In
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, the Indo-European ablaut (, from
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
''
Ablaut
In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German '' Ablaut'' ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE).
An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its ...
'' ) is a system of
apophony
In linguistics, apophony (also known as ablaut, (vowel) gradation, (vowel) mutation, alternation, internal modification, stem modification, stem alternation, replacive morphology, stem mutation, internal inflection etc.) is any alternation wit ...
(regular
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
variations) in the
Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
(PIE).
An example of ablaut in English is the
strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its related noun ''song'', a paradigm inherited directly from the Proto-Indo-European stage of the language. Traces of ablaut are found in all modern
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
, though its prevalence varies greatly.
History of the concept
The phenomenon of Indo-European ablaut was first recorded by
Sanskrit grammar
The grammar of the Sanskrit language has a complex verbal system, rich nominal declension, and extensive use of compound nouns. It was studied and codified by Sanskrit grammarians from the later Vedic period (roughly 8th century BCE), culminating ...
ians in the later
Vedic period
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (ca. 1300–900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, betw ...
(roughly 8th century BCE), and was codified by
Pāṇini
, era = ;;6th–5th century BCE
, region = Indian philosophy
, main_interests = Grammar, linguistics
, notable_works = ' (Sanskrit#Classical Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit)
, influenced=
, notable_ideas=Descript ...
in his ''
Aṣṭādhyāyī
The (Devanagari अष्टाध्यायी) is a grammar that describes a form of an early Indo-Aryan language: Sanskrit.
Authored by Sanskrit philologist and scholar Pāṇini and dated to around 500 BCE, it describes the language as cu ...
'' (4th century BCE), where the terms ' and ''
'' were used to describe the phenomena now known respectively as the ''full grade'' and ''lengthened grade''.
[Burrow, §2.1.]
In the context of European languages, the phenomenon was first described in the early 18th century by the Dutch linguist
Lambert ten Kate
Lambert ten Kate (23 January 1674 – 14 December 1731) was a Dutch linguist. Specialised in comparative historical linguistics, he was also a well-known art collector.
Early life
Ten Kate was born in Amsterdam to Mennonite parents. He studied a ...
, in his book ''Gemeenschap tussen de Gottische spraeke en de Nederduytsche'' ("Common aspects of the
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
and
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
languages", 1710).
The term ''
ablaut
In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German '' Ablaut'' ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE).
An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its ...
'' is borrowed from German, and derives from the noun ''
Laut
Laut may refer to:
* Laut Island, South Kalimantan, Indonesia
* Agnes Christina Laut (1871–1936), Canadian journalist, novelist, historian, and social worker
* Frank Laut
Frank Laut (September 27, 1884 – August 18, 1961) was a farmer and a ...
'' "sound", and the prefix ''
ab-'', which indicates movement downwards or away, or deviation from a norm; thus the literal meaning is "sound reduction". It was coined in this sense in 1819 by the German linguist
Jacob Grimm
Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm's law of linguistics, the co-author of th ...
in his ''Deutsche Grammatik'', though the word had been used before him. In particular, the 17th-century grammarian
Schottelius had used the word negatively to suggest that German verbs lacked the sophistication of the classics, but there is no hint of this disdain in Grimm or in modern scholarly usage.
In English, the term became established through the 1845 translation of
Bopp's ''Comparative Grammar''.
Ablaut and vowel gradation
Vowel gradation is any vowel difference between two related words (such as ''photograph''
fəʊtəgrɑːfand ''photography''
əˈtɒgrəfi or two forms of the same word (such as ''man'' and ''men''). The difference need not be indicated in the spelling. There are many kinds of vowel gradation in English and other languages, which are discussed generally in the article
apophony
In linguistics, apophony (also known as ablaut, (vowel) gradation, (vowel) mutation, alternation, internal modification, stem modification, stem alternation, replacive morphology, stem mutation, internal inflection etc.) is any alternation wit ...
. Some involve a variation in vowel length (quantative gradation: ''photograph'' / ''photography'' shows reduction of the first vowel to a
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
), others in vowel coloring (qualitative gradation: ''man'' / ''men'') and others the complete disappearance of a vowel (reduction to zero: ''could not'' → ''couldn't'').
