Below are sound changes and their motivations with examples from Proto-Slavic throughout the course of history of the Polish language.
Prosody Historic Polish lost the
Proto-Slavic accent system, modified its stress system, and gradual lost its length distinctions (see ). Slovincian displays the most archaic state of the Lechitic stress system; Polabian in theory does as well, but due to incomplete material it is difficult to use. See
Slovincian grammar for information on the stress system. The timeline of stress can be divided into three periods: • A change of Proto-Slavic free and mobile stress by moving the stress forward or backward due to phonetic and morphological factors, kept in Slovincian and some of Kashubian; • A change to initial stress, seen in North-Kashubian, many Goral dialects, and in the Southern Silesian dialects found on the border of Poland and Czechia; • A change to penultimate stress, originally secondary, which gained more emphasis, present throughout the rest of the North-East Lechitic region. During the preliterate (10th-11th centuries) era Polish likely still had free and mobile stress (), then in the 12th-14th century, the accent was still at least mobile, seen in the second and third person singular imperative of verbs formed with the ending -i, e.g. usłysz (
Bogurodzica), słysz (Bogurodzica), napełń (Bogurodzica) but zyszczy (Bogurodzica), spuści (Bogurodzica), raczy (Bogurodzica), wstań (Holy Cross Sermons) and pojdz (Holy Cross Sermons), chwali (Sankt Florian Psalter), puści (Sankt Florian Psalter), which could be stressed, and when it was stressed it was kept, but when the ending was not accented it was lost (however notably
no imperative forms with -i are kept in Slovincian). Next initial accent was established in the 14th-15th century (compare
Northern Kashubian dialects and some
Goral dialects like
Podhale, where initial accent here is considered a preserved archaic feature), this is also evinced in the loss of medial -i- in words like wielki bruzda), mąka, łąka, dłóto (> dłuto), ciągnę. Other instances of slanting are innovative, including compensatory lengthening after the
loss of yers and the contraction of two older vowels. Compensatory lengthening occurred after the loss of yers due to the reduction of the number of syllables in the word when a vowel occurred in a closed or final syllable, usually before voiced consonants and often liquids, most often seen in vowel alternations caused by the masculine singular -∅ | oblique cases and the feminine genitive plural -∅ | other endings, compare Polish || and ||. In Pomeranian, this alternation remains even for high vowels. Originally this lengthening also occurred before nasals, e.g. dóm, kóń, and during the Middle Polish period these forms were used in both the literary standard as well as in dialects, and
Słowacki also shows regionalisms like psóm, dóm, poziómek, korónki - this lengthening (later slanting) was removed due to
hypercorrection resulting negative associations with dialects and also through analogy to oN clusters arising from the decomposition of nasal vowels like ząb, dąb, kąty (see also ). Many theories as to why compensatory lengthening did not take place before voiceless consonants exist. Per Baudouin de Courtenay, it did initially occur before voiceless consonants, and a lack of slanting before tautosyllabic voiceless consonants arose as the result of analogy due to the fact that stems ending in voiced consonants were more distinct, and possibly as the result of word-final devoicing, as similar pairs of words like rok - róg, bok - bóg, płot - płód would phonetically sound more similar to each other: [rɔk] vs [rɔːk], etc., adding a semantic load to the importance of
vowel length. This is supported by Old Polish texts, albeit inconsistently. Long vowels were often marked by doubling the vowel, and this can on occasion be seen before voiced consonants and voiceless consonants, for example
Jakub Parkoszowic in ‘’Traktat o ortografii polskiej’’ (1440) suggests writing long vowels doubled, and includes examples of long vowels before both voiced consonants and voiceless, e.g. druug, laas. Dialects also sometimes show slanting before voiceless consonants, e.g. lós, stós, kós, potók. This has further evidence in the fact that compensatory lengthening became widespread in the genitive plural form -∅ of feminine nouns ending in -a, in which slanting became one of the characteristic inflectional features, occurring regardless of the quality of the last consonant of the stem, e.g. noga||nóg, baba||báb (historic or dialectal), cnota||cnót, księga||ksiąg, ręka||rąk, obora||obór. H. Koneczna in '
Księga referatów II MIędzynarodowego Zjazdu Slawistów, 1934, Warsaw further supports this by claiming that Slavic languages show a significant difference in the length of time between voiceless consonants (the longest), voiced consonants (second longest), and semivowels (the shortest), and these differences then affect the length of the preceding consonants inversely, vowels are the shortest before voiced consonants, second shortest before voiced consonants, and longest before semivowels, resulting in vowels phonemically voicing before voiced consonants and semivowels. The next source of slanting, contraction, consists of merging two vowels separated by -j- into one. There are two periods of contraction, an older, preliterate period and a younger period which shows dialectal differentiation. Conditions for older contraction include: • Nouns formed with *-ьje (see also ): picié, zbożé, pisanié (genitive piciá, zbożá, pisaniá) • Nouns formed with *-ьja (see also ): rolá, głębiá, sędziá, braciá, księżá; • The instrumental singular ending for nouns ending in *-a (*-ojǫ > -ǭ) (see also ): ręką, nogą, duszą, miedzą; • The instrumental plural ending for nouns ending in -ь (*-ьjǫ > -ǭ): kością, nocą; (see also ): kości, nocy; • The genitive plural of nouns ending in *-ь (*-ь̀jь > -ī (-ȳ after hardened consonants) (see also ): kości, nocy; • Definite adjectival forms (see also ): dobrý, dobrá, dobré, dobrégo, dobréj, dobrému, dobrą; • The word pás (later pas), from earlier pojasъ. Conditions for younger, dialectically conditioned contraction include: • Second and third person singular and second person plural present tense verb forms of verbs with the stem -aje, -eje: działász, działá, działámy, działácie, umiész, umié, umiémy, umiécie, dialectically działajesz, działaje, umiejesz, umieje. Compare the third person plural present forms działają, umieją; • Infinitive and past forms of verbs such as chwiać, śmiać się, stać, bać się, chwiáć, chwiáł, śmiáć się, śmiáł się, stáć, stáł, báć się, báł się from older/dialectal chwiejać, chwiejał, śmiejać się, śmiejał się, stojać/stojeć, stojał, bojać się/bojeć się, bojał się; • In dialectal forms such as pódę, pódziesz, next to pójdę, pójdziesz, from Proto-Slavic *po-jьdą, * po-jьdešь; • Possessive pronoun forms: mégo, mému, má (moja), méj, this occurred the latest contracted and non-contracted forms are kept for different stylistic purposes in the literary standard. There also exist many cases of slanting outside the above conditions, divided into five groups: • In terms such as góra, pióro, skóra, wióry, żóraw (later żuraw), który, wióry, wskórać, wynurzyć ( alternating with i and u. The further development of slanted vowels is also one of the most important isoglosses between
dialects. The resulting vowel system was rather complicated, and most slanted vowels merged with other vowels in dialects as well as in the standard, likely due to having many vowels near each other, resulting in them not sounding distinct enough from one another. See , , and for the further development of slanted vowels in the standard and dialects. In short, slanted á was lost first and in the standard merged with clear a with traces of this already in the 16th century, as in prints the two aren't always distinguished, and most Borderlands poets, e.g.
Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński,
Szymon Szymonowic, and
Józef Bartłomiej Zimorowic rhyme the two;
Jan Kochanowski does not, meaning that Ruthenian nobility influenced the merger of slanted á with clear a, and slanted á disappears ultimately in the 18th century, slanted é was kept in the general language for longer; the
1891 orthography reform removed it, suggesting its disappearance occurring somewhat earlier; é originally merged with i or y in the 17th century, but clear e was often reintroduced via analogy (e.g. dobrégo becomes dobrego like tego); dialects show much diversity in the development of é, but it is often kept via alternations or as a separate phoneme, and slanted ó remains in opposition with clear o in the 17th century, after which a tendency to raise it occurs, merging it with u; this process finishes in the 19th century, but traces of it in the standard can be seen in the orthography and morphophonological alternations. The loss of slanted á and é per Bajerowa (
O zaniku samogłosek pochylonych. Pokłosie dyskusji, Katowice 1978) had both internal, i.e. systematic and social, as well as external causes. The first factor was the loss of vowel length, as slanting originally accompanied length, and without that support, it lost its ballast; the second factor was the instability, further strengthened by a following liquid l or r, of slanted vowels, being awkward within the morphophonological system and encumbered the standardization of the language. External factors include a growing social tendency for standardization at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, including
19th century orthography reforms, and also influences from Latin as well as
Borderlands dialects. The chronology of long and slanted vowels can be broken into five stages: • The Old Polish era (10th-15h centuries) where the opposition of long and short vowels took shape and strengthened; • The turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, where the opposition of long and short vowels was lost and slanted vowels arise; • The first half of the 18th century where slanted á merged with clear a in the general language (see also ); • The 19th century when slanted ó phonetically merges with u (but still morphophonologically alternating with o) (see also ); • The end of the 19th century when slanted é merged with clear e in the general language (see also ).
Proto-Slavic *i The reflex of Proto-Slavic *i is i. Proto-Slavic *i could be long or short, and early Polish likely kept both; compare Pomeranian alternations of i, from old long i, with schwa, from old short i. It could be possible that a difference in quality accompanied the difference in length, but ultimately we see only i in Polish or Pomeranian i | ë,. An important change from Proto-Slavic *i in Polish is to y after sz, ż, rz, cz, dż, c, dz (szyć, żyć, przy, czyn, owcym wrodzy) as a result of the loss of softness in these consonants (see
§consonants below). An exception is the so-called Podhale archaism (), whereby i is retained after s z ( er|ér took place in forms before the loss of length, then er is the result, because the nearest lower vowel to i was e, but if it took place after the loss of length and quality was the remaining factor, the next nearest vowel was é, provided that that long and short vowels also did not differ in quality phonetically. The preceding and proceeding constants also seem to have affected the reflex of ir:in modern standard Polish, er predominates with a few archaic exceptions (supposedly late borrowings) such as kir, zbir, skir, alongside mir and wir; in Middle Polish forms such as kier and wier exist, also Kazimirz, Kaźmirz. Similarly the groups il, il -ci > -ć. Forms with -ci can be seen even in the early Middle Polish period, but exceedingly rarely, generally used for prosodic and rhyming reasons also perhaps under Czech influence, where in the Czech translation of the same text -ti could be seen. It is also possible this i was only orthographically marking the softness of the preceding c in some cases, but was not pronounced. One possible reason why final -i here was lost is the weakness of the morphological-semantic function, i.e. that both the absence of i and the distinctness of the infinitive ending were sufficient in marking the form; • In the imperative. Based on early texts it seems that a series of endings were generalized: -i for the second and third person singular, -imy for the first person plural, and -icie for the second person and third person plural, but even in the oldest texts the imperative without -i is also seen. The loss of -i in the imperative was a slow, gradual process, ending differently depending on the verb in different eras. This process is sometimes explained as being motivated by the general loss of asemantic word-final vowels, i.e. those inert in meaning. Compare also dosyci, maci, tamo, tako, jako, teże, juże, nuże, zasie, daleje, bliżeje, więce; the fact these vowels were unstressed would also support their disappearance, furthermore, verbs that didn’t accent final -i in the imperative lost it. Verbs with that stress, which are compared to other Slavic languages and Pomeranian suggest that it was stressed. Verbs such as chwalić also had a tendency to lose the imperative i to distinguish those forms from the homophonous third person singular chwali. The coexistence of both forms along with the lack of a phonetically motivated reason to have both lead to an immobilization of the stress, which lead to leveling. After the fixing of Polish stress, -i forms were generally lost, motivated also by a lack of a morpho-semantic need. -i was also lost in plural forms by analogy to the singular forms, e.g. niesi : niesimy : niesicie > nieś : nieśmy : nieście, which helped differentiate these forms semantically from the present tense forms.
Proto-Slavic *y Proto-Slavic *y gives y and regionally approaches i, but y can sometimes arise in these areas from old é, or diphthongized in some western Greater Polish dialects. y occurs after cz dż sz ż r z c dz instead of i, except in some dialects, see above on the Podhale archaism and Silesian, and y changes to i after k and g, except in some dialects, likely in relation to k and g softening before e ( ḱi ǵi probably began as early as the
Psalter of Puławy and ended in the 16th century, except parts of Masovia. Similar to the change of *ir > er is also *yr > er: siekiera -em is less common and is not retained. However -emi||-émi becomes more popular in the Middle Polish era.
Proto-Slavic *e Proto-Slavic *e usually results in e with softening of the previous consonant. Initial *e often undergoes prothesis with j- in loanwords, especially in dialects. However, *e sometimes ablauts to o, attested even in the
Bull of Gniezno, and can be traced to all Lechitic lects, and remained productive even through the 10th century with Latinate borrowings such as Piotr, anjoł. *e > o occurs before synchronically hard alveolar consonants, so *ed et ez es en eł er > od ot oz os on oł or: niosę, biorę, plotę, żona, cios, zioło, meaning e occurs before soft or historically soft consonants: nesies, pleciesz, żeński, cieśla, bierzesz, zielony. The presence of soft e near hard consonants such as bierny, Siedlewit is due to the fact that the consonant at the time was soft due to a following yer, which later disappeared: *berьnъ or as the result of a further neighboring soft consonant (Siedlewit). This ablaut is motivated by the formants of the vowels, which can have primary and secondary formants, in that e has secondary formants similar to o. Then, if the primary formant is weakened or entirely removed, only the secondary formant remains, which is closer to the back (low) quality; this primary formant is removed by the palatalization of the preceding consonants caused by *e, as palatalization absorbs some of the articulatory movement of *e, resulting in a change to o, meaning that not only did this ablaut occur after the palatalization of consonants before *e, but was also motivated by it. This is also called dispalatalization of e. However if a palatal/soft consonant came after e (i.e. s' z' t' d' r' l' > ś ź ć dź rz l), this difference in position did not occur, thus a need for a vowel change was not present. Many exceptions exist, often motivated by morphological leveling or other similar processes. The inverse also occurs, etymological czosać, śmiotana, krzosać occur in Old Polish, which were later replaced with -e-. Ablaut is absent however in dialectal forms such as bierę, bierą, but also through analogy to forms such as bierzesz, bierze. The differentiation of forms in the o direction was still weak in the 16th century, and only became stronger in the 17th and especially in the 18th centuries. Prepositions with *e did not undergo ablaut due to being
clitics. Also affecting this was the following consonant, as this change happened in some forms gradually and not simultaneously, and in others not at all, depending on which consonant was next, for example labial consonants, wlokę from the stem vlek (compare Old Church Slavonic влѣкѫ (vlěkǫ). Ablaut is frequently absent after labial consonants in dialects, biedro, mietła, piełun, wiesło, wiesna. It also differs in many examples from the standard, sometimes with an etymological lack of ablaut: siestra, or an unetymological lack: wieska (e from a yer), poziemka (before a labial), or etymological presence: śmiotana. The change of e (after softened consonants) > o (after hard) in the dative -ewi > -owi, the derivational suffix -ew- > -ow- (Oleszewo > Oleszowo, as well as adjectival and compound noun endings from this) and the rare genitive -ew > -ow is rather the result of leveling and analogy, as the distribution of o is uneven depending on the dialect and morpheme. Lesser Poland loses e in these positions the most, less often in Masovia due to influence from the literary standard, and the least often in Greater Poland. Within Greater Poland -e- can even occur after innovated soft consonants; in some Greater Polish dialects in, yn change to iń, yń, so syn becomes syń, and the dative synowi changes to syniewi. The
Łowicz dialect is unique, as sometimes it generalizes e after hard consonants, but also uses o after soft consonants.
