Жетістік тіліндегі көмекей дауыстары гипотезасы

Hypothesis that Proto Indo European had phonemes beyond those reconstructed through comparison

The laryngeal theory is a theory in historical linguistics positing that the Proto Indo European language included a number of laryngeal consonants that are not reconstructable by direct application of the comparative method to the Indo European family. The 'missing' sounds remain consonants of an indeterminate place of articulation towards the back of the mouth, though further information is difficult to derive. Proponents aim to use the theory to:
Produce greater regularity in the reconstruction of PIE phonology than from the reconstruction that is produced by the comparative method. Extend the general occurrence of the Indo European ablaut to syllables with reconstructed vowel phonemes other than *e or *o. In its earlier form (see below), the theory proposed two sounds in PIE. Combined with a reconstructed *e or *o, the sounds produce vowel phonemes that would not otherwise be predicted by the rules of ablaut. The theory received considerable support after the deciphering of Hittite, which revealed it to be an Indo European language. Many Hittite words were shown to be derived from PIE, with a phoneme represented as ḫ corresponding to one of the hypothetical PIE sounds. 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. In its most widely accepted version, the theory posits three laryngeal phonemes in PIE: h₁, h₂, and h₃ (see below). Daughter languages other than Hittite did not preserve the laryngeals themselves, but inherited sounds derived from the merger of these laryngeals with PIE short vowels and the subsequent loss of those laryngeals. The phonemes are now recognized as consonants, related to articulation in the general area of the larynx, where a consonantal gesture may affect vowel quality. They are regularly known as laryngeal, but the actual place of articulation for each consonant remains a matter of debate. (see below). The laryngeals got their name because they were believed by Hermann Möller and Albert Cuny to have had a pharyngeal, epiglottal, or glottal place of articulation, involving a constriction near the larynx. While this is still possible, many linguists now think of laryngeals, or some of them, as having been velar or uvular. The evidence for their existence is mostly indirect, as will be shown below, but the theory serves as an elegant explanation for several properties of the PIE vowel system that made no sense until the theory, such as the independent schwas (as in 'father'). Also, the hypothesis that PIE schwa *ə was a consonant, not a vowel, provides an explanation for some apparent exceptions to Brugmann's law in Indo Aryan languages.

The beginnings of the theory were proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure in 1879, in an article chiefly demonstrating that *a and *o were separate phonemes in PIE. 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 (further explanations below), but followed by a previously unidentified element. This element accounted for both the changed vowel colour and the lengthening (short *e becoming long *ā or *ō). 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 (non syllabic) or vowels (syllabic) depending on the sounds they are adjacent to: *y w r l m 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: For example, why verb roots containing only a consonant and a vowel always have long vowels. For example, in *dō "give", the new consonants allowed linguists to decompose this further into *deh₃ This not only accounted for the patterns of alternation more economically than before (by requiring fewer types of ablaut) 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 (when they appeared next to only consonants) developed as such: *h₁ > e, *h₂ > a, and *h₃ > o.

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.

Some scholars suggest the existence of a fourth consonant, , which differs from in not being reflected as Anatolian ḫ but being reflected, to the exclusion of all other laryngeals, as Albanian h when word initial before an originally stressed vowel. E. g. PIE 'testicle' yields Albanian herdhe 'testicle' but Hittite arki 'testicle' whereas PIE '"bear' yields Albanian ari 'bear' but Hittite hart(ag)ga (=/hartka /) 'cultic official, bear person'. When there is an uncertainty whether the laryngeal is or , the symbol may be used.

Considerable debate still surrounds the pronunciation of the laryngeals and various arguments have been given to pinpoint their exact place of articulation. Firstly the effect these sounds have had on adjacent phonemes is well documented. 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 (as opposed to approximants or stops), an assumption that is strongly supported by the behaviour of laryngeals in consonant clusters.

