Laryngeal theory
The laryngeal theory is a widely accepted scientific theory in historical linguistics positing that the Proto-Indo-European language included a series of consonants that left no direct consonantal descendants in languages outside of the Anatolian branch. It was first proposed by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure in 1879 to explain apparent irregularities in morphophonological patterns in daughter languages. At the time no direct evidence for the existence of such sounds was available; however, the theory allowed for a better reconstruction of PIE ablaut and root. This changed in 1927 when a Polish linguist Jerzy Kuryłowicz discovered that a sound transcribed as ḫ in the newly deciphered ancient Indo-European Hittite language appears in many of the places that the laryngeal theory predicted.
Subsequent scholarly work has established a set of rules by which an ever-increasing number of reflexes in daughter languages may be derived from PIE roots. The number of explanations thus achieved and the simplicity of the postulated system have both led to widespread acceptance of the theory.
Conversion from consonants to vowels
The reconstructed sounds are traditionally called "laryngeals" and are known to have been consonants, most likely fricatives; however, their exact place of articulation is debated. In its most widely accepted version, the theory posits three laryngeal phonemes in PIE. They are represented abstractly as:- h₁
- h₂
- h₃
Aside from some direct consonantal reflexes in the Anatolian branch, in other branches through regular sound changes they were turned into vowels or were lost entirely, but could influence the place of articulation or length of neighboring vowels.
History
The beginnings of the theory were proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure in his 1879 article Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes. In it, he argued that unknown phonemes – called coefficients sonantiques – were elided in certain ablauting forms, giving rise to long vowels. These phonemes were such that when they abutted the preceding vowel, they were functionally identical to diphthongs or vowel–sonorant strings.In the course of his analysis, Saussure proposed that what had then been reconstructed as long vowels ā and ō, alternating with ǝ, was an ordinary type of PIE ablaut. That is, it was an alternation between e grade and zero grade like in "regular" ablaut, but followed by a previously unidentified element. This element accounted for both the changed vowel colour and the lengthening.
So, rather than reconstructing ā, ō and ǝ as others had done before, Saussure proposed eA alternating with A and eO with O, where A and O represented the unidentified elements. Saussure called them simply coefficients sonantiques, which was the term for what are now in English more usually called resonants; that is, the six elements present in PIE which can be either consonants or vowels depending on the sounds they are adjacent to: y, w, r, l, m, and n.
These views were accepted by a few scholars, in particular Hermann Möller, who added important elements to the theory. Saussure's observations, however, did not achieve any general currency, as they were still too abstract and had little direct evidence to back them up.
This changed when Hittite was discovered and deciphered in the early 20th century. Hittite phonology included two sounds written with symbols from the Akkadian syllabary conventionally transcribed as ḫ, as in te-iḫ-ḫi 'I put, am putting'. This consonant did not appear to be related to any of the consonants then reconstructed for PIE, and various unsatisfactory proposals were made to explain this consonant in terms of the PIE consonant system as it had then been reconstructed.
It remained for Jerzy Kuryłowicz to propose that these sounds lined up with Saussure's conjectures. He suggested that the unknown consonant of Hittite was, in fact, a direct reflex of the coefficients sonantiques that Saussure had proposed.
Their appearance explained some other matters as well. As an example, most verb roots were reconstructed with both initial and final consonants, but some were instead reconstructed with no final consonant; the latter always bore a long vowel, never short, as in dō- "give". The newly reconstructed laryngeals allowed linguists to decompose this further into deh₃-. This not only accounted for the patterns of alternation more economically than before but also brought the structure of these roots into line with the basic PIE pattern which required roots to begin and end with a consonant.
The lateness of the discovery of these sounds by Indo-Europeanists is largely because Hittite and the other Anatolian languages are the only Indo-European languages for which at least some are attested directly and consistently as consonantal sounds. Otherwise, their presence is to be inferred mostly through the effects they have on neighboring sounds, and on patterns of alternation that they participate in. When a laryngeal is attested directly, it is usually as a special type of vowel and not as a consonant, best exemplified in Greek where syllabic laryngeals developed as such: h₁ > e, h₂ > a, and h₃ > o.
Varieties of laryngeals
There are many variations of the laryngeal theory. Some scholars, such as Oswald Szemerényi, reconstruct just one laryngeal. Some follow Jaan Puhvel's reconstruction of eight or more.Basic laryngeal set
Most scholars work with a basic three:- h₁, the neutral laryngeal
- h₂, the a-colouring laryngeal
- h₃, the o-colouring laryngeal
Additional laryngeals
- h₄
E.g. PIE h₄órǵʰiyeh₂ 'testicle' yields Albanian herdhe 'testicle' but Hittite arki- 'testicle' whereas PIE h₂ŕ̥tkos 'bear' yields Albanian ari 'bear' but Hittite hartga- 'cultic official, bear-person'.
When there is an uncertainty whether the laryngeal is h₂ or h₄, the symbol ha may be used.