Proto-Slavic *ě Proto-Slavic *ě had a tendency to raise in children languages, and in most Polish dialects to e. However, this vowel in Lechitic also sometimes sometimes merged with a, resulting in ablaut, bielić : biały, kleć : klatka, kwiecie : kwiat, lecie : lato, mierzyć : miara, mieścić : miasto, strzelić : strzała, świeca : światło, wierzyć : wiara. This ablaut is attested as early as Bull of Gniezno: Balouanz (Białowąs), Balouezici (Białowieżycy), Balossa (Białosza) but Belina (Bielina), Quatec (Kwiatek), Soledad (Sulidziad), Stralec (Strzałek). The oldest example is Dadosesani as a Silesian name for the strain Dziadoszanie, written by the
Bavarian Geographer. Also here from 1015 is Diadesizi, meaning that this ablaut is prehistoric, affecting also Polabian, and older than *e > ‘o. This ablaut has the same conditions as *e > ‘o: before *ěd ět ěz ěs ěn ěł ěr > ad at az as an ał ar, and *ě > e before soft consonants or historically soft consonants. The presence of e ‘o, but with /a/ being the back equivalent of /æ/, which was likely the realization of *ě. As with the previous ablaut, exceptions exist, and are also the result of morphological leveling, occurring as early as the Old Polish era. These forms are rare and rzezać, lezę, krzesło dominate. Dialectically oferia and powiedać are used. The term ofiera was originally from Czech, but the form ofiara came to dominate based on native terms, powiedać however is purely a Masovian dialectalism, where ablaut often doesn’t occur after labials: niewiesta, kwiet, wieno, piestun. The process of leveling e to a completed only in the 17th and 18th centuries, and of course not in all words at the same time. Alternations such as cza||cze (czas||wczesny, żal||o żeli are not the result of ablaut, but is probably the result of analogy to alternations such as krzyczał||krzyczeli, etc. Such forms with a are original and forms with e are secondary and arose based no widział : widzieli: widzieć, where -e- is actually from *ě and these show etymological ablaut.
Slanted é At the end of the Proto-Slavic period, there existed originally short *e, lengthened *e, originally long *ě and shortened *ě. Inherited into Polish short *e and *ě could either remain short or be lengthened, and long *e and *ě could either remain long or shorten. Short *e and *ě could lengthen due to Polish innovations mentioned above, resulting in short e and long e, each of which having two origins, that is from short *e *ě and long *e *ě. Short e é in the nominative, accusative, and vocative singular of neuter adjectival/pronominal soft declensions: pokolenie szukając
é, trzeci
éć przyrodzenie, napierwsz
é bogactwo; • *eje > é in the present tense of verbs such as umieć, rozumieć: umi
é, rozumi
émy; • *eje > é in the phrase nie je (nie jest, nie ma) > ni
é; • *ejě > é in the genitive singular of soft feminine pronouns: w j
é świętem żywocie; • *ějě > é in the genitive singular of compound feminine soft adjectives: matki boż
é obraz, namniejsz
é pierzynki nie miał; • *ějě > é in the nominative, accusative, and vocative feminine singular and accusative masculine plural of compound soft-stem adjectives: wszystki przeciwiając
é sie, bojąc
é się boga, syny boż
é, na lędźwie najmocniejsz
é; • *oje > é in nominative, accusative, and vocative neuter singular of compound hard-stem adjectives: w kaki
é wrzemię, mocn
é bostwo, mdł
é człowieczstwo; • *ojě > é in the genitive feminine singular of hard-stem pronouns: krola t
éto ziemie, biskupowie t
éto iste ziemie; • *yjě > é in the genitive feminine singular of compound hard-stem adjectives: wieczné śmirci, ludziem dobr
é wole, z krolewny niebieski
é, nijedn
é gospody; • *yjě > é in the nominative, accusative and vocative feminine plural and masculine accusative plural of compound hard-stem adjectives: wieliki
é przyjaźni, we zł
é chustki, boleści śmiertn
é, boleści pkieln
é, kraje ziemski
é, nad syny ludzki
é, na święt
é swoje; • *ьje > é in the nominative, accusative and vocative of neuter nouns such as nauczanie and in the numeral trze: włodani
é, oświeceni
é, trz
é; • *aje > é in the ending *ajego of the genitive singular of compound masculine and neuter adjectives: człowieka grzeszn
égo, krola cn
égo, syna dziewicz
égo, nagł
égo spadnienia; • *uje > é in the dative ending of compound masculine and neuter adjectives: bliźni
ému, utoka ubogi
ému, ku siercu wysoki
ému. The change of *e > é||e and *ě > || é||e and the raising of é with the loss of contrastive length took place gradually over the 14th-16th century, resulting in slanted e. Within dialects, é is sometimes kept in all etymological positions, or sometimes leveled in morphological endings. In some dialects, it remains as a separate phoneme, in others it raises to y regardless of the hardness of the previous consonant, in others either raise to i after soft consonants or to y after hard consonants - this was common in the literary standard before the loss of é- or finally it can merge in some dialects with e - this is the rarest. See various articles on
Dialects of Polish for details on individual dialects. In 1518, Zaborowski proposed writing é as ė, which was not widely accepted, but rather é became popular, or sometimes the digraph eé. Murzynowski in 1551 also suggests the use of é. However, only some publishers regularly distinguished the two, such as in Kochanowski’s works, published by Łazarzowa from 1583-1585. Even those that attempt to distinguish the two do it inconsistently, often the fault of typesetters. Differentiating the two becomes even weaker in the 17th century;
Grzegorz Knapski in 1621 complains about those who do not distinguish the two sounds, but he himself marks slanted é with clear e, as slanted å is used for clear a. As a result, e is used for both phonemes in the 18th century, and
Onufry Kopczyński suggests differentiating the two in specific conditions in his grammar from 1778-1783, but many of his suggestions are not etymologically motivated and are the result of his own invention or dialectal influence. é sees more use in the 18th century, particularly in certain words or endings, as can be seen in Linde’s dictionary or the Vilnius dictionary, and finally é was removed in the
1891 orthography reform. Thus, é likely remained in common use in the 16th century and its use was limited over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries. Phonetics was one factor in this loss, i.e. the neighboring sounds. For example, the ending -éj was often realized as -yj, or -égo in some dialects could be realized as -ego or -égo depending on the previous consonant: dobrego but taniégo. Analogy also played a major role: zielé > ziele, based on pole, dobrégo > dobrego based on tego. The Eastern nobility also influenced this, which had either only e or raised é to y, i, seen in Rej’s rhymes. Another potential cause for this was a feeling that é was unpredictable and difficult to know how to mark in text. Finally the fact it had a low semantic load also contributed to its disapperrance. The phonological and phonetic separateness of é began to be lost in the 17th and 18th centuries, and in the 19th century it merged wither with ‘i||y or e, then the awareness of é and where it should be weakened, meaning it became less and less marked in texts, marked usually for grammatical norms; replacing é with ‘i||y weakens in the 19th century, often being replaced more with e, and this is finalized with the
