Greenberg - The Prehistory of the Indo-European Vowel System

8/13/2019 Greenberg - The Prehistory of the Indo-European Vowel System

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The Preh i s to ry of t hein Comparative and

II _ '

,t: .;t,iL (.J

Indo-European Vowel SystemT y p o l o g ~ i c a lPerspect ive

Joseph GreenbergSepte e r 1988

In Greenberg 1987:3j2) a work concerned-with the

c l a s s i f i c a t i o n of the indigenous languages of the Americas, t

was proposed regarding t he t h i r d and l e a s t extensive of the th ree

fami l ies pos i t ed , namely Eskimo-Aleut, t h a t i t s a f f i l i a t i o n s are

in Northern Asia and Europe. The l a rge group of languages

def ined was ca l led Euras ia t i c and was hypothesized as having the

fol lowing membership: 1. Indo-European; 2. Ural ic ; 3. Yukaghir;

4. Al ta ic Turkic; Mongolian and Tungusic) ; 5. Ainu: 6. Korean;

7. Japanese; 8. Nivkh; 9. Chukotian; 10. Eskimo-Aleut. Of these

Ura l ic and Yukaghir form a separate subgroup as do Ainu, Korean

and Japanese.

y comparative perspect ive in t he t i t l e of t h i s paper, i s

in tended the app l i ca t ion o f the compara t ive -h i s to r i ca l method to

t h i s Euras ia t i c group; in the presen t contex t to a s ing le c l u s t e r

of problems. Such comparisons wil l l ead in ce r t a in ins tances to

reassessment of phonological and grammatical cha rac te r i s ic s of

Proto-Indo-European as t i s presen t ly conceived. Jus t so when

H i t t i t e and the other Anato l ian languages and Tokharian were

discovered t l ed to changes in c e r t a i n of our ideas concerning

Indo-European, ideas which had received on most poin ts , a broadly

based consensus of Indo-Europeanists . In o ther instances t w i l l

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be confirmatory and in s t i l l other s w i l l help us to choose among

competing theo r ie s . Most i n t e r e s t ing ly, as I bel ieve holds

t rue in the presen t ins tance , t m y l e ad us to rea ssess our

views and d i r e c t a t t e n t i o n to r e l a t i v e l y neglected and apparent lymarginal phenomena o f Indo-European which w i l l become more

comprehensible in the l i g h t of the add i t iona l comparative

evidence. Idea l ly we hope t h a t i n t e rna l evidence with in a group

of languages and ex te rna l data w i l l produce converging r e su l t s .

In the presen t i n s t ance , in which we w i l l be concerned with the

vowel system of Proto-Indo-European and espec ia l ly with the

system of q ua l i t a t ive apophony, I be l i eve t h a t a considera t ion of

ex te rna l evidence leads us to reevalua te i n t e r n a l fac ts of Indo

European and helps us t o make them more understandable

h i s t o r i c a l l y.

In ass igning Indo-European to the Euras ia t i c family, i t i s

by no means denied t h a t Indo-European has more remote connect ions

a lso . This i s i nd i ca t ed by the very t i t l e of Greenberg ( in

preparat ion) Indo-European and i t s c lo se s t r e l a t ive s : The

Euras ia t i c family . The re la t ionsh ip of the present proposal to

others t h a t have been made by var ious scho la r s , and pa r t i cu la r ly

tha t o f the i n f l u e n t i a l Sovie t No s t r a t i c i s t school w i l l be

b r i e f ly ind ica ted l a t e r A more extended discuss ion i s reserved

for the work in prepara t ion .

Although the d e f in i t i o n o f Euras ia t i c as described above i s

in i t s t o t a l i t y new i t should not be wholly surpr i s ing . There

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have been numerous, mostly pai rwise comparisons among members of

t h e family. s I have poin ted ou t a number of t imes beginning

w i t h my e a r l i e s t work on Afr ican c l a s s i f i c a t i o n (Greenberg 1949-

50) , we should not be concerned with . i so la ted hypotheses ofr e l a t ionsh ip , but with a h i s t o r i c a l taxonomy of languages, which

d is t ingu ishes va l id groups a t var ious l eve l s . This concept i s2

analogous to t h a t of the taxon in biology. Thus the Germanic

languages , or the Indo-European languages a re , to our presen t

knowledge, va l id genet ic groups or taxa while one cons i s t ing of

French, Albanian and Swedish i s not , al though a l l of the

languages are re la ted s ince they are Indo-European.

This means t h a t however important and wel l - s tud ied a group

i s t i s the wrong method to j u s t seek for some other group, to

which one has noted resemblances and then seek to prove t h e i r

r e l a t ionsh ip by proceeding immediately to r econs t ruc t ion . Most

wel l recognized l i n g u i s t i c stocks have more than two branches and

from the beginning of Indo-European studies in the n ine teen th

cen tu ry, Indo-Europeanist have found t h a t t was most f r u i t f u l to

s tudy a l l of the recognized branches in a kind of overa l l and, as

t were, simultaneous comparison.

In the ins tance o f Indo-European t r u ly enormous e f f o r t s have

been expended s ince t he t ime of Mller to prove a connec t ion wi th

Semi t i c . I t i s by now c lea r t h a t Semitic and Indo-European,a l though u l t imate ly r e l a t e d , do not form a na tu ra l u n i t o r taxon

i n the sense described above. s a r e su l t of genera l recogni t ion

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f i e l d many of whom dogmatical ly excluded discuss ion of t h i s

quest ion , h i s views are worthy of care fu l considera t ion .

I w i l l discuss b r i e f l y the four publ ica t ions of Pedersen of

which I am aware, in which he discussed t h i s ques t ion . I bel ievet h a t t w i l l appear t h a t my basic hypothesis i s perhaps c lose r to

h i s views than t h a t of the body of scholars who now c a l l

themselves N o s t r a t i c i s t s .

The term Nos t ra t i c was in troduced in Pedersen (1903) in an

a r t i c l e which had to do with the sound laws of Turkish. In

regard t o ce r t a in resemblances of Turkic to Indo-European he says

t h a t t o expla in them the p o s s i b i l i t y of r e l a t ionsh ip must be

taken i n to considera t ion . Many l i n g u i s t i c stocks in Asia, he

be l i eves , a re doubt less r e l a t e d to Indo-European. In t h i s

connection he mentions Ural -Al ta ic which was a t t h a t time

genera l ly considered t o be a uni t a ry family. e then in t roduces

t he term Nos t ra t i c fo r a l l the languages r e l a t e d to Indo

European. e does not enumerate them but adds tha t Hamito

Semit ic should a l so be included. In 924 in a book wri t t en in

Danish and t rans la ted in 93 in to English , the emphasis i s on

the connection of Indo-European with Finno-Ugric. e s t a t e s t h a t

the re la t ionsh ip i s c lose r than between Indo-European and

Semit ic . Moreover, the i n f l e c t iona l systems show grea te r

r e l a t i o n s h ip than i n the case of Semitic (1931:337.) Althoughthe re are few l ex i ca l i tems in common to deny r e l a t ionsh ip

between the fami l ies would be overbold. Moreover:

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I f we accept re la t ionsh ip , we are l ed yet fur ther a f i e l d , notonly to Samoyed which cannot be separa ted from Finno-Ugrian, butt ~ o u g h o u ta l l of Northern Asia and across the Bering S t r a i t ,because s imi la r, though f a i n t e r , resemblances l ike those here

i ~ e d are found a l so in Turkish , Mongolian and Manchu, inYu..


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he i s somewhat more s p e c i f i c than previous ly i n t ha t he re fe rs

without doubt to q u a l i t a t i v e Ablaut. Moreover t he f ront-back

harmony of Ural ic i s an innovation. However, t he re are numerous

other cases of vowel a l t e rna t ion for which an i n t e rna l Ural icexplanat ion has not been found and as long as t h i s i s so one

should not exclude the p o s s i b i l i t y of finding t r aces of Ablaut

which are shared wi th Indo-European (p. 332).

I bel ieve t not unfa i r to conclude from these statements of

Pedersen 's t h t he viewed Indo-European as espec ia l ly c lose to

Ura l i c (Finno-Ugric in e r l i e r statements) and t h a t the c l o se r

r e l a t i o n sh i p s of Indo-European in general are to be sought in

eas te rn Asia (Al ta ic , Yukaghir and even Eskimo).

