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The '''Proto-Indo-European language''' ('''PIE''') is the ] common ancestor of the ]. Although the existence of such a language has been accepted by ]s for a long time, there has been debate about many specific details. The '''Proto-Indo-European language''' ('''PIE''') is the ] common ancestor of the ]. Although the existence of such a language has been accepted by ]s for a long time, there has been debate about many specific details.


==Discovery and reconstruction==
===When was PIE spoken?===
There are several competing hypotheses about when and where PIE was spoken. The only thing known for certain is that the language must have been differentiated into unconnected daughter dialects by the ]. Mainstream estimates of the time between PIE and the earliest attested texts (ca. ]; see ]) range around 1,500 to 2,500 years, with extreme proposals diverging up to another 100% on either side:
*the ] (excluding the Anatolian branch) in ], according to the ] (proposed in the context of ]);
*the ] (] excluding the Anatolian branch) in the ], according to the mainstream ];
*the ] in ], according to ]'s ];
*the ] in ] (the ], in the ], excluding the Anatolian branch), according to ]'s ];
*the ] (] excluding the Anatolian branch), according to a 2003 ] study<ref>] ]) 435-439]</ref>;
*], in the ].


===History===
{{main|Indo-European studies}}
The classical phase of Indo-European ] leads from ]'s ''Comparative Grammar'' (1833) to ]'s ] ''Compendium'' and up to ]'s '']'' published from the ]. Brugmann's '']'' re-evaluation of the field and ]'s development of the ] may be considered the beginning of "contemporary" Indo-European studies.

PIE as described in the early 1900s is still generally accepted today; subsequent work is largely refinement and systematization, as well as the incorporation of new information, notably the ] and ] branches unknown in the 19th century.

Notably, the ], in its early forms discussed since the 1880s, became mainstream after ]'s 1927 discovery of the survival of at least some of these hypothetical phonemes in Anatolian. ]'s '']'' (1959) gave an overview of the lexical knowledge accumulated until the early 20th century, but neglected contemporary trends of morphology and phonology, and largely ignored Anatolian and Tocharian.

The generation of Indo-Europeanists active in the last third of the 20th century (such as ], ] and ]) developed a better understanding of morphology and, in the wake of Kuryłowicz's ] ''Apophonie'', understanding of the ]. From the 1960s, knowledge of Anatolian became certain enough to establish its relationship to PIE; see also ].

===Method===
{{main|Historical linguistics|Indo-European sound laws}}
There is no direct evidence of PIE, because it was never ]. All PIE sounds and words are reconstructed from later Indo-European languages using the ] and the method of ]. The ] is used to mark reconstructed PIE words, such as *''{{unicode|wódr̥}}'' ']', *''{{unicode|ḱwṓn}}'' ']', or *''{{unicode|tréyes}}'' 'three (masculine)'. Many of the words in the modern Indo-European languages seem to have derived from such "protowords" via regular ]s (e.g., ]).

As the Proto-Indo-European language broke up, its sound system diverged as well, according to various ]s in the daughter languages. Notable among these are ] and ] in ], loss of prevocalic ''*p-'' in ], reduction to ''h'' of prevocalic ''*s-'' in ], ] and ] in ], and ] independently in both Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian.

===Relationship to other language families===
Many higher-level relationships between PIE and other language families have been proposed. But these speculative connections are highly controversial. Perhaps the most widely accepted proposal is of an ] family, encompassing PIE and ]. The evidence usually cited in favor of this is the proximity of the proposed ]en of the two families, the ] similarity between the two languages, and a number of apparent shared morphemes. ], while advocating a connection, concedes that "the gap between Uralic and Indo-European is huge", while ], an authority of Uralic, denies any relationship exists.

Other proposals, further back in time (and correspondingly less accepted), model PIE as a branch of Indo-Uralic with a ] substratum; link PIE and Uralic with ] and certain other families in Asia, such as ], ], ] and ] (representative proposals are ] and ]'s ]); or link some or all of these to ], ], etc., and ultimately to a single ] family (nowadays mostly associated with ]). Various proposals, with varying levels of skepticism, also exist that join some subset of the putative Eurasiatic language families and/or some of the ] language families, such as ], ] (once widely accepted but now largely discredited), ], and so on.


