Hittite Evidence against Full-Grade o

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

Ancient history · Hittite language · Linguistics · Ancient Near East History · History · Linguistics and Cultural Studies · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy · Psychology