Other l i n g u i s t s bes ides Pedersen have pointed to a sp e c i a l l y

c lose re la t ionsh ip of Indo-European to Ural ic . So Ant t i l a

(1972:320) i n h i s well-known textbook of h i s t o r i c l l i ngu i s t i c s

f t e r mentioning Indo-Semitic , Indo-Uralic and Ural -Al ta ic

s t t e s The Indo-Ural ic hypothesis i s pa r t i cu la r ly s t rong because

the agreement i s good i n pronouns and verbal elements as well as

i n bas ic vocabulary (1972:320). Most r ecen t ly Cowgill (1986:13)

expressed h is b e l i e f t h t of the language fami l ies with which

Indo-European has been compared Uralic seems to presen t the most

cred ib le case . e notes t h a t bas ic correspondences ex i s t in

pronominal bases , endings and l ex ica l i tems.I l l i ch -Sv i tych himsel f in a paper which appeared only th ree

years before t he f i r s t volume of the comparative Nost ra t ic


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d ic t iona ry in an a r t i c l e regarding ear ly Indo-European contac ts with

Semitic 1964:3) s t a t e s tha t in M ~ l l e r scomparative Indo-

European and Semit ic dic t ionary along with many f an tas t i c

etymologies are a small number of qu i te probable ones but t h a t i tbelongs to the par t of the lex icon l e a s t l i k e ly to ind ica te

gene t i c connections. e concludes o p .c i t . : 9 ) t ha t since some of

these a re found in other branches of Afroas ia t i c than Semitic ,

Indo-European cannot be the source and t h a t the resemblances are

the r e s u l t of borrowing from Semitic i n to Indo-European.

e ev iden t ly abandoned the poin t of view t ha t a l l the

resemblances were due to borrowing and I share his

l a t e r convict ion t h a t Indo-European and Afroas ia t ic are re la ted ,

bu t h i s e a r l i e r conclusions s t rengthen the view presented here

t h a t the Indo-European connect ion with Afroas ia t ic i s more remote

than ce r t a in other ones including t h a t with Uralic.

One ques t ion r a i sed by Cowgill o p . c i t . ) deserves fu r the r

t rea tment a t t h i s poin t . While asse r t ing t h a t among the

hypotheses concerning Indo-European t h a t he i s consider ing, t he

one l i nk ing t to Ural ic i s the bes t , he bel ieves t h a t the

r e l a t i o n s h ip i s very remote p a r t i c u l a r l y because of absence of

cognates in the numeral systems. Because of the s t a b i l i t y o f

numerals in Indo-European, one by no means found in numerous

o the r well-recognized famil ies ,t

has taken on an undue degreeo f s i g n i f i c a n c e . At the c u l t u r a l l eve l of Proto-Euras ia t ic one

w i l l not expect numerals above perhaps four or f ive to be s tab le .


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other s i d e . The second conta ins the very common l oca t ive su ff ix

- f .

These forms are , o f course , to be compared to PIE *al -

' o t h e r ' which general ly appears with a presumed su ff ix - i as inLat in a l i - u s , Greek a l l - o s *a l io s . The form without the su ff ix

was l a t e r a t t e s t ed for Indo-European in Tokharian A Lydian ~ -

may a l so conta in the stem a l - , depending on whether the Lydian

s ign t ranscr ibed ~ r epresen t s a ve la r r a the r than a pa la t a l

l a t e r a l (cf.Gusmani 1964:33)

We may perhaps a l s o c i t e Ainu re t h r e e . This form i s found

i n Batchelor (1905) and in a l l other more recent sources.

However in Dobrotvorskij (1875) we f ind a number of Ainu words

beginning in t r - which have r - in l a t e r t r ansc r ip t ions .

Dobrotvorsk i j ' s work i s a l a rge compilation, mostly conta in ing

h i s own recordings in Sakhal in but a l so a l l the e a r l i e r sources

ava i l ab le to him. I t i s t r u e t h a t t r does not occur with

complete consis tency and the exis tence o f words with i n i t i a l t r -

was disputed by Batchelor.

Several other observat ions regarding the r e l a t ionsh ip and

subgrouping of Euras ia t ic a re in order. Al ta ic i s described here

i n t rad i t iona l terms as cons i s t ing of three branches Turkic,

Mongol, and Tungusic. An examinat ion of the etymologies in Poppe

(1960) which includes Korean shows t h a t t occurs much moreinf requent ly than the other branches as defined in t h i s work.

Even Ramstedt (1952:I ,104) the author of the hypothesis t h a t Korean

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i s Alta ic s t a t e s a l so t h a t Korean i s Al ta ic but has much in

common with Ainu and Japanese which have a common or ig in . The

work of Pa t r ie (1982) which i s concerned with the genet ic

p o s i t i o n of Ainu, f i r s t compares Ainu, Japanese and Korean andthen wi th Alta ic proper and comes to the conclusion t h a t Ainu i s

more c lose ly re la ted to Japanese and Korean than i t i s t o Al t a i c .

This conclusion i s in consonance with t h a t s e t fo r th in the

i n i t i a l sec t ion of t h i s a r t i c l e t h a t Ainu, Japanese and Korean

form a separa te group within Euras ia t i c and are not Alta ic in the

usual sense.

I t i s na tu ra l for Soviet readers to ask what the connect ion

i s between the Euras ia t i c hypotheses and the Nost ra t ic theory.

I f by the l a t t e r i s meant tha t the s i x groups usual ly enunciated

as c lass ica l ly Nost ra t ic are r e l a t ed then there i s no

c o n t r a d i c t i o n and I am in agreement. Moreover Korean i s included

in t he I l l i ch -Sv i tych etymological d ic t iona ry al though under

Alta ic . A whole se r i e s of languages included by me in Euras ia t i c

have been considered to be Nost ra t i c . s f a r back as

Dolgopoloski j (1964) Chukotian was characer ized as being probably

Al ta ic al though not included i n h i s comparisons. Moreover,

Yukaghir which i s par t icu la r ly c lo se to Ural ic i s included by

Dolgopolskij in h i s c i t a t io n s . I l l i c h - Sv i t y c h in h i s in t roduct ion

to t he Nos t ra t i c d i c t i ona ry (1971:61) in reference to Yukaghirno te s t h a t the work of Collinder, Angere and Tai l l eu r while they

do not allow us to consider Yukaghir a Ural ic language do allow


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us to cons ider i t s Nost ra t i c cha rac te r.

I bel ieve t h i s agrees with the work of the scholars

mentioned by I l l i ch -Sv i tych who c e r t a i n l y did not cla im t h a t

Yukaghir was a Uralic language but was ra the r r e l a t ed to Yukaghir\ . . (

as a whole.

Dybo in an e d i t o r i a l foo tno te to the passage from I l l i c h -

Svi tych j u s t c i ted , adds t h a t t he same remarks probably apply to

Korean and Japanese i n r e l a t i o n to Al ta ic . Dolgopolskij 1984)

i n a comparison of personal pronouns includes not only Chukotian

bu t Nivkh. Shevoroshkin and Markey 1986:50) r e f e r r ing to t he

work of Mudrak say t h a t Eskimo-Aleut i s probably a l so to be

cons idered Nost ra t ic .

Thus a l l the groups included here in Euras ia t i c with t he

except ion of inu have been asse r ted with more or l e s s degree of

conf idence to be Nost ra t i c . That t should a l so be included as

having a spec ia l re la t ionsh ip to Korean and Japanese fol lows I

be l ieve from the work o f P a t r i e which was mentioned e a r l i e r .

Even Refsing 1986), obviously very conservat ive n such mat te r s ,

i n h is grammar of Ainu cau t ious ly endorses P a t r i e s conclusion.

There remains t he opposi te quest ion. What of language

groups included in Nost ra t i c bu t excluded from Euras ia t i c? I am

y no means denying t he re la t ionsh ip of these groups: namely

Afroas ia t i c , Kartvel ian and Dravidian but I bel ieve thesere la t ionsh ips are more remote. e have seen t h a t Pedersen took

t h e view t h a t Afroasia t ic i s more d i s t an t ly re la ted to Indo-

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European than i s Ural ic . Shevoroshkin, a leading represen ta t ive

of the Nost ra t ic school in the United Sta te s has r ecen t ly

expressed h is agreement with me on t h i s mat ter (personal

communication). Dolgopolskij does not even mention Dravidian in

h i s e a r l i e r and l a t e r work in t h i s connection. The only doubt in

my mind t h a t remains i s in regard to Kartve l ian which does,

however, share a number of spec ia l f ea tu res o f vocabulary and

grammar with Afroas ia t i c . I f these , and no doubt other

languages, are not Euras ia t i c but are r e l a t ed a t a deeper l eve l

to Euras ia t i clanguages,

then the name Nost ra t i cmight f i t t i n g l y

by t r a d i t i o n , be reserved for these languages. A primary t ask i s

t hen to a sce r ta in the f u l l membership and subgrouping of

N o s t r a t i c as thus ind ica ted .

s we have seen the notion of Nost ra t i c as r e s t r i c t e d to s ix

branches, Indo-European, Afroas ia t i c , Ura l i c , Al t a i c , Khartvel ian

and Dravidian i s r ea l ly based on the Nost ra t i c d ic t i ona ry of

I l l i c h - Sv i t y c h (excepting for the occas ional i nc lus ion of Korean

under Alta ic in t h i s work). Moreover t h i s does not accord with

t h e ac tua l be l i e f of Nost ra t ic i s t s , j u s t as t did not with the

inventor of the term Holger Pedersen. Why then were other

languages not included? The answer along with a confirmation of

my view of Nos t ra t i c as involving a l a rge r group of languages

t han tha t found in I l l ich -S v i tych s d ic t iona ry i s to be found in

a statement of two N os t r a t i c i s t s , Chejka and Lamprecht (1984:86).

Afte r discuss ing Pedersen and I l lych-Svi tych they say regarding

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comparisons.

