Laryngeal theory

The laryngeal theory is a widely accepted hypothesis in the historical linguistics of the Indo-European
languages positing that:

The 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 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 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 Indo-
Aryan languages.

Contents
History
Varieties of laryngeals
Basic laryngeal set
Additional laryngeals
Direct evidence for laryngeals
Pronunciation
*h₁
*h₂
*h₃
Support for theory from daughter languages
Direct reflexes of laryngeals
In Germanic
In Albanian
In Western Iranian
Proposed indirect reflexes
Vowel coloration and lengthening
Greek triple reflex vs schwa
Support from Greek ablaut
Ablaut in the root
Ablaut in the suffix
Intervocalic H loss
Early Indo-Iranian disyllables
Proto-Germanic trimoraic o
Balto-Slavic long vowel accent
H loss adjacent to other sounds
After stop consonants
After resonants
Next to semivowels

Support for theory from external borrowings

Laryngeals reflected in the Kartvelian languages
Laryngeals reflected in the Uralic languages
PIE laryngeals and Proto-Semitic
Explanation of ablaut and other vowel changes
Examples
Root *sed
Roots *dō and *stā
Root *bher-/bhor-/bhṛ- ~ bhr
Root *bhendh
Root *ǵen, *ǵon, *ǵṇn-/*ǵṇ̄
 Discussion
Other roots
Comments
Laryngeals in morphology
Criticism
References
Bibliography
External links

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 Ferdinand de Saussure
*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 Albanian ari 'bear' but Hittite hart(ag)ga- (=/hartka-/) 'cultic official, bear-
person'.[4][6]

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 ḫawi-, indicating instead a reconstruction *h₃ewis.

Pronunciation
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.

*h₁

Jens Elmegård Rasmussen (1983) suggested a consonantal realization for *h₁ as the voiceless glottal
fricative [h] with a syllabic allophone [ə] (mid central unrounded vowel).[7] This is supported by the
closeness of [ə] to [e] (with which it combines in Greek),[8] its failure (unlike *h₂ and *h₃) to create an
auxiliary vowel in Greek and Tocharian when it occurs between a semivowel and a consonant,[9] and the
typological likelihood of an [h] given the presence of aspirated consonants in PIE.[9]

Winfred P. Lehmann (1993) theorized, based on inconsistent reflexes in Hittite, that there were two *h₁
sounds: a glottal stop [ʔ] and an h sound [h] as in English hat. Beekes (1995) suggested that *h₁ is always a
glottal stop [ʔ].

In 2004, Alwin Kloekhorst[10] 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 *h₁; this would
support the hypothesis that *h₁, or at least some cases of it, were [ʔ]. Later, Kloekhorst (2006)[11] claimed
that also Hittite preserves PIE *h₁ as a glottal stop [ʔ], 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 met with serious
criticism; e.g., from Rieken (2010),[12] Melchert (2010),[13] and Weeden (2011).[14]

Simon (2010)[15] has 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.[16]

An occasionally advanced idea that the laryngeals were dorsal fricatives[17] corresponding directly to the
three traditionally reconstructed series of dorsal stops (palatal, velar, and labiovelar) suggests a further
possibility, a palatal fricative [ç(ʁ)].

*h₂
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 [ħ] and [ʕ]. Pharyngeal
consonants (like the Arabic letter ‫( ح‬ħ) as in Muħammad) often cause a-colouring in the Semitic
languages.[18]

Uvular fricatives may also colour vowels, thus [χ] 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 [ħ] may
have been a common innovation of the non-Anatolian languages (before the consonant's eventual loss).[19]
Rasmussen (1983) suggested a consonantal realization for *h₂ as a voiceless velar fricative [x], with a
syllabic allophone [ɐ], i.e. a near-open central vowel.[7]

*h₃

Likewise it is generally assumed that *h₃ was rounded (labialized) 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". Rasmussen has
chosen a consonantal realization for *h₃ as a voiced labialized velar fricative [ɣʷ], with a syllabic allophone
[ɵ], i.e. a close-mid central rounded vowel.[7] Kümmel instead suggests [ʁ].[20]

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 (hh), Luwian h and
Lycian x are explained as reflexes of PIE roots with h₂.[21]
 Reflexes of h₂ in Anatolian[22]
PIE root Meaning Anatolian reflex Cognates
Sanskrit pā́ ti, Latin pascere (pastus),
*peh₂-(s)- 'protect' Hittite paḫḫs-
Greek patéomai
Sanskrit dhūmá-, Latin fūmus, Greek
*dʰewh₂- 'breath/smoke' Hittite tuḫḫāi-
thūmos
*h₂ent- 'front' Hittite ḫant- Sanskrit ánti, Latin ante, Greek antí
Sanskrit árjuna, Latin argentum, Greek
*h₂erǵ- 'white/silver' Hittite ḫarki-
árguron, Tocharian A ārki
Luwian hawi-, Lycian
*h₂owi- 'sheep' Sanskrit ávi-, Latin ovis, Greek ó(w)is
xawa-
Hittite paḫḫur, Luwian
*péh₂wr̥ 'fire' English fire, Tocharian B puwar, Greek pûr
pāḫur
English wind, Tocharian A want, Latin
*h₂wéh₁n̥t- 'wind' Hittite ḫūwant-
ventus, Greek aént-, Sanskrit vāt-
English star, Sanskrit stā́ , Latin stella,
*h₂stér- 'star' Hittite ḫasterz
Greek astḗr
*h₂ŕ̥tḱo- 'bear' Hittite ḫartaggaš Sanskrit ṛ́kṣa, Latin ursus, Greek árktos'
Hittite ḫuḫḫa-, Luwian
*h₂ewh₂os 'grandfather' Gothic awo, Latin avus, Armenian haw
ḫuḫa-, Lycian χuge-
Hittite ēšḫar, Luwian Greek éar, Latin sanguīs, Armenian aryun,
*h₁ésh₂r̥ 'blood'
āšḫar Latvian asinis, Tocharian A ysār

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.

