Laryngeal theory

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The laryngeal theory of Indo-European studies explains certain irregularities in sound shifts and ablaut series of the individual languages ​​through the effect of so-called laryngals . The term laryngeal (or laryngeal sound ) is taken from Semitic studies . There it traditionally designates pharyngeal or larynx sounds , which in modern phonetics are classified as pharyngeal or glottal , and which have coarticulative coloring effects on neighboring vowels, while they themselves tend to weakened pronunciation or diachronic to completely disappear.

It was established in abstract form by Ferdinand de Saussure in 1879. De Saussure assumed that the long vowel -ā- of the ancient Indian - which is very common in important archaic athematic verb formations - of the ancient Indian , which in its zero stage as -i- ( dhā , 'place', but hitá- 'put', sthā 'stand', but sthitá- 'stood' or dā 'give', but * ditá- 'given') appears, usually from the connection of / -é- / with a sound that Although it had left no traces in the traditional languages ​​(up to then), it was sonantized in zero-level word forms between plosives and continued to exist in this vowel form like every other vowel within the framework of the relevant sound laws.

In Greek, which is very close to ancient Indian isoglottic, de Saussure found more than one exact confirmation, namely a precise division into -ē - / - e-, -ā - / - a- and -ō - / - o-vowelism (divided into three different Sounds) with the same roots and with the same meanings, so that altind. dhā precisely Greek θη , altind. hitá- exactly Greek θετός , ancient Indian . sthā exactly Greek. στη / στᾱ , altind. sthitá- exactly Greek. στατός , ancient ind . dā exactly Greek δω and altind. * ditá- exactly Greek. δοτός corresponded. In Latin. correspond to altind. sthā Latin. stā , altind. sthitá- Latin. status , altind. dā Latin. dō ( e.g. in dōnum 'gift') and altind. * ditá- Latin. date .

When it was noticed later that the so-called laryngeal sounds of the Semitic languages (phonetically speaking, the pharyngeal and glottal sounds) behave very similarly to the sounds postulated by Saussure, they began to be called laryngals as well. Even today, assumptions about the phonetic realization of the indo-European laryngals are based essentially on the model of the corresponding Semitic sounds.

The laryngeal theory is now consistently recognized after a previous dispute.

In detail, three laryngals are postulated phonologically - in accordance with the Greek finding, which manifests the above-mentioned three-way division into -ē - / - e-, -ā - / - a- and -ō - / - o-vowelism - the (consonantic ) can be noted as h₁, h₂, h₃ or (sonantic) as ə₁, ə₂, ə₃. Structurally, this results in dhā and θη a form * dʰeh₁ for (see above; sequence ancient Indian - Greek - Latin .; in the case of the root * dʰeh₁, the subsequent Latin forms are slightly darkened) , for hitá- and θετός a reconstruction * dʰə₁-tó-, for sthā , στη / στᾱ and stā a form * sta₂, for sthitá- , στατός and status a reconstruction * stə₂-tó-, for dā , δω and dō a form * deh₃ and for * ditá- , δοτός and datus a reconstruction * də₃-tó-. If it is not known which of the three laryngals must be placed in the reconstruction, such a laryngeal is nowadays symbolized by the cover symbol H (or simply h without an index number).

Phonologists do not agree on the exact pronunciation of these laryngals .

Exemplary developments in the usual individual languages

  • In ancient Greek , the Indo-European laryngals had such an effect that (in their sonantic variants, which, however, were always implemented when it was only possible) * h₁ through / e /, * h₂ through / a / and * h₃ through / ο / have been continued or have disappeared under equivalent stretching (post-vowel): * h₁ ln̥gʷʰ-ú-s> e lakʰýs (ἐλαχύς) 'low'; * p h₂ tḗr> p a tḗr (πατήρ) 'father'; * h₃ d-jó-> ó zdō (ὄζω) 'I smell'; on the resulting long vowels cf. above θη , στη / στᾱ and δω .
  • In Hittite , h₂ was continued in all positions as well as h₃ in the initial as Laryngal, transliterated ḫ : idg. * Pé h₂ ṷr̥ > heth. pa ḫḫ ur 'fire'.

This observation was made after the deciphering of Hittite, the oldest Indo-European language known to us in writing, in 1929, and it is often cited as a practical confirmation of Saussure's theory. In fact, it was more of an obstacle to the implementation of the laryngeal theory. In today's representations, the laryngeal theory is mostly justified with evidence from ancient Greek.

In addition, some Indo-Europeanists assume that the complicated ablaut systems (e.g. e - i - a: go, went, gone) of the daughter languages ​​can be derived from a few vowels, perhaps even from a single vowel. However, such attempts are rejected by other researchers as arbitrary, wand-laryngeal explanations.

