At the time de Saussure
reconstructed the "sonant coefficients" (1879), reconstructed PIE vocalism was
still very different from what we're familiar with -- very Sanskrit-like, in
fact. To be sure, syllabic nasals and liquids had just been invented by Brugmann
and Osthoff, and Brugmann's idea that there were two or more
a's in the protolanguage (Saussure's a1,
a2 and A, corresponding to modern
*e, *o, *a) was beginning to
sink in. The real quantum leap -- the discovery of the Law of Palatals, worked
out independently by several linguists during the 1870s -- was to be announced
at roughly the same time as Saussure's thesis. Saussure posited only two sonant
coefficients -- A and O (*h2
and *h3, in modern terms) -- and the proposed derivations
involving them included the crucial changes a1A >
Â, a1O > Ô (i.e.,
*eh2 > *a:, *eh3 >
*o:).
The following year
Hermann Möller corrected the most glaring omission in Saussure's system by
adding a third sonant coefficient to account for the ablaut of roots with long
*e:. He also attempted to reconstruct the phonetics of the
"coefficients" by relating them to Semitic laryngeals. Möller's triad (together
with the misleading term "laryngeal") was in principle accepted by Kurylowicz in
his famous 1927 publication. In this way a "laryngeal theory" featuring
*h1, *h2 and *h3 became part
of the Standard Model of IE ablaut. Departures from it have been common, which
is hardly surprising given the nature of the evidence, which leaves much room
for speculation. There are some hardline Brugmannians (such as Oswald
Szemerényi) who reject all indirect evidence for the laryngeals and are content
with just a single *h (accepted under duress, as it were, since
Anatolian aitches can't be explained away); there are, on the other hand,
aitch-splitters who follow André Martinet in multiplying laryngeals on the
faintest shadow of justification. The three-term inventory represents a central
position, favoured by most IEists. Why?
First, no doubt, because it
is believed that "laryngeal colours" correspond to non-high vowel qualities in
PIE in a one-to-one fashion. This is especially evident if a given author
uses mnemonic symbols like (*E, *A,
*O) rather than aitches with indices. This approach treats
the laryngeals as consonantal vectors of the primarily vocalic features
(a.k.a. "timbres" or "colours") [front], [low] and [round]. Another common
approach aligns the three laryngeals (interpreted as dorsal fricatives) with the
three series of dorsal stops: *x^, *x and
*xW parallel to *k^, *k and
*kW. Of course the two approaches can be combined into a
unified, attractively symmetrical system:
palatovelar velar labiovelar
plain k^
k kW
voiced g^
g gW
aspirated g^H
gH gWH
fricative x^
x xW
high
i/j u/w
mid
e
o
low
a
The
pattern looks very nice indeed, but it's worth keeping in mind that we
humans are instinctive pattern-matchers and tantalising symmetry is one of the
most common mirages resulting from self-delusion. There are a couple
of problems with this particular splendid symmetry. First, the colouring properties of the "laryngeals":
*h1 does not change an adjacent *o into
*e or impart its "colour" to neighbouring segments in any other
way. There is therefore no compelling evidence for reconstructing
*h1 as a distinctively [front] sound. Secondly, the behaviour
of these sounds in Hittite: most IEists agree that *h1 has no
consonantal reflex in Anatolian, while both *h2 and
*h3 are reflectes as h (presumably a fricative
in the velar/uvular range); at any rate, neither the postulated instances of
*h1 > Hittite h nor the hotly debated
evidence for the early loss of *h3 in Anatolian look very
convincing. It seems that *h1 was lost rather early. It also
seems that *h2 and *h3 merged in Hittite, so
they must have constituted a natural class, probably in opposition to
*h1. A possible additional problem is the skewed frequency of
occurrence: *h2 is by far the most frequently occurring
laryngeal, while plain velars are significantly rarer than other dorsal stops in
reconstructions that employ the three series.
This has lead many scholars
to speculate that *h1 was a weaker consonant than the other two
"laryngeals". It is often reconstructed as a glottal stop [?], while the other
two are classed together as spirants -- e.g. *h2 = [x]
and *h3 = [xW], or *h2 = [h] and
h3 = [GW] (voiced labiovelar fricative), or the
like. "Colourless" *h1 can also be reconstructed as a
breathy or breathy-voiced approximant [h], in which case
*h2 and *h3 should be fricatives with the
desired colouring properties. The most likely fricative to cause the lowering
and retraction of an adjacent [e] is uvular [X], so it's tempting to assume that
*h2 = [X] and *h3 = [XW]. The pattern is now
different:
dorsal labiodorsal glottal
plain
k
kW
voiced
g gW
aspirated
gH
gWH
fricative
X
XW
approximant
w h
I use [dorsal] as a cover
term for a range of articulations including velars and uvulars (uvular
fricatives commonly pattern together with velar stops). This interpretation has
the advantage of not forcing all the "laryngeals" to be aligned with stop
articulations -- very convenient if you are happy (as I am) with a two-way
protosystem of dorsal consonants (*k and *kW,
but no phonemic *k^). Also, any system with aspirated or
breathy-voiced stops can on typological grounds be expected to include a
phonemic "aspirate" /h/.