Reflexes of h₃ in Anatolian
PIE root Meaning Anatolian reflex Cognates
*welh₃- 'to hit' Hittite walḫ- Latin vellō, Greek ealōn
*h₃esth₁ 'bone' Hittite ḫaštāi Latin os, Greek ostéon, Sanskrit ásthi
*h₃erbʰ- 'to change status' Hittite ḫarp- Latin orbus, Greek orphanós'
*h₃eron- 'eagle' Hittite ḫara(n)- Gothic ara, Greek ὄρνῑ ς (órnīs)
*h₃pus- 'to have sex' Hittite ḫapuš- Greek opuíō

In Germanic

Reconstructed instances of *kw in Proto-Germanic have been explained as reflexes of PIE *h₃w (and
possibly *h₂w), a process known as Cowgill's law. The proposal has been challenged but is defended by
Don Ringe.[23]
 Examples
PIE Total H-loss * H > *k Reflexes
Sanskrit āvā́ m Gothic ugkis
*n̥h₃we ('us two') P-Gmc *unk(iz) (< *unkw)
Greek *nōwe > νώ (nó̜) Old English unc
Sanskrit jīvás Old Norse kvíkr
*gʷih₃wós ('alive') P-Gmc *kʷikʷaz
Latin vīvus 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

*h₂erǵʰi- testicles herdhe Greek orkhis

In Western Iranian

Martin Kümmel has proposed that some initial [x] and [h] 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.[24]

PIE root Meaning Modern Persian

*h₂ŕ̥tḱo- 'bear' xers
*h₂oHmo- 'raw' xâm
*h₂eh₁s- 'ashes' xâk 'dust, earth'
*h₂eydʰ-smo- 'ignite' hêzom 'firewood'

*h₁eyh₂s-mo-[P 1] 'passion' xešm 'anger'

1. sic, with *h₁ (Kümmel's h, versus χ = *h₂).

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.[25][26] The theory explains
this as the result of H coloration and H loss.

1 H coloration. PIE *e is coloured (i.e. its sound value is changed) before or after h₂ and
h₃, but not when next to h₁.

Laryngeal precedes Laryngeal follows

h₁e > h₁e eh₁ > eh₁
h₂e > h₂a eh₂ > ah₂
h₃e > h₃o eh₃ > oh₃

2 H loss. Any of the three laryngeals (symbolized here as H) is lost before a short vowel.
Laryngeals are also lost before another consonant (symbolized here as C), with
consequent lengthening of the preceding vowel.

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:

After vowels
PIE Latin Sanskrit Greek Hittite
*iH > ī *gʷih₂-wós vīvus jīva bíos
*uH > ū *dʰweh₂- fūmus dhūma thūmós tuwaḫḫaš
*oH > ō *sóh₂wl̥ sōl sū́ rya hḗlios
*eh₁ > ē *séh₁-mn̥ sēmen hêma
*eh₂ > ā *peh₂-(s)- pāscere (pastus) pā́ ti patéomai paḫḫas
*eh₃ > ō *deh₃-r/n dōnum dāna dôron
 Before vowels
PIE Latin Sanskrit Greek Hittite
*Hi > i *h₁íteros iterum ítara
*Hu > u *pélh₁us plūs purú- polús
*Ho > o *h₂owi- ovis ávi ó(w)is Luw. ḫawa
*h₁e > e *h₁ésti est ásti ésti ēšzi
*h₂ent ante ánti antí ḫanti
*h₂e > a
*h₂erǵ- argentum árjuna árguron 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 (then considered
earliest daughter languages) and concluded the existence in these contexts of a schwa (ə) vowel in PIE, the
schwa indogermanicum. The contexts are: 1. between consonants (short vowel); 2. word initial before a
consonant (short vowel); 3. combined with a liquid or nasal consonant [r, l, m, n] (long vowel).

1 Between consonants

Latin displays a and Sanskrit i, whereas Greek displays e, a, or o.

2 Word initial before a consonant

Greek alone displays e, a, or o.

3 Combined with a liquid or nasal

Latin displays a liquid/nasal consonant followed by ā; Sanskrit displays either īr/ūr

or the vowel ā alone; Greek displays a liquid/nasal consonant followed by ē, ā (in
dialects such as Doric), or ō.

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 *m̥ H *n̥H
*h₁ Greek e e rē lē mē nē
Latin a lost rā lā mā nā
Sanskrit i lost īr/ūr īr/ūr ā ā
*h₂ Greek a a rā lā mā nā
Latin a lost rā lā mā nā
Sanskrit i lost īr/ūr īr/ūr ā ā
*h₃ Greek o o rō lō mō nō
Latin a lost rā lā mā nā
Sanskrit i lost īr/ūr īr/ūr ā ā

1 Between consonants

An explanation is provided for the existence of three vowel reflexes in Greek

corresponding to single reflexes in Latin and in Sanskrit.