Moreover, the tendency of s p e c i a l i s t s in reconst ruc t ing

proto- languages i s sometimes to expla in by improbable i n t e rna l

r econs t ruc t ions or to simply di s regard i r r e g u l a r i t i e s which

t u r n out to be i n t e r e s t ing and expla inab le in a broader h i s t o r i c

con tex t .

A very s imi la r case in Nost ra t i c i s the exclus ion of

Yukaghir, c r i t i c i z e d by No s t r a t i c i s t s themselves. In addi t ion to

two e x t i n c t d ia l ec t s Chuvan and amok only known from imperfect

r ecord ings , there are two very s imi la r Yukaghir d i a l e c t s , Kolyma

and Tundra. t i s c lea r ly not necessary to r econs t ruc t Proto-

Yukaghir before comparing t to other languages. In addi t ion to

the work of Nost ra t ic i s t s there have been numerous, mostly

pa i rwise comparisons among branches or d i s t i n c t i v e l y separa te

languages of Euras ia t i c by l i n g u i s t s l i k e Col l inger, Bouda and

Uhlenbeck. However the major i ty of pa i r s have never been

compared. Languages which have been l a rge ly ignored in such

s tud ie s include Aleut , which i s never compared to any language

except Eskimo and Yukaghir which has only been compared to

Ura l ic . n overa l l comprehensive s tudy i n which a l l are brought

i n t o the comparison immediately shows f r u i t f u l r e s u l t s , j u s t as

t did in Indo-European when a l l t he languages of the group

have been brought in to comparat ive s tud ie s of the family.In Greenberg to appear a) ) and to appear b)) , I have

t r e a t e d spec i f ic problems of Indo-European in both an i n t e rna l

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3and ex te rna l framework. In the presen t study I discuss ce r t a in

aspec ts of the Indo-European vowel system both from an in te rna l

Indo-European , and a broader comparative viewpoint.

Since the basic out l ines of t h i s system wil l be well-knownt o readers with an Indo-Europeanist background and have been

discussed in cons iderable d e t a i l both in general handbooks and in

spec i f i c monographs and a r t i c l e s t wi l l not be necessary to s e t

fo r th the system as a whole. However, I wi l l enumerate severa l

important aspec ts of t he system which wi l l be more pa r t i cu la r ly

the objec ts o f the presen t discuss ion . I w i l l mention them

roughly in the order t h a t they w i l l be t r ea ted and the exten t to

which they cons t i tu te t he focus of t h i s study.

1. In the t r a d i t i o n a l Neogrammarian treatment which has to

a cons iderable exten t survived in to the presen t per iod i and u

a r e not t rue vowels i n Indo-European but with t h e i r consonantally

funct ioning allophones are sonants in the same c lass as ~ 1 m

and n. Thus i : y u:w r : r e t c . J u s t as r and r are t he zero0 0

grades of - 2 r in accordance with the qua l i ta t ive apophony -

2 so and i are the zero grades of e i - o i and s imi la r ly for4

and u of and 2

2. The r e l a t ion between e i and o i on the one hand and :

on the other i s ca l led quan t i t a t ive Ablaut and p a r a l l e l s tha t of

e : o with zero t y p ica l ly under unaccented conditions .Onequest ion t h a t ar i ses i s the chronological re la t ionsh ip between

q u a l i t a t i v e and q u a n t i t a t i v e Ablaut and in the present context

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whether e i t h e r or both have correspondences in other branches of

Euras ia t i c so t h a t we have to a t t r i b u t e them to Pre-PIE

condi t ions inhe r i t ed from an ances t ra l Proto-Eurasia t ic .

3. The pecu l i a r typological pos i t ion of what i sconvent ional ly reconst ruc ted as PIE *a w i l l a l so en te r in to our

cons idera t ion . What i s remarkable i s of course i t s r e l a t i v e

inf requency which becomes even grea te r i f we exclude those

i ns t ances in which, with the development of laryngeal theory,

one accounts for many ins tances of a as due to an adjacent

laryngeal H ) . I t i s a l so deviant in i t s lack of pa r t i c ipa t ion2

in the Indo-European system of vowel a l t e rna t ion . All t h i s adds

up t o a marginal pos i t ion for a vowel which on typological

grounds would be expected to have high frequency and an impor tan t

func t iona l ro le in the vowel system.

I now cons ider more p a r t i c u l a r l y the f i r s t poin t , namely the

t r a d i t i o n a l Junggrammatiker t reatment of i and u as sonants and

the re fo re completely p a r a l l e l to ~ 1 , m, and n. Given t h i s

doc t r ine t i s no more conce ivab le t h a t t he re should be an

a l t e r n a t i o n between i and e or u and o than between r and e or r

and o .

This i s c lea r ly s t a t ed in what i s to my knowledge, the

f i r s t book-length f u l l sca le discuss ion of the PIE vowel system

ast

developed in the work of Brugmann and h i s co l l abora to r s ,namely the monograph of HUbschmann In t 1885:193-4) he

s t a t e s very c lear ly :

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" i and u are only consonants and cannot occur in any Ablauts e r i e s except with y or w They can never be l o s t . Wheneverthey appear in any s e r i e s as a vowel, they have a r i sen by asecondary process .

The reason fo r t h i s l a s t statement was t h a t in f a c t HUbschmann

was aware of a f a i r number of i ns t ances , pa r t i cu la r ly in Greek,

Slav ic , and Bal t ic , but a l so in Ind ic and in Latin i n which

.. 'a l t e rna ted with e between languages e .g . Slavic i z u < J1ZU


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cwould expect without t ye t having been poss ib le to expla in i

i n a sa t i s fac to ry way.

In regard to Slav ic in the s tandard Old Bulgarian grammar of

Leskien (1910:17) i t i s noted t h a t the a l te rna t ion between u and

o i s unclear. Senn, i n h i s comparative grammar of Li thuanian

(1966:78) s t a t e s : One of the commonest devia t ions

(Entgleisungen) in Ablaut Ser ies I i s the in t roduct ion of an - i

grade without the help of a l iqu id or nasa l .

In regard to Indo-European *eghs out of in which, Greek

and Lat in correspond to Slav ic and Bal t ic i , the standard Indo

European comparative d ic t iona ry of Pokorny (1959:I , 28) r e f e r s to

the Slav ic and Bal t ic forms as having a d i f f i c u l t i ( mi t

schwierigem i ) . Referring to the i n t e rna l Slavic d i a l e c t/ r J

va r i a t ion in the numeral four cetyre and c i t y r e , Mei l l e t

(1934:48) says i l s e r a i t imprudent de r i en aff i rmer a ce s u j e t .

In his standard comparative grammar of Greek Schwyzer(1939:I, 135) not only admits the i - a l te rna t ion in Greek but

a l s o - o and notes t h a t these of ten correspond t o the same

a l t e rna t ions in Slav ic .

In Indo-Iranian the re are ins tances of i a l te rna t ing with a

*e or corresponding to in other branches of Indo-European.

Gamkrelidze and Ivanqv (1984:259) c i t e Sanskr i t : i r a s head as

~ q /cognate with Greek k l r a s horn and the var ian t forms sikvan and/

sakvan (< *sekvan) i n t e l l i g e n t . These forms according to the

au thors contain a n i of uncer ta in or ig in . Another Sanskr i t

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/

example i s sama same and sima each (c f . the e a r l i e r c i t ed

i n u ~ one ) . Within Indo-Iran ian Avestan - c ina which forms

i n d e f i n i t e , genera l iz ing pronouns and i s cognate with Sanskr i t -

cana (< *-cena) are discussed below.

However, in the more recent per iod , s t a r t i n g i t would seem

wi th Kurylowicz (1956) , we f ind a number of outs tanding Indo-

Europeanists who recognize t h a t an autonomous and u ex is ted n

add i t ion to the and u which were zero grade of i and eu.

These inc lude Szemer,nyi (1967), Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1984)

and Mayrhofer (1987). As Szemer&nyi (1967:71) s t a t e s i t :Sta r t ing from the observat ion t h a t i and u of ten represen t the

ni l -g rade of e i and they assume t h a t and u always represen t

the ni l -g rade of the aforementioned sequences . This , of course ,

by no means follows and n Szemerlnyi 's view assuming so gives

us a fa lse sense of secu r i ty.

Moreover as S z e m e r ~ n y iSchmidt-Brandt (1973) and others

have poin ted out , many examples of i invo lve e a r l i e r independent

i n which e has been in t roduced ana log ica l ly and the same would

fo l low for u n r e l a t io n to eu.

