Modern standard Ukrainian descends from
Common Slavic and is characterized by a number of
sound changes and morphological developments, many of which are shared with other
East Slavic languages. These include: • In a newly closed
syllable, that is, a syllable that ends in a
consonant, Common Slavic *o and *e mutated into if the following
vowel was one of the
yers (*ŭ or *ĭ); for example, CSl. *
pêktь → Ukr. (
pič "oven") & CSl. *
nôsъ → Ukr. (
nis "nose"). •
Pleophony: The Common Slavic combinations, *CoRC and *CeRC, where R is either *r or *l, become in Ukrainian: • CorC gives
CoroC (Common Slavic *borda gives Ukrainian
boroda, ) • ColC gives
ColoC (Common Slavic *bolto gives Ukrainian
boloto, ) • CerC gives
CereC (Common Slavic *berza gives Ukrainian
bereza, ) • CelC gives
ColoC (Common Slavic *melko gives Ukrainian
moloko, ) • The Common Slavic nasal vowel *ę is reflected as ; a preceding
labial consonant generally was not palatalized after this, and after a
postalveolar it became . Examples: Common Slavic *pętĭ became Ukrainian (); Common Slavic *telę became Ukrainian (); and Common Slavic *kurĭčę became Ukrainian (). • Common Slavic *ě (Cyrillic ѣ), generally became Ukrainian : CSl. * → Ukr. (
cílyj "whole, entire
(adj.)"); except: • word-initially, where it became : Common Slavic *(j)ěsti became Ukrainian • after the postalveolar sibilants where it became : Common Slavic *ležěti became Ukrainian () • Common Slavic *i and *y are both reflected in Ukrainian as • The Common Slavic combination -CĭjV, where V is any vowel, became , except: • if C is labial or where it became -CjV • if V is the Common Slavic *e, then the vowel in Ukrainian mutated to , e.g., Common Slavic *žitĭje became Ukrainian () • if V is Common Slavic *ĭ, then the combination became , e.g., genitive plural in Common Slavic *myšĭjĭ became Ukrainian () • if one or more consonants precede C then there is no doubling of the consonants in Ukrainian • Sometime around the early thirteenth century, the
voiced velar stop lenited to (except in the cluster *zg). Within a century, was reintroduced from Western European loanwords and, around the sixteenth century,
debuccalized to . • Common Slavic combinations *dl and *tl were simplified to , for example, Common Slavic *mydlo became Ukrainian (). • Common Slavic *ŭl and *ĭl became . For example, Common Slavic *vĭlkŭ became () in Ukrainian. == References ==