Puzzles in Proto-Hungarian phonology 2
PU/PFU/PUg *-t- > PHu *-δ- >*z > Hu -d(-)~ -z(-)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18349/MagyarNyelv.2018.1.23Keywords:
Proto-Hungarian, Iranian, contact, etymology, sound change, semanticsAbstract
The Hungarian lexicon exhibits four sets of lexemes in which researchers traditionally assume the unusual consonant alternation z ~ d rather than the otherwise expected (non-alternating) z: bűz ‘stench’ ~ büdös ‘stinky’; víz ‘water’, vizes ‘watery’ ~ vides ‘id.’, vedel ‘swill’; ez ‘this’ / az ‘that’ ~ ide ‘to this place’ / oda ‘to that place’; íz ‘taste’, ízes ‘tasty’ ~ édes ‘sweet’. Of these, bűz ~ büdös go back to an Old Iranian loanword, and the source of the different Hungarian reflexes might be an alternation in the Iranian source languages (d/δ ~ z). In the cases of víz, vizes ~ vides, vedel, and ez/az ~ ide/oda, a sound change PU/PFU/PUg *-t- > PHu *-δ- > *-z- > Hu -d(-) ~ -z(-) that may have taken place in the language of part of the Ancient Hungarian population may have given rise to the present-day dual reflexes. Both of the adjectives ízes ~ édes are taken to be derivatives of íz in the traditional etymological literature, taking ízes to be the regular form and édes to be the result of analogy based on the alternation z ~ d seen in the other three groups of words. The present paper argues that édes goes back to a now extinct Hungarian ed, éd ‘grain’ whose Zyrian reflex has assumed the meaning ‘tasty, pleasant’ in addition to ‘flour’; something similar may have happened in Hungarian, too. – The most compelling evidence supporting the explanation PU/PFU/PUg *-t- > PHu *-δ- > *-z- > Hu -d(-) ~ -z(-) presented here is the existence of the groups ez ‘this’ / az ‘that’ ~ ide ‘to this place’ / oda ‘to that place’ and (víz ‘water’ >) vizes ~ vides ‘watery’, vedel ‘swill’.
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