On the History of Plural Formation in Albanian”
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DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit “On the history of plural formation in Albanian” Verfasserin Mag.phil. Eva Zehentner angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra der Philosophie (Mag.phil.) Wien, 2013 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 330 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Indogermanistik Betreuer: Assoz. Prof. Priv. Doz. Mag. Dr. Stefan Schumacher Cui nisi familiae? Dank gilt Stefan Schumacher für die exzellente Betreuung, Niki Ritt und dem NatSIDE team, Familie, Freunden und Sebastian für Unterstützung jeglicher Art. 2 Table of contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 7 2 The noun in PIE ................................................................................................................ 10 2.1 General notes ............................................................................................................. 11 2.2 Nominal stem formation ............................................................................................ 13 2.2.1 Athematic nouns ................................................................................................. 13 2.2.2 Thematic nouns .................................................................................................. 20 2.3 Case endings .............................................................................................................. 20 2.4 Adjectives .................................................................................................................. 22 3 The noun in Albanian ....................................................................................................... 23 3.1 General notes ............................................................................................................. 25 3.2 The post-positive article ............................................................................................ 36 3.3 Adjectives (and the pre-posed article) ....................................................................... 38 4 Plural formation ................................................................................................................ 39 4.1 -∅ ............................................................................................................................... 41 4.1.1 - ∅ (masculine) ................................................................................................... 42 4.1.2 - ∅ (neuter).......................................................................................................... 76 4.1.3 - ∅ (feminine) ..................................................................................................... 78 4.2 Suffixation ................................................................................................................. 84 4.2.1 -ë ......................................................................................................................... 84 4.2.2 -e ......................................................................................................................... 91 4.2.3 -a ......................................................................................................................... 94 4.2.4 -ënë ..................................................................................................................... 98 4.2.5 -ëna ................................................................................................................... 102 4.2.6 Minor suffixes .................................................................................................. 105 4.3 Irregular/ suppletive formations .............................................................................. 108 4.3.1 grua ~ grā.......................................................................................................... 108 4.3.2 bari ~ bëruo ...................................................................................................... 109 4.3.3 vend ~ vise........................................................................................................ 110 4.3.4 gjarpër ~ shtërpínj ............................................................................................ 111 3 4.3.5 viç ~ vjeta ......................................................................................................... 112 4.3.6 vesht ~ vreshta .................................................................................................. 112 4.3.7 qengj ~ shtjerra/shqerra .................................................................................... 