J. E. Rasmussen (1983) suggested a consonantal realization for *h₁ as the voiceless glottal fricative with a syllabic allophone (mid central unrounded vowel). This is supported by the closeness of to (with which it combines in Greek), its failure (unlike *h₂ and *h₃) to create an auxiliary vowel in Greek and Tocharian when it occurs between a semivowel and a consonant,

W. P. Lehmann (1993) theorized, based on inconsistent reflexes in Hittite, that there were two *h₁ sounds: a glottal stop and an h sound as in English hat, similar to argued that the Hieroglyphic Luwian sign no. 19 (𔐓, conventionally transcribed á) stood for /ʔa/ (distinct from /a/, sign no. 450: 𔗷 a) and represents the reflex of ; this would support the hypothesis that was, at least in some cases, Later, Kloekhorst (2006) 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 (plene spelling) is used. This hypothesis has been met with serious criticism; e. g., from Rieken (2010), Melchert (2010), and Weeden (2011). supported Kloekhorst's thesis by suggesting that plene spelling in Cuneiform Luwian can be explained in a similar way. Additionally, Simon's (2013) article

An occasionally advanced idea that the laryngeals were dorsal fricatives corresponding directly to the three traditionally reconstructed series of dorsal stops (palatal, velar, and labiovelar; i. e., that the laryngeals *h₁ *h₂ and *h₃ are more accurately written *h́, *h, and *hʷ respectively) suggests a further possibility, a palatal fricative .

From what is known of such phonetic conditioning in contemporary languages, notably Semitic languages, *h₂ (the a colouring laryngeal) could have been a pharyngeal fricative such as and Pharyngeal consonants (like Semitic heth) often cause a colouring in the Semitic languages. Uvular fricatives may also colour vowels, thus is also a noteworthy candidate. Weiss (2016) 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 (before the consonant's eventual loss). Rasmussen (1983) suggested a consonantal realization for *h₂ as a voiceless velar fricative , with a syllabic allophone , i. e. a near open central vowel. proposes, based on evidence from Anatolian languages, that *h₂ was originally a geminate uvular stop [qː] (he also holds the view that the traditionally voiceless stops of PIE were in fact geminate, as in Hittite), although he judges it plausible that already in PIE it had a fricative allophone.

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.

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.

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 (also described as with acute register) 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.

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 (*CH > *Cʰ).

PIE resonants (sonorants) *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 (sonorant) and V for any vowel, *R̥V>*RV. Instances in the daughter languages of a vocalic resonant immediately followed by a vowel (RV) 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.

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.

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 *hxw borrowed from PIE—cp. e. g. PK *γweb 'to weave' alongside PIE *h₁webʰ 'id. ', PK *γwel 'to turn, to twist' alongside PIE *(h₁)wel 'to turn, to roll'—although evidence for *hxw 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 *(s)méh₂lo 'apple', namely Proto Kartvelian *msxal 'pear' and *sxmart'l̥ 'medlar', the latter etymologically the 'rotten (*t'l̥ ) pear'.

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" (the exact cognate to the Greek form would have been *aretrum). 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 can't even come up. Regarding Greek híeros, the pseudo participle affix * ro is added directly to the verb root, so * > *isero > *ihero > híeros (with regular throwback of the aspiration to the beginning of the word), 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's 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 (and rather more widely attested) 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 * in * "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 (thus Greek patḗr, Latin pater, Sanskrit pitár ; Greek thugátēr, Sanskrit duhitár "daughter") but lengthened a preceding vowel (thus say Latin māter "mother", frāter "brother") — even when the "vowel" in question was a syllabic resonant, as in Sanskrit yātaras "husbands' wives" < * < * ).

