Studies in Uralic vocalism III

Abstract

The paper discusses three issues in the history of Uralic vocalism: the change of Proto-Uralic vowel combination *- to Proto-Finnic *a-e, the fate of Proto-Uralic * before velar consonants in Finnic, Saami and Mordvin, and the possibility of reconstructing two distinct vowels in PU non-initial syllables instead of *a of the traditional reconstruction. It is argued that the development of Uralic vocalism must be described in terms of strict sound laws, and not of "sporadic developments".