The accent in Parachi and Ormuri compared to Pashto and its significance for the reconstruction of Proto-Iranian

Artem Trofimov (School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, RANEPA, Moscow; artemii.trofimov@gmail.com)

Journal of Language Relationship, № 20/3-4, 2022 - p.222-252

Abstract: In this paper, I discuss the correlations between the accentuation systems of Pashto, Parachi and Ormuri and their relation to the original Proto-Iranian accentuation system. Studies of the Afghan language (Pashto) material have shown that the Pashto stress system retains traces of the Indo-Iranian state, that is, the oxytonized nominal and verbal bases of Pashto correspond to the oxytonized and baritonized bases in Vedic and in Proto-Iranian. This work takes into account the available material of Parachi and Ormuri, which can be directly compared with the material of Pashto. As a result of the comparison, it is established that the accentuation systems of Pashto, Ormuri and Parachi are essentially identical from a historical perspective. If we take into consideration that it is precisely with a number of Eastern Iranian languages, retaining traces of historical stress, that Ormuri and Parachi share numerous lexical and morphological isoglosses, we can count the similarities between Parachi, Ormuri, and Pashto in the structure of their accent systems as an additional argument in favor of their Eastern Iranian origin.

Keywords: Parachi language, Ormuri language, Pashto language, stress, contrast accentuation, Old Indian language, Proto-Iranian, Proto-Indo-European

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