Singulatives in Modern Celtic and Slavic Languages: Evidence from Welsh and Sorbian
Sabine Asmus & Eduard Werner
Szczecin University/Leipzig University
Abstract
The existence of a singulative, i.e. a marked secondary singular inflection, is cross-linguistically relatively widespread and a number of linguistic strategies are commonly employed to express it (cf. the Bantu language Swahili, Insular Celtic, or Slavic). While various studies have addressed the singulative in non-Indo-European languages or discuss them adequately in grammar books, little work has been done on the singulative in any living Indo-European (IE) language. This is unfortunate, because in the modern p-Celtic languages the use of diminutive formants in order to form a secondary singular, i.e. a singulative, is quite productive, in particular in Welsh, Breton and Cornish.
Through examination of evidence from Slavic languages, in particular Sorbian, a possible development of the singulative in both p-Celtic and Slavic is proposed below. Although not as productive as in the p-Celtic languages, clear traces of similar formations of the singulative can still be discerned in particular in Upper and Lower Sorbian and also survive in other Slavic languages. In addition, such a derivation pattern or the singulative is suggested for Old Greek below and it is suggested that singulatives were much more common in proto-IE. However, it is not claimed that this approach explains all diminutive or singularisation processes in the languages under discussion.