I f indeed, there were independent and u phonemes one- -would expect them to be reasonab ly f requent on typologica l

grounds ( espec ia l ly n the case of i and perhaps to pa r t i c ipa t e

i n the system of qu a l i t a t ive a l te rna t ion so t h a t the apophonic

s e r i e s e :o would have been to begin with , but one a l t e rna t ion

wi th in a l a rge r system, one which had a l ready n PIE t imes spread

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ana log ica l ly and had become p a r t i a l l y grammaticized ( e .g . e

presen t stem versus o per fec t stem), while t he others only

survived in a marginal and sporadic way

I t i s qu i te c lear what these a l t e rna t ions in which i and u

p a r t i c i p a t e would be, since we have a l ready encountered examples

of e : i and Q : u. Before the per iod i n i t i a t e d by

Kurylowicz regarding the independent s t a t u s o f i and u, these

a l t e rna t ion s were t r e a t ed in two ways. On t he one hand they were

ignored or the attempt was made to expla in them away by ad hoc

phonet ic changes e .g . the explanat ion of the deviant u of Greek. : ~nuks night as against o elsewhere by Brugmann (1897, I :

598) as due to the labiove1ar a r t i c u l a t i o n of the k.

On the other hand, s t a r t i n g with GUntert (1916) some Indo-

Europeanists pos i t ed an a l t e rna t ion between i and e as wel l as u

and Q GUntert and those who followed him considered i and u to

be reduced forms of~

and Q re spec t ive ly under unaccentedcondi t ions. They t he re fo re assumed an add i t iona l reduced grade

between f u l l and zero. In GUnter t ' s terminology these reduced

members of the shor t vowel s e r i e s were ca l l ed schwa secundum in

d i s t i n c t i o n from the general ly accep ted schwa (Indo-Iranian i

but r e f l exes o f PIE ~ in other branches) which were zero grade

of the long vowels and which they then ca l l ed schwa primum The

most prominant adherent of the theory of schwa secundum was

doubtless Hir t but other Indo-European is ts e .g . Meil le t assumed

some form of the reduced grade .

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Moreover, i f we accept the ex is tence of an independent and

u which does indeed a l te rna te with and Q respec t ive ly as

proposed by the adherents of the theory of schwa secundum then

we can see e a s i l y why as assumed by Szemerehyi and Schmidt

Brandt among others , there w i l l be examples of secondary e i and

eu i n which e i s of l a t e r analog ica l in t roduct ion .

Given, to take the ins tance of i t he general ly recognized

a l t e rna t ion e - e i and the a l t e rna t ion of h i s to r i ca l ly independent

i i n e : i which was receding before t he se r ie s based on ~ we

f i n d e par t i c ipa t ing in both a l te rna t ions and under suchcond i t i ons the normal expecta t ion w i l l be tha t an e which

o r i g i n a l l y a l t e rna ted with i w i l l rep l ace i in a l a rge number

i ns t ances with the more popular and expansive e i .

Fina l ly, one may ask what evidence there i s t h a t in the

a l t e rna t ion i : e and u:o , i and u are reduced vowels. F i r s t t

should be noted tha t as Baldi (1983:16) s t a t e s we are very

uncer t a in about the or ig ina l p o s i t i o n o f the accent in many

of

forms. There are , however, severa l c lea r ins tances in which i

s p r a c t i c a l l y ce r ta in to have been accented. Therefore the most

probable conclusion i s t h a t o r ig ina l i and were simply

i n d i f f e r e n t to the Indo-European accent and could occur with o r

without i t . Another p o s s i b i l i t y cons idered below i s t h a t i n some

i ns t ances i or became zero when unaccented.

Among the ins tances in which accented i seems v i r t u a l l y

c e r t a i n are the fol lowing. One i s t he in te r roga t ive pronoun

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*kwi- one of the forms c i t e d as invo lv ing an o r ig in a l i by

Gamkrelidze and Ivanov and concerning which Szemerlnyi asks

rhe to r i ca l ly (1978:186) But how could the s t rongly accented

in te r roga t ive pronoun *kwis, kwid be weakened forms?

Of course t he same roo t does occur i n unaccented form as an

i nde f in i t e pronoun in some languages e .g . Greek, bu t we know t h a t

i n d e f in i t e s der ive from in te r roga t ives and not v ice ver sa .

Moreover we s h a l l see l a t e r t h a t t h i s roo t i s widespread in

Euras ia t i c in i t s in te r roga t ive meaning. Another example i s the

f i r s t person presen t o f t he verb to be which in West Slavic

shows the r e f l e x e s of o r ig in a l *is -mi . I f the Indo-European root

accent i s c e r t a i n in any grammatical category, t i s in the

s ingu la r presen t a c t i v e of -mi verbs . Note a l so t h a t Gamkrelidze

and Ivanov in regard to the Sansk r i t forms i n i c i t e d e a r l i e r ,

namely i r a s head and l ikvan " i n t e l l i g e n t " say t h a t these

examples of i cannot be schwa secundum.

The view presented here t he re fo re i s t h a t not only are there

independent phonemes i and u but t h a t they a l t e r n a t e d with e and

2 r espec t ive ly. This view has now been f u l l y accepted y a

number of Indo-Europeanists e .g . Mel 'nichuk (1979) , Palmai t is

(1980) and more r e c e n t l y Speirs who does not c i t e t he

prev ious ly mentioned authors . Speirs (1984;39) , r e g a r d i n g : e

notes t h a t " i t embraces many forms whose vocal ism has cons tant ly

def ied explanat ion in t r a d i t i o n a l theory. T h e : . . . a l t e rna t ion

i s , of course , much more f requen t than u _ 2 as might e expected

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on genera l typo log ica l grounds, because i t involves vowels

which are in genera l s t a t i s t i c a l l y more common. In my

extra - Indo-European comparisons I w i l l be concerned mainly with

the i : e a l t e rna t io n .

A fur ther s i g n i f i c a n t observa t ion was made long ago by

Pedersen (1904) , namely t h a t con t r a ry to the asse r t ion of

HUbschmann which was c i t e d e a r l i e r i n d ~may in f ac t

disappear. This i s in consonance with the not ion t h a t

quan t i t a t ive Ablaut i s a more r ecen t phenomenon than qua l i t a t ive

Ablaut, a theory pos i t ed by Kurylowicz (1937:205) and already a tl e a s t hin ted a t by Saussure (1879:135) on the grounds

t h a t whereas the condi t ions for t he zero grade in quan t i t a t ive

Ablaut were in a f a i r number of instances c lea r (absence of

accent) t h i s was not t r ue of q u a l i t a t i v e Ablaut. Indeed although

a t tempts to expla in t he l a t t e r on i n t e r n a l grounds in Indo

European have cons i s ten t ly f a i l ed , t i s s t i l l an a r t i c l e o f

f a i t h with many Indo-Europeanists t h a t there was a pre-Ablaut

per iod . f course everyth ing had a beginning but for reasons

which wi l l appear, I be l i eve t h a t qua l i t a t ive Ablaut

convent ional ly symbolized - 2 was pa r t of a larger system of

a l t e rna t ions which goes back to Euras ia t i c .

I t fol lows from what was sa id above t h a t some IE roo ts

reconst ruc ted with roo t vowel must have an e which goes back to

an e - i ra the r than an e- - o a l t e rna t ion . These tend not onlyt o a l t e rna te with i but have few o r even no forms with o.

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One of them i s the roo t es to be . We have already mentioned

the West Slavic form for the f i r s t person s ingular present i s -mi .

From the same root we f ind in Old Church Slavic i s t u true and

i s t i n a t ru th . There i s a l so the Greek second s ingular7/ f ~ t

~ p e r t i v e1s th i . Outside of Indo-European, Korean i t - i s a l a te

development of i s i - be, e x i s t remain (Ramstedt 1939:71). In

Kamchadal, the language which forms a genet ic group d i s t i n c t from

the r e s t of Chukotian (Chukchee-Koryak) there i s an aux i l i a ry

verb i s to be (Bogoras 1922:76708) which in the vowel height4

harmony system of the language has t he low var ian t es . In Ainu

t h e r e i s a negative e x i s t e n t i a l isam there i s not probably

analyzable as i s - to be and -am negat ive ; There i s also the

pos i t i ve verb i su to be .

Once we admit t h a t t he bas ic a l te rnan ts of the stem are i s

es and s , the problems of the Indo-European s - a o r i s t can

r ece ive a reasonably sa t i s f ac to ry and cons i s t en t so lu t ion . The

formation of a pas t t ense by suff ix ing a verb meaning to be i s

o f course well a t tes ted . In regard to Lat in , the per fec t

econd person s ingular and plura l su ff ixes i s - t i and i s - t i s are

g e n e r a l l y admitted to conta in the a o r i s t s and to der ive from i s

hich i s a l so found in the per fec t i n f i n i t i v e d ix - i s se ,

p lupe r fec t i nd ica t ive dix-eram and p lupe r fec t subjunctive d ix -

issem. However they must, by cu r ren t doct r ine be separated from

t h e forms of the verb ~ t : 9~ e esse,eram and essem which should goL f E ( icrXt

back to es . The Greek eweid-e(s )a I knew t r ad i t i ona l ly a

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pluperfec t was a l ready seen by Brugmann to be an - es a o r i s t . The

Sanskr i t - i s a o r i s t cannot have i t s i from schwa because t h i s

corresponds to the re f lexes of A elsewhere. No doubt Sanskr i t i

has spread here ana log ica l ly in Set bases.

