The mystery of the Votic inessive

• Published in: Eesti ja soome-ugri keeleteaduse ajakiri. Journal of Estonian and Finno-Ugric Linguistics
• Main Authors: Elena Markus, Fedor Rozhanskiy
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Estonian
• Published: University of Tartu Press 2019
• Subjects: inessive; morphology; morphophonology; language contact; experimental phonetics; geminate; Philology. Linguistics; P1-1091; Finnic. Baltic-Finnic; PH91-98.5; Selle; votic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.12697/jeful.2019.10.2.07; https://doaj.org/article/32ecae8b5b794d19bca4e55405a3b96c

This paper analyzes the morphophonological structure of the inessive singular forms in Liivtšülä-Luuditsa Votic. There are no fluent speakers of this variety; the research is based on the materials recorded in 2003–2016. The inessive singular forms demonstrate variation of the weak and strong grade stems, which is very untypical for a case form. In all other morphological cases, the distribution of weak and strong stems is very stable. The variation in the inessive stem is observed both in the examples from published sources on the Votic language, and in our field materials. The acoustic research has confirmed the variation. Additionally, in the strong grade stem we find a shorter geminate stop or affricate compared to other strong grade forms (in the paper, the inessive singular is compared to the inessive plural and partitive singular). We consider several hypotheses that could explain the variation and the shorter geminate. The conducted experiments do not confirm the role of the word structure as the primary factor defining the geminate length. We suggest that both the variation of stems and the shorter geminate might result from language contact. In the neighbouring Ingrian varieties, the inessive is built from the weak grade stem. Since all the last fluent speakers of Votic knew Ingrian to some extent, the Votic and Ingrian patterns might have mixed. It is probable that originally the variation was triggered by some other factors, and the increasing role of the language contact turned it into a dominant factor in the course of the 20th century. Kokkuvõte. Elena Markus ja Fedor Rozhanskiy: Vadja inessiivi mõistatus. Artiklis analüüsitakse ainsuse inessiivi morfofonoloogilist struktuuri Liivtšülä- Luuditsa vadja keeles. Selle keele soravaid kõnelejaid enam pole; uurimus põhineb 2003–2016 lindistatud materjalidel. Ainsuse inessiivi vormid näitavad nõrga- ja tugevaastmeliste tüvede varieerumist, mis on ühe käändevormi kohta väga ebatüüpiline. Kõikide teiste morfoloogiliste käänete puhul on nõrkade ja tugevate ...