- h₁ doublet
Direct evidence for laryngeals
Some direct evidence for laryngeal consonants comes from Anatolian. In PIE *a is a fairly rare sound, and in an uncommonly large number of good etymologies, it is word-initial. Thus PIE anti 'in front of and facing' >- Greek antí 'against'
- Latin ante 'in front of, before'
- Sanskrit ánti 'near; in the presence of'.
However, it does not follow that all reconstructed forms with initial a should automatically be rewritten h₂e.
Similarly, the traditional PIE reconstruction for 'sheep' is *owi- whence Sanskrit, Latin, Greek. But Luwian has, indicating instead the reconstruction h₃ewis.
Lyco-Carian chain shift
In the Anatolian languages Lycian and Carian, there was a chain shift such that h₂ > k > c. In other words, PIE h₂ is reflected as in these languages, and PIE *k as. Alwin Kloekhorst takes this as evidence that PIE h₂ originally had a value of, but Martin Joachim Kümmel is skeptical of Kloekhorst's hypothesis and prefers to model the laryngeals as fricatives.Pronunciation
Considerable debate still surrounds the pronunciation of the laryngeals and various arguments have been given to pinpoint their exact place of articulation. According to the linguist Donald Ringe, it can be concluded with great certainty that all the laryngeals were obstruents, as they abide by the known rules of Proto-Indo-European obstruent syllabification. Further evidence regarding the pronunciation of the laryngeals may derive from their effects on adjacent phonemes. The evidence from Hittite and Uralic is sufficient to conclude that these sounds were guttural, pronounced rather back in the vocal tract. The same evidence is also consistent with the assumption that they were fricative sounds, an assumption that is strongly supported by the behaviour of laryngeals in consonant clusters, which is comparable to that of the coronal fricative *s. Rasmussen suggested a consonantal realization for h₁ as the voiceless glottal fricative with a syllabic allophone .This is supported by the closeness of to, its failure to create an auxiliary vowel in Greek and Tocharian when it occurs between a semivowel and a consonant, and the typological likelihood of an given the presence of aspirated consonants in PIE.Winfred Lehmann theorized, based on inconsistent reflexes in Hittite, that there were two h₁ sounds: a glottal stop and an h sound as in English hat. Robert S. P. Beekes suggested that h₁ is always a glottal stop.
Alwin Kloekhorst argued that the Hieroglyphic Luwian sign no. 19 stood for and represents the reflex of h₁; this would support the hypothesis that h₁ was, at least in some cases,. Later, Kloekhorst claimed that also Hittite preserves PIE h₁ as a glottal stop, visible in words like Hittite e-eš-zi 'he is' < PIE h₁és-ti, where an extra initial vowel sign is used. This hypothesis has been met with serious criticism; e.g., from Elisabeth Rieken, Craig Melchert, and Mark Weeden.
Zsolt Simon supported Kloekhorst's thesis by suggesting that plene spelling in Cuneiform Luwian can be explained in a similar way. Additionally, Simon's 2013 article revises the Hieroglyphic Luwian evidence and concludes that although some details of Kloekhorst's arguments could not be maintained, his theory can be confirmed.
An idea occasionally advanced that the laryngeals were dorsal fricatives corresponding directly to the three traditionally reconstructed series of dorsal stops suggests a further possibility, a palatal fricative.From what is known of such phonetic conditioning in contemporary languages, notably Semitic languages, h₂ could have been a pharyngeal fricative such as and. Pharyngeal consonants often cause a-colouring in the Semitic languages.
Uvular fricatives may also colour vowels; thus, is also a noteworthy candidate. Weiss suggests that this was the case in Proto-Indo-European proper, and that a shift from uvular into pharyngeal may have been a common innovation of the non-Anatolian languages. Rasmussen suggested a consonantal realization for h₂ as a velar fricative, with a syllabic allophone, i.e. a near-open central vowel.
Kloekhorst proposes, based on evidence from Anatolian languages, that h₂ was originally a geminate uvular stop, although he judges it plausible that already in PIE it had a fricative allophone.Likewise it is generally assumed that h₃ was rounded due to its o-colouring effects. It is often taken to have been voiced based on the perfect form pi-bh₃- from the root peh₃ "drink" and Cowgill's law in Proto-Germanic. Rasmussen chose a consonantal realization for h₃ as a voiced labialized velar fricative, with a syllabic allophone, i.e. a close-mid central rounded vowel. Kümmel instead suggests.
Kloekhorst reconstructs as the basic value, which in his view would be the labialized counterpart to h₂.
