1036: 4P
slkdgha
8.3Non-IElanguagesofEurope19.pdf
LING 1030: The Diversity of Languages
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Uralic languages, e.g. Finnish Hungarian Estonian
Languages of the Caucasus, e.g. Georgian Tzes Chechen
Basque (an isolate)
1/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Uralic
The homeland of Uralic languages is believed to be the Ural Mountains – the geographic border between Europe and Asia. Uralic languages have spread to both sides of the Ural and are now spoken both in Europe and in Asia.
2/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Uralic
3/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Uralic
Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are the major, national Uralic languages, and they are all spoken in Europe.
Another Uralic language spoken on the European side of the Ural Mountains is Sami (it’s older name, Lapp, is now considered insulting).
Other Uralic languages are spoken in Asia (in particular, in Syberia), e.g. Samoyedic languages (endangered), Moksha, Mari, Komi.
4/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Uralic
There exists a hypothesis that the Uralic and Indo-European families are actually related
But: not enough evidence → a lot of DIFFUSION (borrowing) across the families Morphology:
Agglutinating (e.g. Finnish) Fusional (e.g. Estonian) Proto-Uralic was agglutinating
Word order: SVO (Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian) SOV (the Samoyedic branch) Proto-Uralic was SOV
Many Uralic languages exhibit vowel harmony: vowel in the same word must be similar to each other
5/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Hungarian
6/40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikODMvw76j4
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Hungarian nominal morphology
Nouns have the following structure:
(1)Stem + (derivational suffix(es)) + (plural) + (possessive) + Case
The items in parentheses are not obligatory.
(1) hajo -i -m -on ship -PL -my -LOC ‘on my ships’
Note the separation of number and case marking (different than in IE languages, in which the two tend to be expressed fusionally).
7/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish
Spoken as an official language in Finland In other part of Scandinavia as a minority language
8/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish: basic features
Agglutinative and with very rich morphology Word order: SVO (even though most Uralic languages are SOV) A lot of borrowings from Indo-European languages
(3) a. [sata] ‘hundred’ < Iranian (cf. Avestan [satem]) b. [kuniŋ:as] ‘king’ < Germanic (cf. Old English [kyniŋg]) c. [ranta] ‘beach’ < Swedish [strand] d. [pihvi] ‘steak’ < English [bif] beef
9/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish: phonology
Recall that all round vowels in English are back ([u] and [o]) Finnish has front round vowels too: [y] and [ø]
Btw, German has [y] and [ø], as well:
(4) a. Müller [mylə] ‘miller’ b. Möbel [møbəl] ‘furniture’
10/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish: vowel harmony
[y] is very similar to [u], it is high and round; they only differ in backness [ø] is very similar to [o], they are both mid and round; they only differ in backness
[y] and [ø], in Finnish, assimilate to other vowels in the same word with respect to backness
We call them harmonizing vowels, and the phenomenon vowel harmony.
[æ] is also a harmonizing vowel – it becomes back in the context of back vowels 11/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish: where does vowel harmony happen?
The domain of vowel harmony in Finnish is, roughly, a word The stem (or root) is lexically specified for its phonology Affixes must harmonize with the stem
[e] and [i] are neutral vowel: they neither harmonize nor trigger harmony
(5) The inessive suffix is -ssæ a. jærvi-ssæ
lake-INE ‘in the lake’
b. suome-ssæ ⇒ suome-ssa Finland-INE ‘in Finland’
12/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish: more harmonizing contexts
(6) The adessive suffix is -llæ a. pøydæ-læ
table-ADE ‘on the table’
b. tuoli-lla chair-ADE ‘on the chair’
13/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish: more harmonizing contexts
stem -llæ -ni -hæn palttina -lla -ni -han ‘with my linen cloths, as you know’ værttinæ -llæ -ni -hæn ‘with my spinning wheel, as you know’
14/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish: more harmonizing contexts
stem -dæ -kse -ni -kø lyø -dæ -kse -ni -kø ‘for me to hit’ luo -da -kse -ni -ko ‘for me to create’
15/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish: finding the underlying form
16/40
But how do we know which is the underlying form and which is the derived one?
