Laryngeal theory

Subsequent scholarly work has established a set of rules by which an ever-increasing number of reflexes in daughter languages may be derived from PIE roots.

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.

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.

Also, the hypothesis that PIE schwa *ə was a consonant, not a vowel, provides an explanation for some apparent exceptions to Brugmann's law in Indo-Aryan languages.

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.

[4] 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.

Similarly, the traditional PIE reconstruction for 'sheep' is *owi- (a y-stem, not an i-stem) whence Sanskrit ávi-, Latin ovis, Greek ὄϊς.

Rasmussen (1983) suggested a consonantal realization for *h₁ as the voiceless glottal fricative [h] with a syllabic allophone [ə] (mid central unrounded vowel).

Additionally, Simon's (2013) article[19] revises the Hieroglyphic Luwian evidence and concludes that although some details of Kloekhorst's arguments could not be maintained, his theory can be confirmed.

[clarification needed][19] An idea occasionally advanced that the laryngeals were dorsal fricatives[20] corresponding directly to the three traditionally reconstructed series of dorsal stops (palatal, velar, and labiovelar; i.e., that the laryngeals *h₁ *h₂ and *h₃ are more accurately written *h́, *h, and *hʷ respectively) suggests a further possibility, a palatal fricative [ç(ʶ)].

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).

[23] 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.

It is often taken to have been voiced based on the perfect form *pi-bh₃- from the root *peh₃ "drink" and Cowgill's law in Proto-Germanic (PIE *n̥h₃we → PPGmc *ungwe → PGmc *unki, "us two").

Rasmussen chose 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.

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.

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.

[28] In all other daughter languages, a comparison of the cognates can support only hypothetical intermediary sounds derived from PIE combinations of vowels and laryngeals.

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.

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.

The reconstructed phonology of Proto-Germanic (PG), the 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.

[34] 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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

[41] Among its early proponents were Hermann Möller, who extended Saussure's system with a third, non-colouring laryngeal, Albert Cuny, Holger Pedersen, and Karel Oštir [sl].

[39] After Jerzy Kuryłowicz's convincing demonstration[43] that the Hittite language preserved at least some of Saussure's coefficients sonantiques, the focus of the debate shifted.

While some scholars, like Heinz Kronasser [de] 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 [sv], and later Ladislav Zgusta, who assumed a single /H/ phoneme with no vowel-colouring effects.