Another Euras ia t i c roo t conta in ing the e - i a l t e rna t ion i s

the Indo-European form usua l ly reconstructed deik- to show,

po in t out . The bas ic meanings seem to be index f inger and

then metonymically to poin t . Lat in dig i tus f inger i s probably

der ived from t h i s roo t . In addi t ion to the f u l l grade e i , and

the zero grade i according to the usual account , survives in

seve ra l Greek forms which cannot be expla ined away. The stem of

the verb in the form dek- i s wel l a t t e s t e d in l i t e r a r y Ionic as

wel l as ep ig raph ica l ly in Chios and Miletus (Bechtel 1924,

I I I . l 8 0 ) . These forms are passed over in s i l ence by Schwyzer in

h i s grammar and Fr i sk in h i s etymological dic t ionary (1960-70).

In h i s dic t ionary Bai l ly (1895) simply says t h a t Ion ic has

suppressed the i o f the r ad ica l e i leaving the stem e . This i s a

desc r ip t ion not an explanat ion . Pre l lwi t z 1905) says t h a t the

Ablaut pa i r e : e i has replaced the older a l te rna t ion i : e i whi le

Chantraine (1968-80) admits t h a t i t c a n t be explained.

Hofmann (1950) says t h a t dek i s supposed to have replaced

d ik but admits t h a t t h i s i s impossible and says t h a t he

has no hypothesis of h i s own. Buck (1910:45) says t h a t Ion ic(;' J I U f ' l

dek-numi i s perhaps a blend of deik- and dik . These are j u s t some

o f the cases in which Greek etymologis ts s imply leave : i o r Q

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5: u unexplained, ignore i t , or s e t up ad hoc hypotheses.

H i t t i t e tekussami i s another example of t he e - grade in t h i s

roo t . In cases l ike Sanskr i t i ~ di rec t ion and Lat in d ic i s

causa t he re i s no reason to assume t h a t i of the root i s a

reduced vowel. In Euras i a t i c t always appears as t ek or t i k and

never i s t e i k . In Eskimo w f i nd West Greenlandic t i k i - g index

f inger ( -q i s the abso lu t ive) , with s i m i l a r forms in other

Eskimo d i a l e c t s , both of the Yuit and I n u i t groups. West

Greenland a l so has a derived verb t ikkuagpaa he poin ts to i t .

Ainu has t ek , teke hand (Batchelor ) , and Dobrotvorskij has a l so

recorded a t i k i f ive . From the meaning f inger w a lso ge t the

meaning one , from i t s use as a un i t in counting. Korean t e k i

one, guy, th ing probably belongs here as do a number of Turkic

forms e .g . Osmanli tek odd (number), only, sole and teken one

by one , Chuvash t ek only, j u s t , Old Turkish (Uigur) t ek only,

merely e tc

A t h i r d Indo-European roo t i n which t he re i s both in te rna l

and ex te rna l evidence for t h i s a l t e rna t ion i s bher- to carry ;

Old Church Slavic b i r a t i t o t ake , p resen t b e r i I take i s

matched exac t ly by the Chukchi verb to t ake , which has the

v a r i a n t s per p i r in a vowel harmony system based on height .

Chukchee has only a s ing l e c l a s s of s tops . Probably a lso Old

Turkish b i r , Osmanli give belong here . I wi l l consider t h i s

Turkish a l te rna t ion l a t e r .

In a four th important example, t i s once more Slavic which

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agrees wi th non-Indo-European Euras ia t ic languages. In the

obl ique cases of the f i r s t person s ingu la r Slavic shows i in the

ins t rumenta l minojo, and the da t ive - loca t ive ~ i n ~but ~ in thecgen i t ive -accusa t ive . The same var ia t ion between a stem form in e

and i i s found in Ural ic and Alta ic . Rldei and r d ~ l y i(1974:

399 r econs t ruc t mi-n and me-n as var ian t Finno-Ugric forms of

" I " . In the Turkic branch of Alta ic , w f ind in Old Turkish

(Gabain 1950:91) ben,men and min as the nominative " I"

and the same var ian t s for the stem of the oblique cases .

In Mongolian b i "I" a l t e rna te s with the stem min- in

the obl ique cases . Tungus has exac t ly the same a l t e rna t ion as in

Mongolian.

There are two add i t iona l ins tances of i - a l t e rna t ions

with in the same paradigm which a re , unlike the j u s t c i t ed example

of bher - bh i r, genera l ly reconst ruc ted as Proto-Indo-

European. One of these i s the already mentioned in te r roga t ive

pronoun in which t i s genera l ly admitted tha t the nominative

s ingu la r stem was kwi- common gender, kwi-s nominative, kwi-m

accusat ive , neuter kwi-d) and for which in the obl ique cases of

t he s ingu la r the stem kwe- i s general ly reconstructed except in

t he loca t ive , e . g . gen i t ive kwe-syo (Szemer:nyi 1970: 270:269) .

The stem form kwei- only occurs in the p lu ra l .

Even here there are i nd ica t ions of i grade in the p lu ra l .

The p lu ra l neuter qui-a surv ives in Lat in as a conjunct ion , and

in the d a t . a b l . p lu ra l quibus. The i t t i t e nominative p lu ra l

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kues a l so wri t ten ku- i - es shows e grade. In Lydian the

two a l te rnan ts have developed in to sepa ra t e paradigms as r e l a t i v e

pronouns ,g i - and ~ w i t i n the oblique poss ib ly showing zero

grade. There i s the usual a t tempt to expla in t h i s away Gusmani

1964:181). He maintains t h a t e i t h e r t he re i s an in te rna l Lydian

change from i to i t would be the only example of such a

change) or goes back to qe i , for which t he re i s not the

s l i g h t e s t evidence. I t i s my conjec ture t h a t the stem kuei- which

i s only a t te s ted in the p lu ra l conta ins t he same plura l - i as in

t h e demonstrat ive t o i e tc . and i s e i t h e r or ig ina l o r, morel i k e l y, the re su l t o f contamination with i t . The t rue zero grade

i s probably ku - as in san sk r i t kuha where? and numerous s imi la r

forms.

The other important example of a recons t ruc t ion of the - i

a l t e rna t ion for Proto-Indo-European i s the p a r a l l e l case of the

demonstrat ive stem seem in La t in nominative s ingu la r masculine

i - s fo r which Szemerenyi r econs t ruc t s (1978:268), masculine

nominat ive s ingular * i s , accusat ive *im; neu te r nominative and

accusa t ive s ingular *id , con t r as t ing with oblique s ingular *e- in

the gen i t ive masculine *esyo and other s ingu la r case forms. Once

more the stem e i - only occurs in p lu ra l forms. Szemer,nyi

himsel f argues (op. c i t . 267) agains t the attempt to take t he

a l t e rna t ion e i - as h i s t o r i c a l l y basic with l a t e r

themat ic iza t ion , asse r t ing t h a t such a process i s found in no

o t h e r pronoun and must be r e j ec ted . Both kwi kwe and i - are

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widely found in Euras ia t i c . Both forms show i n t r a l i n g u i s t i c

d i a l e c t var ia t ion and cross l i n g u i s t i c v a r i a b i l i t y. In some

languages with vowel harmony systems they a re , as in the already

c i t e d example of Chukchi p i r - per to take , vowel harmony

var ian t s . The s ign i f i cance of t h i s wi l l be discussed l a t e r .

In regard to kwi - kw t appears as an independent

in te r roga t ive , who? or what? , in numerous in te r roga t ive

adverbs, as a coordinator (cf . Indo-European kwe) and in some

languages as a quest ion p a r t i c l e or i n d e f i n i t i z e r. I t s found

in one or more of these functions in every branch of Euras ia t i c ,including Ural i c , Yukaghir, a l l th ree branches of Alta ic , Ainu,

Korean, Japanese, Nivkhk, Eskimo, and Aleut . Deta i l s of a l l these

occurrences , which would requi re a paper in i t s e l f w i l l be s e t

fo r th in Greenberg ( in preparat ion) .

However w w i l l be in te re s ted here in an ins tance in which

an Indo-European marginal element, t h a t i s not explainable wi th in

Indo-European, occurs elsewhere in Euras ia t ic in the same

combination and in which these o ther occurrences help us in a t

l e a s t envis ioning a poss ib le explanat ion . This i s the form

reconst ruc ted in Pokorny (1959:641) as *kwene which occurs in

Indo-Iran ian and Germanic with inde f in i te or general iz ing

meaning. In both language groups i t occurs suff ixed to

in te r roga t ives . The examples include Sanskr i t ~ as in kas-

cana anyone and Avestan - c ina with s imilar use and meaning. In

Germanic i t i s found in Anglo-Saxon, Old Saxon and Old High

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c f .mi -ka what? but the a rcha ic nominative s ingu la r in ken and

t he stem ken- i s s t i l l found in some singular case forms e .g .

ken-en (gen .) ; ken-essa ( i ness ive e t c . ) That the stem i s r e a l l y

ke i s shown once more by the nominative p lu ra l ke- t -ka . In Kola

Lapp, by a semantic development p a r a l l e l to t h a t of Indo-European

we f i nd the genera l i z ing pronoun kene anyone .