1891 orthography reform. The most likely cause of the spread is likely the result from when Warsaw became the capital in 1800, crossing two literary systems: the Greater-Polish/Lesser Polish system and the Masovian system, as the Masovian realization of é spreads from Masovia in the 19th century to the literary area of Lesser Poland and Greater Poland, replacing i/y. The orthography reform of 1891 replacing é with e was also likely adopted by schools, where e would be pronounced as written, and the normative influence of schools also likely spread this pronunciation, and realizations with y||i were seen as wrong. A few words that historically had é, at least in textbooks from the 19th century, sometimes have y||i in colloquial or jocular pronunciation within Standard Polish. This is the result of maintaining the old pronunciation of the intellectual elite as well as adoption of dialectal substrates and influence in one’s speech, often done for expressive reasons. The change of -ej > -yj||-ij is nearly common throughout, probably from the result of final -j (tamtyj, zdrowyj, jednyj, jij, nij, drzyj, starzyj, szybcij, only trzej remains without raising). Slanted é was kept in the general language for longer; é originally merged with i or y in the 17th century, but clear e was often reintroduced via analogy (e.g. dobrégo becomes dobrego like tego); dialects show much diversity in the development of é, but it is often kept via alternations or as a separate phoneme.
Proto-Slavic *a Proto-Slavic *a gives inherited a. Already in the pre-Polish era, a developmental change of *a took place in whereby the original Proto-Slavic length, long or short, was only sometimes retained, but in other cases long vowels were shortened and short vowels were lengthened, see - this means that in pre-Polish and medieval Polish there was long á from late Proto-Slavic long *ā and short a from late Proto-Slavic short *a and long ā which was shortened in Polish, and finally Polish ā from contraction. Examples of contraction include: • *aja > á in the nominative singular of feminine compound adjectives and the nominative, accusative, and vocative plural of neuter compound adjectives: święt
á Katerzyna, słowa znamienit
á; • *aje > á in the second and third singular and the second plural present tense of -am verbs: pobudz’’’á’’’ ponęc
á i powabi
á, wyprawi
á się, rozpacz
ász, but okopaje przywitaje is attested as well in the 15th century; to that time -znajesz, -znaje after a prefix: poznajesz, wyznajemy, doznajecie; • *oja > á in the stem of the infinitive of the verbs stoję, boję się: Mojżesz wybrany jego st
áł, będzie st
áć, nie będę się b
áć; • *eja > á in the stem of the infinitive of verbs like wieję : wiać, grzeję : grzać: (Parkoszowic) (ch)wi
áł (faal), wi
áł (vaal), but in Sankt Florian Psalter chwiejali głową; • *ьja > á in the nominative plural in cases where the ending begins with a: sędziá or in collective nouns braci
á, and in the declension of nouns of the type przykazanie, zboże (those which originally had the ending *-ьj-): sąmnieni
á, przyszci
á, głos skurszeni
á, od narodzeni
á, do widzeni
á, pokoleni
á. Long á was rarely marked orthographically with aa in the medieval period, but even circa 1516 you can see aa. Parkoszowic attempted to popularize this, but in the same work (be it either that Parkoszowic made a mistake or his copyist) sometimes writes the same word without double aa, or in words where one would expect aa it is missing. In terms of sound quality, short a was likely /a/ and long á was likely /ɒː/, and once length distinction was lost, clear a and slanted á remained. It’s also likely these two vowels didn’t sound much different, as they often rhyme in Rej’s texts. However old texts systematically and regularly distinguish the two, imperfectives (frequentatives) often having it: zaráżać and perfectives do not: zarazić, wysłáwiać, wysławić. The word could affect slanting: dáj but nie daj, mász but nie masz. á also appears in the stem of the non-compound passive participles as a predicative: dán, dána, dáno, but a appears in compound forms: dany, dana, dane. na(-) and za(-) appear in prepositions and prefixes verbs derived from other verbs and ná(-) zá(-) appear near a nominal. The dative plural of feminine nouns always have -ám, and the instrumental plural -ami, the locative plural shows -ach ten times more than -ách. Generally the letters ⟨á å⟩ more often represented the phoneme clear /a/, and ⟨a⟩ more often represented slanted /ɒ/, but the opposite could occur; this is the opposite of Murzynowski’s suggestions, and dominated from the middle of the 16th century and through the 17th and 18th centuries. There are also some Borderlands poets which do not differentiate a and á , e.g.
Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński,
Szymon Szymonowic, and
Józef Bartłomiej Zimorowic rhyme the two;
Jan Kochanowski does not, meaning that Ruthenian nobility influenced the merger of slanted á with clear a. There are also cases of inconsistent marking, the result of oversight on behalf of the typesetter or proofreader, as the difference between the two was strongly felt even in the 17th century.derlands poets, and slanted á disappears ultimately in the 18th century. But like slanted é, the difference between the two likely started to blur starting in the 16th century, meaking it the earliest slanted vowel of the three to be lost. Exemplary of this is how the alternation of á||a in the present tense vs infinitive began to disappear (similar to ą:ę, sądzę || sędzić): báczę||baczyć, etc. This alternations clearly fluctuates in the 16th century, with some verbs preserving it better than others. The original state could be seen in some infinitives, and in other cases in the imperative. The pronunciation was not often certain everywhere, and proofreaders did not manage well with these uncertainties. This process strengthens in the 17th century through the beginning of the 18th century, where the it finishes and á disappears from the literary standard around the middle of the 18th century. Nitsch explains this as being the result of Ruthenian Poles, who merged á with a. The north Masovian dialects around Warsaw, which had become the capital, also did not have á. The loss of á is also associated with the mixing of populations meeting from different places in an area with a low population. Dialects preserve á much better than the standard, as the majority of Polish dialects did not merge the two phonemes. See articles on particular dialects for more. In early dialects, beginning before the 12th century, the initial cluster ra- changed to re-, found even in the oldest texts a change attested in northern and central Poland, e.g. rano > reno. The range of ra- > re- shrank with time and now appears only in a few northern dialects. Similarly initial ja- > changed to je-, but the range of this was less north than ra- > re-, and also affected Silesia, and is attested as early as the 12th century.
