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Hittite Evidence Against Full-Grade o

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

E. H. Sturtevant
E. H. Sturtevant*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

The familiar doctrine that Primitive Indo-European possessed a full-grade (accented) vowel o derives from Ferdinand de Saussure. His thesis was that in addition to in ablaut relation to e there was another vowel which appeared in Greek and Italic as o and which was due to the influence of a certain lost consonant of undefined character. He had three reasons for this assumption: (1) Greek and Italic present in certain words an that is not observed to alternate with . (2) Greek and Italic o in open syllables corresponds to Indo-Iranian ā, according to ‘Brugmann's law’; but sometimes Graeco-Italic o corresponds to Indo-Iranian a in open syllables, and de Saussure held that-such pairs came from the full-grade, non-ablauting o. (3) Armenian usually responds to Graeco-Italic o with o, but in certain words with a, and in these words again de Saussure found full-grade, non-ablauting o. A fourth reason was later supplied by Zubaty, who held that in Lithuanian full-grade ō appears as uo while original ō in ablaut relation with e or ē appears as o.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 14 , Issue 2-Part1: April-June , June 1938 , pp. 104 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © 1938 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes 96-116 (1879) = Recueil des publications scientifiques 90-109.

2 BB 18.241-66 (1892).

3 KZ 36.86-103.

4 Idg. Gramm. 2.29 (1921).

5 Idg. Gramm. 2.32 f.

6 De Hettitische ḫ, een bijdrage tot de studie van het Indo-Europeesche vocalisme 171-3 (1937).

7 Boghazköi-Studien 7.32-6 (1922).

8 JAOS 52.10 f., HG 122 f.

9 TAPA 58.7 (1928).

10 Cf. Sturtevant and Bechtel, Hittite Chrestomathy 106 f.

11 Lang. 13.286 f. (1937).

12 So Brugmann, Grundriss 12.155; Hirt, Idg. Gramm. 2.181.

13 Cf. Fay, Studies in Honor of Gildersleeve 189-203.

14 See Kretschmer, KZ 37.274-6; Buck, Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin 84.

15 The prevailing value of Hittite h as representing an a-colored laryngeal was originally maintained by Kurylowicz, Symbolae Grammaticae in Honorem Ioannis Rozwadowski 95-104 (1927). This doctrine has been slightly modified by its author in Études indo-européennes 27-76, 253-5, and it has been widely accepted. Reference should be made to an independent treatment by Couvreur, De Hettitische ḫ, een bijdrage tot de studie van het Indo-Europeesche vocalisme (1937). The existence of a second value of Hittite h has been recognized by Sapir, Lang. 10.276 fn. 4 (1934); Couvreur, op. cit. 140-6, 189-94, 252-6; Sturte-vant, Lang. 12.186, 210-13, 14.12 f. While there is difference of opinion about this second value of Hitt. h, all the scholars named are agreed that the double writing of Hittite h indicates an original laryngeal of a-color.

16 Couvreur, De Hettitische ḫ 189-94 (1937), did not know of the double h in forms of the verb, and so, by denying the connection of lahhus ‘basin’, he was able to equate Hitt. lahu- with Gk. λόω on the basis of *loγu-. This is no longer possible.

17 Couvreur, De Hettitische ḫ 141-3, finds full-grade o after the assumed o-colored laryngeal in the first three of these. Sapir, Lang. 12.179 and fn. 15, finds the same initial group in the fourth word in our list. The remaining words in which Couvreur finds this initial group do not deserve serious consideration.

18 Cuny, RHA 2.204 f.

19 On this word see Sturtevant, Mélanges Boisacq.

20 Couvreur, De Hettitische ḫ. 205-7 (1937), rejects these etymologies, as he must in order to maintain his thesis; but see Sturtevant, Lang. 14.76 f.

20a Since this paper was sent to the printer I have become convinced that Hittite h written single between vowels represents not ', but a voiced sound corresponding to x; cf. Speiser's Notes on Hurrian Phonology in JAOS 58. I should now employ γ instead of ' in reconstructing the Indo-Hittite prototype of weh-, sehur, mehur, etc. It follows that γ did not induce o-color in a neigh-boring vowel any more than ' did.

21 See Lang. 4.161, 12.186.

22 See Sturtevant, Lang. 12.184 f.

23 I do not know of any valid reason for accepting the usual dogma of de Saussure's followers that we must assume an initial glottal stop for all words that would otherwise begin with or .