The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

[KathTheDragon]

In Derksen's etymological dictionary of Slavic (2008), he says that one theory for *kôstь 'bone' (if the word indeed reflects *h₃est-) is that the word was borrowed from some other language where the laryngeal was retained as a consonant; another theory (Meillet) is that the *k should be regarded as a prefix. Alternatively, a connection with Latin costa 'rib' is possible. The only lemma I could find matching your second word is *kozà 'goat', which is possibly a Turkic loan, otherwise of unknown etymology.

Please provide glosses, next time.

[Salmoneus]

In Derksen's etymological dictionary of Slavic (2008), he says that one theory for *kôstь 'bone' (if the word indeed reflects *h₃est-) is that the word was borrowed from some other language where the laryngeal was retained as a consonant; another theory (Meillet) is that the *k should be regarded as a prefix. Alternatively, a connection with Latin costa 'rib' is possible. The only lemma I could find matching your second word is *kozà 'goat', which is possibly a Turkic loan, otherwise of unknown etymology.

Please provide glosses, next time.

Ex-goatface's old sheet suggests the goat-word is from *kog'he2, and links it to Armenian kedh, 'kid', though wiktionary links that to the germanic word.

[Soap]

if kedh = kid, one must surely be a loan, right? Because of GHrimm's Law. Althohygh wikt does suggest another germanic word somethibng like hæcen, maybe related to "hatch".

[KathTheDragon]

Orel (2000) follows the kedh = Slavic koza etymology.

[Tropylium]

Was it brought up here yet that it's been recently found that word-initial *h₂ appears to be conserved, in addition to Hittite and allegedly sometimes Albanian, also in various Iranian languages?

I've not seen full details on this, and I'm not sure if any have even been published yet, but Martin Kümmel reports this in a handout.

The implication seems to be that Proto-Indo-Iranian appears to have been rather more archaic and rather less Sanskrit-like than traditionally assumed esp. with regards to laryngeals.

[WeepingElf]

Was it brought up here yet that it's been recently found that word-initial *h₂ appears to be conserved, in addition to Hittite and allegedly sometimes Albanian, also in various Iranian languages?

I've not seen full details on this, and I'm not sure if any have even been published yet, but Martin Kümmel reports this in a handout.

The implication seems to be that Proto-Indo-Iranian appears to have been rather more archaic and rather less Sanskrit-like than traditionally assumed esp. with regards to laryngeals.

That is interesting, and has not been brought up here before. Once again, it tells us that PIE laryngeals prevailed much longer than often assumed, and that their loss nearly everywhere was einzelsprachlich.

[KathTheDragon]

I knew that laryngeals were present in the PIIr phoneme *H, but I did not know that it survived anywhere. Fascinating stuff.

[Richard W]

I knew that laryngeals were present in the PIIr phoneme *H, but I did not know that it survived anywhere. Fascinating stuff.

Various features of the Vedas are supposed to make more sense if *H survived until they were composed. Apparently it can inhibit sandhi, and there's claimed to be metrical evidence that the thematic vowel was -Ha- at the time of composition. (Date of composition is probably a somewhat uncertain concept, as I am sure that phrases were lifted from earlier compositions.)

I still think *H survives word initially in German as /ʔ/. 'Vowel initials' alliterated in Old English; they don't in Modern English, so we're talking about a Germanic phenomenon rather than a German innovation.

[GreenBowTie]

I still think *H survives word initially in German as /ʔ/. 'Vowel initials' alliterated in Old English; they don't in Modern English, so we're talking about a Germanic phenomenon rather than a German innovation.

this argument sounds pretty thin tbh

[KathTheDragon]

To be honest, I suspect that the laryngeals were more long-lived in all daughters than is commonly assumed, due to their "recent" nature in PIE phonology.

[WeepingElf]

I still think *H survives word initially in German as /ʔ/. 'Vowel initials' alliterated in Old English; they don't in Modern English, so we're talking about a Germanic phenomenon rather than a German innovation.

this argument sounds pretty thin tbh

In German, all "vowel-initial" words still begin with [ʔ], and that may have been the case in other Germanic languages as well. Still, I am not sure whether this is a surviving PIE laryngeal or not.

[KathTheDragon]

Any word beginning in un- < PIE *n̩- cannot have had an original laryngeal.

[Pabappa]

It could easily have analogized over, especially if initial [ʔ] vastly outnumbered initial [0], and there was no phonemic /ʔ/ in the language. Besides, if intiail [ʔ] is not from an early phonemic /ʔ/, it could only have come from nothing anyway. Im not saying I believe the theory is absolutely ttrue, just that its possible. I still believe the laryngeals were all fricatives, but they could have collapsed to a glottal stop at some point at least when followed by a vowel.

