Laryngeal theory
 | This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. (June 2012) |
The laryngeal theory is a widely accepted hypothesis in the historical linguistics of the Indo-European languages positing that:
- Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) had a series of phonemes beyond those reconstructable by the comparative method. That is, the hypothesis maintained that there were sounds in Proto-Indo-European that no longer existed in any of the daughter languages, and thus, could not be reconstructed merely by comparing sounds among those daughter languages.
- These phonemes, according to the most-accepted variant of the theory, were laryngeal consonants of an indeterminate place of articulation towards the back of the mouth.
The theory aims 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 decipherment 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 scholarship 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 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 *pəter- 'father'). Also, the hypothesis that PIE schwa *ə was a consonant, not a vowel, provides an elegant explanation for some apparent exceptions to Brugmann's law in Indic languages.
History[]
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[1] 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.
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.[2]
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
Some scholars suggest the existence of a fourth consonant, *h₄, which differs from *h₂ in not being reflected as Anatolian ḫ[3][4] but being reflected, to the exclusion of all other laryngeals, as Albanian h when word-initial before an originally stressed vowel.[5]
E.g. PIE *h₄órǵʰiyeh₂ "testicle" yields Albanian herdhe "testicle" but Hittite arki- "testicle" whereas PIE *h₂ŕ̥tkos "bear" yields Alb. ari "bear" but Hittite hart(ag)ga- (=/hartka-/) "cultic official, bear-person".[6][4]
When there is an uncertainty whether the laryngeal is *h₂ or *h₄, the symbol *ha may be used.[4]
- *h₁ doublet
Another such theory, but much less generally accepted, is Winfred P. Lehmann's view, based on inconsistent reflexes in Hittite, that *h₁ was two separate sounds. (He assumed that one was a glottal stop and the other a glottal fricative.)
Direct evidence for laryngeals[]
Some direct evidence for laryngeal consonants comes from Anatolian: PIE *a is a fairly rare sound, and in an uncommonly large number of good etymologies, it is word-initial. Thus PIE (traditional) *anti "in front of and facing" > Greek antí "against"; Latin ante "in front of, before"; Sanskrit ánti "near; in the presence of". But in Hittite there is a noun ḫants "front, face", with various derivatives (ḫantezzi "first", and so on), pointing to a PIE root-noun *h₂ent- "face" (of which *h₂enti would be the locative singular). (It does not necessarily follow that all reconstructed forms with initial *a should automatically be rewritten *h₂e.)
Similarly, the traditional PIE reconstruction for 'sheep' is *owi- (a y-stem, not an i-stem) whence Sanskrit ávi-, Latin ovis, Greek ὄϊς. But Luwian has WIKI