Novoslovnica. Guide for a Slavic constructed language. George Carpow

of consonants can be found in different parts of the word. There are three places, where reproduction can appear – the beginning of the word, middle part of the word and the ending of the word.

      When we speak about the beginning of the word, we should take into account what sound is at the end of the previous word. Due to rule 2 we should try to keep the «consonant-vowel» sequence inside our sentence. That’s why, we should do actions from the list below:

      If the previous word ends with the vowel and temporal word begins also with the vowel we should add in the beginning of the word a consonant V or J. The choice of what letter to add depends on the vowel which is in the temporal word.

      • We should choose J for soft vowels

      • We should choose V for hard ones.

      • If there is one consonant and one vowel in the set of the first letter from the temporal word and the last letter from the previous word, we should not add nothing.

      Speaking about word endings, thesis 1 is also very important. We should add a letter B to the end of the word, if the next word begins with the vowel and temporal word ends with the vowel too.

      As you see these two principles are practically equal, because wherever we add a consonant, the result will be the same. So the question is, when we should add to the end of the word a consonant and when we should add it to the beginning of the word. In practice, almost always we use the first case, when we add a consonant to the beginning of the word. The second case is used in prepositional constructions with such a word as «O» (about) (Look: «O» – «Ob»). In other cases try to use letters V and J for reproduction.

      The third case of consonant reproduction is to reproduce it in the middle of the word. It is used, when there is a row of vowels in the word and it is difficult to pronounce them all together. Then you can divide them by the consonant J, which is put between the neighbor vowels. Don’t confuse it with the case, when with the addition of a vowel letter Ǐ transforms to letter J (see the next paragraph for it) and you receive to vowels divided by this consonant two. Look at the examples of consonant reproduction in the middle of the word.

      Examples:

      ïdiot (idiot) [`idɪot] – ïdijot [`idɪʝot]

      The same situation is about vowel reconstruction. You can find it in the beginning, in the middle and in the end of the word, but it is a bit simpler than a previous one. Vowel reproduction appears when there is a rather large amount of consonants in one place of the sentence. This means that you can find a row of consonants in the word or a consonant conjunction in the end of one word and in the beginning of the next one. In any case, you should concern here about whether it is comfortable for you to pronounce these combinations of sounds.

      In the beginning of the word we add a vowel Ï and there are no other cases. Very simple.

      Examples:

      gra (game) [ɦra]} – ïgra [i`ɦra]

      In the middle or in the end of the word we add a vowel O. This case is used with prepositions and prefixes («K» – «Ko», «S» – «So» etc).

      Examples:

      k domu (to home) [k `domu] – ko dvoru [ko `dvoru]

      Alternation

      Alternation is a very important feature of Slavic languages. All of them provide some cases, when one letter changes to another one (s) and controversially. The cause is the fact that some sound combinations are difficult to be spoken or not comfortable for that. For example, Slavs can say «napisati» (to write), but «napišut» (they (will) write). The variant «napisut» is not comfortable to pronounce and, moreover, it is not understandable. What are you speaking – «to write» with hardened T or «they write» with depalatalized S. So you can see, that these rules are often experimental and cannot be explained in a common way.

      Alternation can be found mostly in conjugation or declension of the word, because the process is in changing uncomfortable forms to better ones while changing the base and endings of the word.

      In this paragraph we will speak about different examples of vowel and consonant palatalization. Let us begin with the consonants.

      Alternation S//Š

      This alteration appears in words with the letter S before a vowel A. The basic sound is S, which changes to Š before vowels I, E and in some cases before A in conjugation. Let’s look at examples to understand how it works.

      Examples:

      Pisati (write) [`pɪsatɪ] – piši [pɪ`ʂɪ]

      Vysok (tall) [vɨ`sok] – povyšati [po`vɨʂatɪ] (to increase)

      Alternation K//Č

      This alteration appears in words with the letter K before a vowel A without a following vowel. The basic sound is K, which changes to Č before vowels Ě, N. Let us look at examples to understand how it works.

      Examples:

      Věk [vek] – věčen [`vet̠ʃɛn]}

      Vëlïk [`ve̞lik] (Big) – vëlïčina [`ve̞lit̠ʃɪna] (Measure)

      Alternation C//Č

      This alteration appears in words with the letter C before a vowel A. The basic sound is C, which changes to Č before vowels I, E. Let us look at examples.

      Examples:

      Ptica (bird) [`ptɪtsa] – ptičen (birdish) [`ptɪt̠ʃɛn]

      Věnec [`venɛts] (Crown) – Věnčati [`vent̠ʃatɪ] (To crown)

      Alternation D//Đ

      This one appears in words with the letter D before a vowel I. This consonant changes to Đ before vowels A, E and U. Let us look at the examples.

      Examples:

      Voditi (drive) [`vodɪtɪ] – vođati [`voɖʐatɪ]

      Roditi [`rodɪtɪ] (bare) – rođati [`roɖʐatɪ]

      Alternation Ǐ//J

      This alternation is very simple. We write Ǐ before a consonant or in the end of the word and we write J before a vowel. The exception is the case, when we write Ǐ in the end of the word, but the first letter of the next word is a vowel – then we pronounce J, but write Ǐ.

      Examples:

      Môǐ (my) [mʊj] – moja [`moʝa]

      However, not only consonants can change in the word when we conjugate or decline it. There are some alterations of vowels too.

      Alternation Ò//-

      This alternation appears in some old roots (see next paragraph).

      Examples:

      Tòk (stick) [tək] – tkati [`tkatɪ] (to weave)

      Alternation E//-

      This alternation is similar to the previous ones, but exist in word suffixes.

      Examples:

      Krasen (Nice) [`krasɛn] – krasna [`krasna]

      Alternation Ę//En

      This alternation is rather narrow, because it is used in the case of declension