Support for theory from daughter languages
The hypothetical existence of laryngeals in PIE finds support in the body of daughter language cognates which can be most efficiently explained through simple rules of development.Direct reflexes of laryngeals
Unambiguous examples are confined to Anatolian languages. Words with Hittite ḫ, Luwian h and Lycian x are explained as reflexes of PIE roots with h₂.| PIE root | Meaning | Anatolian reflex | Cognates |
| 'protect' | Hittite paḫḫs- | English fee, Sanskrit pā́ti, Latin pascere, Greek patéomai | |
| 'breath/smoke' | Hittite tuḫḫāi- | Sanskrit dhūmá-, Latin fūmus, Greek thūmos | |
| 'front' | Hittite ḫant- | Sanskrit ánti, Latin ante, Greek antí | |
| 'white/silver' | Hittite ḫarki- | Sanskrit árjuna, Latin argentum, Greek árguron, Tocharian A ārki | |
| 'sheep' | Luwian hawi-, Lycian xawa- | English ewe, Sanskrit ávi-, Latin ovis, Greek óis | |
| 'fire' | Hittite paḫḫur, Luwian pāḫur | English fire, Tocharian B puwar, Greek pûr | |
| 'wind' | Hittite ḫūwant- | English wind, Tocharian A want, Latin ventus, Greek aént-, Sanskrit vāt- | |
| 'star' | Hittite ḫasterz | English star, Sanskrit stā́, Latin stella, Greek astḗr | |
| 'bear' | Hittite ḫartaggaš | Sanskrit ṛ́kṣa, Latin ursus, Greek árktos | |
| 'grandfather' | Hittite ḫuḫḫa-, Luwian, Lycian χuge- | Gothic awo, Latin avus, Armenian haw |
Some Hittitologists have also proposed that h₃ was preserved in Hittite as ḫ, although only word initially and after a resonant. Kortlandt holds that h₃ was preserved before all vowels except *o. Similarly, Kloekhorst believes they were lost before resonants as well.
| PIE root | Meaning | Anatolian reflex | Cognates |
| 'to hit' | Hittite walḫ- | Latin vellō, Greek ealōn | |
| 'bone' | Hittite ḫaštāi | Latin os, Greek ostéon, Sanskrit ásthi | |
| 'to change status' | Hittite ḫarp- | Latin orbus, Greek orphanós | |
| 'eagle' | Hittite ḫara(n)- | Gothic ara, Greek órnīs | |
| 'to have sex' | Hittite ḫapuš- | Greek opuíō | |
| 'sheep' | Luwian hawi-, Lycian xawa- | Sanskrit ávi-, Latin ovis, Greek óis |
In Germanic
Reconstructed instances of in Proto-Germanic have been explained as reflexes of PIE h₃w, a process known as Cowgill's law. The proposal has been challenged but is defended by Don Ringe.| PIE | Total H-loss | * H > *k | Reflexes |
| Sanskrit āvā́m Greek *nōwe > νώ nṓ | P-Gmc unk | Gothic ugkis Old English unc | |
| Sanskrit jīvás Latin vīvus | P-Gmc kʷikʷaz | Old Norse kvíkr Old English cwic |
In Albanian
In the Albanian language, a minority view proposes that some instances of word-initial h continue a laryngeal consonant.| PIE root | Meaning | Albanian | Other cognates |
| testicles | Greek orkhis | ||
| to eat | Ancient Greek édō | ||
| to ignite | Ancient Greek aíthō |
In Western Iranian
Martin Kümmel has proposed that some initial and in contemporary Western Iranian languages, commonly thought to be prothetic, are instead direct survivals of h₂, lost in epigraphic Old Persian but retained in marginal dialects ancestral among others to Modern Persian.| PIE root | Meaning | Modern Persian |
| 'bear' | xers | |
| 'raw' | xâm | |
| 'ashes' | xâk 'dust, earth' | |
| 'ignite' | hêzom 'firewood' | |
| 'passion' | xešm 'anger' |
Proposed indirect reflexes
In all other daughter languages, a comparison of the cognates can support only hypothetical intermediary sounds derived from PIE combinations of vowels and laryngeals. Some indirect reflexes are required to support the examples [|above] where the existence of laryngeals is uncontested.| PIE | Intermediary | Reflexes |
| eh₂ | ā | ā, a, ahh |
| uh₂ | u | ū, uhh |
| h₂e | a | a, ā |
| h₂o | o | o, a |
The proposals in this table account only for attested forms in daughter languages. Extensive scholarship has produced a large body of cognates which may be identified as reflexes of a small set of hypothetical intermediary sounds, including those in the table above. Individual sets of cognates are explicable by other hypotheses but the sheer bulk of data and the elegance of the laryngeal explanation have led to widespread acceptance in principle.
