʦ] ‘monkey’, žołc [ʐowʦ] ‘bile’, lawk [lawk] ‘lion, dim.’, tkalc [tkalʦ] ‘weaver’) and sonority plateau clusters (bobk [bopk] ‘bean, dim’; badack [ba.daʦk] ‘thistle, dim.’, chłodk [xwotk] ‘shadow’; dubc [dupʦ] ‘oak grove’; kupc [kupʦ] ‘buyer’, nutśk [nuʨk] ‘the inner’; bóžc [buʂʦ] ‘idol’). Vocalization of the original velarized /ɫ/ to /w/ (e.g. zmysł [zmɨsw] ‘sense’; žołw [ʐowf] ‘turtle’) and assibilation of rhotics after voiceless stops (r > ʂ, rʲ > ɕ; e.g. kopš [kopʂ] ‘dill’, wjapś [wʲapɕ] ‘boar’) are additional factors that have increased combinatorial possibilities for the language.

As mentioned above (see (2)), some three-consonant clusters also resulted from the fall of jers or the loss of syllabic consonants (e.g. Rus. bystr [bɨstr] ‘fast’, perst [pʲerst] ‘finger, arch.’). Many other clusters were introduced through borrowings (e.g. Rus. punkt [punkt] ‘point’, sfinks [sfʲinks] ‘sphynx’, tekst [tʲekst] ‘text’). Codas with four consonants are also attested in some Slavic languages, for example in Polish and Russian. These clusters, however, appear to be limited to specific morphological forms (genitive plural forms of nouns with the suffix -stwo/-stvo: głupstw [gwupstf] ‘nonsense, gen. pl.’; lesovodstv [lʲɪ.sʌ.votstf] ‘forestry, gen. pl.’). Decomposition of the Polish nasal vowels before stops adds another consonant to coda, resulting in clusters of up to five consonants (przestępstw [pʂe.stempstf] ‘offense, gen. pl.’). Thus, at least Polish and Russian exhibit what is considered to be highly complex syllable structure (cf. Reference EasterdayEasterday 2019) both in codas and in onsets. This is a dramatic turnaround from the state they inherited from Proto-Slavic a thousand years ago and a complete reversal of the long-term tendency towards open syllables.

As with onset clusters, obstruents in coda always agree in voicing (as seen in many examples above). Given the application of final devoicing in most Slavic languages, this means that all coda obstruent clusters are typically voiceless. Moreover, post-obstruent sonorants are regularly phonetically devoiced (e.g. Pol. wiatr [wjatr̥] ‘wind’). In languages with secondary palatalization, coda clusters also tend to agree in their palatalized or plain quality (e.g. Rus. vest’ [vʲesʲtʲ] ‘news’), albeit subject to other constraints (see Reference TimberlakeTimberlake 2004). Another process attested in some Slavic languages is cluster simplification. This happens, for example, in Bulgarian and Macedonian, at least in casual speech (e.g. Bul. most [mos] ‘bridge’, Mac. radost [rados] ‘joy’; Reference Sussex and CubberleySussex & Cubberley 2006: 174; Reference Friedman, Comrie and CorbettFriedman 1993).