Proto-Slavic *o Proto-Slavic *o gives o, with later changes in length similar to those that occurred with slanted é and á. Short o generally remains unchanged. In some
adverbial pronouns with an accusative neuter singular origin it was lost word-finally already in the Old Polish period: tako, jako, tamo, owako, inako, jednako > tak, jak, owak, inak, jednak, kako was lost entirely. jako and tako remain in this fossilized expression, and jako as a comparative/copulative word. Dialectally tamo still exists. o often undergoes epenthesis, usually with /w/, called labialization (), spelled ⟨ô⟩, which can be seen in most dialects, especially initially; rarely h (/x/) may appear, and rarer still w (/v/). Fewer dialects have no labialization. In a large area in the south west of the above mentioned line all the way to the mountains in the south labilization becomes stronger and stronger. Labialization can depend on place, speed of speech, individual carefulness of the speaker, and sometimes on the quality of the preceding consonant; palatal and front consonants are less likely to be associated with labialization: pôle, kôść are very common, rôście, dôbry are frequent, sôstra, ciôtka are rare. In places where ł changes to /w/, labialized o and ło can be confused, e.g. pot and płot might sound the same as /pwɔt/. People with this when trying to speak formally will often hypercorrect and remove etymological /w/, e.g. łopata > opata. In all of Poland, o often raised to ó before nasals, meaning that the dialectal realizations are etymological with Old Polish texts. ó had more changes than o. Probably already in the preliterate era ó differed in quality from o as well as in length, raising and tensing, especially at the end of articulation, approaching u, giving /oː/ in contrast to /ɔ/. In the Middle Sges length was lost and the quality difference remained, giving o (/ɔ/) and ó (/o/). Orthographically, ó began to be marked differently in the first quarter of the 16th century, and Murzynowski also recommends distinguishing the two, but only a few publishers in the 16th century regularly and consistently distinguish the two. Kopczyński reintroduced ó into the orthography at the beginning of the 19th century, from which time it has remained. Kochanowski has particular rhymes that often suggest ó being closer to o, but sometimes merging with u before r, Rej has a similar tendency, Knapski in 1621 shows there was still a difference in the 17th century, but he likely had labialization for ó, but fluctuation before r also occurs. Zimorowic (1629) in Roksolanki and Bartłomiej in Roczyzna and Żałoba (1654) have the opposite trend - rhymes where u lowering to ó before r n can be seen in the 16th century in Rej’s and Kochanowski’s texts. Odymalski (Obleżenie Jasnej Góry Częstochowskiej, pre 1673) shows a tendency to raise ó towards u. It is difficult to say if these rhymes were accurate of pronunciation, or if they were near rhymes. Grammarians’ recommendations from the 17th and 18th centuries do not shed much light, as often phones are not distinguished from letters, sometimes resulting in a perceived phonetic difference where one does not exist; also, sometimes these grammars are written by foreigners or for foreigners, and so sometimes the content of the work is simplified, and sometimes these grammarians generalize observations made about folk speech and attribute them to educated speech. Mesgnien in Grammatica seu institutio polonice linguae (1649) says that ó approaches u, but is clearly distinct from it, but is closer to u than o. Cassius in Lehrgebäude der polnischen Sprache (1797) says that the accent on ó is used to distinguish it from “pure o” and to pronounce it like u. Grammarians of the 19th century also confused letters and sounds, but many from the century comment that ó is barely different from u. Sochański in Brzmienie głosek polskich i pisownia polska (1861) says that some pronounce ó as u, but the majority pronounce it as a sound between o and u. Many efforts were made during the 1936 reform to completely remove ó, but they were generally met with resistance, and ó was removed in a few words such as żuraw, bruzda, pruć, chrust. The reason ó had more resilience than é and á orthographically is likely because it merged with /u/; once á merged with a then there were no morphophonological alternations; conversely because é regionally alternated with i||y, it remained in the orthography for longer, until it merged with clear e in the standard. Since ó merged phonetically with /u/ in the standard, there were many morphophonological alternations, giving a phonetic justification for it to remain in the orthography. In general the current distribution of ó||o is in agreement with the distribution of old long ó, except before nasals, as o tended to raise to ó before nasals in Old Polish and Middle Polish, e.g. dóm, which is not always seen today. ó also appears in Old and Middle Polish before ł and r, e.g. aniół, klasztór, sometimes before j, e.g. dójdzie, pójmuje, and before -ż, e.g. kogóż; also in the past tense of verbs with a consonantal stem, e.g. mógłeś, wiódłem, odniósłeś, and the word dróga. As a result modern Standard Polish shows much uncertainty, e.g. dwom||dwóm, spódnica||spodnica. This is the result of phonetic, morphological-analogical, or dialectal factors. Sometimes dialects lack slanting where it exists in the standard or vice versa, forms such as ktory, gora, klotka exist, as well as dróga and Greater Polish szkólny. Vilnius Polish has much notable deviation, seen in
Adam Mickiewicz’s works: zbojca, brzozka, ogrodek, but also spójrzeć, ostróżny, paciórek. Thus slanted ó began to weaken in the 16th century in its phonetic uniqueness with, but a clear opposition remained in the 17th century after which a tendency to raise it occurs, merging it with u; this process finishes in the 19th century. Ruthenian nobility likely also influenced this. This process intensifies in the 17th century supported by Masovian and Lesser Polish pronunciations, as ó developed here differently than é. Then ó realized as u becomes popular enough that it likely becomes part of the literary standard by the 19th century, but remains part of the orthography thanks to Kopczyńśki’s and his successors’ efforts as well as morphophonological alternations.
Proto-Slavic *u Proto-Slavic *u gives u. Proto-Slavic *u could be either long or short - as with other vowels in prehistoric Polish this length could change, and both long and short u entered the earliest stages of the language, probably with no difference in quality between the long and short variants. Only Pomeranian dialects keep traces of this length distinction, and not everywhere. Traces of short u is best seen after front consonants, where it became ë, like with old short i and y. After back and labial consonants it usually stayed as short u, sometimes developing as long u: sëchi, szëmiec, łëpic, lëdze, brzëch, cëdzy, and also puscëc, buk, mucha, kupic, gubic, chudy, juńc. Short u lowered in a similar manner as short i, giving a characteristic reflex: a short low reflex vs a long high one. Otherwise u remains unchanged throughout Polish. In a few instances it became i for often uncertain reasons: litować o ablaut, as i is the front equivalent of u in terms of height, much like the relationship between e and o. During the Old Polish and Middle Polish period, u often lowers to o before n, ń, m: Dunajec||Donajec, punczocha||ponczocha, słuńce||słońce. This fluctuation can still occur in more recent Polish: tłumaczyć||tłomaczyć, tłumok||tłomok, tytuń||tytoń, and also dialectal realizations such as grónt, fónt, and sometimes before r: góra, chmóra.