Vowel coloration and lengthening
In the proposed Anatolian-language reflexes above, only some of the vowel sounds reflect PIE e. In the daughter languages in general, many vowel sounds are not obvious reflexes. The theory explains this as the result of H coloration and H loss.| Laryngeal precedes | Laryngeal follows |
| h₁e > h₁e | eh₁ > eh₁ |
| h₂e > h₂a | eh₂ > ah₂ |
| h₃e > h₃o | eh₃ > oh₃ |
| Before vowel | Before consonant |
| He > e | eHC > ēC |
| Ha > a | aHC > āC |
| Ho > o | oHC > ōC |
| Hi > i | iHC > īC |
| Hu > u | uHC > ūC |
The results of H coloration and H loss are recognized in daughter-language reflexes such as those in the table below:
| PIE | Latin | Sanskrit | Greek | Hittite | |
| iH > ī | gʷih₂-wós | vīvus | jīva | bíos | |
| uH > ū | dʰweh₂- | fūmus | dhūma | thūmós | tuwaḫḫaš |
| oH > ō | sóh₂wl̥ | sōl | sū́rya | hḗlios | |
| eh₁ > ē | séh₁-mn̥ | sēmen | hêma | ||
| eh₂ > ā | peh₂-- | pāscere | pā́ti | patéomai | paḫḫas |
| eh₃ > ō | *deh₃-r/n | dōnum | dāna | dôron |
| PIE | Latin | Sanskrit | Greek | Hittite | |
| Hi > i | h₁íteros | iterum | ítara | ||
| Hu > u | pélh₁us | plūs | purú- | polús | |
| Ho > o | h₂owi- | ovis | ávi | óis | Luw. ḫawa |
| h₁e > e | h₁ésti | est | ásti | ésti | ēšzi |
| h₂e > a | h₂ent h₂erǵ- | ante argentum | ánti árjuna | antí árguron | ḫanti ḫarki |
| h₃e > o | h₃érbʰ- | orbus | arbhas | orphanós | ḫarp- |
Greek triple reflex vs schwa
Between three phonological contexts, Greek reflexes display a regular vowel pattern that is absent from the supposed cognates in other daughter languages.Before the development of laryngeal theory, scholars compared Greek, Latin and Sanskrit and concluded the existence in these contexts of a schwa vowel in PIE, the schwa indogermanicum. The contexts are: 1. between consonants ; 2. word initial before a consonant ; 3. combined with a liquid or nasal consonant .
Laryngeal theory provides a more elegant general description than reconstructed schwa by assuming that the Greek vowels are derived through vowel colouring and H loss from PIE h₁, h₂, and h₃, constituting a triple reflex.
| *CHC | *HC- | *r̥H | *l̥H | *m̥H | *n̥H | ||
| Greek | h₁ | e | e | rē | lē | mē | nē |
| Greek | h₂ | a | a | rā | lā | mā | nā |
| Greek | h₃ | o | o | rō | lō | mō | nō |
| Latin | a | lost | rā | lā | mā | nā | |
| Sanskrit | i | lost | īr/ūr | īr/ūr | ā | ā |
The phonology of the sonorant examples in the previous table can only be explained by the presence of adjacent phonemes in PIE. Assuming the phonemes to be a following h₁, h₂, or h₃ allows the same rules of vowel coloration and H-loss to apply to both PIE e and PIE sonorants.
Support from Greek ablaut
The hypothetical values for sounds with laryngeals after H coloration and H loss draw much of their support for the regularization they allow in ablaut patterns, specifically the uncontested patterns found in Greek.Ablaut in the root
In the following table, each row shows undisputed Greek cognates sharing the three ablaut grades of a root. The four sonorants and the two semivowels are represented as individual letters, other consonants as C and the vowel or its absence as.| e grade | o grade | zero grade | root meaning | |
| CC | πέτεσθαι pétesthai | ποτή potḗ | πτέσθαι ptésthai | 'fly' |
| CiC | λείπειν leípein | λέλοιπα léloipa | λιπεῖν lipeîn | 'leave' |
| CuC | φεύγειν pheúgein | φυγεῖν phugeîn | 'flee' | |
| Cr | δέρκομαι dérkomai | δέδορκα dédorka | δρακεῖν drakeîn | 'see clearly' |
| Cl | πέλομαι pélomai | πόλος pólos | πλέσθαι plésthai | 'become' |
| Cm | τέμω témō | τόμος tómos | ταμεῖν tameîn | 'cut' |
| Cn | γένος génos | γόνος gónos | γίγνομαι gígnomai | 'birth' |
The reconstructed PIE e grade and zero grade of the above roots may be arranged as follows:
| e grade | zero grade | |
| CC | *pet | *pt |
| CiC | *leikʷ | *likʷ |
| CuC | *bʰeug | *bʰug |
| Cr | *derk | *drk |
| Cl | *kʷel | *kʷl |
| Cm | *tem | *tm |
| Cn | *gen | *gn |
An extension of the table to PIE roots ending in presumed laryngeals allows many Greek cognates to follow a regular ablaut pattern.