For the study of European languages, one of the most important instances of vowel gradation is the Indo-European ablaut, remnants of which can be seen in the English verbs ''ride'', ''rode'', ''ridden'', or ''fly'', ''flew'', ''flown''. For simply learning English grammar, it is enough to note that these verbs are
irregular, but understanding why they have unusual forms that seem irregular (and indeed why they are actually perfectly regular within their own terms) requires an understanding of the grammar of the
reconstructed proto-language.
Ablaut is the oldest and most extensive single source of vowel gradation in the Indo-European languages and must be distinguished clearly from other forms of gradation, which developed later, such as
Germanic umlaut
The Germanic umlaut (sometimes called i-umlaut or i-mutation) is a type of linguistic umlaut in which a back vowel changes to the associated front vowel ( fronting) or a front vowel becomes closer to (raising) when the following syllable conta ...
(''man'' / ''men'', ''goose'' / ''geese'', ''long'' / ''length'') or the results of modern English word-stress patterns (''man'' / ''woman'', ''photograph'' / ''photography''). Confusingly, in some contexts, the terms 'ablaut', 'vowel gradation', 'apophony' and 'vowel alternation' are used synonymously, especially in
synchronic
Synchronic may refer to:
* ''Synchronic'' (film), a 2019 American science fiction film starring Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie
* Synchronic analysis, the analysis of a language at a specific point of time
*Synchronicity
Synchronicity (german: ...
comparisons, but
historical linguists
Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include:
# to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages
# ...
prefer to keep 'ablaut' for the specific Indo-European phenomenon, which is the meaning intended by the linguists who first coined the word.
Ablaut grades
In Proto-Indo-European, the basic, inherent vowel of most syllables was a short ''e''. ''Ablaut'' is the name of the process whereby this short ''e'' changed, becoming short ''o'', long ''ē'', long ''ō'' or sometimes disappearing entirely to leave no vowel at all.
Thus, ablaut results in the alternation of the following sounds:
If a syllable had a short ''e'', it is said to be in the "e-grade" or "full grade". When it had no vowel, it is said to be in the "zero grade". Syllables with long vowels are said to be in "lengthened grade". (When the ''e''-grade or the ''o''-grade is referred to, the short vowel forms are meant.)
A classic example of the five grades of ablaut in a single root is provided by the different case forms of two closely related Greek words. In the following table, an acute accent (´) marks the syllable carrying the word stress; a macron (¯) marks long vowels and the syllable in bold is the one illustrating the different vowel gradations.
In this unusually neat example, the following can be seen:
*A switch to the zero-grade when the word stress moves to the following syllable.
*A switch to the o-grade when the word stress moves to the preceding syllable.
*A lengthening of the vowel when the syllable is in word-final position before a sonorant.
As with most reconstructions, however, scholars differ about the details of this example.
One way to think of this system is to suppose that Proto-Indo-European originally had only one vowel, short ''e'', and over time, it changed according to phonetic context, so the language started to develop a more complex vowel system. Thus, it has often been speculated that an original e-grade underwent two changes in some phonetic environments: under certain circumstances, it changed to ''o'' (the o-grade) and in others, it disappeared entirely (the zero-grade).
However, that is not certain: the phonetic conditions that controlled ablaut have never been determined, and the position of the word stress may not have been a key factor at all. There are many counterexamples to the proposed rules: ''*deywós'' and its nominative plural ''*deywóes'' show pretonic and posttonic e-grade, respectively, and ''*wĺ̥kʷos'' has an accented zero grade.
Lengthened grades
Many examples of lengthened grades, including those listed above, are not directly conditioned by ablaut. Instead, they are a result of sound changes like
Szemerényi's law
Szemerényi's law (or Szemerényi's lengthening) is both a sound change and a synchronic phonological rule that operated during an early stage of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). Though its effects are evident in many reconstructed as wel ...
and
Stang's law
Stang's law is a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) phonological rule named after the Norwegian linguist Christian Stang.