4.6 Heterosyllabic/Word-Medial Clusters

Medial clusters can be tautosyllabic, if the consonants constitute a legitimate onset (a.tra). Otherwise, clusters are heterosyllabic, spanning a syllable boundary (e.g. ar.ta). This also applies to geminates (double consonants; e.g. at.ta), as these can be considered clusters for the purpose of syllable structure. When two consonants come together in a heterosyllabic cluster, languages prefer the coda consonant to be of higher sonority than the onset consonant. That is, a sequence an.pa is preferred to ap.na or at.pa. This is the so-called ‘syllable contact law’ (Reference HooperHooper 1976, Reference Murray and VennemannMurray & Vennemann 1983, Reference Parker, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceParker 2011, Reference GordonGordon 2016). In PSL, the effect of this process is difficult to distinguish from the effect of the more general law of open syllables. As reviewed above, elimination of least sonorous (obstruent) codas was one of the first steps of this process. It applied both word-finally and word-medially. In the latter case, the violating structure was repaired through deletion (*grebti [greb.ti] > *greti [gre.ti] ‘to dig, rake’, *tepti [tep.ti] > te.ti [te.ti] ‘to strike, beat’, *gybnonti [gɨb.non.ti] > *gynǫti [gɨ.nõ.ti] ‘to perish’), coalescence with resyllabification (*mogti [mok.ti] > *mot’i [mo.ci] ‘to be able’, *pekti [pek.ti] > *pet‘i [pe.ci] ‘to bake’, *strigti [strik.ti] > *strit‘i [stri.ci] ‘to shear, cut, slip’), or dissimilation with resyllabification (*bledti [blet.ti] > *blęsti [ble.sti] ‘to talk nonsense, err’, *gnetti [gnet.ti] > *gnesti [gne.sti] ‘to press, knead’; Reference CarltonCarlton 1991). As a result of these changes, all remaining medial clusters contained relatively sonorant codas: nasals and liquids (e.g. *domti [dom.ti] ‘to blow’, *merti [mer.ti] ‘to die’, *melti [mel.ti] ‘to grind’), at least prior to the other open syllable law processes – vowel nasalization and liquid metathesis (see Section 4.3). Earlier clusters with initial fricatives were tautosyllabic, and therefore did not violate the contact law (e.g. *nesti [ne.sti] ‘to carry’, *vezti [ve.sti] ‘to transport’, *kysnǫti [kɨ.snon.ti] ‘to turn sour’, *dъxnǫti [dʊ̆.xnon.ti] ‘to breathe’; based on Reference DerksenDerksen 2008).

The fall of jers had led to large numbers of medial clusters in individual Slavic languages. These involved both tautosyllabic and heterosyllabic clusters, as well as those within and across morphemes. The heterosyllabic clusters have rarely simplified since their emergence, regardless of the sonority of the coda and onset. This suggests that the syllable contact law is no longer part of the syllable structure of Slavic languages. This is further confirmed by the lack of restructuring of clusters borrowed from other languages (e.g. BCS rȁgbi [rag.bi] ‘rugby’). All Slavic languages, however, show assimilation of consonants in clusters in terms of voicing, which is typically regressive (e.g. Bel. kazka [ka.ska] ‘tale’, pros‘ba [prozʲ.ba] ‘request’). Progressive assimilation is also possible, but only tautosyllabically and involving /v/ and former rhotics (Pol. twój [tfuj]; LSo. pśi [pɕi] from *pri ‘by, at’). As mentioned above, clusters also show propensity to assimilation in secondary palatalization (‘palatality assimilation’; e.g. Rus. pesnja [pʲe.sʲnʲʌ] ‘song’).

It should be noted that the question of syllabification in medial clusters is far from being resolved. Given the unusual complexity of Slavic onsets and codas, it is not always clear how to divide medial clusters with three or more consonants (see Reference Bethin, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceBethin 2011 for a review). Moreover, native speaker intuitions about syllabification do not always agree with theoretical assumptions. For example, most Polish speakers polled by Reference Rubach and BooijRubach and Booij (1990) syllabified the word listwa ‘board’ as [lis.tfa], and only few did it as [li.stfa], as would be expected given the possible onset [stf-] (e.g. stworzyć [stfoʐɨʨ] ‘create’).

Many medial clusters in Slavic languages are part of the so-called ‘vowel-zero’ alternations. These alternations arose when a jer in a particular morphological form was deleted, while being preserved in another form, as for example, in Polish owca – owiec [o.fʦa – o.wjeʦ] ‘sheep, nom.sg/gen.pl’ (from *ovь-c-a – ovь-cь [o.wɪ̆.ʦa – o.wɪ̆.ʦʊ̆]), źródło – źródeł [ʑru.dwo – ʑru.dɛw] ‘spring, nom.sg/gen.pl’. Some alternations also involve onset clusters (e.g. Pol. psy – pies [psɨ – pjɛs] ‘dogs, nom.pl/nom.sg’ from *pьsy – pьsъ [pɪ̆.sɨ – pɪ̆.sʊ̆]). The phonology of Slavic vowel-zero alternations has been a topic of considerable research and debate (see Reference Bethin, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceBethin 2011 on relevant work on Polish; see Reference TimberlakeTimberlake 2004 on Russian). The synchronic situation and comparison across languages is fairly complicated due to occasional paradigm leveling in either direction (towards clusters or towards vowels in both forms). (For more information on Slavic consonant clusters and phonotactics, the reader is referred to Chapter 5 in this volume.)