| e grade | zero grade | root meaning | cognates | |
| Ch₁ | *dʰeh₁ | *dʰh₁ | 'put' | I : ē : τίθημι ' II : e : θετός ' |
| Ch₂ | *steh₂ | *sth₂ | 'stand' | I : ā : Doric ἳστᾱμι ' II : a : στατός ' |
| Ch₃ | *deh₃ | *dh₃ | 'give' | I : ō : δίδωμι ' II : o : δοτός ' |
Ablaut in the suffix
The first row of the following table shows how uncontested cognates relate to reconstructed PIE stems with e-grade or zero-grade roots, followed by e grade or zero grade of the suffix –w-. The remaining rows show how the ablaut pattern of other cognates is preserved if the stems are presumed to include the suffixes h₁, h₂, and h₃.| e-grade root zero-grade suffix I | zero-grade root e-grade suffix II | zero-grade root zero-grade suffix III | root meaning | cognates |
| *gen+w- | *gn+ew- | *gn+w- | 'knee' | I Hittite genu II Gothic kniu III γνύξ |
| *gen+h₁- | *gn+eh₁ | *gn+h₁- | 'become' | I γενετήρ II γνήσιος III γίγνομαι |
| *tel+h₂- | *tl+eh₂- | *tl+h₂- | 'lift, bear' | I τελαμών II ἔτλᾱν III τάλας |
| *ter+h₃- | *tr+eh₃- | *tr+h₃- | 'bore, wound' | II τιτρώσκω III ἔτορον |
Intervocalic H loss
In the preceding sections, forms in the daughter languages were explained as reflexes of laryngeals in PIE stems. Since these stems are judged to have contained only one vowel, the explanations involved H loss either when a vowel preceded or when a vowel followed. However, the possibility of H loss between two vowels is present when a stem combines with an inflexional suffix.It has been proposed that PIE H loss resulted in hiatus, which in turn was contracted to a vowel sound distinct from other long vowels by being disyllabic or of extra length.
Early Indo-Iranian disyllables
A number of long vowels in Avestan were pronounced as two syllables, and some examples also exist in early Sanskrit, particularly in the Rigveda. These can be explained as reflexes of contraction following a hiatus caused by the loss of intervocalic H in PIE.Proto-Germanic trimoraic o
The reconstructed phonology of Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of the Germanic languages, includes a long ō phoneme, which is in turn the reflex of PIE ā. As outlined above, laryngeal theory has identified instances of PIE ā as reflexes of earlier h₂e, eh₂ or aH before a consonant.However, a distinct long PG ō phoneme has been recognized with a different set of reflexes in daughter languages. The vowel length has been calculated by observing the effect of the shortening of final vowels in Gothic.
| length | PG | Gothic |
| one mora | a, i, u | ∅, ∅, u |
| two morae | ē, ī, *ō, ū | a, i?, a, u? |
| three morae | ê, ô | ē, ō |
Reflexes of trimoraic or overlong ô are found in the final syllable of nouns or verbs, and are thus associated with inflectional endings. Thus four PG sounds are proposed, shown here with Gothic and Old English reflexes:
| PG | Reflexes | PG | Reflexes | ||
| bimoraic | oral ō | Gothic -a OE -u/-∅ | trimoraic | oral ô | Gothic -ō Old English -a |
| nasal ō̜ | Gothic -a OE -æ/-e | nasal ǫ̂ | Gothic -ō Old English -a |
A different contrast is observed in endings with final *z:
| PG | Reflexes | PG | Reflexes | ||
| bimoraic | ōz | Gothic -ōs Old English -æ/-e | trimoraic | ôz | Gothic -ōs Old English -a |
Laryngeal theory preserves regularities in declensions and conjugations by explaining the trimoraic sound as a reflex of H loss between vowels followed by contraction. Thus
- by H loss *oHo > *oo > *ô;
- by H coloration and H loss *eh₂e > *ae > *â > *ô.
| ending | PIE | Reflex | PG | Reflexes |
| all stems genitive plural | -oHom | Sanskrit -ām Greek -ῶν | -ǫ̂ | Gothic -ō Old English -a |
| eh₂-stems nominative plural | -eh₂es | Sanskrit –ās Lithuanian –ōs | -ôz | Gothic -ōs Old English -a |
| ending | PIE | Reflex | PG | Reflexes |
| thematic verbs present indicative 1st person singular | -oh₂ | Latin -ō Lithuanian -u | -ō | Gothic -a Old English -u |
| eh₂-stems nominative singular | -eh₂ | Sanskrit -ā Lithuanian -à | -ō | Gothic -a Old English -u |
| eh₂-stems accusative singular | -eh₂m | Sanskrit -ām Latin -am | -ō̜ | Gothic -a Old English -e |
| eh₂-stems accusative plural | -eh₂ns | Sanskrit -ās Latin *-ans > -ās | -ōz | Gothic -ōs Old English -e |
Balto-Slavic long vowel accent
The reconstructed phonology of the Balto-Slavic languages posits two distinct long vowels in almost exact correspondence to bimoraic and trimoraic vowels in Proto-Germanic. The Balto-Slavic vowels are distinguished not by length but by intonation; long vowels with circumflex accent correspond to Proto-Germanic trimoraic vowels. A significant proportion of long vowels with an acute accent correspond to Proto-Germanic bimoric vowels. These correspondences have led to the suggestion that the split between them occurred in the last common ancestor of the two daughters.It has been suggested that acute intonation was associated with glottalization, a suggestion supported by glottalized reflexes in Latvian. This could lend support to a theory that laryngeal consonants developed into glottal stops before their disappearance in Balto-Slavic and Proto-Germanic.