113 4.4 ‘Singularised plurals’ ............................................................................................... 114 5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 119 6 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 122 i. Abbreviations acc. accusative OCS Old Church Slavonic AGr. Ancient Greek OG Old Geg athem. athematic OHG Old High German Balk.Lat. Balkan Latin OIr. Old Irish Bogd. Bogdani OT Old Tosk Bulg. Bulgarian PA Proto-Albanian Buz. Buzuku PDE Present Day English E ending PGmc. Proto-Germanic EPA Early-Proto-Albanian PIE Proto-Indo-European Goth. Gothic pl. plural Hitt. Hittite PSlav. Proto-Slavic IE Indo-European R root Lat. Latin Rum. Rumanian Lith. Lithuanian S suffix Luv. Luvian sg. singular MHG Middle High German Skt. Sanksrit M(od)Alb. Modern Albanian them. thematic ModHG Modern High German Ved. Vedic nom. nominative Vulg.Lat. Vulgar Latin OAlb. Old Albanian 4 ii. Tables/ Figures Table 1. Basic properties of the four PIE accent/ablaut-classes with examples ...................... 15 Table 2. Case endings of PIE athematic and thematic nouns .................................................. 21 Table 3. Inflectional paradigm of Albanian masculine nouns ................................................. 31 Table 4. Inflectional paradigm of Albanian neuter nouns ....................................................... 34 Table 5. Inflectional paradigm of Albanian feminine nouns in -ë ........................................... 35 Table 6. Inflectional paradigm of the Albanian definite article............................................... 37 Figure 1. Periodisation of Albanian 24 iii. Spelling and pronunciation of Modern Albanian: Phonetic Letter transcription (IPA) Pronunciation 1. A, a [ɑ] cf. Engl. bath 2. B, b [b] 3. C, c [ts] voiceless alveolar affricate; cf. Gm. Zange 4. Ç, ç [tʃ] voiceless apical affricate, cf. Engl. bleach 5. D, d [d] 6. Dh, dh [ð] voiced dental fricative, cf. Engl. that 7. E, e [e] open e; cf. Engl. bed?, Gm. fett 8. Ë, ë [ə] mid-high central vowel (cf. Engl. about) 9. F, f [f] 10. G, g [g] 11. Gj, gj [ɟ] voiced palatal plosive (cf. Hung. magyar) 12. H, h [h] voiceless pharyngeal 13. I, i [i] 14. J, j [j] cf. Buchholz/Fiedler 1987: 41 15. K, k [k] 16. L, l [l] 17. Ll, ll [ł] lateral sonorant, cf. Engl. hill (dark l?) 18. M, m [m] 5 19. N, n [n] 20. Nj, nj [ɲ] palatal nasal, cf. Engl. new 21. O, o [ɔ] open o; cf. Gm. offen 22. P, p [p] 23. Q, q [c] voiceless palatal plosive, cf. Gm. tja 24. R, r [r] ? 25. Rr, rr [R] ? cf. Spanish perro 26. S, s [s] always voiceless 27. Sh, sh [ʃ] voiceless fricative, cf. Engl. sheep 28. T, t [t] 29. Th, th [Ɵ] voiceless dental fricative, cf. Engl. thing 30. U, u [u] 31. V, v [v] labiodentals voiced fricative, cf. Gm. Wein 32. X, x [dz] voiced alveolar affricate, cf. Italian mezzo 33. Xh, xh [dƷ] voiced alveolar affricate, cf. Engl. jungle 34. Y, y [y] high front rounded vowel, cf. Gm. Tür 35. Z, z [z] always voiced, cf. Engl. size 36. Zh, zh [Ʒ] voiced fricative, cf. Engl. vision (table adapted from Buchholz/Fiedler 1987: 28ff.; Matzinger 2006: 1-3). 6 1 Introduction Të formuarit e emërores shumës paraqit në shqipet laryshi të madhe trajtash. Kjo larmi kapërxen çdo kufi kur është puna për formimin e shumësit të mashkullorëvet [The nominative plural in Albanian presents a great diversity of forms. This diversity exceeds all limits when it comes to the formation of the plural of masculines] (Cipo 1949: 51; quoted and translated in Fiedler 2007: 1). The present thesis constitutes an attempt at determining the possible ways of plural formation in Modern Albanian, and at tracing their history from their Indo-European roots to the present. Although seemingly a relatively basic objective, a systematic treatment of the diachronic development of Albanian plural formants (or rather, ways to form the plural) seems to be lacking so far. This lack can be directly related to a number of issues: First, and rather unfortunately, Albanian has in general received little attention in comparison to most other Indo-European languages, and “ist bis heute ein Stiefkind der idg. Sprachwissenschaft geblieben” (Jokl 1917: 109).1 This is mainly due to its being recorded only very late (the first document is a baptism formula dating back to 1462) and its preserving relatively little archaic features.2 Albanian is thus frequently passed over in view of its much earlier recorded and much more archaic sister languages Latin, Ancient Greek, Indo-Iranian or Hittite which are regarded as more profitable for reconstruction (cf. Matzinger 2006: 4-5; Klingenschmitt 2000: 1). This is evident in rather crushing judgements such as SZEMERÉNYI (1960; given below) or the following statement by COWGILL (1986: 53)3: Schon das älteste Albanisch ist gegenüber