Chapter 2: Typology of prevocalic epenthesis in selected Germanic and Slavic
2.2 The quality of the epenthetic segment
2.2.1. Interaction with the site of epenthesis
The position in which prevocalic epenthesis occurs may influence the choice of the epenthetic segment. In the literature, this topic has received some attention (see Uffmann, 2007; Żygis, 2010, for an overview). Epenthetic glides and glottal stops tend to appear in different positions. Cross-linguistic data indicate that glides are commonly employed as hiatus-breakers (recall section 2.1.1 and the discussion of Polish, Dutch, Ukrainian, and other languages). The glides usually serve as a transition in hiatus and retain minimal contrast to the surrounding vowels. Glottal stops, on the other hand, strongly contrast with the surrounding vowels and most often provide an onset at the beginning of a constituent (recall section 2.1.2 and the discussion of German, Dutch, and other languages). In addition to providing an onset of the syllable, glottal stops also signal the beginning of a constituent where more contrast is required.
Some languages exhibit glottal stop epenthesis at the beginning of a constituent and glide insertion within words or morphemes. One of such languages is Czech.
Glottal stops are often found at the beginning of constituents, such as words. In Czech, glottal stop epenthesis applies word-initially in onsetless syllables (40a). Word-internally, in hiatus consisting of at least one high vowel there is /j/ insertion, as is
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further illustrated with the examples in (40b) below. The data were taken from Rubach (2000: 298) and de Bray (1980: 43).
(40) Czech: word-initial prevocalic glottal stop insertion SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
a. Amerika [ˈɁamerɪka] ‘America’
ulice [ˈʔulɪtsɛ] ‘street’
idiot [ˈɁɪdɪjɔt] ‘idiot’
Anglie [ˈɁaŋglɪjɛ] ‘England’
b. patriot [ˈpatrɪjɔt] ‘patriot’
dialekt [ˈdɪjalɛkt] ‘dialect’
fialka [ˈfɪjalka] ‘violet’
Haiti [ˈɦajɪtɪ] ‘Haiti’
As has already been mentioned in section 2.1.2.3, the generalization about a word-initial glottal stop is also present in German, in which a glottal stop is inserted at the beginning of a vowel-initial stressed syllables word-initially, in both stressed (41a) and unstressed syllables (41b). Word internally, however, glottal stop epenthesis is limited to the beginning of a stressed syllable, as shown in (41c). Thus, a glottal stop is inserted either at the beginning of a word, or word-internally, but obligatorily at the beginning of a stressed syllable. Relevant examples illustrating the above are given in (41) below (after Alber, 2001: 6‒8; Wiese, 1996: 58‒59).
(41) German: glottal stop insertion at the beginning of a constituent SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
a. Atem [ˈʔa:təm] ‘breath’
Opa [ˈʔo:pa] ‘grandpa’
b. Orkan [Ɂɔʀˈkaːn] ‘hurricane’
Oase [ɁɔˈɁaːzə] ‘oasis’
c. naiv [naˈɁiːf] ‘naive’
Poet [poˈɁeːt] ‘poet’
Mäander [mɛˈɁandɐ] ‘meander’
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Word-internal onsetless syllables in German, however, exhibit some variation in realization. Inside words, stressed onsetless syllables may be realized with a glottal stop. However, according to Alber (2001: 6) and Wiese (1996: 58) after high vowels, speakers of German sometimes insert a glide or apply gliding, as in for instance Linguistik [linˈgʋistik] ‘linguistics’ instead of the expected [linguˈʔistik]. Relevant examples are given in (42) below. Note that epenthetic glides are never found word-initially. The examples were taken from Alber (2001: 6) and Wiese (1996: 58).
(42) German: variation in word-medial hiatus
SPELLING SURFACE FORM1 SURFACE FORM2 GLOSS
Hiatus [hiˈʔa.tus] [hiˈjatus] ‘hiatus’
Diode [diˈɁoːdə] [diˈjoːdə] ‘diode’
Linguistik [linguˈʔistik] [linˈgʋistik] ‘linguistics’
To summarize, in German, glottal stop epenthesis occurs in the following environments: word-initial onsetless syllables and word-medial stressed onsetless syllables. However, in words-medial stressed syllables, there is a degree of variation, as speakers sometimes insert a glide after high vowels or apply gliding. The variation, however, is never found word-initially, as in this environment there is always glottal stop insertion.
The glottal stop is common word-initially in vowel-initial words in many languages. However, while some languages militate against word-initial onsetless syllables word-initially, they do not resolve hiatus inside words. An example of such a language is Bulgarian. In Bulgarian, word-initial onsetless syllables are not tolerated.
Vowel-initial words are realized with a glottal stop, as shown in (43) below. Word medially, however, hiatus is tolerated, as there is neither glottal stop nor glide insertion, as illustrated with the examples in (43b) below (cf. Rubach, 2000: 287).25
25In transcription I follow the original convention proposed by Rubach (2000: 287).