2 Word initial

The assumption of *HC- in PIE yields an explanation for a dichotomy exhibited

below between cognates in the Anatolian, Greek, and Armenian languages reflexes
with initial a and cognates in the remaining daughters which lack that syllable, The
theory assumes initial *h₂e in the PIE root, which has been lost in most of the
daughter languages.

*h₂ster- 'star': Hittite hasterza, Greek astḗr, Armenian astí, Latin stella, Sanskrit tár-

*h₂wes 'live, spend time': Hittite huis- 'live', Greek á(w)esa 'I spent a night', Sanskrit
vásati 'spend the night', English was

*h₂ner- 'man': Greek anḗr, Armenian ayr (from *anir), Oscan niir, Sanskrit nár[22]

3 Combined with a liquid or nasal

These presumed sonorant reflexes are completely distinct from those deemed to
have developed from single phonemes.

*r̥ *l̥ *m̥ *n̥

Greek ra, ar la, al a a
Latin or ul em en
Sanskrit r̥ r̥ a a

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 (such as seen above in the
triple reflex) 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 (V).[27]

e grade o grade zero grade root meaning

πέτεσθαι ποτή πτέσθαι
C(V)C 'fly'
pétesthai potḗ ptésthai
λείπειν λέλοιπα λιπεῖν
C(V)iC 'leave'
leípein léloipa lipeîn
φεύγειν φυγεῖν
C(V)uC 'flee'
pheúgein phugeîn
δέρκομαι δέδορκα δρακεῖν
C(V)r 'see clearly'
dérkomai dédorka drakeîn
πέλομαι πόλος πλέσθαι
C(V)l 'become'
pélomai pólos plésthai
τέμω τόμος ταμεῖν
C(V)m 'cut'
témō tómos tameîn
γένος γόνος γίγνομαι
C(V)n 'birth'
génos gónos gígnomai

The reconstructed PIE e grade and zero grade of the above roots may be arranged as follows:

e grade zero grade

C(V)C *pet *pt
C(V)iC *leikʷ *likʷ
C(V)uC *bʰeug *bʰug
C(V)r *derk *drk
C(V)l *kʷel *kʷl
C(V)m *tem *tm
C(V)n *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
(I) (II)

I : ē : τίθημι (títhēmi)

C(V)h₁ *dʰeh₁ *dʰh₁ 'put'
II : e : θετός (thetós)
I : ā : Doric ἳστᾱμι (hístāmi)
C(V)h₂ *steh₂ *sth₂ 'stand'
II : a : στατός (statós)
I : ō : δίδωμι (dídōmi)
C(V)h₃ *deh₃ *dh₃ 'give'
II : o : δοτός (dotós)

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.[28]

e-grade root
zero-grade root

zero-grade root
zero-grade zero-grade root
e-grade suffix
cognates
suffix suffix meaning
II
I III
I Hittite genu
*gen+w- *gn+ew- *gn+w- 'knee' II Gothic kniu
III γνύξ (gnuks)
I γενετήρ (genetḗr)
II γνήσιος (gnḗsios)
*gen+h₁- *gn+eh₁ *gn+h₁- 'become'
III γίγνομαι
(gígnomai)
I τελαμών (telamṓn)
*tel+h₂- *tl+eh₂- *tl+h₂- 'lift, bear' II ἔτλᾱν (étlān)
III τάλας (tálas)
II τιτρώσκω (titrṓskō)
*ter+h₃- *tr+eh₃- *tr+h₃- 'bore, wound'
III ἔτορον (étoron)

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 (P-Gmc), the presumed 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 Proto-Germanic *ō phoneme has been recognized with a different set of reflexes
in daughter Germanic languages. The vowel length has been calculated by observing the effect of the
shortening of final vowels in Gothic.[29]

length Proto-Germanic 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 Proto-Germanic sounds are proposed, shown here with
Gothic and Old English reflexes:

Proto-Germanic Reflexes Proto-Germanic Reflexes

Gothic -a Gothic -ō
bimoraic oral *ō trimoraic oral *ô
OE -u/-∅ Old English -a
Gothic -a Gothic -ō
nasal *ō̜ nasal *ǫ̂
OE -æ/-e Old English -a

A different contrast is observed in endings with final *z:

Proto-Germanic Reflexes Proto-Germanic Reflexes

Gothic -ōs Gothic -ōs
bimoraic *ōz trimoraic *ôz
Old English -æ/-e 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.