The h i s t o r i c l separa tenes s of ke and ne i s shown by

t he f ac t t h a t the p lu ra l of t h i s genera l iz ing pronoun i s ke-g-ne

i n which g k r epresen t s a widespread Ural ic dual o r p lu ra l and

t h t t he ordinary personal i n t e r roga t ive i s ke whose p lu r a l i s

ke-g .

Finnish and other Balto-Finnic languages have k in or ki as

an i nde f in i t i z e r suff ixed to var ious case forms of the

in te r roga t ive stems jo - o r ku- , e .g . Finnish j o - ssa -k in

' somewhere' . Whether t h i s -k in i s a borrowing from Germanic I

cannot say.I

f i l

tof i nd any discuss ion

of t h i smatter

inthe

two s tandard t rea tments o f Germanic borrowings in Finnish , those

o f Thomsen and Col l inde r.

Elsewhere as t he simple in te r roga t ive in Finno-Ugric, kin

r a the r than ken may appear (e .g . Zyryan k in ) . R ~ d e iand

r d ~ l y i(1974: 398) r econs t ruc t kin-ken fo r Proto-Finno-Ugric.

The non-Chuvash Turkic languages have kim for who? and

Chuvash has kam. Whether t h i s f i n a l m i s re la ted to the n of

t he other Al ta ic languages I cannot say.

In Yukaghir kin i s who? . In Mongolian ken i s who? and -n

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What i s d i s t inc t iv e about Eskimo i s t h a t the -na of the

s in g u l a r abso lu t ive i s not conf ined to the personal i n t e r roga t ive

but s found in su-na what'? and t he l a rge c l a s s of

demons tra t ives e .g . t a -na tha t . In these other non

i n t e r roga t ive forms the -n i s not found in the dual or p lu ra l

e .g . t a - k u - k , t a -ku- t and the s ingu la r non-absolut ive stems i s

t a -m-, thus -na i s c lea r ly the marker of the s ingular abso lu t ive .

The s i tua t ion in Aleut i s s imi la r to t h a t in Eskimo in t h a t

t he word for who? i s kin and t h i s stem i s taken as the bas i s

fo r dual kin-ku-k and the p lu ra l k in -ku- t . s i n Eskimo the -nform s a l so found in demonstrat ives but here t i s confined to

the s ingu la r e . g . wa-n t h i s ; wa-ku-k (dual ) , wa-ku-s (p lura l )

(Unalaska d i a l e c t . Aleut has no i n f l e c t ed case system so the

ques t ion of an oblique stem does not a r i s e .

Outside of Eskimo and Aleut , t he only branch of Euras ia t i c

in which -n or-na i s found outs ide of the personal i n t e r roga t ive

who'? i s Ural ic for which a t h i r d person pronoun *se-n Finnish

han, p lu ra l se -k i s recons tructed . Once again the absence of -n

n t he p lu ra l shows t h a t -n i s not a p a r t of the stem.

The conclusion t h a t emerges from t h i s review of the fac t s i s

ev iden t ly t h a t Indo-European -ne i n kwe-ne was or ig ina l ly the

marker o f e i t h e r the absolu t ive s ingu la r in an e rga t ive system,

o r t he nominative s ingular in an accusa t ive system. I t was

probably confined t o the personal in te r roga t ive where i t i s found

n a l l the languages in which t occurs and i t s

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appearance i n Ura l i c se -n and the Eskimo and Aleut demonstrat ives

i s probably the r e s u l t of a l a t e r analog ica l spread.

We have seen t h a t the usual Indo-Europeanist reconst ruc t ion

o f the anaphoric and demonstrative exemplif ied in Lat in i - s

involves an a l t e rna t ion between i - in the nominative and

accusa t ive with e - i n the obl ique cases for the s ingu la r, p a r a l l e l

to t h a t which we have seen i n the in terrogat ive stem kwi-. Here

a l s o there are numerous r e l a t ed forms in other branches of

Euras ia t ic which are , as in Indo-European, near demonstrat ives

e . g . Sanskr i t iy-am t h i s o r pronouns as in Latin i - s .

fu r the r typologica l change i s one s imi la r to what occurs in many

English-based pidgins in which, for example, hitem h i t him ,

means simply hi t and the m i s employed qui t e genera l ly as a

mark of t r a n s i t i v i t y. This development which, as we wil l see , i s

a t a t r a n s i t i o n a l stage to becoming a pure t r a n s i t i v i z e r w i l l be

discussed below i n r e l a t i o n to Nivkh and Ainu.

Ural ic has a near demonstrat ive t h a t , as in Indo-European

shows var ia t ion between e and i This can be i l l u s t r a t e d fromHungarian e- (z) t h i s (c f . a-z t ha t ) but i - t t here . This

l a t t e r has a d i a l e c t form e - t t . Collinder (1965:56-7) not only

connects the Ural ic and Indo-European form, but a l so c i t e s the

s imi la r vowel a l t e rn a t io n as support ing evidence. S e t l

(1915:32-3 had made the same comparison between Ural ic and Indo

European and s t a t ed t h a t t could not be the r e s u l t of chance . In

Yukaghir, in the Kolyma d i a l e c t , one of the two c lose ly r e l a t ed

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d i a l e c t s of the language which surv ives , - i forms

t he t h i r d person s ingu la r p re sen t -p re t e r i t e of i n t r a n s i t i v e

verbs . I t a l so occurs in the same c la s s of verbs in the fu tu re

t - i in which t s c l e a r l y, a fu tu re mark.

All t h ree branches of Alta ic concur in * i as the t h i r d

person s ingu la r pronoun. In Turkic t survives in - i _ ( f ron t

and back vowel harmony var ian t s ) su ff ixed to nouns ending in

consonants to mark the possess ive e .g . Turkish ev- i h i s , her

house . I t i s a l so found, as in Indo-European in adverbs of near

de ix i s e .g . Sagai i - d here . This l a t t e r form s t r i k in g ly

resembles Sanskr i t i -ha i -dha here . In Mongolian i t occurs

i n the independent t h i r d person pronoun, but only in the oblique

cases e .g . Class ica l Mongolian i-mada to him/her . n t h i s

bas i s Mongolicists recons t ruc t * i and assume tha t t formerly

ex is ted in the nominative in t h a t form. Mongolian a l so provides

evidence for the e var ian t in Cl a s s i c a l Mongolian e - j i to do

t h i s " , with which we may compare t e - j i to ac t in t h a t manner

and j e - j i to do what? . The i n i t i a l components of the two l a t t e r

forms have, of course , obvious correspondences in Indo-European

a n d , i t may be added, a number of o the r branches of Euras ia t i c .

Mongolian provides fu r the r evidence for e in the demonstrat ive e

ne th i s (p l . e-de) .

The s i tua t io n in Tungus i s s imi la r to t h a t in Mongolian in

t h a t i as an anaphoric pronoun does not survive in the

nominat ive. However Manchu i s an exception s ince t re ta ins i

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as the nominative of the t h i r d person s ingu la r pronoun. The form

with the vowel a l te rnan t i s found in Tungus demonstrat ive

pronoun recons tructed by Benzing (1955:106) as *e - ( r i ) t h i s one .

That t h i s i s the cor rec t analysis i s shown by comparison with Tungus

t a - r e ) t h a t one and Mongolian t e - r e t h a t , p l . te -de . The

subs tan t iv ize r re - r i i s a l so found in Ainu a - r i t h a t one and

Japanese ko-re, so-re e t c . t h i s one , t h a t one .

In Korean the near demonst ra t ive i s and i t precedes the

noun i t modifies . I t a l so survives in the adverb i -mi now . In

Japanese in addi t ion to other possible occurrences which w i l lno t be discussed here, t i s found in the adverb i-ma now (cf .

Korean i -mi c i t ed above). In Japanese rna i s a lso found as an

independent noun meaning space or t ime.

In Nivkh, a l l d i a l e c t s have a pref ixed i - for t h i r d person

s ingu la r possess ive . The f ac t t h a t the consonant grade of the

i n i t i a l consonant of the noun i s a voiced stop when the bas ic

form i s a voiced unasp i ra te e .g . kan dog , i -gan hi s her dog

shows t h a t we have the nasa l grade in a system which i s

t ypo log ica l ly extremely s imi la r to t h a t of Cel t ic . I t t he re fo re

goes back to *i-n-gan with an n gen i t ive which i s very widespread

i n Euras ia t i c (and beyond) which i s not fu r the r i l l u s t r a t e d here.

The vowel harmony var ian t i s only found i n a few nouns and i s

obsolescent (Panfi lov 1962:160). The nominative singular t h i r d

person pronoun i s in the Sakhal in d i a l e c t , while in the mur

d i a l e c t i t has been extended by means of a su ff ix - f . This i i s

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sub jec t to lowering by the he igh t vowel harmony ru les of Nivkh

which only functions i n a few const ruc t ions such as t h i s one. For

example the dat ive in the Sakhalin d i a l e c t i s


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s t o l e i t , ainu se t a e- ikka the man s t o l e the dog. The

a l te rnan t in i - a l so e x i s t s and according to Refsing (1986) i s

what he c a l l s a pseudo- in t r ans i t ive . The ru le he gives exac t ly

matches t h a t o f Nivkh e : . i t h a t i s , t occurs as an i n d e f in i t e

s p e c i f i c o b j e c t when the noun objec t i s absent from the c lause

and i t i s absent when the noun i s p r e se n t .

