<Articles> Vowel Weakening in Tocharian A Preterite Participles and Abstract Nouns

Abstract

The phonology of Tocharian A (TA) has been extensively affected by two vowel weakenings, *aÌ > *a and *a > *ä, but the precise conditions for the second change have not yet been fully clarified. This paper demonstrates that pre-TA *a in second syllables was raised to *ä only when the first and third syllables both contained one of the full vowels *a, *aÌ, *e, *o. The two main exceptions to this pattern, preterite participles and abstract nouns, may be explained otherwise. In preterite participles such as tatmu ‘born’, *a was regularly raised to *ä in oblique case forms. Once the syncope of *ä in open syllables had made vowel weakening opaque on the surface, this paradigmatic alternation was unsurprisingly leveled, and the stem vocalism of the oblique forms was generalized. As for abstract nouns, the most common suffix -une has spread at the expense of its allomorph -one, so that the weakening in forms like yáÌtlune ‘being able, ability’ < *yaÌtaÌ- or sÚáÌmnune ‘monkhood’ < *sÚaÌman- can also have been a regular development. Comparison of TA -une, -one and Tocharian B -(äñ)ñe, -auñe allows us to reconstruct a single Proto-Tocharian suffix *-wnëye, which was borrowed from Middle Iranian.