Trimoraic
ending PIE Reflex Proto-Germanic Reflexes
Sanskrit -ām
all stems Gothic -ō
*-oHom [often disyllabic in Rig Veda] *-ǫ̂
genitive plural Old English -a
Greek -ῶν (ô̜:n)
eh₂-stems Sanskrit –ās Gothic -ōs
*-eh₂es *-ôz
nominative plural Lithuanian –ōs Old English -a
 Bimoraic
ending PIE Reflex Proto-Germanic Reflexes
thematic verbs Gothic -a
Latin -ō
present indicative *-oh₂ *-ō Old English -u
Lithuanian -u
1st person singular (Anglian)
eh₂-stems Sanskrit -ā Gothic -a
*-eh₂ *-ō
nominative singular Lithuanian -à Old English -u
eh₂-stems Sanskrit -ām Gothic -a
*-eh₂m *-ō̜
accusative singular Latin -am Old English -e
eh₂-stems Sanskrit -ās Gothic -ōs
*-eh₂ns *-ōz
accusative plural Latin *-ans > -ās Old English -e

(Trimoraic *ô is also reconstructed as word final in contexts that are not explained by laryngeal theory.)

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 (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.[30]

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 (*CH > *Cʰ).

After resonants

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, *R̥ V>*RV. Instances in the daughter languages of a vocalic resonant immediately followed by a
vowel (RV) can sometimes be explained as reflexes of PIE *R̥ HV 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

(see Holtzmann's law)

Laryngeal theory has been used to explain the occurrence of a reconstructed sound change known as
Holtzmann's law or sharpening (German Verschärfung ) 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.

Example
early Proto- later Proto-
PIE Reflexes
Germanic Germanic
Gothic triggws
with
*triwwjaz
*drewh₂yo sharpening Old Norse tryggr
*trewwjaz
'trustworthy'
without Old English trēowe
*triuwjaz
sharpening 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 *hx w- 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 *hx w-
sequences in most of the proposed PIE source terms is controversial and other possible explanations for
Proto-Kartvelian *γw- sequences exist.[31]

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'.[32]
Laryngeals reflected in the Uralic languages

On the other hand, more widespread 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 (or their later
reflexes) in the Finnic forms. If so, this would point to great antiquity for the borrowings, since no attested
Indo-European language neighbouring Uralic has consonants as reflexes of laryngeals. And it would
bolster the idea that laryngeals were phonetically distinctly consonantal.

However, Koivulehto's theories are not universally accepted and have been sharply criticized (e.g. by
Finno-Ugricist Eugene Helimski[33]) 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 (conventionally marked *x), in the very oldest borrowings and
secondly a grooved one (*š as in shoe becoming modern Finnic h) 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 (cf. Finnish kansa 'people' < PGmc *xansā
'company, troupe, party, crowd' (cf. German Hanse), Finnish kärsiä 'suffer, endure' < PGmc *xarđia-
'endure' (cf. E. hard), Finnish pyrkiä < PGmc. *wurk(i)ja- 'work, work for' etc.).

The correspondences do not differentiate between h₁, h₂ and h₃. Thus

1. PIE laryngeals correspond to the PU laryngeal *x in wordstems like:

Finnish na-inen 'woman' / naa-ras 'female' < PU *näxi-/*naxi- < PIE *[gʷnah₂-] =
*/gʷneh₂-/ > Sanskrit gnā́ 'goddess', OIr. mná (gen. of ben), ~ Greek gunē 'woman'
(cognate to Engl. queen)
Finnish sou-ta- ~ Samic *sukë- 'to row' < PU *suxi- < PIE *sewh-
Finnish tuo- 'bring' ~ Samic *tuokë- ~ Tundra Nenets tāś 'give' < PU *toxi- < PIE *[doh₃-] =
*/deh₃-/ > Greek didōmi, Lat. dō-, Old Lith. dúomi 'give', Hittite dā 'take'

Note the consonantal reflex /k/ in Samic.

2. 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 (shoot)'
Old Finnish inhi-(m-inen) 'human being' < PreFi *inši- 'descendant' < PIE *ǵnh₁-(i)e/o- >
Sanskrit jā́ - 'born, offspring, descendant', Gmc. *kunja- 'generation, lineage, kin'
3. PIE laryngeals correspond to Pre-Finnic *k in wordstems like:
Finnish kesä 'summer' < PFS *kesä < PIE *h₁es-en- (*h₁os-en-/-er-) > Balto-Slavic
*eseni- 'autumn', Gothic asans 'summer'
Finnish kaski 'burnt-over clearing' < Proto-Finnic *kaski < PIE/PreG *[h₂a(h₁)zg-] =
*/h₂e(h₁)sg-/ > Gmc. *askōn 'ashes'
 Finnish koke- 'to perceive, sense' < PreFi *koki- < PIE *[h₃okw-ie/o] = */h₃ekw-ie/o/ >
Greek opsomai 'look, observe' (cognate to Lat. oculus 'eye')
Finnish kulke- 'to go, walk, wander' ~ Hungarian halad- 'to go, walk, proceed' < PFU
*kulki- < PIE *kʷelH-e/o- > Greek pelomai '(originally) to be moving', Sanskrit cárati
'goes, walks, wanders (about)', cognate Lat. colere 'to till, cultivate, inhabit'
Finnish teke- 'do, make' ~ Hungarian tëv-, të-, 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 (though OE
dón and into Early Modern English do still sometimes means "put", and doen or tun still
does in Dutch and colloquial German).