⇒ We have to try a stem with neutral vowels only!
stem -dæ -kse -ni -kø lyø -dæ luo -da vie -dæ
-kse -kse -kse
-ni -kø -ni -ko -ni -kø
‘for me to hit’ ‘for me to create’ ‘for me to bring’
stem -llæ -ni -hæn palttina -lla -ni -han ‘with my linen cloths, as you know’ værttninæ -llæ -ni -hæn ‘with my spinning wheel, as you know’ meteli -llæ -ni -hæn ‘with my nose, as you know’
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Vowel harmony as a phonological rule
17/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish morphology
Agglutinative
Words are typically much longer than in English
Roots tends to be two syllables long
Very rich case morphology
18/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish nominal morphology
Nouns have the following structure:
(7)Stem + (derivational suffix(es)) + Case + (plural) + (possessive)
(8)The items in parentheses are not obligatory.
(9) ravinto -lo -i -ssa -ni nourishment -LOC PL -INE -my ‘in my restaurants’
Like in Hungarian, number and case are expressed by separate suffixes in Finnish.
19/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Non-local cases
20/40
∅( but Nom+Plural → /-t/) /-n/ /-n/ (but Acc+Plural → /-t/) /-n/ /-ta/ /-ne/
(9)
Nominative: Genitive: Accusative: Instrumental: Partitive: Comitative:
poja-n
boy-GEN POSSESSOR
kissa-∅ cat-NOM SUBJECT
syø eat.3SG verb
hi:re-t mouse-ACC.PL OBJECT
‘The boy’s cat will eat the mice’
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish local cases
Essive (the site of an action or the time at which an action takes place) /-næ/
(10) joulu-na at Christmas
Adessive (location in time and space) /-llæ/
(11) Minu-lla on kija me-ADE is book ‘I have a book’ (lit. At me is a book)
Inessive (the notion of within some place) /-ssæ/
21/40
(12) Suome-ssa ‘in Finnland’
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish local cases (cnt’d)
Allative (direction towards/goal) /-lle/
(13) Pane-n kirja pøydæ-lle put-1sg book table-ALL ‘I will put the book on the table’
Ablative (movement from/source): /-ltæ/
(14) lintu lens-i kato-lta bird fly-Imperf. roof-ABL ‘A bird flew from the roof’
Elative (movement out of): /-stæ/
(15) Tule-n kylæ-stæ come-1SG village-ELA ‘I come from a village’
22/40
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Finnish local cases (cnt’d)
Illative (direction into): /-Vn/, where V is copy of the preceding vowel
23/40
(16)
(17)
mene-n talo-on go-1SG house-ILL ‘I am going into the house’ mene-n koulu-un go-1SG school-ILL ‘I am going into the school’
Non-Indo European languages of Europe
Partitive case
(18) poja-n boy-GEN POSSESSOR
kissa-∅ cat-NOM SUBJECT
syø eat.3SG verb
hi:re-t mouse-ACC.PL OBJECT
‘The boy’s cat will eat the mice’
(19) poja-n boy-GEN POSSESSOR
kissa-∅ cat-NOM SUBJECT
syø eat.3SG verb
hi:r-i-æ mouse-PL -PART PARTIAL OBJECT
‘The boy’s cat is eating some the mice’ (is involved in mouse-eating).