4.7 Nuclei

As mentioned in Section 4.1, syllable nuclei can be simple or complex. Simple nuclei in the form of short oral vowels are the cross-linguistic default. As shown in Table 4.6, these segments are invariably present in all Slavic languages, including PSL. The nasal vowels ę and ǫ (/ẽ/ and /õ/), which developed in Late PSL from short vowel + nasal sequences have lost nasalization in all modern languages, with the exception of Polish and Kashubian (Reference CarltonCarlton 1991).Footnote ⁸ In modern Polish, the phonetic nasality of the vowels is limited, occurring in word-final and pre-fricative positions (as well as phonetically arising from vowel + nasal sequences before fricatives: Reference SawickaSawicka 1995: 134–138). In other contexts, the vowels decompose into a sequence of an oral vowel + nasal consonant (Reference Bethin, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceBethin 2011), resulting in more complex coda clusters.

Table 4.6 Types of nuclei attested in Slavic languages

(Based on Reference CarltonCarlton 1991 and Reference Sussex and CubberleySussex & Cubberley 2006)

Syllabic liquids (both laterals and rhotics) were presumably part of the Late PSL phonemic system (Reference Sussex and CubberleySussex & Cubberley 2006), typically being transcribed as liquid/jer sequences (trъt, trьt, tlъt, tlьt; tъrt, tъrt, tъlt, and tъlt). In modern languages, syllabic consonants are indisputably present in BCS (the rhotic only, as the lateral has vocalized),Footnote ⁹ Czech, and Slovak (both the lateral and the rhotic). Most typically, these arose from the PSL syllabic liquids (e.g. Cze.: *sъmьrtь [sʊ̆.mr̩ʲ.tɪ̆] > smrt [smr̩t], *vьlkъ [vl̩ʲ.kʊ̆] > vlk [vl̩k]; BCS: *sъmьrtь > smȑt [smr̩t], *žьltъ [ʒl̩ʲ.tʊ̆] > *žlt [ʒl̩t] > žȗt [ʒut]). Syllabic rhotics are also often posited for Macedonian and Slovenian; however, these are now typically realized as a schwa + /r/ sequence (Reference CarltonCarlton 1991).

Complex nuclei include long vowels, long syllabic consonants, and diphthongs. All early PSL vowels were paired with respect to length (Reference ShevelovShevelov 1964), the contrast that was inherited from PIE (Reference FortsonFortson 2011). In Late PSL, however, length contrasts were reanalyzed as quality contrasts. Most modern Slavic languages have lost the contrast of phonemic length. Yet, new long vowels have developed in BCS, Slovak, and Czech, triggered by a number of seemingly unrelated changes: compensatory lengthening following the loss of weak jers, glide deletion in VjV sequences, as well as stress shift (Reference CarltonCarlton 1991). Perhaps not coincidentally, these are also the languages with syllabic consonants. Slovak is particularly interesting in this respect, as it extends the length distinction to syllabic consonants (e.g. *sъmьrtь [sʊ̆.mr̩ʲ.tɪ̆] > smrt’ [smr̩c], *mьrtvъjь [mr̩ʲ.twʊ̆.jɪ̆] > mŕtvy [mr̩ː.tvi], *xъlpъ [xl̩.pʊ̆] > chlp [xl̩p], *stъlpъ [stl̩.pʊ̆] > stĺp [stl̩ːp]; cf. Croatian, footnote 9).

Finally, diphthongs are typically posited as part of the Early PSL system (Reference CarltonCarlton 1991, Reference Sussex and CubberleySussex & Cubberley 2006). Alternatively, these can be analyzed as vowel + glide sequences, which would explain their fusion into long monophthongs as part of the open syllable law. Diphthongs, as single phonemic units, are not typical of Slavic (in contrast, for example, with Germanic languages; Reference König and Van der AuweraKönig & Van der Auwera 1994). Some clear cases of diphthongs nevertheless exist in some Slavic languages, namely in the West Slavic Czech, Slovak, and Sorbian (Reference Short, Comrie and CorbettShort 1993a, Reference Short, Comrie and Corbett1993b, Reference Stone, Comrie and CorbettStone 1993).

In many languages of the world, complex nuclei (as well as complex codas) play an important prosodic role, in particularly attracting stress (Reference Zec and de LacyZec 2007, Reference Parker, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceParker 2011). This is not apparently the case in Slavic languages, where stress is either completely free (lexical) or fixed on a particular syllable (e.g. initial in Czech, or penultimate in Polish, and antepenultimate in Macedonian; Reference CarltonCarlton 1991).