Overview
The law governs the word-final sequences of a vowel, followed by a semivowel ( or ) or a laryngeal ( or ), followed by a na ...
, which caused
compensatory lengthening
Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda, or of a vowel in an adjacent syllable. Lengthening triggered ...
of originally short vowels. In the examples above, Szemerényi's law affected the older sequences *ph
2-tér-s and *n̥-péh
2-tor-s, changing them to *ph
2-tḗr and *n̥-péh
2-tōr. Thus, these forms were originally in the regular, unlengthened e-grade and o-grade. Such lengthened vowels were, however, later
grammaticalised and spread to other words in which the change did not occur.
Nevertheless, there are examples of true lengthened grades, in which short ''e'' alternates with long ''ē''. Examples are the verbs with
"Narten" inflection, and nouns like ''*mḗh₁-n̥s'' "moon", genitive ''*méh₁-n̥s-os''. Alternations of this type were rare, however, and the ''e'' ~ ''o'' ~ ''∅'' alternation was the most common by far. The long ''ō'' grade was rarer still and may not have actually been a part of the ablaut system at all.
Zero grade
The zero grade of ''ablaut'' may appear difficult for speakers of English. In the case of *ph
2trés, which may already have been pronounced something like , it is not difficult to imagine it as a contraction of an older *ph
2terés, pronounced perhaps , as this combination of consonants and vowels would be possible in English as well. In other cases, however, the absence of a vowel strikes the speaker of a modern western European language as unpronounceable.
To understand, one must be aware that there were a number of sounds that were consonants in principle but could operate in ways analogous to vowels: the four syllabic sonorants, the three
laryngeals
The laryngeal theory is a theory in the historical linguistics of the Indo-European languages positing that:
* The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) had a series of phonemes beyond those reconstructable by the comparative method. That is, the ...
and the two semi-vowels:
*The
syllabic sonorants are ''m'', ''n'', ''r'' and ''l'', which could be consonants much as they are in English, but they could also be held on as continuants and carry a full syllable stress and then are transcribed with a small circle beneath them. There are many modern languages who show these sounds in syllable nuclei.
*The laryngeals could be pronounced as consonants, in which case they were probably variations on the ''h'' sound and so normally transcribed as h
1, h
2 and h
3. However, they could also carry a syllable stress, in which case they were more like vowels. Thus, some linguists prefer to transcribe them ə
1, ə
2 and ə
3. The vocalic pronunciation may have originally involved the consonantal sounds with a very slight schwa before and/or after the consonant.
*In pre-vocalic positions, the phonemes ''u'' and ''i'' were semi-vowels, probably pronounced like English ''w'' and ''y'', but they could also become pure vowels when the following ablaut vowel reduced to zero.
When ''u'' and ''i'' came in postvocalic positions, the result was a diphthong. Ablaut is nevertheless regular and looks like this:
Thus, any of these could replace the ablaut vowel when it was reduced to the zero-grade: the pattern CVrC (for example, ''*bʰergʰ-'') could become CrC (''*bʰr̥gʰ-'').
However, not every PIE syllable was capable of forming a zero grade; some consonant structures inhibited it in particular cases, or completely. Thus, for example, although the
preterite
The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple pas ...
plural of a Germanic strong verb (see below) is derived from the zero grade, classes 4 and 5 have instead vowels representing the lengthened e-grade, as the stems of these verbs could not have sustained a zero grade in this position.
Zero grade is said to be from
pre-Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
syncope in unaccented syllables, but in some cases the lack of accent does not cause zero grade: ''*deywó-'', nominative plural ''*-es'' "god". There does not seem to be a rule governing the unaccented syllables that take zero grade and the ones that take stronger grades.
a-grade
It is still a matter of debate whether PIE had an original a-vowel at all. In later PIE, the disappearance of the laryngeal h
2 could leave an a-colouring and this may explain all occurrences of ''a'' in later PIE. However, some argue controversially that the e-grade could sometimes be replaced by an a-grade without the influence of a laryngeal, which might help to explain the vowels in class 6
Germanic verbs, for example.