This list is not exhaustive, especially when one also considers several etymologies with laryngeal reflexes
in Finno-Ugric languages other than Finnish. For most cases no other plausible etymology exists. While
some single etymologies may be challenged, the case for this oldest stratum itself seems conclusive from the
Uralic point of view, and corresponds well with all that is known about the dating of the other most ancient
borrowings and contacts with Indo-European populations. Yet acceptance for this evidence is far from
unanimous among Indo-European linguists, some even regard the hypothesis as controversial (see above).
If, on the other hand, the Indo-Uralic hypothesis is supported, the explanation of why the correspondences
do not differentiate between h₁, h₂ and h₃ is that Pre-PIE or Indo-Hittite innovated this difference as a part
of developing ablaut, where the zero grade matched h₁ ([ʔ] and [h]), the unrounded full (“e”) grade
matched h₂ ([χ] > [ħ] and [x] < [çʁ]) and the rounded full (“o”) grade matched h₃ ([ɣʷ]).

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 Blažek (2012), who discusses these
correspondences in the context of a proposed relation between IE and Afroasiatic, the language family to
which the Semitic languages belong:[34]

1. Semitic ʼ-b-y 'to want, desire' ~ PIE *[hyebʰ-] 'to fuck'

2. Semitic ʼ-m-m/y ~ PIE *[h₁em-] 'to take'
3. Semitic ʼin-a 'in', 'on', 'by' ~ PIE *[h₁en-] > Sanskrit ni, ~ Greek enōpḗ
4. Semitic ʼanāku ~ PIE *h₁eǵ(hom)- 'I'
5. Semitic ʻ-d-w 'to pass (over), move, run' ~ PIE *[weh₂dʰ-] 'to pass through'
6. Semitic ʻ-l-y 'to rise, grow, go up, be high' ~ PIE *[h₂el-] 'to grow, nourish'
7. Semitic ʻ-k-w: Arabic ʻakā 'to rise, be big' ~ PIE *[h₂ewg-] 'to grow, nourish'
8. Semitic ʻl 'next, in addition' ~ PIE *[h₂el-] 'in'
9. Semitic: Arabic ʻanan 'side', ʻan 'from, for; upon; in' ~ PIE *[h₂en h₂e/u-] 'on'

Explanation of ablaut and other vowel changes

A feature of Proto-Indo-European morpheme structure was a system of vowel alternations termed ablaut
("alternate sound") by early German scholars and still generally known by that term (except in French,
where the term apophonie is preferred). Several different such patterns have been discerned, but the
commonest one, by a wide margin, is e/o/∅ alternation found in a majority of roots, in many verb and noun
stems, and even in some affixes (the genitive singular ending, for example, is attested as *-es, *-os, and *-
s). The different states are called ablaut grades; e grade and o grade are together "full grades", and the total
absence of any vowel is "zero grade".

Examples

Root *sed

Thus the root *sed- "to sit (down)" (roots are traditionally cited in the e grade, if they have one) has three
different shapes: *sed-, *sod-, and *sd-. This patterning is found throughout the PIE root inventory and is
transparent:

*sed-: (Vedic), **sed-: in Latin sedeō "am sitting," Old English sittan "to sit" < *set-ja- (with
umlaut) < *sed-; Greek hédrā "seat, chair" < *sed- (Greek systemically turns word-initial
prevocalic s to h, i.e. rough breathing).
*sod-: in Latin solium "throne" (in Latin l sporadically replaces d between vowels, said by
Roman grammarians to be a Sabine trait) = Old Irish suideⁿ /suðʲe/ "a sitting" (all details
regular from PIE *sod-yo-m); Gothic satjan = Old English settan "to set" (causative) < *sat-ja-
(umlaut again) < PIE *sod-eye-. PIE *se-sod-e "sat" (perfect) > Sanskrit sa-sād-a per
Brugmann's law.
*sd-: in compounds, as *ni- "down" + *sd- = *nisdos "nest": English nest < Proto-Germanic
*nistaz, Latin nīdus < *nizdos (all regular developments); Slavic gnězdo < *g-ně-sd-os. The
3pl (third person plural) of the perfect would have been *se-sd-ṛ whence Indo-Iranian *sazdṛ,
which gives (by regular developments) Sanskrit sedur /seːdur/.

Roots *dō and *stā

In addition to the commonplace roots of consonant + vowel + consonant structure, there are also well-
attested roots like *dhē- "put, place" and *dō- "give" (mentioned above): these end in a vowel, which is
always long in the categories where roots like *sed- have full grades; and in those forms where zero grade
would be expected, if before an affix beginning with a consonant, we find a short vowel, reconstructed as
*ə, or schwa (more formally, schwa primum indogermanicum). An independent schwa, like the one in PIE
*pǝter- "father," can be identified by the distinctive cross-language correspondences of this vowel that are
different from the other five short vowels. (Before an affix beginning with a vowel, there is no trace of a
vowel in the root, as shown below.)