The Partitive/Accusative alternation correlates with aspect! Accusative objects typically appear with completed actions (perfective aspect) Partitive objects appear with non-completed actions (imperfective)
24/40
Languages of the Caucasus
Languages of the Caucasus
25/40
Languages of the Caucasus
The indigenous language families of the Caucasus
The languages of the Caucasus (about 3 dozen) are members of three different language families:
Kartvelian (or South Caucasian)
West Caucasian (or Abkhaz-Adyghe)
East Caucasian (or Nakh-Daghestanian)
26/40
Languages of the Caucasus
Languages of the Caucasus
27/40
Languages of the Caucasus
Kartvelian
Kartvelian or South Caucasian:
a family about 4500 years old comprising Georgian and its sister languages.
It dispersed in the vicinity of central to eastern Georgia, in the foothills or southern plains.
28/40
Languages of the Caucasus
Northwest Caucasian
Northwest Caucasian or Abkhaz-Adyghe:
a family of uncertain age (evidently older than the Romance or Slavic families and younger than Indo-European)
It has three or four daughter languages. Spoken in northwestern Georgia and the neighboring part of Russia Sizable diasporic communities in Turkey and elsewhere in the Near East.
29/40
Languages of the Caucasus
Northeast Caucasian
Northeast Caucasian or Nakh-Daghestanian:
a much-diversified family about 6000 years of age, with some 30 daughter languages (e.g. Chechen, Tsez, Lezgi)
It’s spoken in the central and eastern Caucasus.
It probably dispersed in the southeastern foothills of the Caucasus, near the Caspian Sea and in present-day Azerbaijan.
30/40
Languages of the Caucasus
Grammatical properties of Caucasian languages
The indigenous languages of the Caucasus are known for their very complex consonant systems We find the extremes of phonology in these languages: Ubykh (Northwest) has 80 consonants, and Archi is thought to have 76 consonants.
The sounds include ejectives and pharyngeals
31/40
(20) a. Bilabial ejective [p’]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File: Bilabial_ejective_plosive.ogg
b. Alveolar ejective [t’]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File: Alveolar_ejective_plosive.ogg
Languages of the Caucasus
Georgian
Georgian has a written history going back to the creation of a special alphabet after Georgia became Christianized in the 4th century CE; the same alphabet is still used today
32/40
Languages of the Caucasus
Georgian: grammatical properties
(21)
33/40
Very rich morphologically, both in the verbal and nominal domain A lot of case morphology An ergative language: subjects of (di)transitive verbs bear special case marking: Ergative case. The subject of intransitive verbs and the object of transitive verbs has another case marking: absolutive case.
P’ropesor-ma st’udent’-s c’ign-eb-i proffessor-ERG student-DAT book-PL-NOM ga-u-gzavn-a PERF-to.him-send-3sg.PAST ‘The professor sent the books to the student’
Languages of the Caucasus
Georgian language and folklore
34/40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuPfXQEhomo
Languages of the Caucasus
Basque
35/40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWTOIDY3azY
Basque – a language isolate
Basque (Euskara)
Spoken in the Basque country by approx. 750,000 native speakers
36/40
Basque – a language isolate
Basque
A language isolate – a language with no known relatives It has no cognates with IE languages, even in very basic vocabulary:
37/40
English German Italian Russian Basque sun Sonne sole solntse eguzkia brother Bruder fratello brat anaia sister Schwester sorella sestra arreba not nicht non ne ez
Basque – a language isolate
Basque
It is believed to have been spoken in Europe 6000 year ago It is the last living descendant of the languages spoken in Europe before the Indo-Europeans settled it.
38/40
Basque – a language isolate
Basque
Until the middle ages, Basque was quite uniform The diversification then started resulting in the emergence of a number of dialects Some of them are said to be mutually unintelligible
39/40
Basque – a language isolate
Basque: grammatical features
Basque is an SOV language It has rich verbal and nominal morphology It is an ergative language: subjects of transitive verbs have a special case – Ergative case (not Nominative) differently than the subjects of intransitive cases that have the same case as objects It has almost exclusively compound tenses: a main verb + an auxiliary
40/40
(22) Martin-ek egunkari-ak erosten dizkit Martin-ERG newspaper-PL buy AUX.me ‘Martin buys the newspapers for me.’