==Phonology== ==Phonology==

Revision as of 23:02, 18 April 2007

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The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages. Although the existence of such a language has been accepted by linguists for a long time, there has been debate about many specific details.


Phonology

Main article: Proto-Indo-European phonology
Proto-Indo-European consonants (traditional transcription)
CONSONANTS Labials Coronals Palatovelars Velars Labiovelars Laryngeals
Voiceless stops p t ḱ k kʷ  
Voiced stops b d ǵ g gʷ  
Aspirated stops bʰ dʰ ǵʰ gʰ gʷʰ  
Nasals m n
Fricatives s h₁, h₂, h₃
Liquids, Glides w r, l j
  • Short vowels a, e, i, o, u
  • Long vowels ā, ē, ō; sometimes a colon (:) is employed to indicate vowel length instead of the macron sign (a:, e:, o:).
  • Diphthongs ai, au, āi, āu, ei, eu, ēi, ēu, oi, ou, ōi, ōu
  • vocalic allophones of consonantal phonemes: u, i, r̥, l̥, m̥, n̥.

Other long vowels may have appeared already in the proto-language by compensatory lengthening: ī, ū, r̥̄, l̥̄, m̥̄, n̥̄.

Morphology

Root

Main article: Proto-Indo-European root

The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) are basic morphemes carrying a lexical meaning. By addition of suffixes, they form stems, and by addition of desinences, these form grammatically inflected words (nouns or verbs).

Ablaut

Main article: Indo-European ablaut

One of the unique aspects of PIE was its ablaut sequence that contrasted the vowel phonemes o/e/Ø through the same root. The ablaut is a form of vowel variation which changed between these three forms depending on the adjacent sounds and placement of stress in the word. These changes are echoed in modern Indo-European languages.

Noun

Main article: Proto-Indo-European noun

Proto-Indo-European nouns were declined for eight cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, ablative, locative, vocative). There were three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter.

There are two major types of declension, thematic and athematic. Thematic nominal stems are formed with a suffix -o- (in vocative -e) and the stem does not undergo ablaut. The athematic stems are more archaic, and they are classified further by their ablaut behaviour (acro-dynamic, protero-dynamic, hystero-dynamic and holo-dynamic, after the positioning of the early PIE accent (dynamis) in the paradigm).

Pronoun

Main article: Proto-Indo-European pronouns and particles

PIE pronouns are difficult to reconstruct due to their variety in later languages. This is especially the case for demonstrative pronouns.

PIE had personal pronouns in the first and second person, but not the third person, where demonstratives were used instead. The personal pronouns had their own unique forms and endings, and some had two distinct stems; this is most obvious in the first person singular, where the two stems are still preserved in English I and me. According to Beekes (1995), there were also two varieties for the accusative, genitive and dative cases, a stressed and an enclitic form.

Personal pronouns (Beekes 1995)
First person Second person
Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative h₁eǵ(oH/Hom) wei tuH yuH
Accusative h₁mé, h₁me nsmé, nōs twé usmé, wōs
Genitive h₁méne, h₁moi ns(er)o-, nos tewe, toi yus(er)o-, wos
Dative h₁méǵʰio, h₁moi nsmei, ns tébʰio, toi usmei
Instrumental h₁moí ? toí ?
Ablative h₁med nsmed tued usmed
Locative h₁moí nsmi toí usmi

As for demonstratives, Beekes (1995) tentatively reconstructs a system with only two pronouns: so/seh₂/tod "this, that" and h₁e/ (h₁)ih₂/(h₁)id "the (just named)" (anaphoric). He also postulates three adverbial particles ḱi "here", h₂en "there" and h₂eu "away, again", from which demonstratives were constructed in various later languages.

Verb

Main article: Proto-Indo-European verb

The Indo-European verb system is complex and, as the noun, exhibits a system of ablaut.


Verbs have at least four moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive and optative, as well as possibly the injunctive, reconstructible from Vedic Sanskrit), two voices (active and mediopassive), as well as three persons (first, second and third) and three numbers (singular, dual and plural). Verbs are conjugated in at least three "tenses" (present, aorist, and perfect), which actually have primarily aspectual value. Indicative forms of the imperfect and (less likely) the pluperfect may have existed. Verbs were also marked by a highly developed system of participles, one for each combination of tense and mood, and an assorted array of verbal nouns and adjectival formations.