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 (probably originally indifferent to number, like English expressions of the type by hand and on foot). In Sanskrit, feminine i and u stems have instrumentals in ī, ū, respectively. In the Rigveda, there are a few old a stems (PIE o stems) with an instrumental in ā; but even in that oldest text the usual ending is enā, from the n stems. Greek has some adverbs in ē, but more important are the Mycenaean forms like e re pa te "with ivory" (i. e. elephantē? ě?) The marker of the neuter dual was * iH, as in Sanskrit bharatī "two carrying ones (neut. )", nāmanī "two names", yuge "two yokes" (< yuga i? *yuga ī?). Greek to the rescue: the Homeric form ósse "the (two) eyes" is manifestly from *h₃ekʷ ih₁ (formerly *okʷ ī) via fully regular sound laws (intermediately *okʷye). * eh₁ derives stative verb senses from eventive roots: PIE *sed "sit (down)": *sed eh₁ "be in a sitting position" (> Proto Italic *sed ē ye mos "we are sitting" > Latin sedēmus). It is attested in Celtic, Italic, Germanic (the Class IV weak verbs), and Baltic/Slavic, with some traces in Indo Iranian (In Avestan the affix seems to form past habitual stems). It seems likely, though it is less certain, that this same * h₁ underlies the nominative accusative dual in o stems: Sanskrit vṛkā, Greek lúkō "two wolves". (The alternative ending āu in Sanskrit cuts a small figure in the Rigveda, but eventually becomes the standard form of the o stem dual.) * h₁s derives desiderative stems as in Sanskrit jighāṃsati "desires to slay" < *gʷhi gʷhṇ h₁s e ti (root *gʷhen , Sanskrit han "slay"). This is the source of Greek future tense formations and (with the addition of a thematic suffix * ye/o ) the Indo Iranian one as well: bhariṣyati "will carry" < *bher h₁s ye ti. * yeh₁ /* ih₁ is the optative suffix for root verb inflections, e. g. Latin (old) siet "may he be", sīmus "may we be", Sanskrit syāt "may he be", and so on. *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 (later regularly shortened to a), Greek generalized ǎ < * h₂. The categories masculine/feminine plainly did not exist in the most original form of Proto Indo European, and there are very few noun types which are formally different in the two genders. The formal differences are mostly to be seen in adjectives (and not all of them) and pronouns. Both types of derived feminine stems feature *h₂: a type that is patently derived from the o stem nominals; and an ablauting type showing alternations between * yeh₂ and * ih₂ Both are peculiar in having no actual marker for the nominative singular, and at least as far as the * eh₂ type, two features seem clear: it is based on the o stems, and the nom. sg. is probably in origin a neuter plural. (An archaic trait of Indo European morpho syntax is that plural neuter nouns construe with singular verbs, and quite possibly *yugeh₂ was not so much "yokes" in our sense, but "yokage; a harnessing up".) Once that much is thought of, however, it is not easy to pin down the details of the "ā stems" in the Indo European languages outside of Anatolia, and such an analysis sheds no light at all on the * yeh₂ /* ih₂ stems, which (like the *eh₂ stems) form feminine adjective stems and derived nouns (e. g. Sanskrit devī "goddess" from deva "god") but unlike the "ā stems" have no foundation in any neuter category. * eh₂ seems to have formed factitive verbs, as in *new eh₂ "to renew, make new again", as seen in Latin novāre, Greek neáō and Hittite ne wa aḫ ḫa an t (participle) all "renew" but all three with the pregnant sense of "plow anew; return fallow land to cultivation". * h₂ marked the 1st person singular, with a confusing distribution: in the thematic active (the familiar ō ending of Greek and Latin, and Indo Iranian ā(mi)), and also in the perfect tense (not really a tense in PIE): * h₂e as in Greek oîda "I know" < *. It is the basis of the Hittite ending ḫḫi, as in da aḫ ḫi "I take" < * ḫa i (original * ḫa embellished with the primary tense marker with subsequent smoothing of the diphthong). * 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 "(in)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 (elements lost in productive paradigms sometimes survive in stray forms, like the old instrumental case of the definite article in English expressions like the more the merrier): Greek ánō "upwards, kátō "downwards", Latin quō "whither? ", eō "to that place"; and perhaps even the Indic preposition/preverb â "to(ward)" which has no satisfactory competing etymology. (These forms must be distinguished from the similar looking ones formed to the ablative in * ōd and with a distinctive "fromness" sense: Greek ópō "whence, from where".)

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. 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 H. Möller, who extended Saussure's system with a third, non colouring laryngeal, A. Cuny, H. Pedersen, and K. Oštir. 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 (for example, the origin of the Indo Iranian voiceless aspirates in *CH sequences and the ablaut pattern of the heavy bases, *CeRə ~ *CR̥̄ in the traditional formulation), the direct evidence so crucial for the Neogrammarian thinking was lacking. Saussure's structural considerations were foreign to the leading contemporary linguists. 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 E. Sapir, E. Sturtevant, and through them much of American linguistics. The three laryngeal system was defended, among others, by W. Couvreur and by É. Benveniste. Many individual proposals were made, which assumed up to ten laryngeals (A. Martinet). While some scholars, like H. Kronasser and G. Bonfante, attempted to disregard Anatolian evidence altogether, the ‘minimal’ serious proposal (with roots in Pedersen's early ideas) was put forward by Hans Hendriksen, L. Hammerich, and later L. 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 O. 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.