Review and classification of phonological and morphonological processes at the juncture of morphemes of Lithuanian

Abstract

Lithuanian is abundant in both vowel apophony and consonant alternations. Vowel apophony usually occurs in roots, e.g. lieka 'he stays' ~ liko 'he stayed', or veda 'he leads' ~ vadas 'a leader'. Such changes often increase the difference in the phonemic structure between base words (here: veda) and derivatives (here: vadas); on rare occasions they harmonise vowels (e.g. pasekė 'told: 3rd sg./pl. prt.' re^Jo. paseka 'tell/s a tale: 3rd sg./pl. prs.' ~ pasaka 'a tale'). Some changes (especially in roots of the main verb forms) are old and inherited from the Proto-Indo-European language. Such alternations are always only morphonological, i.e. influenced by word formation and inflection rather than by the phonological system of the language. The most comprehensive descriptions in Lithuanian of such vowel apophony are provided by Aleksas Girdenis (DLKG 2006: 41-53) and Gražina Akelaitienė (1996; 2012).