I've been recently thinking about a problem concerning Proto-Indo-European (PIE) that I probably should have dealt with a long time ago. It involves an issue that I had been having regarding "word-final voicing" in the Late IE period (i.e. the stages of Pre-IE following Syncope up to PIE itself). I just thought of a nifty idea that brings Szemerenyi's Law aboard for an intellectual thrillride while simultaneously explaining why the thematic vowel behaves as though the nominative singular *-s was voiced /-z/!
Here's the idea that I'm exploring. Perhaps, the "word-final voicing" that I'm perceiving in Pre-IE wasn't word-final at all. Afterall, phonemes don't normally voice in word-final positions at all. It's so rare that the only example of it I've found is in Lezghian but I'm not even sure whether this is even a valid example. It's a typological dilemma. So one way to get rid of this problem is to suppose that the voicing occured word-medially instead. However, this then could only have occured before Syncope. That means that the voicing of the nominative singular *-s, the ablative singular *-od and the pronominal inanimate *-d would then have occurred in Mid IE (MIE).
What does that have to do with Szemerenyi? Well... let's explore this. Let's take the ablative singular *-ód which I've traced back to MIE *-áta [-'atə]. Now, let's say that when the slow reduction of most unaccented vowels to short schwa was taking place (i.e. the event I call Reduction immediately preceding Syncope), compensatory length *was already* being transferred to the previous vowel if accented. So this first gives us *[-'a.tᵊ] with a slightly lengthened accented vowel. This is where the fun comes in: Let's now say that this added length also became perceived by MIE speakers as a sign of a following voiced consonant. The association between longer vowels and the presence of voice in the following phoneme is a commonplace phenomenon, even occurring in English. So now we have *[-'a.d̰ᵊ]. With Syncope, we end up with *-ád̰ [-'a.d̰].
Now that we got that covered. Let's explore the nominative singular which should go back to the postposed deictic *-sa in MIE. If we take an MIE stem declined in the nominative singular like napáta-sa [nə'patəsə] 'grandson', lengthening during Reduction would first produce *[nə'pa.tᵊsᵊ]. Let's now say that the nominative ending temporarily survives Syncope via the Suffix Resistance exception, producing *[ne'pa.tsᵊ]. Then, immediately following Syncope, the remaining vowel of the nominative ending is "clipped" while leaving behind even more compensatory lengthening. Since the preceding vowel is already half-lengthened, it lengthens even more to a long vowel. Hence we get the result we're looking for in early Late IE: *nepāts.
Nifty, nej? I have to still think about this to make sure that everything is consistant logically, but it's getting me excited so far. (And yes, I'm still at Bar Italia as per my last entry, hahahaha!)
UPDATES
(Jun 9 2008) I forgot the IPA wavy diacritic underneath the *d denoting creakiness (as in MIE ablative ending *-ad̰ above). This doesn't affect what I wrote; it's just more accurate since plain MIE *d becomes PIE *dʰ (although I personally now believe that this stop only became "breathy" after the fragmentation of the PIE-speaking community had already occurred).
7 Jun 2008
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Glen, do you know of any other environments besides the thematic vowel where these changes take place? Otherwise, your theory (just like Jens') seems rather ad-hoc.
ReplyDeleteDo you have any reason to believe that the nominal thematic vowel and the verbal thematic vowel must have developed at the same time and under the same conditions? If so, what is it?
ReplyDeleteRob: "Glen, do you know of any other environments besides the thematic vowel where these changes take place? Otherwise, your theory (just like Jens') seems rather ad hoc."
ReplyDeleteOuch! You're mean ;-) Well, you have to understand that I'm trying to explain the *o/*e alternation of the thematic vowel and it just so happens that aside from *o appearing before the nominative singular *-s, *o regularly shows up before voiced consonants and *e before unvoiced ones. So if you find my explanation ad hoc, perhaps you can provide us with a comparatively better explanation... ?
Rob: "Do you have any reason to believe that the nominal thematic vowel and the verbal thematic vowel must have developed at the same time and under the same conditions?"
Yes. That reason is Occam's Razor. Why multiply hypotheses? Since the nominal and verbal thematic vowel alternate under the same rules, there's no reason to think that they're seperate merely by virtue of an abstract distinction we make between noun and verb. The alternation of *o with *e is very curious and specific. It seems unlikely to occur twice and for seperate reasons. The onus would be on you to provide a clear reason why the two phenomena have seperate origins.
Your medial voicing looks weird in the case of stops. First, if you argue that the traditional voiced aspirates were plain voiced by this stage, why aren't those what is produced? Second, what are the conditions? Obviously it can't be everything, so only intervocalic consonants before an elided final vowel? Sounds awfully specific...
ReplyDeleteYou could also remind me why do you even want to reconstruct former voiceless stops here?
Tropylium: "First, if you argue that the traditional voiced aspirates were plain voiced by this stage, why aren't those what is produced?"
ReplyDeleteI was ready for that question. If you think about it, if we say that there are three dental stops (voiceless *t, creaky *d̰ and fully voiced *d) then we're admitting to a voicing scale or hierarchy in the language, aren't we? So if *t starts to become voiced, the first step in this voicing hierarchy is in fact creaky *d̰, not fully-voiced *d. This voicing scale didn't exist for sibilants (i.e. no distinction existed between plain and creaky voicing outside of the stop series).
