The Lemko and Slavic palatalizations: An acoustic and perceptual approach to historical phonology

This work concentrates on phonetic aspects of the speech of the Lemkos, an East Slavic dialect group located in Poland, as well as Russian speakers, to provide an experimental perspective on Slavic historical phonology. Language change is a field touched by several areas of synchronic linguistics, including phonetics, phonology, syntax, dialectology, and sociolinguistics. This work seeks to discover the diachronic implications of the study of acoustic phonetics and speech perception, while examining data relevant in the study of both Slavic dialectology and sociolinguistics. A major goal is to outline the importance of studying historical sound changes, and the insight such changes can provide in other areas of linguistics.;The first two chapters provide background information on the Lemkos and their dialect. Chapter three outlines the historical phonology of the Lemko tongue from the Common Slavic period. The fourth chapter outlines aspects of the study of speech perception and applies them to the problem of the various types of palatalization in Slavic, proposing a solution based on acoustic and perceptual phenomena. The fifth and sixth chapters examine synchronic phonetic issues in order to test the historical analysis outlined in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5 a phonetic study of modern Russian provides evidence that a glide was instrumental in the development of secondary palatalization, while Chapter 6 looks at the Lemko and Polish contrast between the unvoiced palato-alveolar and alveolo-palatal affricates to examine a possible linguistic change in progress. Chapter 7 examines the implications of this work in a number of different areas, and discusses possibilities for future study.