What has been shown up to now i s t h a t the ~ : i a l t e r n a t i o n

i s of Euras ia t i c da te and tha t in c e r t a i n languages, the two

vowels appear as a l t e r n a n t s i n a system of vowel harmony based on

height .We s h a l l f i r s t cons ider a number of these systems, the pa r t

t h a t the ~ : i a l t e rna t ion plays i n them and the nature of the

phenomena which appears when t hese , o r as a matter o f fac t , any

vowel harmony system breaks down. The f i r s t example we sha l l

cons ider i s the Chukotian family. Basica l ly the same system

occurs i n a l l of the languages o f the family as i s shown in

f igure 1 .

High e u

ow e a o

Figure 1 . Chukotian vowel system

The genera l ru l e , to which t he re a re however, a few minor

except ions i s t h a t a l l t he vowels in a word must be high o r ~ or

they must be low r ~ Thus o i s a neu t ra l vowel. However in

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f i f t e e n t h century Korean by Hayata (1975) i s shown in Figure 3.

Feminine e y ui (neu t ra l )Masculine a \ o

Figure 3 . Ear ly Korean vowel system

The terminology feminine fo r the high grade and masculine

fo r t he low grade, which we saw was dominant in Chukotian i s

found in a number of other eas te rn Asian languages. In the

modern l i t e r a r y language, as we have seen, t h i s system has broken

down but there a re var ian t forms, onomatopoeic, of ten

redup l i ca ted terms ca l l ed by Martin , Lee and Chang (1967)

i n t h e i r dict ionary, heavy and l i g h t i so topes for high (feminine)

and low (masculine) var ian t s respect ive ly. Examples are so l so l ,

s u l s u l (sof t - f lowing , s o f t l y gently) and katak, ketek damp.

There are a l so non-redupl icated var ian t s such as mas and~

both meaning " t a s t e , f lavor" . There are a l so a f a i r number of

i ns t ances in which one d i a l e c t r e t a in s one var ian t and a

d i f f e r e n t d i a l e c t the other one. For example, in the su ff ix of

t h e presen t tense North Korean has -ku and South Korean -ko

(Ramstedt 1957, : 3 4 ) .

All students of Nivkh are agreed t h a t t once had a f u l l y

funct ion ing system of he igh t harmony. Outside of t he t h i r d person

marker i discussed e a r l i e r there are considerable surv iva l s in

t h e numeral c l a s s i f i e r s . The system can be eas i ly reconst ruc ted

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as shown in Figure 4. There are no neu t ra l vowels.

i y u

e 0

Figure 4. Nivkh vowel harmony system.

In add i t i on , however, t o i t s funct ioning with t he t h i rd

person o b j e c t e i and the cons iderable surv iva ls i n the numeral

c l a s s i f i e r systems, t he re are f a i r l y numerous ins tances i n which

of the two major d i a l e c t s t r e a t ed in Savaleva 's dic t ionary, one

var ian t survives i n t he f i r s t d i a l e c t , and the other i n the

second. Some examples are given below in Table 1 .

mur Sakhalin

tyk t ak be hotpark pyrk onlynik nek recen t ly

mut mot pil low

The f i r s t example i s r epresen ta t ive of the most common type.

The mur d ia l ec t i n numerous forms pre fe r s y where Sakalin has

a .

In add i t i on to these cases of i n t e r d i a l e c t a l var ia t ion ,

t he re a re ins tances i n which both var ian t s are presen t in both

d ia l ec t s with semantic d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n . Examples include lyx

stormcloud , lax r a in , and v i - ( d ) go , ve( -d ' ) run .

Another example i s n o / be f rag ran t , nu1nuf smell

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t r a n s i t i v e ) . This l a t t e r case i s p a r t i c u l a r l y i n t e r e s t ing

because t shows the p o s s i b i l i t y of the exp lo i ta t ion of the

surv iv ing var ian t s for grammatical purposes in t h i s case

t r a n s i t i v i t y.

In other instances in which we f ind t h a t vowel harmony

s y s t e m ~ v ebroken down very s imi la r phenomena are found e .g . in

I ran ic ized Uzbek and in the south Mongolian languages. This

mat ter i s not pursued here .

s appears from the preceding exposi t ion the Indo-European

var ian t s i - ~ e Q u - o show t he same cha rac t e r i s t i c of

i n t r a d i a l e c t var ia t ion cross language var ia t ion semantic

d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n and occas ional grammat ic iza t ion which

charac te r i zed languages with fo rmer ly functioning vowel harmonic

systems. Moreover two of the p a i r s i - e and u - o can be

c l e a r l y recognized as involving r e l a t i v e height differences. A

number of Indo-European is ts in view of the typologica l lydevian t pos i t ion of a as genera l ly reconst ruc ted and the fac t

t h a t in most languages i t s re f lexes are iden t ica l with those of

o have suggested t h a t the e o a l t e rna t ion i s to be

r e in t e rp re t ed as e - a . I f t h i s i s accep ted then we may

r econs t ruc t the pre-Proto-Indo-European vowel system as one

involv ing he igh t harmony and t ak ing the form shown in Figure 5

which i s i d en t i c a l except fo r the Chukotian reduced vowel to

t h a t shown in Figure 2.

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High i e u

Low e a


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asp i ra t ion in the Korean form.

I have not ye t dea l t with the f a c t t h a t the Ura l ic languages

and the Turkic and Mongolian branches of Alta ic have back-f ront

harmony ra the r than one based on he igh t . These are d i f f i c u l t

quest ions and I can only t r e t them in a prel iminary way here .

To begin with Ural ic , U ra l i c i s t s themselves have not agreed as to

whether the system goes back to Proto-Ura l ic t imes or not.

Attempts to reconst ruc t the Pro to-Ura l ic vowel system have

encountered grea t d i f f i c u l t i e s and on any account t he re must be

numerous except ions . There are two main approaches. One

associa ted with the name of S t e i n i t z (1950) notes widespread l eve l

a l te rna t ions and t he re fo re assumes a whole se r i e s of such

a l te rna t ions in Proto-Ura l ic . The other represented by I tkonen

(1954) assumes t h a t with a few devia t ions Finnish has re ta ined

the pro to-Ura l ic vowel system and t h t t i s one of front-back

harmony.This

l t t e rview

i s nowthe one favored by U ra l i c i s t s .

Col l inder, whose work forms the bas i s for l l reconst ruc t ions

of pro to-Ura l ic t the presen t t ime, in the very volume which

conta ins the f i r s t reconst ruc t ions which spec i f i ed the vowels of

t he i n i t i l sy l lab le , not merely whether the word as a whole had

f ron t or back harmony s t a t ed regarding the Ural ic

vowel system, Notwithstanding the pioneer work of Genetz,

Leht i sa lo , Ste in i tz and Erki I tkonen, we have not ye t a c lea r

p ic tu re of the vowel system of PU o r PFU (1960: 149) . Regarding

t he two t heor i es ou t l ined above, although his reconst ruc t ions are

5


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e s s e n t i a l l y based on I tkonen ' s approach, he makes the fol lowing

r a t h e r equivocal remarks, " I t i s qui t e l eg i t imate to conclude

(wi th S e t l , Leht isa lo and Ste in i tz ) t h a t t he re ex is ted severa l

vowel a l te rna t ions in PFU.and PU But on the other hand i t i s

worthwhile to t r y (with Erki Itkonen) to ge t along without t h i s

hypothes is ( ib id . 151) .

We have seen t h a t both Coll inder and R ~ d e iand r d ~ l yadmit

he igh t a l te rna t ions in some ins tances inc lud ing the very forms

with which we have been concerned in t h i s paper, namely ki -ke ,

kin-ken, i - e and min men.I t i s my conjecture t h a t Pedersen 's c ryp t ic remark, reported

i n the i n i t i a l port ion of t h i s study (1935: 308), in which he

descr ibes back-fron t harmony as recen t in Ural ic and then

compares Indo-European Ablaut to numerous other cases in which

an i n t e rn a l explanation cannot be found in Ural ic , must r e f e r to

the i n t e r l e v e l var ia t ions which had a l ready been s tud ied in

S e t l (1896), the pioneer work using the approach l a t e r found in

S t e i n i t z and Lehtisalo. In fac t there i s no con t r ad ic t ion between

the two approaches i f we assume t h a t the l eve l a l te rna t ions are

e a r l e r and the back-f ront harmony i s a Ural i c innovation.

The s i tua t io n i s somewhat s imi la r i n Turkic. For non-Chuvash

Turkish a back-front harmony system without neu t r a l vowels such

as are pos i t ed for Ural ic , i s ce r t a in ly inhe r i t ed .

The system as i t i s found in almost a l l Turkic languages

and a l so as recons tructed fo r Proto-Turkic i s shown in Figure 6.

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Front

i ue ~

Back

y u

a o

Figure 6.