Proto-Slavic *ę and *ǫ There were two nasal vowels in Proto-Slavic, front mid *ę and back mid *ǫ, which both could be long and short - the oldest Polish reflexes are found in texts from the 12th century. During this epoch there were probably nasal vowels of two different qualities, [æ̃] and [ɑ̃] and, based on later reflexes, nasal vowels underwent considerable changes in terms of length, namely, the length of the nasals was shortened in some positions already in the final phase of the development of Proto-Slavic; therefore, in Polish there are long nasals continuing some of the Late Proto-Slavic short nasals or from that part of the Late Proto-Slavic long nasals that were shortened in Polish. Pre-Polish also has long *ǫ that does not continue Proto-Slavic *ǭ, but is the result of contraction of *ojǫ, *ejǫ, *ьjǫ: wodą /æ̃ː/||/æ̃/, *ǫ > /ɑ̃ː/||/ɑ̃/, except after ablaut, which could result in ǫ occurring after hard consonants (see the
Lechitic ablaut, but the results of this were already beginning to blur) of *ęt, ęd, ęs, ęz, ęn, ęr, ęl (all hard) > *ǫt, ǫd, ǫs, ǫz, ǫn, ǫr, ǫl, e.g. Świą́t, Świą́tosz, Trzą́sowo, Trzą́siwuct, Czą́stobor. The quality of these four nasal vowels change in the 13th and 14th centuries, as is reflected in texts from this period, namely, both nasals, originally written from ⟨an⟩, ⟨am⟩, are written identically with
the letter ⟨ꟁ⟩, which saw its first use in the 13th century and spread in the 14th century, then in the 15th century, ⟨ą⟩ begins to see similar use for both nasals. Therefore during the Old Polish era the nasal vowels merged into one vowel in terms of quality, and at the same time, a distinction in terms of length continued: /ã/ o||a ablaut, after which many changes regarding them occur, namely strong hard yer changes e with a preceding hard or functionally hard (ḱ ǵ) and strong soft yer > ‘e with a preceding soft or hardened consonant; weak hard yer disappears and similarly weak soft yer disappears but sometimes leaves behind a soft or softened consonant that preceded it, strengthening the phonemic opposition of hard and soft consonants. The oldest attested signs of the development of yers can be seen in the 12th century in
Bull of Gniezno and
Bulls of Wrocław, Golec = Gołęk -y in compound adjectival declensions; • Final *-ьjь > -i in compound adjectival declensions, the genitive plural of feminine nouns, now consonantal, e.g. kości; • -ьj- > -ij- || -yj- (after hardened consonants) in verbs, e.g. biję, wiję, nouns, e.g. żmija, szyja, and the pronoun czyj; • Initial *jь- developed in two ways; if it started a sentence, i.e. was in the absolute initial position (i.e. beginning the utterance) > i, e.g. idę, igra, imać, imieć; if it came after a term ending in a vowel > *j > ∅, e.g. gra, skra, mam, mieć; after a prefix ending in a vowel *jь > j (zajdę, dojdę, najdę). Later either only the i- form was kept, e.g. igła, iglica, ikra, or both are used, e.g. idę, zajdę, sometimes with a changed meaning, e.g. igrać vs grać, sometimes with a stylistic difference, e.g. iskra vs skra; • The accusative masculine singular of the pronoun *jь > ji, later replaced in the 16th century by jego, go; • If a prefix ended in ъ, and the base started with i-, resulting in ъi, then in Old Polish y (zysk, odydę). Later levellings changed this to odejdę based on other similar verbs. Resulting forms often undergo analogical leveling, whereby mobile e (|| ∅) often became fixed in its position, e.g. Old Polish sjem || sejmie (locative singular) became fixed sejm || sejmie, additionally oblique forms of szmer changing to szmer- (originally szemr-, e.g. genitive singular szemra), or psek reshaping to piesek from oblique stems like genitive singular pieska or sometimes a lost vowel was added back in, e.g. deska from original cka. Such processes can be observed as early as Bull of Gniezno, showing mobile e, which often has -ek in the nominative, but sometimes just -k, the result of analogy to oblique forms, and similarly -ec shows a loss of -e- due to similar leveling. This shows that at that time two tendencies occurs, keeping etymological forms and leveling, but these forms without -e- remain in northern dialects of Poland. Another deviation is that e resulting from yers sometimes acts as e resulting from *e, sometimes then becoming o: dzionek, dzionka instead of *dnek, *dzienka, wioska from wieś, and also etymological but uncommon osieł alongside more common osioł, kozieł alongside kozioł. Next to e || ∅ from strong yers is e in a place where there never was a yer, but in a form resulting in a consonant cluster: ogień, węzeł, węgiel, later mydełko instead of mydłko; braterski from bratski, piosenka instead of *piasnka, and in the borrowed suffix -unek, from earlier -unk, as late as the 16th century, from German -ung. The prepositions/prefixes *vъ(-) sъ(-) > *w(e)(-)/*z(e)(-) also showed uncertainty as to whether the yer accompanying them was weak or strong, as these acted as clitics, being part of the same accentuation unit as another word, meaning that Havlík's law determines the distribution of e or ∅, resulting in the current alternation of w || we and z s || ze. Alternating forms of prefixes last longer as they are indivisible from the word and were repeated more. Prepositional forms on the other hand are separate and are used in conjunction with many more words and thus can’t connect accentually to the next word, and as a result show more fluctuation; and so after the loss of awareness of yers,
phonotactics then decides more often which form is used, usually in order to avoid uncomfortable consonant clusters, such as doubled ones, e.g. we Wrocławiu, we wtorek, we Francji, ze zwierzyńca, ze strachu. The prepositions przed(e), od(e), nad(e), przez(e), bez(e) underwent a similar process. Dialects in southern Lesser Poland, Silesia, and to a lesser extent in central Poland and Greater Poland show forms with -e much more frequently. Within dialects mobile e is often lost in oblique cases, e.g. bes || besu next to standard bez || bzu, or epenthetic e is inserted, wiater next to standard wiatr, or being in a different position: szwiec, szwieca next to standard szewc || szewca, see also . In the north -e- in nominative masculine forms and genitive feminine/neuter plural forms is often missing: podwieczórk, paznokć, krawc. During the Old Polish era this was likely a regular phenomenon encompassing Masovia, Pomerania, and even north-east Greater Poland.