Buck 1933 Beekes 1995
Athematic Thematic Athematic Thematic
Singular 1st -mi -ō -mi -oH
2nd -si -esi -si -eh₁i
3rd -ti -eti -ti -e
Plural 1st -mos/mes -omos/omes -mes -omom
2nd -te -ete -th₁e -eth₁e
3rd -nti -onti -nti -o

Numbers

Main article: Proto-Indo-European numerals

The Proto-Indo-European numerals are generally reconstructed as follows:

Sihler 1995, 402–24 Beekes 1995, 212–16
one *Hoi-no-/*Hoi-wo-/*Hoi-k(ʷ)o-; *sem- *Hoi(H)nos
two *d(u)wo- *duoh₁
three *trei- (full grade)/*tri- (zero grade) *treies
four *kʷetwor- (o-grade)/*kʷetur- (zero grade),
see also the kʷetwóres rule 		*kʷetuōr
five *penkʷe *penkʷe
six *s(w)eḱs; originally perhaps *weḱs *(s)uéks
seven *septm̥ *séptm
eight *oḱtō, *oḱtou or *h₃eḱtō, *h₃eḱtou *h₃eḱteh₃
nine *(h₁)newn̥ *(h₁)néun
ten *deḱm̥(t) *déḱmt
twenty *wīḱm̥t-; originally perhaps *widḱomt- *duidḱmti
thirty *trīḱomt-; originally perhaps *tridḱomt- *trih₂dḱomth₂
forty *kʷetwr̥̄ḱomt-; originally perhaps *kʷetwr̥dḱomt- *kʷeturdḱomth₂
fifty *penkʷēḱomt-; originally perhaps *penkʷedḱomt- *penkʷedḱomth₂
sixty *s(w)eḱsḱomt-; originally perhaps *weḱsdḱomt- *ueksdḱomth₂
seventy *septm̥̄ḱomt-; originally perhaps *septm̥dḱomt- *septmdḱomth₂
eighty *oḱtō(u)ḱomt-; originally perhaps *h₃eḱto(u)dḱomt- *h₃eḱth₃dḱomth₂
ninety *(h₁)newn̥̄ḱomt-; originally perhaps *h₁newn̥dḱomt- *h₁neundḱomth₂
hundred *ḱm̥tom; originally perhaps *dḱm̥tom *dḱmtóm
thousand *ǵheslo-, *tusdḱomti *ǵʰes-l-

Lehmann (1993, 252-255) believes that the numbers greater than ten were constructed separately in the dialects groups and that *ḱm̥tóm originally meant "a large number" rather than specifically "one hundred."

Sample texts

As PIE was spoken by a prehistoric society, no genuine sample texts are available, but since the 19th century modern scholars have made various attempts to compose example texts for purposes of illustration. These texts are educated guesses at best; Calvert Watkins in 1969 observes that in spite of its 150 years' history, comparative linguistics is not in the position to reconstruct a single well-formed sentence in PIE. Nevertheless, such texts do have the merit of giving an impression of what a coherent utterance in PIE might have sounded like.

Published PIE sample texts:

Notes

References

  • Vyacheslav V. Ivanov and Thomas Gamkrelidze, The Early History of Indo-­European Languages, Scientific American, vol. 262, N3, 110­116, March, 1990
  • A. Kammenhuber, "Aryans in the Near East," Haidelberg, 1968
  • Beekes, Robert S. P. (1995). Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ISBN 90-272-2150-2 (Europe), ISBN 1-55619-504-4 (U.S.).
  • Buck, Carl Darling (1933). Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-07931-7.
  • Lehmann, W., and L. Zgusta. 1979. Schleicher's tale after a century. In Festschrift for Oswald Szemerényi on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, ed. B. Brogyanyi, 455–66. Amsterdam.
  • Mayrhofer, Manfred (1986). Indogermanische Grammatik, i/2: Lautlehre. Heidelberg: Winter.
  • Sihler, Andrew L. (1995). New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508345-8.
  • Szemerényi, Oswald (1996). Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics. Oxford.
  • Whitney, William Dwight (1924). Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited (reprint). ISBN 81-208-0621-2 (India), ISBN 0-486-43136-3 (Dover, US).

See also

External links

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