[WeepingElf]

I'd rather say that initial [ʔ] in German is just an automatic feature of all vowel-initial words, and hardly a phoneme at all, and has nothing to do with PIE laryngeals. As KathAvera has pointed out, words with the negative prefix un- never had an initial laryngeal, and these have the initial glottal stop as well.

[JounaPyysalo]

Good day to you all,

I am Dr Jouna Pyysalo (Indo-European linguistics). I noticed this thread long ago but our team has been busy with upgrading System PIE into the Operational System Proto-Indo-European Lexicon (OS PIE Lexicon) for a year or so, so I hadn't the time for a chat earlier.

I am pleased to report you that the PIE Lexicon team has digitised the upgraded sound laws presented in System PIE
https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/41760
with the effect that we are now able to digitally generate more than 99% of the Indo-European data correctly with OS PIE Lexicon in our address
http://pielexicon.hum.helsinki.fi

Needless to say, you all are the most welcome to familiarise yourselves with our equipment and the axiomatised generation of the data in our home page.

I will also try to answer to your questions and criticism through this forum whenever with time for that

Sincerely,

Dr Jouna Pyysalo
Indo-European Studies
University of Helsinki

[KathTheDragon]

Nice to meet you at last, then.

I've started reading through the first link (500 pages, it's gonna take a while), and I am instantly struck by the outline of the proposed PIE inventory. I'll reserve judgement until I have read the appropriate section of the dissertation, but I am very much looking forward to getting there.

[JounaPyysalo]

@ KathAveara – and why not others

You can simultaneously use the PIE Lexicon site to see how the sound laws work in action:

Every reconstruction (in blue) is actually a command for the OS PIE to create the respective Indo-European form.

Thus, when you click a proto-form PIE Lexicon takes it through the list of digitised sound laws (in chronological order), applying all the rules that it can.

If the derivation is correct the form is simply created. If there is an error in derivation the respective sound is marked with red to highlight this.

Otherwise all forms in usual black are generated without problems.

Jouna

[KathTheDragon]

Some initial thoughts on the phonology (I've still not worked through that whole chapter yet, so bear with me):

It seems like your whole premise is that there existed but one non-colouring laryngeal which always surfaces in Hittite. I'm unsure exactly why you reject the notion of three laryngeals, which has immediate ulitilty everywhere.

Edit: I'm now on the section about the sonorants, and I am confused as to why the notion of syllabic sonorants in PIE is rejected.

Edit: A general criticism is the use of German in glossing, in contrast to the English of everything else. It does make it hard to follow some parts.

[JounaPyysalo]

Some initial thoughts on the phonology (I've still not worked through that whole chapter yet, so bear with me):

It seems like your whole premise is that there existed but one non-colouring laryngeal which always surfaces in Hittite. I'm unsure exactly why you reject the notion of three laryngeals, which has immediate ulitilty everywhere.

Edit: I'm now on the section about the sonorants, and I am confused as to why the notion of syllabic sonorants in PIE is rejected.

Edit: A general criticism is the use of German in glossing, in contrast to the English of everything else. It does make it hard to follow some parts.

1. The three-laryngeal notation is nothing but writing the PIE vowels /e/ /a/ /o/ as laryngeals, a Semitic feature brought by Möller. This will be detailed in the dissertation as you read forth.

2. Two reasons for rejecting the syllabic sonorants:
(a) The postulation of the laryngeal PIE *h results in emergence of numerous "syllabic sonorants". If the Neogrammarian rules for sonorants are applied the reconstruction will yield quite different results than those attested in the data.
(b) The "svarabhakti vowels" allegedly reflecting the syllabic sonorants are paralleled in all languages, therefore actually reflecting respective PIE vowels.

3. In glossing I use the language of the dictionary used in order to avoid mistakes often slipping in with translation. You should start learning German little by little if interested in IE linguistics: Many good sources have appeared (and appear) in German. In addition the language is of more ancient IE structure therefore translations in German often reflecting better the target language.

At your service,

Jouna

[KathTheDragon]

1. The three-laryngeal notation is nothing but writing the PIE vowels /e/ /a/ /o/ as laryngeals, a Semitic feature brought by Möller. This will be detailed in the dissertation as you read forth.

I disagree. Every modern source I have read agrees that PIE possessed at the very least *e and *o as distinct orignal vowel qualities, and some suggest that there may have been an original *a quality too.

[KathTheDragon]

Finally finished a first read-through. I'll likely wait a while before going through again to make more detailed observations, due to time constraints, but it would be nice to see a treatment of inflectional data, too.

[Terra]

Some questions for you, Jouna:
(1) Your PIE reconstruction has only 2 series of stops. Why no the usual 3 ? How do you derive the third from just 2 ?
(2) Do you believe in a genetic affiliation of IE and Uralic? If so, how many stops would you reconstruct for it ?