Schwa indogermanicum

Before and in the first time after the discovery , the Schwa indogermanicum was noted consonantic ə̯ , sonantic ə in many cases (this mainly in dictionaries before the appearance of the laryngeal hypothesis). For this ə there is also the notation h̥ in certain contexts . In almost all individual languages ​​it is continued as / a /, in Indo-Iranian as / i / and in Greek in this precise triple division / e /, / a / and / o /, which in many cases definitely determines the quality of the laryngeal.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ferdinand de Saussure: Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes . BG Treubner, Leipzig 1879.
  2. ↑ For some approaches for the (phonetic) sound values ​​of the laryngals, see the articles on On the phonetics of the Indo-European Laryngeals . In: Jens Elmegård Rasmussen and Benedicte Nielsen (eds.): In Honorem Holger Pedersen. Colloquium of the Indo-European Society from 26.-28. March 1993 in Copenhagen . Ed. By. Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden 1994, pp. 433-466.
  3. ↑ Manfred Mayrhofer: The main problems of the Indo-European phonetics since Bechtel . Verl. Of the Österr. Akad. Der Wiss., Vienna, 2004 (session reports of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class; 709), p. 20f.
  4. ↑ Stefan Schaffner: The Verner Law and the inner-paradigmatic grammatical change of the Ur-Germanic in the nominal area  (= Innsbrucker Contributions to Linguistics 103). Institute for Languages ​​and Literatures of the University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck 2001, p. 57.

literature

  • Alfred Bammesberger (ed.): Studies on the laryngeal theory. Festschrift for Rudolf Mosis on October 10, 1983 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1984.
  • Alfred Bammesberger (ed.): The laryngeal theory and the reconstruction of the Indo-European sound and form system. Winter, Heidelberg 1988.
    • John HW Penney: "Laryngeals and the Indo-European root". Pp. 361-372.
  • RSP Beekes: The Development of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Greek . Mouton, The Hague / Paris 1969.
  • RSP Beekes: "The nature of the Proto-Indo-European laryngeals". In: Theo Vennemann (Ed.), The New Sound of Indo-European. Essays in Phonological Reconstruction . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1989. pp. 23-33.
  • Martin Kümmel : Consonant change. Building blocks for a typology of sound change and its consequences for the comparative reconstruction . Reichert, Wiesbaden 2007. pp. 327-336.
  • Fredrik Otto Lindeman: Introduction to the Laryngeal Theory. Walter de Gruyter Verlag, Berlin 1968; new, in English transl. Edition: Introduction to the laryngeal theory. Norwegian University Press / Oxford University Press, Oslo / Oxford 1987 (reprinted Institute for Linguistics of the University, Innsbruck 1997).
  • Manfred Mayrhofer : The continuation of the Indo-European laryngals in Indo-Iranian. VÖAW, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7001-3476-2 .
  • Michael Meier-Brügger : Indo-European Linguistics. 9th edition. de Gruyter, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-025143-2 , L 314 ff.
  • Stefan Müller: On Germanic from a laryngeal theory perspective: with an introduction to the basics of laryngeal theory . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2007.
  • Martin Peters: Investigations into the representation of the Indo-European laryngals in Greek . VÖAW, Vienna 1981.
  • Jens E. Rasmussen: "Determining proto-phonetics by circumstantial evidence: the case of the Indo-European laryngeals". In: Fr. Karlsson (Ed.), Papers from the Seventh Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics . University of Helsinki, Helsinki 1983. pp. 371-384.
  • Jens E. Rasmussen (Ed.): In Honorem Holger Pedersen: Colloquium of the Indo-European Society from March 25 to 28, 1993 in Copenhagen . Reichert, Wiesbaden 1994.
    • RSP Beekes: “Who were the laryngeals?”. Pp. 449-454.
    • Jost Gippert : "On the phonetics of the laryngals". Pp. 455-466.
    • Michael Job: "Comments on the discussion about the phonetics of the idg.» Laryngals «". Pp. 419-431.
    • Jens E. Rasmussen: "On the phonetics of the Indo-European laryngeals". Pp. 433-447.
  • Helmut Rix : Historical grammar of Greek. Phonology and form theory. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt: 1967; 2., corr. 1992 edition [easy to read and many generally accepted examples], ISBN 3-534-03840-1 .
  • Ferdinand de Saussure : Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes . BG Treubner, Leipzig 1879; Reprint: Olms, Hildesheim 1972.
  • Peter Schrijver: The Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Latin . Rodopi, Amsterdam / Atlanta 1991, ISBN 978-90-5183-308-9 .
  • Harald Wiese: A journey through time to the origins of our language. How Indo-European Studies explains our words , Logos Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-8325-1601-7 .
  • Werner Winter (Ed.): Evidence for Laryngeals . 2nd Edition. Mouton, The Hague 1965.
  • Nicholas Zair: The Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Celtic . Brill, Boston / Leiden 2012.
  • Ladislav Zgusta: The laryngeal and glottalic theories . In: Sylvain Auroux et al. (Ed.): History of the Language Sciences . 3rd subband. De Gruyter, Berlin 2006. pp. 2462-2478.