Proto-Slavic yers *ъr *ъl *ьr *ьl (*TъrT *TъlT *TьrT *TьlT) Proto-Slavic had sonorant diphthongs *ъr *ъl *ьr *ьl, within Lechitic they vocalized in diverse ways from yers, especially *ъl. This vocalization likely took place in the 10th century and not earlier than the 12th century, that is during the same era as the Lechitic ablaut, and after the Proto-Slavic palatalization of *k *g > *č *ž; *ьl was an early important isogloss between northern and southern Poland, and further an important isogloss between other Slavic dialects. Proto-Slavic *TъrT generally gives TarT with few exceptions, found in the Bull of Gniezno: Carna = Karna, Carz = Kars - this a can be of two lengths, both long TárT and short TarT, which is the result of secondary shortening, see above, and the future development of this long and short a is identical to the development of long and short a otherwise: *bъrkъ > bark, *gъrdlo > gardło. Proto-Slavic *TьrT is varied within prehistoric Polish, and the result depended on the following consonant and its length. The clarity of the development is further muddied by later independent developments and leveling, etc.: • Before a hard front consonant t d s z n ł *TьrT > TarT, and the cluster hardens, including after a hard consonant and cz ż, e.g. wartki T’irT or T’irzT, e.g. wiercić TłuT, e.g. słup TołT mowa T’ełT, e.g. kiełbasa tłut, e.g. długi čelč, but after umlaut > čołt||čółt; žьlt > želt, and after ablaut > žołt||žółt, e.g. tłusty TełT, e.g. pełzać T’ilT, e.g. wigla a occurred to raT-, laT-: radło o in accordance with ablaut; • o > o||ó depending on length . This means that the Polish reflexes of *TerT are: • TrzeT||TrzéT, e.g. brzeg *čolnъ šolmъ žolbъ > *člonъ šlomъ žlobъ. In Slovincian, TelT merged with TolT. Forms such as płóc, młóc are found across all of Kashubia, and even in Greater Poland.
Consonants Polish undergoes major changes in terms of
palatalization, changing both inherited palatal consonants and innovating some new ones, especially via the
general changes in West Slavic and Lechitic from Proto-Slavic. Inherited soft consonsants initially remained soft, and later depalatalized; other consonants palatalized near front consonants, and after ablaut and the loss of yers, also phonemicized.
Proto-Slavic *p *b and the rise of *ṕ *b́ p remains without change, e.g. płakać jcc > jc, e.g. winowajca, kojca, ojca; d́ in the same position loses its voicing and then changes the same way: rajca, zdrajca. Old Polish forms such as otca, otczyzna suggest a loss of palatalization in the cluster, unless they were spelled under Czech influence, but this would be a dialectal development. In later Polish, -jc- is partially kept by tradition, e.g. winowajca, zdrajca, ogrojca, ogrojcu, kojca, kojcem, the latter examples even change their nominative via leveling, from kociec ogrodziec > kojec ogrojec, and morphological innovations sometimes replace inherited forms, e.g. władca radca świętokradca; fluctuations are visible: władzca radzca. t́ d́ in the groups st́ zd́ after the loss of *ь before s develop uniquely: *st́s > *śt́s > śćs > śs > jss > js; *zd́z first devoiced to *st́s and then had the same development: miejski Old Polish fała, and notably some dialects kept voiced w even after voiceless consonants, and others yet have a semivowel realization of /w/. In relation to these processes is the phonemization of f, as **f was not part of Proto-Slavic, and early borrowings replace f with p, such as the Old Polish Szczepan from Latin Stephanus. The early dialectal change of chv > f led to minimal pairs like falić vs walić, seen in the beginning of the 13th century. Later borrowings starting from the 14th and 15th century show the presence of f in; folwark||forwark, flak, facelet, farba (next to older barwa), forszt, fryjować, frywołt. f has a unique origin in the word ufać and related words, as it was originally upwać, containing the prefix o- and the stem -pw-, related to pewny, and this cluster later simplified; compare obfity below. If v was near a front consonant or j, it palatalized, later phonemicizing to v́ after ablaut: • Before a vowel v́ > v́ (no change), e.g. wiara *sъtęti, but spiąć > *sъpęti. In older forms of Polish and now in dialects it can soften in other positions. z remains unchanged, but word-finally and before a voiceless consonants changes to s, e.g. zając -k is also seen in parts of Silesia around Pszczyna and Stalinogród, but this is not a Silesian innovation, but Lesser Polish influence. In Spisz and around Nowy Targ final -ch becomes not -k but -f, so na nogaf, posłaf, zrobiłef; places with -ch > -k preserve place of articulation, -ch > -f preserve manner of articulation. The earliest attestations of this change can be seen in the 15th and 16th centuries; it is controversial whether the phenomenon was just emerging at that time and reached its full intensity in the 17th century, or whether it had already flourished then and even earlier, but because this phenomenon encompasses both Silesia and Lesser Poland, it is probable that this began in earlier eras. Finally Masovian influences on eastern and northern Lesser Poland reintroduced final -ch. The Proto-Slavic cluster *chy is generally kept without change, e.g. chyba -é and then >-ej like trzej, or there was a shortening of *-ěje > *-ěj > -ej; then this -ej begins to spread to other comparatives in the 15th century via leveling. This also could have affected the comparative of adjectives such as ładniejszy, głośniejszy, chytrzejszy via analogy. The presence of the alternation of the superlative naj-||naj- is inherited from Proto-Slavic, where it was probably a conflation of two prefixes. In the Middle Ages na- was used in Lesser Poland and Greater Poland; the appearance of naj- in the translations of psalters is from Czech influence; in the 16th century na- sees more use, only in the 17th century the Masovian prefix naj- comes to dominate, possibly under influence of Ukrainian influence Ruthenian nobility. In Old Polish and in dialectal prothetic initial j- can be seen: Jadam, Jarnold, jamroz, Jewa, and dialectically jucho, judo.
Proto-Slavic *č Proto-Slavic *č is inherited into as Old Polish /t͡ʃʲ/, spelled ⟨cz⟩, and remains this way until the middle of the 16th century, the
desoftening of sz ż, when it desoftened becoming a morphophonologically hardened consonant in the alternations k : c : cz, e.g. ręka : ręce : ręcznik. Inherited examples include czoło trzemcha; czrześnia > trześnia; czrzewa > trzewa; czrzem > trzem; czrzoda > trzoda; czrzop > trzop; see also . This happened because cz is a fricative containing /ʂ/, and ⟨rz⟩ (see became /ʐ~ʂ/ in Middle Polish, meaning that /ʂ/ occurred twice, thus /t͡ʂr̝ɛmxa/ > /t͡ʂʂɛmxa/ > /t͡ʂɛmxa/, meaning that the /ʂ/ in cz was lost, leaving only /t/. cz becomes dż before voiced consonants: liczba (pronounced lidżba).