[JounaPyysalo]

1. The three-laryngeal notation is nothing but writing the PIE vowels /e/ /a/ /o/ as laryngeals, a Semitic feature brought by Möller. This will be detailed in the dissertation as you read forth.

I disagree. Every modern source I have read agrees that PIE possessed at the very least *e and *o as distinct orignal vowel qualities, and some suggest that there may have been an original *a quality too.

I mean the manner of postulation: If you think an equation such as Lat. es- = Hitt. es- = RV. as- "to be" there is no such thing as a "laryngeal" in the beginning of the root. The sole reason for its postulation is that the Semitist Möller believed that the Indo-European and the Semitic languages are genetically sharing the same root-structure, viz. C1C2·(C3).

Since the root √s- ‘to be’ (ablaut *s- *es- *os-) contains only a single consonant, an initial *h1 is added trough the comparison with the root axiom es : C1C2 -> *h1s-.

From a historical point of view the Neogrammarian system had a lot of vowels, but no laryngeal(s) while the laryngeal theory traditionally has had a lot of laryngeals, but very little vowels.

Nowadays there is admittedly an unfortunate trend to combine the worst sides of the both theories into a single one with a lot of vowels and a lot of laryngeals.

In System PIE just the opposite course has been opted: very few vowels and laryngeals.

[JounaPyysalo]

Some questions for you, Jouna:
(1) Your PIE reconstruction has only 2 series of stops. Why no the usual 3 ? How do you derive the third from just 2 ?
(2) Do you believe in a genetic affiliation of IE and Uralic? If so, how many stops would you reconstruct for it ?

Hi, Terra, thank you for your questions, here some answers:

0. Before entering to the details in begin with noting that the answers to the questions concerning the reconstruction can be found in my dissertation, which I recommend you to read perhaps even a couple of times when you have extra hours to spend.

1. In System PIE there is only one "laryngeal" PIE *H, actually a glottal fricative with a voiceless (PIE *h) and avoiced variant (PIE *ɦ).
Traditionally there are not three, but four series of stops reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European by the Neogrammarians, viz.
(a) The series T (= *k p t). This is considered the basic set of items in PIE Lexicon.
(b) The series Th (= *kh *ph *th). This series has been considered as secondary since Saussure and Kurulowicz, who analysed the series as T+h2. PIE Lexicon agrees, but instead of "h2" uses the voiceless glottal fricative PIE *h for this purpose, i.e. Th = T+h.
(c) The series D (= *g b d) is also considered secondary in System PIE in the sense that the voiced stops are considered to gave gained their voice from the voiced glottal fricative PIE *ɦ), i.e. whenever *g b d appears the root also contained PIE *ɦ either before or after the voiced stop D. Thus the Neogrammarian roots with a single voiced stop √D are actually of the form *ɦ—D or *D—ɦ.
(d) The series Dh (= gh bh dh) is actually of the form D+ɦ, i.e. a combination of a voiced stop followed by the voiced glottal fricative PIE *ɦ.

Since (as in the previous case) the voice of the stops is caused by the voice of PIE *ɦ, actually PIE Lexicon only reconstructs a single series of stops, PIE *k p t, not two (as you suggest), three (as in mainstream LT) or four (as in the Neogrammarian system).

However, since the conditions of the alternation PIE *h : *ɦ have not been clarified as of yet and as the data is attested with items implying voiced stops these are preferred in reconstruction instead of voiceless stops. Thus, for instance, for Lat. ago : Av. azaiti etc. PIE Lexicon would reconstruct a stem PIE *ɦɑegi̯e/o- instead of a bit older PIE *ɦɑeki̯e/o- before the shift of the voice from the "laryngeal" to the following stop.

2. Regarding the relations between PIE and Uralic I must admit that I do not know. I master the 100+ most ancient IE languages, but only speak Finnish as my mother tongue, therefore knowing little or nothing about the bulk of the vocabulary of the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic. In such circumstances I am unable to compare the groups and therefore stating anything too meaningful about the issue.

Perhaps I could, however, mention that I am not too hopeful with regard to the genetic relation between Finnish and Indo-European: Having compiled an IE etymological dictionary almost 20 years my intuition says that if there were a genetic relation between Finnish and IE I should have noticed that by now.

But as I also said my knowledge of Uralic is very limited, therefore my estimate also potentially fallible.

Hoping this satisfies you,

Jouna

[JounaPyysalo]

Finally finished a first read-through. I'll likely wait a while before going through again to make more detailed observations, due to time constraints, but it would be nice to see a treatment of inflectional data, too.

I've always dreamed of taking some time for the comparative classification of the inflectional data, which would be just great! Besides it wouldn't take that much time since the stocks of inflectional endings are actually quite restricted in each language, so I promise to do this one day, but unfortunately cannot promise you when