Since short vowels disappear entirely in roots like *sed-/*sod-/*sd-, it was a reasonable inference that a
long vowel under the same conditions would not quite disappear, but would leave a sort of residue. This
residue is reflected as i in Indic while dropping in Iranian; it gives variously e, a, o in Greek; it mostly falls
together with the reflexes of PIE *a in the other languages (always bearing in mind that short vowels in
non-initial syllables undergo various developments in Italic, Celtic, and Germanic):

*dō- "give": in Latin dōnum "gift" = Old Irish dán /daːn/ and Sanskrit dâna- (â = ā with tonic
accent); Greek dí-dō-mi (reduplicated present) "I give" = Sanskrit dádāmi; Slavic damъ 'I
give'. But in the participles, Greek dotós "given" = Sanskrit ditá-, Latin datus all < *də-tó-.
*stā- "stand": in Greek hístēmi (reduplicated present, regular from *si-stā-), Sanskrit a-sthā-t
aorist "stood", Latin testāmentum "testimony" < *ter-stā- < *tri-stā- "third party", Slavic sta-ti 'to
stand'. But Sanskrit sthitá-"stood", Greek stásis "a standing", Latin supine infinitive statum
"to stand".
Conventional wisdom lined up roots of the *sed- and *dō- types as follows:

Full Grades Weak Grades Meaning

sed-, sod- sd- "sit"
dō- də- "give"
stā- stə- "stand"

But there are other patterns of normal roots, such as those ending with one of the six resonants (*y w r l m
n), a class of sounds whose peculiarity in Proto-Indo-European is that they are both syllabic (vowels, in
effect) and consonants, depending on what sounds are adjacent:

Root *bher-/bhor-/bhṛ- ~ bhr

*bher-: in Latin ferō = Greek phérō, Avestan barā, Sanskrit bharāmi, Old Irish biur, Old Norse
ber, Old English bere all "I carry"; Slavic berǫ 'I take'; Latin ferculum "bier, litter" < *bher-tlo-
"implement for carrying".
*bhor-: in Gothic and Scandinavian barn "child" (= English dial. bairn), Greek phoréō "I wear
[clothes]" (frequentative formation, *"carry around"); Sanskrit bhâra- "burden" (*bhor-o- via
Brugmann's law); Slavic vyborъ 'choice'.
*bhṛ- before consonants: Sanskrit bhṛ-tí- "a carrying"; Gothic gabaurþs /gaˈbɔrθs/, Old
English ġebyrd /jəˈbyɹd/, Old High German geburt all "birth" < *gaburdi- < *bhṛ-tí; Slavic
bьrati 'to take'.
*bhr- before vowels: Ved bibhrati 3pl. "they carry" < *bhi-bhr-ṇti; Greek di-phrós "chariot
footboard big enough for two men" < *dwi-bhr-o-.

Saussure's insight was to align the long-vowel roots like *dō-, *stā- with roots like *bher-, rather than with
roots of the *sed- sort. That is, treating schwa not as a residue of a long vowel, but like the *r of
*bher-/*bhor-/*bhṛ-, an element that was present in the root in all grades, but which in full grade forms
coalesced with an ordinary e/o root vowel to make a long vowel, with colouring of the e grade into the
bargain; the mystery element was seen by itself only in zero grade forms:

Full Grades Zero Grade Meaning

bher-, bhor- bhṛ- / bhr- "carry"
deX, doX- dẊ- / dX- "give"

(Ẋ = syllabic form of the mystery element)

Saussure treated only two of these elements, corresponding to our *h₂ and *h₃. Later it was noticed that the
explanatory power of the theory, as well as its elegance, were enhanced if a third element were added, our
*h₁, which has the same lengthening and syllabifying properties as the other two but has no effect on the
colour of adjacent vowels. Saussure did not suggest as to the phonetics of these elements; his term for them,
coefficients sonantiques, did not fail, but merely the term in general use for glides, nasals, and liquids (i.e.,
the PIE resonants) as in roots like *bher-.

As mentioned above, in forms like *dwi-bhr-o- (etymon of Greek diphrós, above), the new coefficients
sonantiques (unlike the six resonants) have no reflexes at all in any daughter language. Thus the compound
*mṇs-dheH- "to 'fix thought', be devout, become rapt" forms a noun *mṇs-dhH-o- seen in Proto-Indo-
Iranian *mazdha- whence Sanskrit medhá- /mēdha/ "sacrificial rite, holiness" (regular development as in
sedur < *sazdur, above), Avestan mazda- "name (originally an epithet) of the greatest deity".
Root *bhendh

There is another kind of unproblematic root, in which obstruents flank a resonant. In the zero grade, unlike
the case with roots of the *bher- type, the resonant is therefore always syllabic (being always between two
consonants). An example would be *bhendh- "tie, bind":

*bhendh-: in Germanic forms like Old English bindan "to tie, bind", Gothic bindan; Lithuanian
beñdras "chum", Greek peĩsma "rope, cable" /pêːsma/ < *phenth-sma < *bhendh-smṇ.
*bhondh-: in Sanskrit bandhá- "bond, fastening" (*bhondh-o-; Grassmann's law) = Old
Icelandic bant, OE bænd; Old English bænd, Gothic band "he tied" < *(bhe)bhondh-e.
*bhṇdh-: in Sanskrit baddhá- < *bhṇdh-tó- (Bartholomae's law), Old English gebunden,
Gothic bundan; German Bund "league." (English bind and bound show the effects of
secondary (Middle English) vowel lengthening; the original length is preserved in bundle.)

This is all straightforward and such roots fit directly into the overall patterns. Less so are certain roots that
seem sometimes to go like the *bher- type, and sometimes to be unlike any other, with (for example) long
syllabics in the zero grades while at times pointing to a two-vowel root structure. These roots are variously
called heavy bases, disyllabic roots, and seṭ roots (the last being a term from Pāṇini's grammar. It will be
explained below).

