A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Lith. mir̃ti / Latv. mirt `to die' and Lith. mir̃šti / Latv. mìrst `to forget' in East Baltic: [Liet. mir̃ti / latv. mirt ‘mirti’ ir liet. mir̃šti / latv. mìrst ‘pamiršti’ rytų baltų kalbose]

  2021. Yoko Yamazaki. Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 83, 11-26

  Article

  The verbs Lith. mirti / Latv. mirt ‘to die’ and Lith. (-)miršti / Latv. (-)mirst ‘to forget’ share several features in historical morphology: both take sta-present stem, in spite of their Indo-European cognates in the *-ye/o-present stem; the root-aorist in the middle voice inflection can be reconstructed in PIE; and both are also semantically middle. However, they are contrastive in the past tense in Baltic, taking different preterit stems, i.e., Lith. mirė / Latv. miru(ē) and Lith. miršo / Latv. mirsu(ā). This article will investigate what led them to choose the different preterit stems by comparing their semantic and phonological properties, and will contribute to the reconstruction of the entire prehistory of the Baltic preterit system. In this article, it will be proposed that Lith. mirė / Latv. miru(ē) is probably descended from the older imperfect, while its aoristic nature led Lith. miršo / Latv. mirsu(ā) to inherit the older aorist stem, and this historical difference may be reflected in their different preterit stems.

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• The Root Vocalism of Lith. dãvė, dial. dẽvė ‘gave’ revisited

  2019. Yoko Yamazaki. Qazzu Warrai, 410-419

  Chapter

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• Balto-Slavic Accentology, Schools of

  2017. Yoko Yamazaki. Encyclopedia of Slavic Languages and Linguistics Online

  Chapter

  The prosodic system of Proto-Slavic (Accent Systems, Suprasegmental Phonetics and Phonology). is reconstructed characterized with stress pattern (or accentual mobility), distinctive tones and vowel quantities. The reconstruction is based on the accentuation systems of the attested Slavic languages: the western varieties of South Slavic languages, i.e., Serbo-Croatian (cf. BCSM) and Slovene, have distinctive tone systems and accentual mobility in nominal/verbal paradigms. East Slavic languages also exhibit accentual mobility. These features have systematic parallels in the Baltic languages as well, and the accentuation systems of both branches have been investigated synchronically and diachronically. This research area is called Balto-Slavic accentology, and there are many theories and schools in the area. This entry provides the research history of Balto-Slavic accentology and the backgrounds of the accentological schools with a focus on Slavic.

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• Monosyllabic Circumflexion in Lithuanian

  2016. Yoko Yamazaki (et al.).

  Thesis (Doc)

  This PhD thesis examines a phenomenon known as Monosyllabic Circumflexion (MC, hereafter) from a historical linguistics / phonological point of view. MC denotes a Lithuanian or Balto-Slavic phenomenon according to which long vowels and diphthongs in monosyllabic words exhibit a circumflex tone instead of the expected acute tone.  It is observed in the following four categories:

  I. 3rd person future forms of monosyllabic stems (e.g., šõks ― šókti `to jump;' vy͂s ― výti `to drive')

  II. reflexes of PIE root nouns (e.g., Latv. gùovs `cow;' Lith. šuõ `dog')

  III. prepositions/adverbs (e.g., nuõ `from' ~  nùotaka `bride;' vė͂l `again' ~ Latv. vêl `still, yet,' tė͂ (permissive particle) < *teh₁)

  IV. pronominal forms (e.g., tuõ ~ gerúoju `the good (m.~sg.~instr.),' tie͂ ~ tíeji `id. (pl.nom)').

  The unexpected circumflex tone in these categories is problematic and important for the solution of a Balto-Slavic accentological question on the etymological background of acute and non-acute tones. The aim of this thesis is to partially contribute to the solution of this problem by establishing the existence of MC and its relative chronology.

  The first category, the 3rd person future forms, provides a substantial number of examples and counterexamples. The examination of them has revealed the fact that the counterexamples constitute a morpho-semantic group of verbs whose future stems underwent considerable morphological changes in the prehistory, hence not exhibiting MC. This shows that the regular tonal reflex of the 3rd person future forms of monosyllabic acute stem must be circumflex, allowing for the establishment of MC as a regular phonological process, although this category does not provide much information on the relative chronology of MC. The second category, the reflexes of Proto-Indo-European root nouns, gives an important clue as to where MC is located in the relative chronology of Balto-Slavic sound changes. Next, there is a discussion of whether the results of the examinations of the first two categories can be maintained for the data of the third and fourth categories, which show an irregular distribution of the acute and circumflex tones in monosyllabic forms. It is shown that various morphological factors, such as homonymic clashes within the paradigms for pronouns, can explain why some monosyllabic forms have acute tone. Also, the linguistic feature of West Aukštaitian dialects of Lithuanian that tend to preserve the results of MC is revealed. These dialects are known to have played an important role in the formation of standard Lithuanian.

  In this way, the monosyllabic forms with unexpected circumflex tone in Lithuanian are explained as a combination of MC in the Proto-Balto-Slavic time and the dialectal tendency of West Aukštaitian dialects of Lithuanian.

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• Monosyllabic circumflexion or shortening?

  2014. Yoko Yamazaki. Indogermanische Forschungen 119 (1), 339-354

  Article

  The Lithuanian 3rd person future forms of monosyllabic acute stems arementioned as one of the categories where the examples of a phenomenoncalled “monosyllabic circumflexion” or “monosyllabic metatony” are found,e.g., dúoti – duõs ‘to give.’ However, there are several exceptions, e.g., lìs (lýti ‘to rain’), bùs ( būti ‘to be’), etc. Yet, the condition of the exceptionshas not been fully analyzed in the context of the verbal systeminvolving other tense paradigms. In this paper, a thorough examination willbe conducted on the 3rd person future forms and their paradigms in Lithuanian.It is found that the verbs which have shortened 3rd person future formsalways have the nasal infix present. Based on this result, a possible interpretationwill be presented as to how certain 3rd person future forms have beenshortened. Also, I will propose that the shortening of the 3rd person futureforms is a secondary development, whereas MC could be the regular processfor the 3rd person future forms.

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Show all publications by Yoko Yamazaki at Stockholm University