Subsequent development
Although PIE had only this one, basically regular, ablaut sequence, the development in the daughter languages is frequently far more complicated, and few reflect the original system as neatly as Greek. Various factors, such as
vowel harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
, assimilation with nasals, or the effect of the presence of laryngeals in the Indo-European (IE) roots as well as their subsequent loss in most daughter languages, mean that a language may have several different vowels representing a single vowel in the parent language.
In particular, the zero grade was often subject to modification from changes in the pronunciation of syllabic sonorants. For example, in Germanic, syllabic sonorants acquired an
epenthetic
In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek language, Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable (''prothesis (linguistics), prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syll ...
''-u-'', thus converting the original zero grade to a new "u-grade" in many words. Thus, while ablaut survives in some form in all Indo-European languages, it became progressively less systematic over time.
Ablaut explains vowel differences between related words of the same language. For example:
* English ''strike'' and ''stroke'' both come from the same IE root ''*streyg-''. The former comes from the e-grade, the latter from the o-grade.
* German ''Berg'' (mountain, hill) and ''Burg'' (castle) both come from the root ''*bʰergʰ-'', which presumably meant "high". The former comes from the e-grade, the latter from the zero-grade. (Zero-grade followed by ''r'' becomes ''ur'' in Germanic.)
Ablaut also explains vowel differences between cognates in different languages.
*English ''tooth'' comes from Germanic ''*tanþ-s'' (e.g. Old English ''tōþ'', Old High German ''zand''), genitive ''*tund-iz'' (Gothic ''tunþus'', but also "thornbush", literally "horse-tooth"). This form is related to Latin ''dens, dentis'' and Greek '', '', with the same meaning, and is reflected in the English words ''dentist'' and ''orthodontic''. One reconstructed IE form is ''*dónts'', genitive ''*dn̥tés''. The consonant differences can be explained by regular sound shifts in primitive Germanic but not the vowel differences: by the regular laws of sound changes, Germanic ''a'' can originate from PIE ''o'', but ''un'' usually goes back to a syllabic ''n̥''.
:The explanation is that the Germanic and Greek nominative forms developed from the o-grade, the Latin word and the Germanic genitive from the zero-grade (in which syllabic ''n̥'' developed into ''en'' much in the same way as it became ''un'' in Germanic). Going a step further back, some scholars reconstruct ''*h
1dónts'', from the zero grade of the root ''*h
1ed-'' 'to eat' and the participle ''-ont-'' and explain it as 'the eating one'.
*English ''foot'' comes from the lengthened o-grade of ''*ped-''. Greek '', '' and Latin ''pes, pedis'' (compare English ''octopus'' and ''pedestrian''), come from the (short) o-grade and the e-grade respectively.
For the English-speaking non-specialist, a good reference work for quick information on IE roots, including the difference of ''ablaut'' grade behind related lexemes, is
Calvert Watkins
Calvert Watkins ( /ˈwɒtkɪnz/; March 13, 1933 – March 20, 2013) was an American linguist and philologist, known for his book '' How to Kill a Dragon''. He was a professor of linguistics and the classics at Harvard University and after retirem ...
, ''The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots'', 2nd edition, Boston & New York 2000.
(Note that in discussions of lexis, Indo-European roots are normally cited in the e-grade, without any inflections.)
Grammatical function
In PIE, there were already ablaut differences within the paradigms of verbs and nouns. These were not the main markers of grammatical form, since the inflection system served this purpose, but they must have been significant secondary markers.
An example of ablaut in the paradigm of the noun in PIE can be found in ''*pértus'', from which the English words ''ford'' and (via Latin) ''port'' are derived (both via the zero-grade stem ''*pr̥t-'').
An example in a verb is *bʰeydʰ- "to wait" (cf. "bide").
