THE ACCENT-SHIFT-CONDITIONED VOWEL ALTERNATIONS IN MODERN EASTERN ARMENIAN

Abstract

The article is devoted to the synchronic and diachronic examination of the vowel
alternations which are commonly referred to as accent-shift-conditioned sound changes in
grammars and textbooks of Modern Eastern Armenian. Аlthough these alternations all had
their source in regular sound change, namely, the reduction and/or loss of certain vowels and
diphthongs in pretonic syllable, now they are no longer a productive phonological pattern in
the modern literary language, having already become lexicalized and morphologized to a more
or less extent. On the other hand, analogical leveling is occurring intensively, which accounts
for the abundance of reduced and non-reduced doublets. And as expected, the frequency of use
with its preserving effect, has a pivotal role in determining the choice of the variants: the
original alternations are retained relatively well and the reduced variants are still more
preferable and accepted in the literary language in the case of high-frequency words. In
contrast, with relatively low-frequency words the alternations are almost lost, with the non-
reduced variant having been generalized throughout the paradigm, or, if the variation stage still
persists, the non-reduced variant is already conceived of as more preferable and standard in the
literary language