Weise's law

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Weise's law is a Proto-Indo-European sound law that causes the depalatalization of the palatovelar consonants *ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ in certain contexts. In short, when *ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ are followed by *r, they are depalatalized and thereby merge with the plain velars *k *g *gʰ, respectively, unless the *r is followed by *i or the palatalized form is restored by analogy. Although this sound change is most prominent in the satem languages, it is believed that the change must have occurred prior to the centum–satem division, based on an earlier sound change that affected the distribution of Proto-Indo-European *u and *r. The law is named after German linguist Oskar Weise, who first postulated it in 1881 as the solution to a cognate-correlation problem between Ancient Greek and Sanskrit.

Terminology[edit]

Weise's law is a sound change that affects a series of sounds called palatovelar consonants, sometimes called dorso-palatal or simply palatal consonants.^[1] The precise pronunciation of these sounds is not known, though they are often described as being articulated both with the back part of the tongue and the hard palate of the mouth, represented with *ḱ, *ǵ, *ǵʰ.^[2] They are contrasted with plain velar consonants, also referred to as dorso-velar or simply velar consonants, which are articulated with the back part of the tongue and the soft palate, represented by *k, *g, and *gʰ.^[2] Both of these sets were further contrasted with the labiovelar consonants, pronounced with a simulataneous articulation with the backpart of the tongue against the soft palate and the rounding of the lips, represented by *kʷ, *gʷ, and *gʷʰ.^[3] These three contrastive sets are often known collectively as guttural consonants.^[4]

Although almost no attested language in the Indo-European language family distinguishes between these three sets of consonants,^[5] historical linguists divide the Indo-European daughter languages into two categories based on how these sounds developed over time, either into centum or satem languages. The terms centum and satem are derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *dḱm̥tóm, later shortened into ḱm̥tóm, meaning 'one hundred'.^[6] Centum languages, named after the Latin word for 'one hundred', are those languages in which the palatovelar sounds underwent depalatalization – that is, lost the palatal quality – thereby merging with the plain velars, creating only a two-way contrast between plain velars and labiovelar sounds.^[7] By contrast, satem languages, named after the Avestan word 'one hundred' (𐬯𐬀𐬙𐬆𐬨 satəm), are those in which the labiovelar sounds merged with the plain velar sounds, while the palatovelar sounds underwent assibilation – also called satemization in this particular context – whereby these palatovelars became sibilant consonants.^[8][9] Sibilant consonants comprise affricates, such as [t͡ʃ] (as in chat), and fricatives, such as [s] (as in sunk).^[9][10]

History[edit]

Oskar Weise first described a problem in correspondences between Ancient Greek and Sanskrit cognates in an 1881 article for the Indo-Europeanist periodical Articles on the Science of the Indo-European Languages (German: Beiträge zur Kunde der indogermanischen Sprachen) entitled "Is initial γ dropped before λ?" (Ist anlautendes γ vor λ abgefallen?).^[11] In it, he notes an imbalance in the relationship between Ancient Greek and Sanskrit cognates, writing:

If we examine the Indian [Sanskrit] words beginning with guttural + r or l and compare them with their Greek reflexes, we will notice that all those which have retained the guttural in Indian intact show guttural + ρ, whereas Greek guttural + λ only occurs regularly when the palatal sibilants [ś], j, h appear in Indian. The absence of exceptions in this rule automatically prohibits the assumption that coincidence prevailed here. Of course, this excludes cases where r (or l) is not immediately after the guttural, but there is a vowel in between, although the rule stated above often applies here too.^[12][a]

According to Alwin Kloekhorst, Weise's original article has "been largely forgotten by the scholarly world". Still, Weise's findings have appeared sporadically in linguistic literature, though some of his findings have needed revision in light of other research.^[13] In 1894, Antoine Meillet described the law and defended it as established fact in a dissertation for the Société de Linguistique de Paris on the difficulty of determining gutturals in Proto-Indo-European, citing Weise as its progenitor.^[14] In 1978, Frederik Kortlandt similarly considered Weise's findings strong but limited in scope, citing both Weise's and Meillet's works on the law in his own research on the Balto-Slavic languages.^[15] In 1995, Robert S. P. Beekes also described the process derived from the law, but did not reference its origins with Weise.^[13][16] Presented at a conference in 2008,^[17] Kloekhorst published a more complete account – Weise's Law: Depalatalization of Palatovelars before *r in Sanskrit – in 2011,^[18] which conglomerates several different sources on the topic, both referencing Weise and not, and summarizes its general characteristics, relative chronology, and possible violations; its contents are a revision of his work done in 1999.^[19] Kloekhorst has been credited with reviving interest in the law.^[20]

Overview[edit]

These three images show one example of assibilation from inside the mouth; from left to right: palatal stop (IPA: [c]), alveolar sibilant affricate (IPA: [t͡s]), and alveolar fricative (IPA: [s]). Note how the tongue's point of contact or constriction moves increasingly forward, from the palate to just behind the teeth.

