The Slavic Opening of Syllables and the Avar contact hypothesis

The Slavic proto-language was subject to a tendency commonly referred to as the “Opening of Syllables”, which is somehow connected to a number of sound changes that all had an opening effect, e.g. nasalization and loss of various coda consonants. The nature of the phenomenon is not quite understood and no language-internal explanations have proven to be successful. This thesis explores the possibility that the Opening of Syllables was due to contact, specifically with the (unknown) language of the Avars, spoken in and around Pannonia during the Migration Period. In order to find out, the relative and absolute chronology of syllable-opening sound changes is examined and mapped onto the spread of the Slavs and the Avars, and the sound changes themselves are compared to possible phonological traits of Avar. Based on this it is argued that contact with Avar was possibly responsible for only two sound changes (monophthongization and the certain developments of consonant clusters), but...Show moreThe Slavic proto-language was subject to a tendency commonly referred to as the “Opening of Syllables”, which is somehow connected to a number of sound changes that all had an opening effect, e.g. nasalization and loss of various coda consonants. The nature of the phenomenon is not quite understood and no language-internal explanations have proven to be successful. This thesis explores the possibility that the Opening of Syllables was due to contact, specifically with the (unknown) language of the Avars, spoken in and around Pannonia during the Migration Period. In order to find out, the relative and absolute chronology of syllable-opening sound changes is examined and mapped onto the spread of the Slavs and the Avars, and the sound changes themselves are compared to possible phonological traits of Avar. Based on this it is argued that contact with Avar was possibly responsible for only two sound changes (monophthongization and the certain developments of consonant clusters), but that this was not the result of a contact-induced tendency toward open syllables. In general, the Opening of Syllables as a whole was not induced by contact with Avar or with any other language.Show less

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The Slavic Opening of Syllables and the Avar contact hypothesis