H loss adjacent to other sounds
After stop consonants
A significant number of instances of voiceless aspirates in the Indo-Iranian languages may be explained as reflexes of PIE stop consonants immediately followed by laryngeals.After resonants
PIE resonants r̥, l̥, m̥, n̥ are predicted to become consonantal allophones r, l, m, n when immediately followed by a vowel. Using R to symbolize any resonant and V for any vowel, *R̥V>*RV. Instances in the daughter languages of a vocalic resonant immediately followed by a vowel can sometimes be explained as reflexes of PIE *R̥HV with a laryngeal between the resonant and the vowel giving rise to a vocalic allophone. This original vocalic quality was preserved following H loss.Next to semivowels
Laryngeal theory has been used to explain the occurrence of a reconstructed sound change known as Holtzmann's law, sometimes called "sharpening" in North Germanic and East Germanic languages. The existing theory explains that PIE semivowels y and w were doubled to Proto-Germanic -yy- and -ww-, and that these in turn became -ddj- and -ggw- respectively in Gothic and -ggj- and -ggw- in early North Germanic languages. However, the existing theory had difficulty in predicting which instances of PIE semivowels led to sharpening and which instances failed to do so. The new explanation proposes that words exhibiting sharpening are derived from PIE words with laryngeals.| PIE | early Proto-Germanic | later Proto-Germanic | Reflexes | |
| drewh₂yo 'trustworthy' | trewwjaz | with sharpening | triwwjaz | Gothic triggws Old Norse tryggr |
| drewh₂yo 'trustworthy' | trewwjaz | without sharpening | triuwjaz | Old English trēowe Old High German gitriuwi |
Many of these techniques rely on the laryngeal being preceded by a vowel, and so they are not readily applicable for word-initial laryngeals except in Greek and Armenian. However, occasionally languages have compounds in which a medial vowel is unexpectedly lengthened or otherwise shows the effect of the following laryngeal. This shows that the second word originally began with a laryngeal and that this laryngeal still existed at the time the compound was formed.
Support for theory from external borrowings
Further evidence of the laryngeals has been found in Uralic languages, and some marginal cases also in Kartvelian. While the protolanguages of these families have not been convincingly demonstrated to be genetically related to PIE, some word correspondences have been identified as likely borrowings from very early Indo-European dialects to early Uralic and Kartvelian dialects. In a few such instances, laryngeal consonants reconstructed in PIE stems show correspondences with overt dorsal or laryngeal consonants in the Proto-Uralic and Proto-Kartvelian forms, in effect suggesting that these forms result from very old PIE borrowings where the consonantal nature of the PIE laryngeals was preserved.Laryngeals reflected in the Kartvelian languages
The evidence for the preservation of laryngeals by borrowings into Proto-Kartvelian is meagre, but intriguing.It has been suggested that some examples of an initial Proto-Kartvelian sequence *γw- may reflect sequences of the form *Hw- borrowed from PIE — cp. e.g. PK *γweb- 'to weave' alongside PIE h₁webʰ- 'id.', PK *γwel- 'to turn, to twist' alongside PIE wel- 'to turn, to roll' — although evidence for Hw- sequences in most of the proposed PIE source terms is controversial and other possible explanations for Proto-Kartvelian *γw- sequences exist.
A separate suggestion proposes that the PIE a-colouring laryngeal h₂ is reflected as Proto-Kartvelian *x in two fruit names borrowed from PIE méh₂lo- 'apple', namely Proto-Kartvelian msxal- 'pear' and *sxmart'l̥- 'medlar', the latter etymologically the 'rotten pear'.
Laryngeals reflected in the Uralic languages
Evidence for the PIE laryngeals has been suggested in ancient loans into Proto-Uralic. Work particularly associated with research of the scholar Jorma Koivulehto has identified several additions to the list of Finnic loanwords from an Indo-European source or sources whose particular interest is the apparent correlation of PIE laryngeals with three postalveolar phonemes in the Finnic forms. If so, this would suggest great antiquity for the borrowings; since no attested Indo-European language neighbouring Uralic has consonants as reflexes of laryngeals, this would bolster the idea that laryngeals were phonetically distinct consonants.However, Koivulehto's theories are not universally accepted and have been sharply criticized because many of the reconstructions involve a great deal of far-fetched hypotheses and the chronology is not in good agreement with the history of Bronze Age and Iron Age migrations in the Eastern Europe established by archaeologists and historians.
