On the possible preservation of Vedic verbal stress in the Naggar subdialect of the Kullui language

Anastasiya Krylova (Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; krylova_anastasi@bk.ru)

Journal of Language Relationship, № 19/3-4, 2021 - p.195-209

Abstract: In this paper, I discuss the reflexes of Common Middle Indo-Aryan stressed vowel *a in verbal stems of the Kullui language. The accent system of Kullui generally reflects the corresponding system of Middle Indo-Aryan. Common Middle Indo-Aryan stressed *a generally yields ɔ in Kullui, but in some cases it also corresponds to Kullui ɛ. Etymological analysis of Kullui verbal roots containing ɔ and ɛ demonstrates one correlation between Kullui ɔ and stressed a and another of Kullui ɛ to non-stressed a in the Vedic language. Consequently, we can suppose that certain traces of Vedic accent have been preserved in Kullui verbs.

Keywords: Kullui language, accent systems, Indo-Aryan languages, Vedic language, verbal accentuation

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