Генезис и эволюция палатального ряда в праславянском языке

The change both of point and mode of articulation of velars during the Second and Third «palatalisations» enable to reconstruct the palatation *k, *g, *x>​*ḱ, *ǵ, *x́ as a phonetic essence of these phenomena. The affricatisation *ḱ, *ǵ>​*ć, *ʒ́ and the assibilation *x́>​*ś were inevitable then due to the causes specified when studying the First Palatation. The new palatals had to interact with palatal series which existed in Common Slavic dialects. The result was the merging of all palatal phonemes in the West, the dispalatation *ć, *ʒ́, *ś>​c, ʒ, s in the South and the emergence of the new phonemes *ć, *ʒ́, *ś in the East.

The facts of yotations as well as the Second and Third Palatations in the presence of unchanged clusters C+​ī̆, ē̆ show the absence of positional palatalisation in Common Slavic up to the fall of jers. At the time of the latter change (or directly after it) in the west and east slavic languages the dispalatations *ĺ>​lʼ, *ń>​nʼ (except for Czech and Slovak dialects where ń was preserved), *ć>​cʼ, *ʒ́ (ź)>​zʼ took place, which could realize only in the presence of palatalised sounds and phonemes. Thus, the emergence of timbre correlation of palatalised — non-palatalised consonants caused the destruction of Common Slavic palatal series in the west and east Slavic languages. On the other hand, the preservation of this series in Serbocroatian, Slovenian and Macedonian show that there has never been positional softness (palatalisation) of consonants before front vowels in these languages.