Root *ǵen, *ǵon, *ǵṇn-/*ǵṇ̄

For example, the root "be born, arise" is given in the usual etymological dictionaries as follows:

(A) *ǵen-, *ǵon-, *ǵṇn-

(B) *ǵenə-, *ǵonə-, *ǵṇ̄-

The (A) forms occur when the root is followed by an affix beginning with a vowel; the (B) forms when the
affix begins with a consonant. As mentioned, the full-grade (A) forms look just like the *bher- type, but the
zero grades always and only have reflexes of syllabic resonants, just like the *bhendh- type; and unlike any
other type, there is a second root vowel (always and only *ə) following the second consonant:

*ǵen(ə)-

(A) PIE *ǵenos- neut s-stem "race, clan" > Greek (Homeric) génos, -eos, Sanskrit jánas-,
Avestan zanō, Latin genus, -eris.
(B) Greek gené-tēs "begetter, father"; géne-sis < *ǵenə-ti- "origin"; Sanskrit jáni-man- "birth,
lineage", jáni-tar- "progenitor, father", Latin genitus "begotten" < genatos.

*ǵon(e)-

(A) Sanskrit janayati "beget" = Old English cennan /kennan/ < *ǵon-eye- (causative);
Sanskrit jána- "race" (o-grade o-stem) = Greek gónos, -ou "offspring".
(B) Sanskrit jajāna 3sg. "was born" < *ǵe-ǵon-e.

*ǵṇn-/*ǵṇ̄-

(A) Gothic kuni "clan, family" = OE cynn /künn/, English kin; Rigvedic jajanúr 3pl.perfect <
*ǵe-ǵṇn- (a relic; the regular Sanskrit form in paradigms like this is jajñur, a remodelling).
(B) Sanskrit jātá- "born" = Latin nātus (Old Latin gnātus, and cf. forms like cognātus "related
by birth", Greek kasí-gnētos "brother"); Greek gnḗsios "belonging to the race". (The ē in
 these Greek forms can be shown to be original, not Attic-Ionic developments from Proto-
Greek *ā.)

On the term seṭ. The Pāṇinian term seṭ (that is, sa-i-ṭ) is literally with an /i/. This refers to the fact that roots
so designated, like jan- "be born", have an /i/ between the root and the suffix, as we have seen in Sanskrit
jánitar-, jániman-, janitva (a gerund). Cf. such formations built to aniṭ (without an /i/) roots, such as han-
"slay": hántar- "slayer", hanman- "a slaying", hantva (gerund). In Pāṇini's analysis, this /i/ is a linking
vowel, not properly a part of either the root or the suffix. It is simply that some roots are in effect in the list
consisting of the roots that take an -i-.

But historians have the advantage here: the peculiarities of alternation, the presence of /i/, and the fact that
the only vowel allowed in second place in a root happens to be *ə, are all neatly explained once *ǵenə-
and the like were understood to be properly *ǵenH-. That is, the patterns of alternation, from of Indo-
European, were simply those of *bhendh-, with the additional detail that *H, unlike obstruents (stops and
*s) would become a syllable between two consonants, hence the *ǵenə- shape in the Type (B) formations,
above.

Discussion

The startling reflexes of these roots in zero-grade before a consonant (in this case, Sanskrit ā, Greek nē,
Latin nā, Lithuanian ìn) is explained by the lengthening of the (originally perfectly ordinary) syllabic
resonant before the lost laryngeal, while the same laryngeal protects the syllabic status of the preceding
resonant even before an affix beginning with a vowel: the archaic Vedic form jajanur cited above is
structurally quite the same (*ǵe-ǵṇh₁-ṛ) as a form like *da-dṛś-ur "they saw" < *de-dṛḱ-ṛ.

Incidentally, redesigning the root as *ǵenH- has another consequence. Several of the Sanskrit forms cited
above come from what look like o-grade root vowels in open syllables, but fail to lengthen to -ā- per
Brugmann's law. All becomes clear when it is understood that in such forms as *ǵonH- before a vowel, the
*o is not in fact in an open syllable. And in turn, that means that a form like jajāna "was born," which
apparently does show the action of Brugmann's law, is a false witness: in the Sanskrit perfect tense, the
whole class of seṭ roots, en masse, acquired the shape of the aniṭ 3sing. forms. (See Brugmann's law for
further discussion.)

Other roots

There are also roots ending in a stop followed by a laryngeal, as *pleth₂-/*pḷth₂- "spread, flatten," from
which Sanskrit pṛthú- "broad" masc. (= Avestan pərəθu-), pṛthivī- fem., Greek platús (zero grade); Skt.
prathimán- "wideness" (full grade), Greek platamṓn "flat stone." The laryngeal explains (a) the change of
*t to *th in Proto-Indo-Iranian, (b) the correspondence between Greek -a-, Sanskrit -i- and no vowel in
Avestan (Avestan pərəθwī "broad" fem. in two syllables vs Sanskrit pṛthivī- in three).

