| Middle Polish | |
|---|---|
| Region | Central andEastern Europe |
| Era | developed intoModern Polish by the 18th century |
Early form | |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
Middle Polish (Polish:język średniopolski) is the period in thehistory of thePolish language between the 16th and 18th centuries.[1] It evolved fromOld Polish, and gave rise toModern Polish.[2]
Many various orthographies were proposed to standardize Polish orthography, including Stanisław Zaborowski's in 1514,Jan Seklucjan's in 1549,Stanisław Murzynowski's in 1551, and Onufry Kopczyński's grammars of 1778 and 1785, all with varying degrees of success.[3][4][5][6][7]
Middle Polish's phonology differs from both Old Polish's and Modern Polish's, mainly in thevowels, but also somewhat in theconsonants.
The consonant system of Middle Polish differs little from that ofOld Polish.
The clustersir/irz/yr/yrz lowered toér/érz and ultimately toer/erz.
Similarly, the clustersil/ił/yl/ył sporadically and non-permanently lowered toel/eł.
There was also a tendency for prenasalraising.[9]
Or, conversely, sometimes vowels lowered.
One major change was adepalatalization of the consonants /t͡sʲ/, /d͡zʲ/, /t͡ʃ/, /d͡ʒ/, /ʃ/, and /ʒ/ to /t͡s/, /d͡z/, /t͡ʂ/, /d͡ʐ/, /ʂ/, and /ʐ/ respectively.
The consonant /rʲ/ also underwent depalatalization, going from /rʲ/ to /rʐ/, to /ʐ/ by the end of the sixteenth century.[10]
Labials underwent depalatalization incoda position.[10]
Around 1600L-vocalization, known aswałczenie in Polish, begins (seeHistory of the Polish language § Proto-Slavic *l *ĺ *lj), ultimately being completed in the Modern Polish era.[11] However,wałczenie is absent in some modern dialects.
There was some wavering as to the softness of sibilants, as well.
The final consonant system at the end of the Middle Polish period was thus:
| Labial | Coronal | Post- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| hard | soft | hard | soft | soft | soft | soft | hard | |
| Nasal | m | mʲ | n | ɲ | ||||
| Stop | pb | pʲbʲ | td | [kʲ] [ɡʲ] | kɡ | |||
| Affricate | t͡sd͡z | t͡ʂd͡ʐ | t͡ɕd͡ʑ | |||||
| Fricative | fv | fʲvʲ | sz | ʂʐ | ɕʑ | x | ||
| Approximant | ɫ~w | lʲ | j | |||||
| Trill | r | |||||||
Middle Polish inheritedOld Polish's late vowel system.[12]
| front | central | back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| close | i | [ɨ] | u |
| mid | ɛe | ɔo | |
| open | æ̃~ɛ̃ | a | ɒɒ̃~ɔ̃ |
At first there were two groups of vowels, so-called "clear" vowels (Polish "jasne") (transcribed /a,ɛ,i,ɔ,u,ɨ/) and the so-called "slanted" vowels (Polish "pochylone") (transcribed /ɒ,e,o/), which arose from Old Polishlong vowels.
There was a tendency for the pitched vowels to merge with some neighboring non-pitched vowel.
Nasal /æ̃~ɛ̃/ raised and fronted to /ɛ̃/, whereas /ɒ̃~ɔ̃/ raised and back to /ɔ̃/, however there was some irregular shifting of nasal vowels, e.g. variations ofciążyć/ciężyć, as well as spontaneous nasalization, e.g.czestować >częstować.[16]
The final vowel system was more or less similar toModern Polish's vowel system.[12]
| front | central | back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| close | i | [ɨ] | u |
| mid | ɛɛ̃ | ɔɔ̃ | |
| open | a~ɒ |
Already in the 15th century one can find tendencies of fixing stress on the penultimate syllable, ultimately solidifying giving the modern Polish stress system. Between the 16th and 17th centuries, there was also a tendency to include enclitics in the stress pattern, e.g.bo'ję się,moż'na by, which did not continue.[17] As this was happening,syncope occurred in words ending with-yja and-ija, exclusively Latin borrowings, where the-y- or-i- was dropped.[18] Sometimes these forms can still be seen in liturgical songs or prayers, such as "Zdrowaś Maryjo".
Middle Polish inflection is characterized by a standardization of inflections.[19] One of the major changes was the gradual loss of thedual, which ultimately only remain within certain nouns such asucho,oko, andręka.[20]
Masculine plurals are separated further by animacy, resulting in a more stable system of three levels of animacy, inanimate, animate, and virile. The biggest change was the separation of animate and virile. Before, one could see the virile pluralpsi (dogs), withpsy being the animate plural. Nouns changed their level of animacy during this period to some degree, for example the animate nominative and accusative pluralfilozofy (philosophers) instead of the now nominative virile pluralfilozofowie and the genitive and accusative virile pluralfilozofów, ultimately settling in the 16th century.[21]
This change ultimately affected thegovernment of adjectives, verbs, pronouns, numerals, and participles, which all began to change their endings depending on the level animacy of the given noun.[22]
For masculine nouns in the genitive singular we see wavering between-u and-a, which lasts to this day. Similarly, there is some shifting in the singular dative between-u and-owi, with-owi ultimately becoming more popular and-u being the dative singular only for a few nouns.[23] In the plural, we see either-ów or-i/-y for nouns ending in-rz or-ż, which continues to this day.[24]
The softening masculine singular locative ending-e after velars changes to-u, retained to this day.[25]
At the end of the 16th century we see a loss of the ending-i/-y for the instrumental plural and a generalization of the ending-mi as well as the proscribed-ami, used originally only for feminine nouns in the instrumental plural.[22] Nowadays the endings-i/-y can only be seen in fossilized phrases such as "ostatnimi czasy" and "innymi słowy".
Masculine and neuter nouns also underwent a generalization, originally ending with the suffix-ech, or in theLesser Poland dialect-och, now ending in-ách, which later changed to-ach.[26]
Feminine nouns in the nominative originally sometimes ended in either-a for hard stems and-á for soft stems, with-á ultimately dying off either due to sound changes, analogy, or both. Nouns ending in the clear-a took-ę in the accusative singular whereas those ending in-á took-ą. When-á merged with-a, the two accusative endings were kept for a short time, but ultimately-ę became the standard ending due to analogy.[27]
The original genitive ending for feminine soft stems was-e, changing to-i/-y. One could also sometimes find-ej for this declension, as well as for feminine dative soft stems, but this did not last.[28]
Feminine nouns in the dative plural changed from-am/-ám to-om, matching the masculine and neuter dative plural ending. There are a few instances of masculine nouns taking the feminine-am/-ám endings, however, but they were rare.[29]
Neuter nouns endings in pitched-é had a singular instrumental ending-im that later changed to-em.[23]
In the 18th century the ending-ą for feminine singular accusative possessive pronouns began to supplant the ending-ę.
There was also variation in the masculine singular instrumental and locative ending in-emi and-ymi, which lasted even in the orthography until theorthographical reform of 1936.
In the 16th century we see a replacement of-i/-y by-e for the masculine and accusative non-virile plural.
Also in the 16th century we see-ej replace-e for feminine singular genitive.
The Middle Polish verb system doesn't differ too much from either the Old Polish or modern Polish verb system, however it is not identical. Some changes include:
W epoce piśmiennej wyróżnia się zwykle 3 doby: staropolską (do przełomu XV i XVI w.), średniopolską (od XVI do ostatnich dziesięcioleci XVIII w.) i nowopolską (od końca XVIII w. do dziś).
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