In the daughter languages, these came to be important markers of grammatical distinctions. The vowel change in the Germanic strong verb, for example, is the direct descendant of that seen in the Indo-European verb paradigm. Examples in modern English are the following:
It was in this context of Germanic verbs that ''ablaut'' was first described, and this is still what most people primarily associate with the phenomenon. A fuller description of ''ablaut'' operating in English, German and Dutch verbs and of the historical factors governing these can be found at the article
Germanic strong verb
In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is a verb that marks its past tense by means of changes to the stem vowel (ablaut). The majority of the remaining verbs form the past tense by means of a dental suffix (e.g. ''-ed'' in English), and are kn ...
.
The same phenomenon is displayed in the verb tables of
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
,
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
and
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
. Examples of ''ablaut'' as a grammatical marker in Latin are the vowel changes in the perfect stem of verbs.
Ablaut can often explain apparently random irregularities. For example, the verb "to be" in Latin has the forms ''est'' (he is) and ''sunt'' (they are). The equivalent forms in German are very similar: ''ist'' and ''sind''. The same forms were present in
Proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the Attested language, unattested, linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately ...
:
[ Derksen, Rick, ''Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon'', 2008, p. 146.] ''*estь'' and ''*sǫtь'', and developed into e.g. Polish ''jest'' and ''są''.
The difference between singular and plural in these languages is easily explained: the PIE root is ''*h
1es-''. In the singular, the stem is stressed, so it remains in the e-grade, and it takes the inflection ''-ti''. In the plural, however, the inflection ''-énti'' was stressed, causing the stem to reduce to the zero grade: ''*h
1es-énti'' → ''*h
1s-énti''. See main article:
Indo-European copula
A feature common to all Indo-European languages is the presence of a verb corresponding to the English verb ''to be''.
General features
This verb has two basic meanings:
*In a less marked context it is a simple copula (''I’m tired''; ''That ...
.
Some of the morphological functions of the various grades are as follows:
e-grade:
* Present tense of thematic verbs; root stress.
* Present singular of athematic verbs; root stress.
* Accusative and vocative singular, nominative, accusative and vocative dual, nominative plural of nouns.
o-grade:
* Verbal nouns
# stem-stressed masculine action nouns (Greek ''gónos'' "offspring", Sanskrit ''jánas'' "creature, person"; Greek ''trókhos'' "circular course" < "*act of running");
# ending-stressed feminine, originally collective, action nouns (Greek ''gonḗ'' "offspring", Sanskrit ''janā́'' "birth");
# ending-stressed masculine agent nouns (Greek ''trokhós'' "wheel" < "*runner").
* Nominative, vocative and accusative singular of certain nouns (
acrostatic root nouns such as ''dṓm'', plural ''dómes'' "house";
proterokinetic neuter nouns such as ''*wódr̥'' "water" or ''dóru'' "tree").
* Present tense of causative verbs; stem (not root) stress.
* Perfect singular tense.
zero-grade:
* Present dual and plural tense of athematic verbs; ending stress.
* Perfect dual and plural tense; ending stress.
* Past participles; ending stress.
* Some verbs in the aorist (the Greek thematic "second aorist").
* Oblique singular/dual/plural, accusative plural of nouns.
lengthened grade:
* Nominative singular of many nouns.
* Present singular of certain athematic verbs (so-called ''Narten-stem verbs'').
* Some verbs in the aorist.
* Some derived verbal nouns (so-called ''proto-vrddhi'').
Many examples of lengthened-grade roots in the daughter languages are actually caused by the effect of
laryngeals
The laryngeal theory is a theory in the historical linguistics of the Indo-European languages positing that:
* The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) had a series of phonemes beyond those reconstructable by the comparative method. That is, the ...
and of
Szemerényi's law
Szemerényi's law (or Szemerényi's lengthening) is both a sound change and a synchronic phonological rule that operated during an early stage of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). Though its effects are evident in many reconstructed as wel ...
and
Stang's law
Stang's law is a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) phonological rule named after the Norwegian linguist Christian Stang.
Overview
The law governs the word-final sequences of a vowel, followed by a semivowel ( or ) or a laryngeal ( or ), followed by a na ...
, which operated within Indo-European times.
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
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*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Indo-European Ablaut
Germanic languages
Historical linguistics
Ablaut
In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German '' Ablaut'' ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE).
An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its ...
Linguistic morphology