A comprehensive account of laryngeal theory development exists in linguistics
the verdict
INSUFFICIENT LEANING
refutedsupported
the weight of evidence
2 sources for · 0 against
Available linguistic literature touches on the existence and application of the laryngeal theory in Proto-Indo-European phonology, but does not provide a comprehensive account of its full theoretical development.
assumption of glottalization explaining previously known phenomena, which lends the theory empirical support. (Similarly, the laryngeal theory was proposed
The glottalic theory is a hypothesis that Proto-Indo-European had ejective or otherwise non-pulmonic stops, *pʼ *tʼ *kʼ, instead of the plain voiced ones, *b *d *ɡ as hypothesized by the usual Proto-Indo-European phonological reconstructions.
A forerunner of the theory was proposed by the Danish linguist Holger Pedersen in 1951, but he did not involve glottalized sounds. While early linguists such
*b is parenthesized because it is controversial, at best very rare and perhaps nonexistent.
Historically, the inventory was not introduced as an independent proposal, but it arose as a modification of an earlier, typologically more plausible theory.
In the original Proto-Indo-European proposal, there was a fourth phonation series, voiceless aspirated *pʰ, *tʰ, *ḱʰ, *kʰ, *kʷʰ, which was assumed to exist on the basis of what is…
The glottalic theory is a hypothesis that Proto-Indo-European had ejective or otherwise non-pulmonic stops, *pʼ *tʼ *kʼ, instead of the plain voiced ones, *b *d *ɡ as hypothesized by the usual Proto-Indo-European phonological reconstructions. A forerunner of the theory was proposed by the Danish linguist Holger Pedersen in 1951, but he did not involve glottalized sounds.
However, it was later realized that the series was unnecessary and that it was generally the result of a sequence of a tenuis stop (*p, *t, *k, *ḱ, *kʷ) and one of the Proto-Indo-European laryngeal consonants: *h₁, *h₂, or *h₃. The aspirate series was removed, but the breathy voiced consonants remained. === Problems === There are several problems with the traditional reconstruction. Firstly, the rarity of *b is odd from a typological point of view.
On the other hand, the plain voiced stops were compatible with either of the other two series: *degʰ or *dek were both possible. The constraints on the phonological structure of the root cannot be explained in terms of a theory of unlimited assimilation or dissimilation since they display a radical difference in patterning between three sets of consonants, the stops, that ought to behave identically. Typologically, that is very odd.
Thus, an Indo-European *DʰeDʰ (in which *Dʰ represents any non-ejective stop) might be realized as *DeDʰ (attested in Indic and Greek) or as *DʰeD (attested in Latin). In contrast,
The absence of a labial plain voiced stop *b in the protolanguage now becomes an absence of a labial ejective *pʼ, proportionally a rather more common state of affairs. The theory also provides a completely-coherent explanation to the patterning of the stop series in roots: In many languages that have glottalized consonants, there is a phonetic constraint against two such consonants in the same root. The constraint has been found in many languages of Africa, the Americas, and the Caucasus.
Kortlandt also proposes word-final glottalization in English to be a retention and derives features such as preaspiration in Icelandic and Faroese and sporadically in Norwegian and certain instances of gemination in Swedish and High German from preglottalization as well. In both Latin (Lachmann's law) and Balto-Slavic (Winter's law), vowels are lengthened before a "voiced" consonant. It is the same behaviour that vowels exhibit before Proto-Indo-European laryngeals, which are assumed to have included a glottal stop.
(However, the same change has been observed to have taken place independently numerous times in the Indic languages.) A compromise viewpoint would be to see the original formulation of glottalic theory, with ejective stops, as representing an earlier stage in the history of Proto-Indo-European, which would have undergone a period of internal evolution into a stage featuring unstable voiced glottalized stops, or even into the similarly unstable traditional system, before it branched out into the daughter languages.
That is based on the "voiced" series triggering length in preceding vowels in daughter languages, the glottalic closure before the stop acting in a manner akin to the laryngeals. That analysis results in the following phoneme inventory: Martin Kümmel similarly proposes, based on observations from diachronic typology, that the consonants traditionally reconstructed as voiced stops were really implosive consonants, and the consonants traditionally reconstructed as aspirated stops were originally plain voiced stops, agreeing with a proposal by Michael Weiss that typologically compares the development of the stop system of the Tày language (Cao Bằng Province, Vietnam).
Instead, we are dealing with an example of a cross-linguistically common allophonic variation like the VCʼV~VʔCʼV~VːCʼV shown in Quileute. However, it still remains that allegedly-certain direct evidence is absent from any majority Indo-European language except Latvian and two pieces of indirect evidence; the operation of "Lachmann's law" and "Winter's law", have become obscured by subsequent phonological developments in Romance and Balto-Slavic.
Kortlandt follows this proposal, but also follows more recent versions of the theory in having no voiced consonants or treating voicing as non-distinctive, proposing that the pulmonic stops had phonemic length like vowels had: It seems paradoxical for Kortlandt to posit that, on the one hand, there are daughter languages of Proto-Indo-European where certain instances of gemination are indirect evidence of former instances of glottalization, and on the other hand, gemination was already phonemic in Proto-Indo-European.
This is the same as the compromise viewpoint to see the original formulation of glottalic theory, with ejective stops, as representing an earlier stage in the history of Proto-Indo-European, which would have undergone a period of internal evolution into a stage featuring unstable voiced glottalized stops before it branched out into the daughter languages.
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