Further development of sibilants and affricates Many dialects merge the series of sibilants and affricates in various ways; mazuration, also sometimes called in Polish , is the merger of sz ż cz dż with s z c dz (notably /ʐ/ /ʂ/ from rz is unaffected) and is considered an extreme form of depalatalization; jabłonkowanie, also called , is the merger sz ż cz dż with ś ź ć dź, often realized respectively as /ʃ/ /ʒ/ /t͡ʃ/ /d͡ʒ/; finally kaszubienie is the merger of ś ź ć dź with s z c dz. These mergers often occur outside of the regions they were named for - mazuration happens in most of Masovia, Lesser Poland part of Silesia, and small islands in Greater Poland, which otherwise does not merge anything; jabłonkowanie occurs in Silesia near Jabłonków and parts of Masovia; except kaszubienie, which occurs in Pomeranian. The cause and age of mazuration are unknown - some scholars consider it to be a prehistoric development from the 10th-11th centuries, some consider it a later development, as late as the 15th century; some consider the cause to be the result of foreign substrate, namely Finnish, Prussian, Celtic, and others to be independent, i.e. the result of difficulties distinguishing s š ś, and notably such difficulties can be observed in young children. The chronology of mazuration is tied with the rise of the literary standard - if mazuration is old, then the literary standard would have arisen from non-mazurising Greater Poland, but if it is young, from the 14th-15th centuries, there is no specific reason to associate the standard with Greater Poland. Jabłonkowanie is the result of mixing of people groups - in the north the Polish population had contact with mazurising groups as well as non-mazurising groups where remnants of the Old Prussian population could have still been, who had neither mazuration nor ś ź ć dź; in the South, in the Beskids, two Polish colonizational groups collided, the mazurising group from Lesser Poland and the non-mazurising group from Silesia, as well as Slovak peasants without mazuration, but with ś ź ć dź. It is impossible to tell if foreign influence or the mixing of two native groups speaking differently was more important - perhaps the foreign influence, as mazurising and non-mazurising groups met elsewhere and similar mergers did not happen.
Proto-Slavic *r *ŕ *rj r is kept without change, e.g. raz /ʐ/ results in the reintroduction of /ʐ/ into masurizing dialects. The masuration of rz occurs exceptionally along the line of contact between masurising and non-masurising dialects, among polonized Germans, or in heavily germanized Poles. rz word-finally or before a voiceless consonant loses voicing and sounds like sz; rz also loses voicing after a voiceless consonant like
w. This progressive assimilation, as opposed to typical regressive assimilation found in other consonant clusters, is explained by the fact that that old voiced /r͡ʐ/ and voiceless /r͡ʂ/ were allophones and did not create any minimal pairs, but if a voiceless consonant assimilated in voicing to /r͡ʐ/ then it would have to merge with another phoneme, which would cause confusion, e.g. trze would sound like drze, krze like grze, krzywa like grzywa, krzep like grzeb, trzewa like grzewa. If rz occurred before ł l ĺ c s it lost its softness and became r: orła, w orle, orli, but orzeł, starca, but starzec, twórca but tworzyć, cesarstwo but cesarz. In standard Polish rz becomes r also before n ń: wierny, wierni, piernik, but in Old Polish rz can be seen: srzebrzne, knąbrzny, knąbrznie; the modern Polish powietrzny, wietrznie, Jaworzno, Jaworznie etc. are the result of mixing and leveling forms with *rьn that gave rn and *rьń which gave rzń. Old *sŕ occurred as śrz until the middle of the 15th century, after which śr can be seen in Lesser Poland and Masovia, which dominates in Lesser Poland and Masovia in the first half of the 16th and in Greater Poland old śrz dominates at this time. Since the middle of the 16th century, the spelling śrz is established in prints, so śrzoda, śrzodek, pośrzód, pośrzatnąć as the result of Greater Polish dialectal influence; then around 1820 the spelling śr starts to spread under the influence of Masovian after Warsaw became the capital. Old *zŕ was kept as źrz until the middle of the 15th century; in the first half of the 16th century in Lesser Poland as źr, in Greater Poland as źrz as jrz, and in Masovia as źr and jrz. From the middle of the 16th century the spellings źrz jźrz (jrz) dominate in texts from Greater Poland dialectal influence and at the end of the first quarter of the 19th century the forms źr jrz spread in the standard due to Masovian influence for the same reason as above. In parts of Lesser Polish śr źr underwent metathesis, giving rśoda, rśode, rźůdło, rźeb́e, dorźały, sporźał, sometimes with hardening, e.g. wyrze, sporzá; metathesis isn’t equally spread out in all words in this area. This phenomenon is very old, with forms like w posriodku, we rsiodę attested in the 16th century. In Silesia and Kashubia the development was more or less the same with epenthetic t d giving strz zdrz: strzoda, strzybło, uzdrzeć, zdrzudło; Greater Poland most often has the form śrz źrz, but in areas strz and zdrz are possible; Lesser Poland shows śr źr or sometimes
metathesizes to rś rź; Masovia has śr źr. Other variants are possible where środa and źródło did not come to dominate.
Proto-Slavic *l *ĺ *lj Proto-Slavic *l was originally inherited as a dental lateral liquid /ɫ/, written as ⟨ł⟩, and over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries, completing in the 19th and 20th centuries, it became in most places /w/ through a process called ; the earliest attestations of this come from 1588 from acts from the Kraków archive with the spellings putora, putrzeci; traces of it from the 15th and 17th century in Lesser Poland, second half of the 17th century in Masovia, and the second half of the 17th century in Greater Poland can be seen. Kochanowski calls ł “foreign” (barbarum), probably in reference to /w/, and that it was seen as strikingly different from /ɫ/, and wałczenie can also be seen at the beginning of the 17th century in Perygrynacja Maćkowa from 1612: okoo||około, psezegnau (przeżegnał), poutory||półtora. The realization /w/ spread far in the 19th and 20th centuries, and dental /ɫ/ remains in many places around Poland, particularly on the intersection of Poland and Belarus, Ukraine, or Czechia. Inherited examples include łąd ń is limited to positions after consonants: śniérć (śmierć), śniga (śmiga), jęcznień (jęczmień), but mniasto, kamnień, ziemnia. This change of ḿ > mń or ḿ > ń sometimes results in mń in place of ń: mnisko (nisko), mnitka (nitka), mniecka (niecka), but only in the first syllable, so words like kuźnia, tani do not change; ń in place of ḿ may also occur: miecka, mitka, śmiádanie; this change of ń > ḿ is likely the result of hypercorrection. Pronunciations such as kanień, na kaniéniu were proscribed in Kopczyński’s brochure Poprawa błędów (1808), which was aimed at upper levels of society, not peasants, meaning that even elite sometimes had this pronunciation. Soft ḿ behaves particularly interestingly in the nominative plural ending -ami as well as the pronominal clitics mi, mię in that within these the soft labial often depalatalizes, giving forms like rękamy, nogamy, (daj) my, (uderzył) me/(uderzył) ma, in other regions pronunciations such as both nogami (with soft m), mi alongside niasto and nogani can be heard.
Proto-Slavic *n *ń *nj Proto-Slavic *n remains unchanged, e.g noga s: boski, męstwo; • *šьs > sL włoski, suski; • *sьs > s: ruski, niebieski; • *zьs > s: łaski (from Łazy); • *dьs > c (orthographipcally dz): ludzki, sąsiedztwo; • *tьs > c: kącki, bogactwo; • *čьs > c: świadectwo, co (from *ć̌ьso); • *zdьn > zn: Gniezno, próżny (Old Polish prózny); • stn > sn: miłosny, żałosny, szesnaście; • rdn > rn: miłosierny; • rdc > rc: serce; • *rv > r: topьrvo • *stьl > śl: jeśli; • *slьs > s: przemyski; • *pъv > f in ufać and related words; • *xv > x: chory • xv > f: fała (see ); • łdn > łn: żołnierz (Old Polish żołdnierz and compare modern żołd); • stb > zb: izba; == Inflection ==