Now the final problem: what
evidence do we really have for the phonemic contrast between
*h2 and *h3?
Anatolian does not show
spellings like hu- for putative *h3;
e.g. Luwian has hawis for *h3owis
'sheep', Hittite has haran- 'eagle' <
*h3or-on- and hastai- 'bones' <
*h3ost-. To put it briefly, reconstructed *h3
seems to behave differently from labiovelar stops.
How can we tell, for a given
form, whether attested *o- or *o: stands for
underlying *h3o-/*oh3 <
**h3e-/**eh3 rather than *o
accompanied by one of the other laryngeals? Why, for
example, do we posit *h3owis = /XWewi-/ rather than
*h2owis = /Xowi-/ (Hittite h rules out
*h1)? The argument that *h2 would have
coloured *o as well as *e doesn't work: there
are a number of secure counterexamples like
*h2aiwo-/*h2oju-,
*h2aus-/*h2ous-,
*kreuh2as-/*kruh2o(:)s-,
*h2ag-/*h2og-, etc. Even if we accept that any
initial *a- (in Brugmannian terms) should be reconstructed as
*h2a- < **h2e-, *o- may in
principle go back to *h1o-, *h2o- or
*h3o-. Of
course it may be argued that any *o(:) appearing in a
context where the e-grade can be confidently predicted is
likely to have resulted from colouring by *h3. The right
evidence, however, is not that easy to pin down. Present and preterite verb
stems could be used; here the best examples I can think of are
*deh3- 'give', *gneh3- 'know', and
*gWjeh3- 'live'. I'll discuss *deh3- below
(since it's usually the first and often the only sure example of root-final
*h3 cited in handbooks), but if anyone feels discussing the
other two or any other material, I'm always game.
Greek prothetic vowels,
triple schwa reflexes and different vowel colours in
*RH (Ro: vs. Ra:) are subject
to so much dialectal variation and analogical levelling that even a careful
analysis does not extract convincing evidence for *h3 as
different from *h2. Beekes (1969) was more optimistic than I am
here, but the "triple representation" has since been reanalysed e.g. by
Lindemann (1982) and the view that it is a Greek innovation has gained much
support.
Martinet's "laryngeal
fission" *-eh3-o- > *-eh2wo- >
*-a:wo- looks good on paper, but it can be shown
that intrusive *w may appear in hiatus after
*o: of any origin, e.g. *sto:h2-eje- >
*stavi- 'to place' in Slavic (the causative of
*stah2- 'stand').
If *do: is
not *doh3- /deh3-/, what else could it be? The "o"
timbre occurs in the present tense (Gk. di-do:-mi, arch.
Lith. duo-mi) and deverbal nouns (Gk.
do:ron, Slavic darU, Latin
do:num 'gift'), and in the Greek and Indo-Iranian aorist
as well (Gk. edo:ka, Skt. ada:t). One
must remember, however, that verbs with persistent o-grade occur quite
frequently; some of them probably formed a separate class in PIE, formally
similar to the IE perfect and reflected in Hittite as the "-hi"
presents (cf. Hittite mallai : Lith málti,
Gothic malan, Latin molo:, etc.). We also have
residual ablauting formations elsewhere (most notably, Tocharian subjunctives
and Indo-Iranian aorist passives in -i like
apa:di 'he fell') to demonstrate that the pattern associated
with the perfect was once applied more widely, and that in fact there is
nothing specifically "perfect" about it. A possible original paradigm would have
looked like this:
*doh1-h2a(i)
*doh1-th2a(i)
*doh1-e(i)
These forms match the
conjugation of Hittite da:- 'take' (usually assumed to be
cognate to non-Anatolian *do: despite the semantic difference;
note the absence of h in the Hittite root):
dahhi
datti
da:i
After the falling together of
conjugational types in non-Anatolian IE new present and aorist formations
appeared, based on underlying *do:- <
*doh1-, e.g. preterite *doh1-e >
*do: remodelled
as *(e)do:-t.
Piotr