Three Uralic phonemes have been posited to reflect PIE laryngeals. In post-vocalic positions both the postalveolar fricatives that ever existed in Uralic are represented: firstly a possibly velar one, theoretically reconstructed much as the PIE laryngeals, in the very oldest borrowings and secondly a grooved one in some younger ones. The velar plosive k is the third reflex and the only one found word-initially. In intervocalic position, the reflex k is probably younger than either of the two former ones. The fact that Finno-Ugric may have plosive reflexes for PIE laryngeals is to be expected under well documented Finnic phonological behaviour and does not mean much for tracing the phonetic value of PIE laryngeals.
The correspondences do not differentiate between h₁, h₂ and h₃. Thus
- PIE laryngeals correspond to the PU laryngeal *x in wordstems like:
- *Finnish na-inen 'woman' / naa-ras 'female' < PU *näxi-/*naxi- < PIE = /gʷneh₂-/ > Sanskrit gnā́ 'goddess', OIr. mná, ~ Greek gunē 'woman'
- *Finnish sou-ta- ~ Samic *sukë- 'to row' < PU *suxi- < PIE *sewh-
- *Finnish tuo- 'bring' ~ Samic *tuokë- ~ Tundra Nenets tāś 'give' < PU *toxi- < PIE = /deh₃-/ > Greek didōmi, Lat. dō-, Old Lith. dúomi 'give', Hittite dā 'take'
- :Note the consonantal reflex /k/ in Samic.
- PIE laryngeals correspond to Finnic *h, whose normal origin is a Pre-Finnic fricative *š in wordstems like:
- *Finnish rohto 'medical plant, green herb' < PreFi *rošto < PreG *groH-tu- > Gmc. grōþu 'green growth' > Swedish grodd 'germ '
- *Old Finnish inhi- 'human being' < PreFi *inši- 'descendant' < PIE ǵnh₁-e/o- > Sanskrit jā́- 'born, offspring, descendant', Gmc. kunja- 'generation, lineage, kin'
- PIE laryngeals correspond to Pre-Finnic *k in wordstems like:
- *Finnish kesä 'summer' < PFS *kesä < PIE h₁es-en- > Balto-Slavic *eseni- 'autumn', Gothic asans 'summer'
- *Finnish kaski 'burnt-over clearing' < Proto-Finnic *kaski < PIE/PreG = /h₂esg-/ > Gmc. askōn 'ashes'
- *Finnish koke- 'to perceive, sense' < PreFi *koki- < PIE = /h₃ekw-ie/o/ > Greek opsomai 'look, observe'
- *Finnish kulke- 'to go, walk, wander' ~ Hungarian halad- 'to go, walk, proceed' < PFU *kulki- < PIE *kʷelH-e/o- > Greek pelomai ' to be moving', Sanskrit cárati 'goes, walks, wanders ', cognate Lat. colere 'to till, cultivate, inhabit'
- *Finnish teke- 'do, make' ~ Hungarian të-v-, tesz- 'to do, make, put, place' < PFU *teki- < PIE *dʰeh₁ > Greek títhēmi, Sanskrit dádhāti 'put, place', but 'do, make' in the western IE languages, e.g. the Germanic forms do, German tun, etc., and Latin faciō.
PIE laryngeals and Proto-Semitic
Several linguists have posited a relationship between PIE and Semitic, almost right after the discovery of Hittite. Among these were Hermann Möller, though a few had argued that such a relationship existed before the 20th century, like Richard Lepsius in 1836. The postulated correspondences between the IE laryngeals and that of Semitic assist in demonstrating their evident existence. Given here are a few lexical comparisons between the two respective proto-languages based on Václav Blažek, who discusses these correspondences in the context of a proposed relation between IE and Afroasiatic, the language family to which the Semitic languages belong:- Semitic ʼ-b-y 'to want, desire' ~ PIE 'to fuck'
- Semitic ʼ-m-m/y ~ PIE 'to take'
- Semitic ʼin-a 'in', 'on', 'by' ~ PIE > Sanskrit ni, ~ Greek enōpḗ
- Semitic ʼanāku ~ PIE h₁eǵ- 'I'
- Semitic ʻ-d-w 'to pass, move, run' ~ PIE 'to pass through'
- Semitic ʻ-l-y 'to rise, grow, go up, be high' ~ PIE 'to grow, nourish'
- Semitic ʻ-k-w: Arabic ʻakā 'to rise, be big' ~ PIE 'to grow, nourish'
- Semitic ʻl 'next, in addition' ~ PIE 'in'
- Semitic: Arabic ʻanan 'side', ʻan 'from, for; upon; in' ~ PIE 'on'
Comments
The Greek forms ánemos and árotron are particularly valuable because the verb roots in question are extinct in Greek as verbs. This means that there is no possibility of some sort of analogical interference, as, for example, happened in the case of Latin arātrum "plow", whose shape has been distorted by the verb arāre "to plow". It used to be standard to explain the root vowels of Greek thetós, statós, dotós "put, stood, given" as analogical. Most scholars nowadays probably take them as original, but in the case of "wind" and "plow", the argument cannot even come up.Regarding Greek híeros, the pseudo-participle affix *-ro- is added directly to the verb root, so ish₁-ro- > *isero- > *ihero- > híeros, and Sanskrit iṣirá-. There seems to be no question of the existence of a root *eysH- "vigorously move/cause to move". If the word began with a laryngeal, and most scholars would agree that it did, it would have to be h₁-, specifically; and that is a problem. A root of the shape h₁eysh₁- is not possible. Indo-European had no roots of the type mem-, tet-, dhredh-, i.e., with two copies of the same consonant. But Greek attests an earlier form of the same meaning, híaros. If we reconstruct h₁eysh₂-, all of our problems are solved in one stroke. The explanation for the híeros/híaros business has long been discussed, without much result; laryngeal theory now provides the opportunity for an explanation which did not exist before, namely the metathesis of the two laryngeals. It is still only a guess, but it is a much simpler and more elegant guess than the guesses available before.
