Book History Online

The investigation of 1,085 verbal roots showed that the distribution of initial combinations according to their productivity in Lithuanian supported J. Greenberg's conclusion that more complex consonant combinations occured less frequently than simple ones. The research results of both Lithuanian and Latvian three-member clusters showed that the inventory and productivity of such clusters were rather poor. It was common for Lithuanian verbs to have seven, for Lithuanian nominals five, and Latvian nominals three consonant combinations. Somewhat more frequent were clusters spr-, skr-, skl- while all others were realized in roots of the verb only sporadically. Nominal three-member initial clusterd in Latvian are slightly more productive [...]