However the example of in t ra -he igh t va r ia t ion given e a r l i e r

i n regard to the verb to give , Old Turkish b i r as aga ins t

Osmanli ver to give i s by no means an i so la ted example. Thus

even within Old Turkish which i s d i a l e c t a l l y heterogeneous

(Orkhon insc r ip t ions , Yenisseian insc r ip t ions , Uigur manuscr ipts)

numerous words with i in the stem have var ian t s in e without

t h e re being a r egu la r correspondence. In genera l in Turkic

languages as Menges (1968:75) notes there i s var ia t ion between e

and i of ten occurr ing s ide by s ide in one and the same d i a l e c t

o f agiven language. ome have sought

toaccount

fori t by

assuming a t h i rd vowel in te rmedia te between e (often wri t t en )

and i . Simi lar ly there i s a sporadic height a l te rna t ion between a

n d ~ in Old Turkish (Gabain 1950:49) where the var ia t ion

between ~ and i i s a l so noted and examples given e .g . both byr t

and bar t to break . Turkic languages a l so show cross l i n g u i s t i c

va r i a t ions between o and u, e .g . sora ~ to ask

and between ~ and as in s ~ j l and sUjla to speak.

Menges ( ib id . ) says such v a r i a t ion i s general i n Al t a i c .

In Tungusic, the t h i r d branch of Altaic as t r a d i t i o n a l l y def ined,

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As we know a lso from Africa and one might add Southeast

Asia ) , r e l a t iv e height systems e a s i l y der ive h i s t o r i c a l l y from

[+ATR]. Moreover, the four pa i r s o f Tungusic would match with

Chukotian with i t s ex t r a neu t ra l vowel with underlyingly high orlow vowels and i t s th ree o ther p a i r s , and l ikewise Old and Middle

Korean with th ree pa i r s and a neu t ra l vowel i .

However, as usual in h i s t o r i c a l l i ngu i s t i c s , d i f f i c u l t i e s

a r i s e . Poppe 1960) and other s in reconst ruc t ing Pro to-Al ta ic

equate the f ron t vowels of Turkic and Mongolian with the ATR

vowels o f Tungusic, and the back vowels with -ATR. I bel ieve,

given a l so the evidence of Korean and other Euras ia t i c languages

t h a t the [ATR] system as o r ig ina l and the back-f ront con t ra s t of

Turkic and Mongolian are secondary. Whichever i s co r rec t ,

however, t he i e a l t e r n a t i o n discussed in t h i s paper would have

t o der ive from the higher [ f ron t , ATR] member of two d i ff e r en t

p a i r s and would therefore have the same r a ther than d i ff e r en t

harmonic f ea tu res . The presen t paper i s , however, merely

prel iminary and ca l l s for much fu r the r work in a very d i f f i c u l t

a r e a of invest igat ion.

What I hope to have accomplished in the presen t study i s to

s h o w ~ t h tthe Indo-European i . e . ~ Ablaut i s very old and

i s pa r t of a l a rger system o f a l te rna t ions which has

correspondences i n sp e c i f i c forms in a number of other brancheso f Euras ia t i c . In p a r t i c u l a r the i - e a l te rna t ion i s

i nves t iga ted espec ia l ly in regard to the i n t e r roga t ive kwi-

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~ ~


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and the near demonstrat ive and anaphoric i - . In addi t ion a

t heory i s presented in regard to the Indo-European fo s s i l i z ed

s u f f i x -ne of kwe-ne, an i n d e f i n i t e and general iz ing pronoun,

namely t ha t~

-

was o r i g i n a l l y a s ingular abso lu t ive ornominative r e s t r i c t e d to the in te r roga t ive and/or possibly the

demonstrative in Proto-Euras ia t ic . Moreover the i r r egu la r

d i s t r i bu t ion over languages and even d i a l e c t s of the same

language and the pa i r ing of the vowels in a cross -he igh t harmony

system can be shown to be t yp ica l outcomes of the breakdown of

such systems. This i s p a r t i c u l a r l y wel l exemplif ied by Nivkh.

That the Indo-European e :o Ablaut i s a remnant of a former

vowel harmony system was a l ready proposed by Kravchuk 1969) but

he gives no ind ica t ion of the general nature of such a system or

any evidence to support i t .

F ina l ly w may r a i s e the quest ion as to whether there might

no t be ac tua l surv iva ls with in Indo-European of the vowel

harmonic system proposed here . There are two instances in which

t h i s could be suggested. One i s in the H i t t i t e genera l

i n d e f i n i t e pronoun in which a nominative ku is -k i who? con t ra s t s

wi th gen i t ive kuel-ka, ab la t ive kuets-ka . This i s cons idered to

e a vowel harmonic a l t e rna t io n by Kronasser 1956:48) and t

would of course conform to the system proposed here. However,

v a r i a n t wri t ings such as kuis-ku and kuis-ka suggest thep o s s i b i l i t y t ha t the nominative i s r e a l l y kuis-k c f . Lydian q i s

k . Another poss ib le example i s t he con t ra s t of the Indo-

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European redupl ica t ive vowel in the presen t stem in con t ra s t to

e in the perfec t . o s a t i s f a c t o r y theory has , to my knowledge,

been proposed. Here given the presen t stem vowel e and the

per fec t o, we have f u l l agreement with the vowel harmonic systemproposed in t h i s paper.

The t en t a t ive nature of some of the proposals has been

s t re ssed in the course o f t h i s s tudy. I should add t h a t the

v a l i d i t y of Euras ia t i c as a l i n g u i s t i c s tock does not depend on

these hypotheses e i t h e r . There i s a mass of l ex i ca l and a l so

add i t iona l grammatical evidence t h a t w i l l be presented .

However the s t r i k i n g agreement in p a r t i c u l a r in the

in te r roga t ive kin - ken i n Indo-European, Ural ic , Yukaghir,

Mongolian, Nivkh, Eskimo and Aleut i s a powerful piece of

evidence for the common a f f i l i a t i o n of the languages tha t have

i t .

Footnotes

1 . This a r t i c l e i s an expanded vers ion of the Co1li tz l ec tu re

del ivered a t the Stanford Summer Lingu i s t i c I n s t i t u t e on Ju ly 28,

1987.2. For a f u l l e r account see Greenberg 1987, Chapter 1.

3 . The sub jec t s of Greenberg to appear a)) are f i r s t t he

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Euras ia t i c cognates of I n d o E u r o p e a n ~om I , espec ia l ly

Chu.kchee I c f ....e p t .: ~ thou in the same

language, and secondly, the Indo-European t h i r d person p lu ra l and

impersonal ~ and the h i s t o r i c a l development of cognate forms ino the r branches of Euras ia t i c . The top ic of Greenberg ( to appear

(b) ) i s the in te rpre ta t ion of Indo-European i - (os ) as an o r ig ina l

in t e r roga t ive ra the r than r e l a t i v e or demonstrat ive and the

consequences-for PIE word order to be deduced from the absence of

a r e l a t i v e pronoun.

4. There have been posi ted i n add i t ion such sequences as * r r,0

*11 e t c . which actua l ly appear as sequences of some shor t vowela

plus ~ 1 e tc . according to t he language. n at tempt was made to

account for these , by the so -ca l led Sievers-Edgerton law, as

occurr ing when there was a preceding heavy sy l lab le . I do not

consider t h i s ques t ion here, except to express my opinion t h a t

t hese cases , in which the i n i t i a l component of the sequences was

i n t e rp re t ed as schwa secundum by GUntert and Hir t , are a

separa te problem from the reduced grades such as i of ~ and u

of o discussed here .

5 . However in a more r ecen t t rea tment of Kamchadal Volodin

(1976:216) describes a s imi la r aux i l i a ry verb e l . The f ina l

consonant i s an unvoiced l a t e r a l f r i c a t i v e . There i s a d i a l e c t

d i ffe rence here insofar as Bogoras ' desc r ip t ion i s based on theKhai r 'uz d ia l ec t and Volodin on Napon which are numbers of the two

d i f f e r e n t d ia l ec t s of Kamchadal. Moreover, Bogoras does not

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keleb has been mentioned as a source but Chantraine concludes

with the s ta tement t h a t there i s no acceptable etymology.I

Saussure (1879:135) c i t e s a r a r e form l i b e i he pours whose

source I have been unable to f ind .. o ~ c aThe other example i s tc kson bow . Here Liddel l and Scot t

t L; Y \ :.,: c .._l

(1897) der ive i t ; f rom the verb tunkh(no (stem tukh as in the~ T u X o v

second a o r i s t l tukh-on) whose primary meaning i s given as to

h i t , espec ia l ly to h i t the mark with an arrow. This same

etymology was already given by Curt ius in 1858 before the modern

doc t r ine of PIE vowel a l t e rn a t ion had been es tab l i shed . r _"uYii ' l

There are no forms in toukh- while t he re i s the noun t lkhe ".good

for tune . Moreover t he re a re Aeolian forms in Pindar l ike the" ., J ,

T d r . C ' ~ :- 1 " c; / O o d

p a r t i c i p l e t ~ s s a i sand even ep l to sse with exact ly theJ n { r v ~ ~

same meaning as Att ic epl tukhe f a l l in with , meet with .

These Pindar ic forms remain completely unexplained .,-o'l ov

, n.. -J >


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