Caution has to be used in interpreting data from Indic in particular. Sanskrit remained
in use as a poetic, scientific, and classical language for many centuries, and the
multitude of inherited patterns of alternation of obscure motivation (such as the
division into seṭ and aniṭ roots) provided models for coining new forms on the wrong
patterns. There are many forms like tṛṣita- "thirsty" and tániman- "slenderness", that
is, seṭ formations to unequivocally aniṭ roots; and conversely aniṭ forms like píparti
"fills", pṛta- "filled", to securely seṭ roots (cf. the "real" past participle, pūrṇá-).
Sanskrit preserves the effects of laryngeal phonology with wonderful clarity but looks
upon the historical linguist with a threatening eye: for even in Vedic Sanskrit, the
evidence has to be weighed carefully with due concern for the antiquity of the forms
and the overall texture of the data. (It is no help that Proto-Indo-European itself had
 roots which varied in their makeup, as *ǵhew- and *ǵhewd-, both "pour"; and some
of these root extensions are, unluckily, laryngeals.)

Stray laryngeals can be found in isolated or seemingly isolated forms; here the three-way Greek reflexes of
syllabic *h₁, *h₂, *h₃ are particularly helpful, as seen below. (Comments on the forms follow.)

*h₁ in Greek ánemos "wind" (cf. Latin animus "breath, spirit; mind," Vedic aniti "breathes") <
*anə- "breathe; blow" (now *h₂enh₁-). Perhaps also Greek híeros "mighty, super-human;
divine; holy," cf. Sanskrit iṣirá- "vigorous, energetic."
*h₂ in Greek patḗr "father" = Sanskrit pitár-, Old English fæder, Gothic fadar, Latin pater. Also
*meǵh₂ "big" neut. > Greek méga, Sanskrit máha.
*h₃ in Greek árotron "plow" = Welsh aradr, Old Norse arðr, Lithuanian árklas.

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, 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 *ish₁-ro- >
*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 *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 (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" < *yṆt- <
*yṇ-h₂ter-).

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 (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" < *woyd-
h₂e. 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".)

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. Osthoff's criticism was particularly virulent, often descending into
personal invective.[35]

For the first half-century of its existence, the laryngeal theory was widely seen as ‘an eccentric fancy of
outsiders’.[36] In Germany it was roundly rejected.[37] Among its early proponents were Hermann Möller,
who extended Saussure's system with a third, non-colouring laryngeal, Albert Cuny, Holger Pedersen, and
Karl 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[38]), the direct evidence so crucial for the
Neogrammarian thinking was lacking. Saussure's structural considerations were foreign to the leading
contemporary linguists.[35]

After Kuryłowicz's convincing demonstration[39] 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,[40] an approach further accepted by Sapir, Sturtevant, and through them
much of American linguistics. The three-laryngeal system was defended, among others, by Walter
Couvreur and Émile Benveniste. Many individual proposals were made, which assumed up to ten
laryngeals (André Martinet). While some scholars, like Heinz Kronasser and Giuliano Bonfante, attempted
to disregard Anatolian evidence altogether, the ‘minimal’ serious proposal (with roots in Pedersen's early
ideas) was put forward by Hans Hendriksen, Louis Hammerich and later Ladislav Zgusta, who assumed a
single /H/ phoneme without vowel-colouring effects.

By the 2000s, however, a widespread, though not unanimous, agreement was reached in the field on
reconstructing Möller's three laryngeals.[41] One of the last major critics of this approach was Oswald
Szemerényi, who subscribed to a theory similar to Zgusta's (Szemerényi 1996).

Today the laryngeal theory is almost universally accepted in this new standard form. Nevertheless, marginal
attempts to undermine its bases are occasionally undertaken.[42][43]

References
1. Kuryłowicz, Jerzy (1927). "ə indoeuropéen et ḫ hittite". Études indoeuropéennes. I: 1935.
2. Puhvel, Jaan (2018) [1965]. "Evidence in Anatolian". In Winter, Werner (ed.). Evidence for
Laryngeals. Janua Linguarum. Vol. 11 (reprint ed.). Berlin; Boston: de Gruyter-Mouton.
pp. 79–92. ISBN 9783111657080. OCLC 1029811535 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/10298
11535).

Puhvel, Jaan (1965). "Evidence in Anatolian". In Winter, Werner (ed.). Evidence for
Laryngeals (https://archive.org/details/Wintered.EvidenceForLaryngeals1965) (1st ed.). The
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c/177878).
3. Zair, N. (2012). The Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Celtic (https://brill.co
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4. Mallory, J. P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (2006). The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European
and the Proto-Indo-European World. Oxford University Press. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-19-929668-
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7. Rasmussen (1999), p. 77
8. Rasmussen (1999), p. 71.
9. Rasmussen (1999), p. 76.
10. Kloekhorst, Alwin (2004). "The preservation of *h₁ in hieroglyphic Luwian. Two separate a-
signs". Historische Sprachforschung. 117: 26–49.
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〈〉
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17. Compare Lindeman (1997), p. 24.
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21. Clackson p. 56.
22. Clackson p. 58.
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26. Clackson p. 57.
27. Palmer pp. 216–218
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30. Ringe pp. 74–75
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Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht.
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English Volume 1). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-955229-0.
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External links
"Proto-Indo-European phonology (Nonstandard and Theoretical)" (http://www.tundria.com/Li
nguistics/pie-phonology.shtml). Retrieved 11 November 2005.
Kortlandt, Frederik (2001): Initial laryngeals in Anatolian (http://www.kortlandt.nl/publication
s/art202e.pdf) (pdf)
Lexicon of Early Indo-European Loanwords Preserved in Finnish (http://www.iki.fi/jschalin/?
cat=10)

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