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(43) Bulgarian: word-initial glottal stop epenthesis and word-medial hiatus SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
a. urnata [ʔu] ‘the urn’
Amerika [ʔa] ‘America’
Irak [ʔi] ‘Iraq’
b. dialekt [ia] ‘dialect’
patriot [io] ‘patriot’
egoist [oi] ‘egoist’
Some languages permit word-initial onsetless syllables, but resolve word-internal hiatus, which may be observed in Ukrainian. Some illustrative examples are given in (44) below (cf. Rubach, 2002: 675). Ukrainian resolves word-internal hiatus with a glide /j/, however, unlike the languages discussed above (i.e., Czech, German, and Bulgarian), in Ukrainian the word-initial syllable remains onsetless.26
(44) Ukrainian: word-medial glide insertion and onsetless word-initial syllable SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
kokajin [kokaˈjin] ‘cocaine’
stojik [stoˈjik] ‘Stoic’
intujityvnyj [intujiˈtɪvnɪj] ‘intuitive’
Ivan [iˈʋan] ‘proper name’
Izrajil [izˈrajil] ‘Israel’
In sum, there is a recurring pattern for the quality of the inserted segment depending on the position of epenthesis: glottal stops are more common word-initially, or at the beginning of constituents, whereas glides are inserted word-medially, where they resolve hiatus. There are, however, exceptions to this generalization. Some accounts of word-initial glide insertion come from dialectal Polish. Rural Polish, a sociolect spoken mostly by the people with elementary education throughout Poland may serve as an example. The data given in (45) below illustrate /j/ insertion word-initially before /i/. In standard Polish, however, this way of realization of <i>-initial word is non-standard and not acceptable in prescriptive terms (see, for instance, Sawicka, 1995: 121). Consider the data below from Rubach (2000: 296).
26Ukrainian, however, shows reflexes of historical word-initial epenthesis. Recall section 2.1.2.2.
60 (45) Rural Polish: word-initial glide insertion
SPELLING STANDARD POLISH RURAL POLISH GLOSS
Irena [ˈirɛna] [ˈjirɛna] ‘Irene’
idę [ˈidɛ] [ˈjidɛ] ‘I go’
inny [ˈinnɨ] [ˈjinnɨ] ‘other’
A similar process may be observed in Kurpian Polish, a dialect spoken in the northern parts of the Mazovia province in Poland. The data show that word-initial stressed syllables are realized with a glide /j/. Consider the examples in (46) below, where realizations of some words in standard Polish and Kurpian are juxtaposed. The data were drawn from Rubach (2020: 4).
(46) Kurpian Polish: word-initial glide epenthesis STANDARD POLISH KURPIAN POLISH
SPELLING SURFACE FORM SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
iskra [ˈiskra] jïskra [ˈjɪskra] ‘spark’
izba [ˈizba] jïzba [ˈjɪzba] ‘room’
igła [ˈigwa] jïgła [ˈjigwa] ‘needle’
irys [ˈirɨs] jïrys [ˈjɪrɨs] ‘iris’
idiota [idˈjɔta] jïdjota [jɪdˈjɔta] ‘idiot’
ikona [ˈikɔna] jïkona [ˈjɪkɔna] ‘icon’
Iberia [ˈibɛrja] Jïberjå [ˈjɪbɛrjɒ] ‘Iberia’
islam [ˈislam] jïslam [ˈjɪslam] ‘islam’
Word-initial glide insertion may also be observed in another regional dialect of Polish, i.e., Podhale Goralian, which is spoken in the Podhale area (the south of Poland). The data in (47) below (after Rubach and Łuszczek 2019: 119) show glide insertion at the beginning of a vowel-initial word in a stressed syllable before /ɔ/.
Thus, the inserted glide /w/ is not homorganic with the vowel /ɔ/.27 The presence of the glides is reflected by spelling, that is /w/ is represented by <ł>.
27The issue of word-initial insertion of a glide that is not homorganic with the vowel is going to be addressed in Chapter 4.
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(47) Podhale Goralian: word-initial glide insertion STANDARD POLISH PODHALE GORALIAN
SPELLING SURFACE FORM SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
osa [ˈɔsa] łosa [ˈwɔsa] ‘wasp’
oko [ˈɔko] łokó [ˈwɔko] ‘eye’
owca [ˈɔfʦa] łowca [ˈwɔfʦa] ‘sheep’
okap [ˈɔkap] łokap [ˈwɔkap] ‘cooker hood’
Epenthesis of glides at the beginning of words has also been documented in Kashubian, a North-West Slavic or Lechitic language spoken in the eastern Pomerania region of Poland. Two types of glides, that is /w/ and /j/ are found word-initially. As for the former, two realizations are found word-initially: [wɔ] (more common in the south-east of the Kashubia region) and [wɛ], which is considered standard pronunciation in the central Kashubian dialect. Illustrative examples are given in (48a) below (after Czaplicki, 2020: 117‒118) and (48b) (after Breza and Treder, 1981: 70).29 The examples from Kashubian are juxtaposed with their Polish cognates.
(48) Kashubian: word-initial glide epenthesis
KASHUBIAN POLISH
SPELLING SURFACE FORM1
SURFACE FORM2
SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
a. òni [wɔɲi] [wɛɲi] oni [ɔɲi] ‘they’
òjc [wɔjts] [wɛjts] ojciec [ɔjtsɛts] ‘father’
òwca [wɔftsa] [wɛftsa] owca [ɔftsa] ‘sheep’
òkò [wɔkwɔ] [wɛkwɛ] oko [ɔkɔ] ‘eye’
b. igła [jigwa] igła [igwa] ‘needle’
jimiã [jimja] imię [imjɛ] ‘name’
jic [jits] iść [iɕʨ] ‘go (inf.)’
The data from dialectal Polish and Kashubian presented in (45-48) illustrate word-initial glide insertion. The examples show that the inserted glide is either homorganic with the following vowel (in case of [ji]) or the glide agrees in backness with the vowel (in case of [wɔ]/[wɛ]). Hence, the quality of the epenthetic segment is
29The transcription of the words in (48b) is proposed by the author of this dissertation.
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determined by the segmental context in which insertion occurs, in this case, word-initially. The segmental context itself is a strong determiner of the quality of the epenthetic segment, as will be shown in section 2.2.2.