The law affects the palatovelar consonants of the Proto-Indo-European language: *ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ. In the satem languages, as well as in Albanian and Armenian,^[b] these sounds became fricatives, such as [s] or [z], rather than remaining stops. Weise's law, however, demonstrates that these sounds depalatalize before *r, thereby merging with the plain velar stops *k *g *gʰ.^[13] Because the palatovelar sounds underwent assibilation – that is, underwent the process of becoming sibilants – in the satem languages while the plain velars did not, the merging of palatovelars with plain velars explains why these words have plain velar reflexes in words that share a common Indo-European root containing a palatovelar. In other words, while the palatovelar stops generally were made into alveolar sibilants in most cases, Weise's law explains many exceptions, though not all.^[13]

Sanskrit words, as Weise stated in his original postulation,^[21] contain many potential violations of the rule occurring, particularly in circumstances where the surface representation of the word contains śr- or hr-, implying a derivation from an unmodified *ḱr- or *ǵʰr- source. However, these are often the result of later sound changes particular to a language or language family such as in Sanskrit, where /l/ became /r/ in many circumstances.(e.g., Sanskrit: श्रवस् śravas 'fame' < *ḱleu-es-; ह्राद् hrād 'to resound, to make a noise' < *ǵʰleh₃d-).^[22] The law commonly affects zero-grade stems – that is, stems without vowels – which often receive inserted vowels in daughter languages to ease pronounceability (e.g., हिरण्य híraṇya 'gold' < *ǵʰlh₃-en-). Thus, these apparent counterexamples do not actually represent exceptions to the rule.^[23]

Other apparent violations occur in contexts in which the palatovelar consonant and *r cross a morphemic boundary or share a clear derivational relationship with another word that would not have been subjected to the sound law, leading to an analogical change.^[24] In other words, association with similarly derived words would cause the restoration of the palatovelar consonant in lieu of the expected plain velar. Examples of this include Sanskrit अज्र ájra 'field, plain' < h₂éǵ-ro- 'field, pasturage', where the palatalized consonant has been restored due to an obvious connection with अजति ájati 'to drive', derived from the same root (*h₂eǵ- 'to drive') but in a context which would not subject it to the sound change.^[23]

All other violations of the rule appear in the particular sequence *Ḱri, where Ḱ represents any palatovelar sound. Kloekhorst suggests that the high front vowel /i/ may have palatalized the preceding /r/, giving no motivation to depalatalize the initial palatovelar sound.^[25]

Relative chronology[edit]

The chronology of Weise's law is the subject of some debate. It is of no dispute that the law must have occurred by at least the time the Indo-Iranian languages diverged from the rest of Proto-Indo-European (c. 3000 BC).^[27] It is generally accepted that it probably occurred after the divergence of the Anatolian languages (c. 4500 BC),^[28] since the metathesis of late Proto-Indo-European *u and *r occurs after both the divergence of Anatolian (e.g., Hittite: 𒍝𒈠𒀭𒆳 zama(n)kur 'beard' < *smóḱ-ur) and any depalatalization under Weise's law. This explains exceptions such as Sanskrit श्मश्रु śmáśru 'beard', which derives from later *smóḱ-ru- and does not restore the plain velar under the law because the law occurred prior to the metathesis.^[c][30]

In 1978, Kortlandt noted that, while it is tempting to assert that Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian depalatalizations derive from a common innovation, the scope of depalatalization is much larger in the Balto-Slavic languages and there is positive evidence that the law never occurred in Armenian (սրունք srunkʿ 'leg' < *ḱrūs-ni-; մերձ merj 'near, close to').^[31] Instead, Kortlandt suggested that Weise's law applies only to Indo-Iranian languages and, although Indo-Iranian languages and Balto-Slavic languages restored palatal features in a similar fashion, these restorations occurred independent of one another.^[32] Based on Albanian and Balto-Slavic agreement in depalatalization, he considers Albanian to have been a transitional dialect of Balto-Slavic and Armenian during the same period.^[32] Beekes, although disputing some of Kortlandt's etymologies,^[33] wrote that depalatalization is assumed to have taken place before *r in Armenian as well.^[34]

Although the effects of the law are most clearly demonstrated in satem languages, linguists suggest that this sound change occurred before the centum–satem split. Kloekhorst, for example, argues that the law almost certainly occurred in late Proto-Indo-European after the departure of the Anatolian languages.^[29] While the law does not affect most of the generally accepted centum languages, Kloekhorst considers Albanian and Armenian to be satem languages because their reflexes appear to be in accordance with the law.^[35]{{efn|This opinion is not unique to Kloekhorst; many linguists also categorize Albanian and Armenian as satem languages.^[8][36] Although, because the results of Weise's law seem more extensive outside the Indo-Iranian languages, Kloekhorst notes that it is likely that a secondary wave of depalatalization law took place at a later date in each of those language families.^[29]

See also[edit]

• Boukólos rule – a similar rule affecting labiovelar consonants in Proto-Indo-European, which affected the centum languages

References[edit]

Notes[edit]

Citations[edit]

Sources[edit]