The syllabic h₂ in ph₂ter- "father" might not be isolated. Certain evidence shows that the kinship affix seen in "mother, father" etc. might have been -h₂ter instead of -ter. The laryngeal syllabified after a consonant but lengthened a preceding vowel.
Laryngeals in morphology
Like any other consonant, laryngeals feature in the endings of verbs and nouns and derivational morphology, the only difference being the greater difficulty of telling what's going on. Indo-Iranian, for example, can retain forms that pretty clearly reflect a laryngeal, but there is no way of knowing which one.The following is a rundown of laryngeals in Proto-Indo-European morphology.
- h₁ is seen in the instrumental ending. In Sanskrit, feminine i- and u-stems have instrumentals in -ī, -ū, respectively. In the Rigveda, there are a few old a-stems with an instrumental in -ā; but even in that oldest text the usual ending is -enā, from the n-stems.
- h₂ is seen as the marker of the neuter plural: *-h₂ in the consonant stems, *-eh₂ in the vowel stems. Much levelling and remodelling are seen in the daughter languages that preserve any ending at all, thus Latin has generalized *-ā throughout the noun system, Greek generalized -ǎ < -h₂.
- -eh₃ may be tentatively identified in a directive case. No such case is found in Indo-European noun paradigms, but such a construct accounts for a curious collection of Hittite forms like ne-pi-ša "to the sky", ták-na-a "to, into the ground", a-ru-na "to the sea". These are sometimes explained as o-stem datives in -a < *-ōy, an ending attested in Greek and Indo-Iranian, among others, but there are serious problems with such a view, and the forms are highly coherent, functionally. And there are also appropriate adverbs in Greek and Latin : Greek ánō "upwards, kátō "downwards", Latin quō "whither?", eō "to that place"; and perhaps even the Indic preposition/preverb â "to" which has no satisfactory competing etymology.
Criticism
Throughout its history, the laryngeal theory in its various forms has been subject to extensive criticism and revision.The original argument of Saussure was not accepted by anyone in the Neogrammarian school, primarily based at the University of Leipzig, then reigning at the cutting-edge of Indo-European linguistics. Several of them attacked the Mémoire savagely. Hermann Osthoff's criticism was particularly virulent, often descending into personal invective.
For the first half-century of its existence, the laryngeal theory was widely seen as "an eccentric fancy of outsiders". In Germany, it was roundly rejected. Among its early proponents were Hermann Möller, who extended Saussure's system with a third, non-colouring laryngeal, Albert Cuny, Holger Pedersen, and. The fact that these scholars were engaged in highly speculative long-range linguistic comparison further contributed to its isolation.
Although the founding fathers were able to provide some indirect evidence of a lost consonantal element, the direct evidence so crucial for the Neogrammarian thinking was lacking. Saussure's structural considerations were foreign to the leading contemporary linguists.
After Jerzy Kuryłowicz's convincing demonstration that the Hittite language preserved at least some of Saussure's coefficients sonantiques, the focus of the debate shifted. It was still unclear how many laryngeals are to be posited to account for the new facts and what effect they have had exactly. Kuryłowicz, after a while, settled on four laryngeals, an approach further accepted by Edward Sapir, Edgar Sturtevant, and – through them – much of American linguistics. The three-laryngeal system was defended, among others, by Walter Couvreur and by Émile Benveniste. Many individual proposals were made, which assumed up to ten laryngeals, such as that of André Martinet. While some scholars, like and Giuliano Bonfante, attempted to disregard Anatolian evidence altogether, the "minimal" serious proposal was put forward by Hans Hendriksen,, and later Ladislav Zgusta, who assumed a single /H/ phoneme with no vowel-colouring effects.
However, by the 2000s a widespread agreement was reached in the field – though not unanimous – on reconstructing Möller's three laryngeals. One of the last major critics of this approach was Oswald Szemerényi, who subscribed to a theory similar to Zgusta's.
Today, the laryngeal theory is almost universally accepted in this new standard form. Nevertheless, marginal attempts to undermine its bases are occasionally undertaken.