This article contains characters used to write reconstructed Proto-Indo-European words (for an explanation of the notation, see Proto-Indo-European phonology). Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode combining characters and Latin characters.
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 thus merge with the plain velars *k *g *gʰ, respectively. 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.
History
Weise's epitaph in Eisenberg, Germany, which reads in part: Here lived the researcher and teacher of our mother tongue, Geheimrat Prof. Dr. Oskar Weise
Oskar Weise first described the problem in an 1881 article on Ancient Greek etymologies 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?" (German: Ist anlautendes γ vor λ abgefallen?).[1] 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.[1]: 115 [a]
Despite having "been largely forgotten by the scholarly world" according to Alwin Kloekhorst, noting the relative absence of discourse on the topic, Weise's initial findings have a long history of support, though some of his findings have needed revision in light of other research.[2]: 262 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.[3] 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.[4]: 238 In 1995, Robert S. P. Beekes also described the process derived from the law, but did not reference its origins with Weise.[2]: 262 [5] First presented at a conference in 2008,[6]Alwin Kloekhorst published Weise's Law: Depalatalization of Palatovelars before *r in Sanskrit in 2011,[2] 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.[2]: 261
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 rather than remaining as stops. Weise's law, however, demonstrates that these sounds depalatalize before *r, thereby merging with the plain velar stops *k *g *gʰ.[2]: 262 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.[2]: 262
Sanskrit words, as Weise stated in his original postulation,[1] 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: श्रवस्śravas 'fame' < *ḱleu-es-; ह्राद्hrād 'to resound, to make a noise' < *ǵʰleh₃d-).[2]: 265-266 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., हिरण्यhíraṇya 'gold' < *ǵʰlh₃-en-). Thus, these apparent counterexamples do not actually represent exceptions to the rule.[2]: 266
Other apparent violations occur in contexts in which the palatovelar consonant and the rhotic cross a morphological boundary or share a clear derivational relationship with another word that would not have been subjected to the sound law.[2]: 266 [4]: 238 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 अज्रájra 'field, plain' < h₂éǵ-ro- 'field, pasturage', where the palatalized consonant has been restored due to an obvious connection with अजतिájati 'to drive', derived from the same root (*h₂eǵ- 'to drive') but in a context which would not subject it to the sound change.[2]: 266
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.[2]: 268
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).[7][2]: 269[4]: 238 It is generally accepted that it probably occurred after the divergence of the Anatolian languages (c. 4500 BC),[8] since the metathesis of late Proto-Indo-European *u and *r occurs after both the divergence of Anatolian (e.g., Hittite: 𒍝𒈠𒀭𒆳zama(n)kur 'beard' < *smóḱ-ur) and any depalatalization under Weise's law. This explains exceptions such as Sanskrit श्मश्रुśmáśru '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][2]: 269 [9]: 1029 [10]: 5–6§6
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 (սրունքsrunkʿ 'leg' < *ḱrūs-ni-; մերձmerj 'near, close to').[4]: 239 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.[4]: 242 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.[4]: 242 Kortlandt's findings were disputed by Beekes, who objected to the etymologies of both Armenian examples,[11]: 175 : 196 [12] and by Kloekhorst, who cited Armenian and Albanian examples inherited from Proto-Indo-European.[2]: 269 [6]: 4
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.[2]: 269 While the law does not affect most of the generally accepted centum languages, Kloekhorst notably considers Albanian and Armenian to be satem languages because their reflexes appear to be in accordance with the law.[2]: 261:269 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.[2]: 269
See also
Boukólos rule, a similar rule affecting labiovelar consonants in Proto-Indo-European
References
Notes
^Wenn wir nämlich die mit guttural + r oder l beginnenden indischen wörter durchmustern und mit ihren griech. reflexen vergleichen, so werden wir die wahrnehmung machen, dass alle diejenigen kehllaut + ρ zeigen, welche den guttural im indischen unversehrt erhalten haben, dagegen griech. guttural + l regelmässig nur dann eintritt, wenn im indischen die palatalen zischlaute c̣, j, h erscheinen. Die ausnahmslosigkeit dieser regel verbietet von selbst die annahme, dass hier zufall obgewaltet hat. Selbstverständlich sind aber dabei die fälle ausgeschlossen, wo r (resp. l), nicht unmittelbar hinter dem gutturale steht, sondern sich ein vocal dazwischen befindet, wiewohl auch hier die oben aufgestellte regel oft gilt.[1]: 115
^Albanian: mjekër 'chin, beard' and Lithuanian: smãkras 'chin' also derive from *smóḱ-ru-, however the presence of plain velars suggests a later depalatalization in Albanian and Balto-Slavic.[2]: 269
Citations
^ abcdWeise, Oskar (1881). "Ist anlautendes γ vor λ abgefallen?" [Is initial γ dropped before λ?]. Beiträge zur Kunde der indogermanischen Sprachen [Contributions to the Science of Indo-European Languages] (in German). 6: 105–118. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
^ abcdefghijklmnopqrKloekhorst, Alwin (2011) [2008]. Written at Salzburg, Austria. "Weise's Law: Depalatalization of Palatovelars before *r in Sanskrit" (PDF). Wiesbaden, Germany: Indo-European Studies and Linguistics in Dialog: Acts of the XIIIth Conference of the Society of Indo-European Studies.
^Meillet, Antoine (1894). "De quelques difficultés de la théorie des gutturales indo-européennes" [On some difficulties of the theory of Indo-European gutturals]. In Bouillon, Émile (ed.). Mémoires de la Société de la Linguistique de Paris [Dissertations from the Linguistics Society of Paris] (in French). Vol. 8. Paris: Société Linguistique de Paris. pp. 277–304.
^ abcdefKortlandt, Frederik (1978). "I.-E. palatovelars before resonants in Balto-Slavic". In Fisiak, Jacek (ed.). Recent Developments in Historical Phonology. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 237–243. doi:10.1515/9783110810929.237. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
^ abKloekhorst, Alwin (September 2008). Weise's Law: depalatalization of palatovelars in Sanskrit. XIIIth International Conference of the Society of Indo-European Studies. Salzburg, Austria.
^Kulikov, Leonid (2017). "Indo-Iranian". In Kapović, Mate (ed.). The Indo-European Languages. Routledge Language Family Series (2 ed.). London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-67855-9.
^Goedegebuure, Petra (researcher, presenter) (5 February 2020). Anatolians on the Move: From Kurgans to Kanesh (Presentation). Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures. Event occurs at 37:53–46:09. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
^Lubotsky, Alexander (1994). "Avestan θβōrәštar- and the Indo-European root √*turḱ-". Die Sprache. Vienna: Vienna Language Society.
^Beekes, Robert (2003). "Historical phonology of Classical Armenian" (PDF). Armeniaca: Comparative Notes. Ann Arbor: 133–211. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