However, the rule would indeed be generalized to all phonemes because the change involves the development of voicing not creakiness.
Tropylium: "Second, what are the conditions? Obviously it can't be everything, so only intervocalic consonants before an elided final vowel? Sounds awfully specific..."
As I said, I'm seeking to explain *o/*e alternation by surmising that a single vowel schwa underlies it, and the trigger of the bifurcation of the schwa into two vowels appears to be nothing other than voicing.
Tropylium: "You could also remind me why do you even want to reconstruct former voiceless stops here?"
If the nominative singular, inanimate *-d, and ablative *-d were all voiced at some earlier stage by way of this rule, it completely explains the voicing while preserving their likeliest etymological sources where voicing is consistently not present (*-s < MIE deictic *sa 'the' which directly becomes PIE *so; *-d < MIE deictic *ta 'that' which directly becomes PIE stem *to-; ablative *-od < MIE *-áta = Proto-Uralic *-ta). The last comparison involving the ablative also shows the difference in development of early Indo-European since the accent is fully explained by the QAR rule which pushed the fixed accent on the initial syllable to the penultimate syllable. Proto-Uralic preserves original accentuation.
As you can see, there are a lot of facts here to consider beyond just the immediate *o/*e alternation. To crack this problem, we need to juggle phonetics, typology and etymology all at once because it's all intertwined.
No, in terms of glottal constriction, creaky voice comes after modal voice on the phonation scale, not between it and voicelessness. You're probably thinking of slack voice here. Similarly the order of the phonations proposed by glottalic theory is P < B < P', and the traditional theory also goes P < Bh < B. Notice how these match each other but not what you suggest?
ReplyDeleteThe conditioning question was also aimed at voicing. Why do only final-syllable intervocalic stops voice? The open-syllable gradation of Finnic, BTW, looks pretty similar to this change but is in general conditioned by a preceding unstressed syllable (or, more probably, a folloing secondarily stressed vowel); hence from *-ta, kala-a but kuu-ta. But can anything like this be made work for PIE with a mobile accent? I suspect things might go down neater if you pushed this change farther back in history.
Tropylium: "No, in terms of glottal constriction, creaky voice comes after modal voice on the phonation scale, not between it and voicelessness."
ReplyDeleteSince the traditional "voiced aspirated stops" in PIE suffixes never occur in word-final position in order to contrast with attested *-t of the 3ps and *-d of the pronominal inanimate, this characteristic needs to be explained somehow.
Tropylium: "Why do only final-syllable intervocalic stops voice?"
For one thing, the stress accent at this stage seems to me to have occurred only either on the penultimate syllable or the antepenultimate. Proto-Germanic, for example, voiced inherited voiceless stops and this change was conditioned by the position of original accent. (On the other hand, I admit that the Germanic rule doesn't really match what I propose here.)
Tropylium: "The open-syllable gradation of Finnic, BTW, looks pretty similar to this change but is in general conditioned by a preceding unstressed syllable (or, more probably, a folloing secondarily stressed vowel); hence from *-ta, kala-a but kuu-ta. But can anything like this be made work for PIE with a mobile accent?"
I'm aware of the Finnic gradation but I'll have to refamiliarize myself about its specifics. Sounds interesting but I've been thinking about this word-final voicing all day today and I think I might be on to another detail that might be important... We'll see.
Since the traditional "voiced aspirated stops" in PIE suffixes never occur in word-final position in order to contrast with attested *-t of the 3ps and *-d of the pronominal inanimate, this characteristic needs to be explained somehow.
ReplyDeleteActually, another thought. Remember that there's a cross-linguistic aversion to word-final aspirates. So why push this specific distribution all the way to MIE? This position could rather be an exception to the development of voiced aspirates, especially when there's no contrast between the two voiced stop series here. No need for any unusual phonation changes.
Tropylium: "Actually, another thought. Remember that there's a cross-linguistic aversion to word-final aspirates. So why push this specific distribution all the way to MIE?"
ReplyDeleteBut in MIE, these stops aren't word-final. Unstressed word-final schwa disappears during Syncope. The contrast exists in initial and medial position in MIE.
Tropylium: "No need for any unusual phonation changes."
Actually, I'm starting to think that maybe this involves laryngealization, not voicing, and then considering the widespread phenomenon of word-final laryngealization, it may not be as unusual as it seems.
I'm going to write a new account of this word-final voicing madness right now. Wish me luck.
But in MIE, these stops aren't word-final. Unstressed word-final schwa disappears during Syncope. The contrast exists in initial and medial position in MIE.
ReplyDeleteYes. Then this nevertheless ends up in the word-final position, where the distinction is lost. You'd expect to see *-dh if the MIE consonant was *-d-, right? But if there is no *-dh whatsoever to be found, this can be explained with a simple final deaspiration rule in LIE ~ ePIE.
Tropylium: "Yes. Then this nevertheless ends up in the word-final position, where the distinction is lost. You'd expect to see *-dh if the MIE consonant was *-d-, right? But if there is no *-dh whatsoever to be found, [...]"
ReplyDeleteSTOP!! It's a very clever solution but if word-final contrasts are indeed neutralized to only two members as you believe, then can you prove that word-final neutralization exists for all of the many verb stems ending in a voiced aspirated stop (e.g. *bheudh-) when conjugated in the endingless 2ps imperative (see Ringe, From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic: Volume I (2006), p.32)?