The last phenomenon to mention is vowel reduction and deletion involving unstressed nuclei. Vowel reduction, by which unstressed /a/ and /o/ neutralize to [ʌ] or [ə] (akan’e) and /e/ and /i/ neutralize to [ɪ], is characteristic of Russian. A somewhat similar process is observed in Belarusian (Reference Mayo, Comrie and CorbettMayo 1993).Footnote ¹⁰ Neither case, however, has consequences for the overall syllable structure of the languages. This is in contrast to unstressed vowel deletion in Upper/Lower Sorbian and Slovenian. In USo., for example, high vowels /i/, /ɪ/ (y), and /u/ have elided, leading to the formation of clusters, both across and within syllables (e.g. *koryto [ko.rɨ.to] > korto [kor.to], *hołub [ho.wup] > hołb [howp]; see also Section 4.5). (For more information on Slavic vowel systems, the reader is referred to Chapter 2 in this volume.)

4.8 Experimental and Corpus Work on Slavic Syllable Structure

Given its relative complexity, Slavic syllable structure has featured prominently in general phonological literature (e.g. Reference Rubach and BooijRubach and Booij 1990, Reference Bethin, van Oostendorp, Ewen, Hume and RiceBethin 2011, Reference ScheerScheer 2004, Reference Cyran, Gussmann, van der Hulst and RitterCyran & Gussmann 1999, among many others). More recently, the Slavic syllable has become the focus of experimental – phonetic, phonological, and psycholinguistic – work. Specifically, some recent phonetic investigations involved the relative timing of consonants in Russian onset clusters as a function of their sonority profile (Reference Pouplier, Marin, Hoole and KochetovPouplier et al. 2017), syllable-based articulatory differences in the realization of Russian palatalized consonants (Reference Kochetov, Goldstein, Whalen and BestKochetov 2006), the production of Czech-like fricative + nasal onset clusters by native English speakers (Reference DavidsonDavidson 2006), and temporal articulatory properties of the Slovak syllabic liquids (Reference Pouplier and BeňušPouplier & Beňuš 2011). A number of phonologically focused studies examined native speaker intuitions about sonority and vowel-zero alternations in Russian (Reference Gouskova and BeckerGouskova & Becker 2013) and Polish (Reference ChociejChociej 2019). Much attention has been devoted to native and non-native perception of onset clusters depending on their sonority. Reference Berent, Steriade, Lennertz and VakninBerent et al. (2007), for example, examined accuracy and misperceptions of Russian sonority reversal clusters by Russian and Hebrew native speakers. Reference Davidson and ShawDavidson & Shaw (2012) examined patterns of errors in the perception of Slavic-like fricative-initial clusters by English native speakers.

The increasing availability of digital materials, such as online dictionaries and text corpora of many Slavic languages, has triggered quantitative research on syllable structure (see e.g. Reference Orzechowska and WieseOrzechowska & Wiese’s 2015 work on Polish onset clusters and Reference ChociejChociej’s 2019 work on Polish vowel-zero alternations; see also an important earlier work, Reference Kučera and MonroeKučera & Monroe 1968 on Czech and Russian). Spoken corpora of Slavic languages have also been contributing new data on the production and acquisition of the syllable (e.g. Reference Jarosz, Calamaro and ZentzJarosz et al. 2017 on the acquisition of Polish onset clusters by children). Altogether, experimental studies of this kind have contributed to our better understanding of phonetic and phonological properties of Slavic syllables, as well as the concept of syllable organization and sonority in general.

5.1 Introduction

This chapter aims to be an overview of major phonologically conditioned alternations in Slavic languages. Phonological conditioning refers to a situation when the choice of a particular allophone is determined solely by phonological factors, which renders the alternations predictable and largely exceptionless. While it would not be possible to address all phonological alternations present in all Slavic languages, and while many of these alternations are at least partially morphologically conditioned (for morphological conditioning see Chapters 7–8, 11–12 in this volume), we attempt to provide a summary of the alternations that are in some way typical, occurring in more than one Slavic language, whether they have developed separately or can be reconstructed to an earlier stage. Thus, this chapter is arranged around the synchronic alternations that feature prominently in Slavic languages, such as vocalic alternations, including vowel reduction and vowel-zero alternations, and consonantal alternations, including voicing assimilation, word-final devoicing, and palatalization before front vowels and as a result of assimilation in consonant clusters. Some language-specific alternations are also discussed.Footnote ¹

5.2 Vocalic Alternations

5.3 Consonantal Alternations