Samoyedic Vowel Sequences and the Status of the Cluster *lk in Uralic
Samoyedic Vowel Sequences and the Status of the Cluster *lk in Uralic

Summary/Abstract: This paper takes up the issue concerning the representation of the Finno-Ugric cluster *lk in Samoyedic and its possible connection with Proto-Samoyedic vowel sequences. It has been proposed that the cluster *lk was lost in Pre-Proto-Samoyedic, which, at least in words containing a low vowel in the second syllable, would have led to the origination of a non-canonical type of vowel sequences containing a low vowel as the second component. This proposal presents two challenges: on the one hand, the diachronic evidence for the alleged intervocalic loss of the cluster *lk needs to be critically examined, while, on the other hand, the presence of the alleged type of non-canonical vowel sequences in Proto-Samoyedic has to be either confirmed or rejected. The conclusion of this paper is that the apparent cases suggesting the loss of the cluster *lk in Samoyedic have to be explained in a different way, in that the cluster in the items concerned is actually of a secondary derivational origin, that is, *l-k, in which the derivational segment *k, as observed in the Finno-Ugric data, is simply originally absent in Samoyedic. The issue concerning the proposed non-canonical vowel sequences is more complicated, but, at least at the level of Pre-Proto-Samoyedic, the second component of all vowel sequences can always be identified with the uniform reduced vowel *ə. This situation underwent later secondary changes in the individual Samoyedic languages, especially in Nganasan and Enets.

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