Kortlandt, Frederik H. H.

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© Frederik Kortlandt 2001 INITIAL LARYNGEALS IN ANATOLIAN  FREDERIK KORTLANDT Elsewhere I have argued that initial *H2- and *H3- yielded h- before *-e- and zero before *-o- in Armenian and Albanian and suggested that the same development may be established for Hittite, e.g. harp-  ‘separate’ < *H3erbh-  versus  ark- ‘mount’ < *H3orǵh-ey-, Gr. orphanós, órkhis (cf. Kortlandt 1984: 42). The new monographs by Kimball (1999) and Rieken (1999) have strengthened my view that this is indeed correct. In his classic study of *H3 in Anatolian, Melchert lists seven examples of ha- < *H3e- (1987: 21): (1)  haran- ‘eagle’ < *H3eron-, Gr. órnis; (2)  harp- ‘change one’s group’ < *H3erbh-, Latin orbus; (3)  happar ‘transaction’, happinant- ‘rich’ < *H3ep-, Latin opus; (4)  hastāi ‘bone(s)’ < *H3est(H2)ōi, Gr. ostéon; (5)  hark- ‘perish’ < *H3erg-, Old Irish orgaid ‘slays’; (6)  hawi- ‘sheep’ < *H3ewi-, Latin ovis; (7)  haliya- ‘bow’, halhaltumar ‘corner’ < *H3el-, Gr. ōlénē ‘elbow’. As Melchert points out, proponents of the view that *H3- was lost in Anatolian assume  ha-  <  *H2o-  in these words, which implies that the absence of non-Anatolian a- < *H2e- in these roots must be ascribed to chance. This is clearly a circular argument. Moreover, initial *H3- is reflected as h(a)- before a consonant in Hittite  harg(a)nāu  ‘palm, sole’ < *H3rǵ-, Gr. orégō  ‘stretch out’, and hapus- ‘shaft, penis’ < *H3pus-, Gr. opuíō ‘marry’,1 as Melchert points out, concluding that *H3-, like *H2-, is generally preserved as h-. In his more recent monograph, Melchert silently abandons *H3- for *H2- in ‘bone’ and ‘sheep’, to my mind for no good reason, and stealthily adds hanna- litigate’ < *H3enH2o- (1994: 145, 235). In his article, Melchert lists three examples where initial *H3- may have been lost in Hittite (1987: 20): (1)  arta ‘stands’ < *H3erto, Gr. õrto; (2)  arki- ‘testicle’ < *H3erǵhi-, Gr. órkhis;  1 This etymology seems improbable to me. FREDERIK KORTLANDT  2 (3)  aniya- ‘carry out, execute’ < *H3en-, Latin onus. As he points out, these instances might reflect *H1o- if the necessary o-grade could be justified. In his book, Melchert posits *H1e- with lowering of *e- to a- before the following resonant in these forms (1994: 85, 137). This is clearly unsatisfac-tory in view of the non-Anatolian evidence. Moreover, he follows Kimball’s sug-gestion (1987) that initial *H3-, unlike *H2-, was lost in Lycian (on which see be-low). In her recent monograph, Kimball adduces three alleged instances of Hittite ha-< *H2o- (1999: 142): (1)  hawi- ‘sheep’, Hom. óïs, Latin ovis; (2)  hastāi ‘bone(s)’, Gr. ostéon; (3)  hasduēr ‘twigs, brush’, Gr. ózos. Since these are classic examples of non-apophonic o- in Indo-European (e.g., Beekes 1969: 130f., 139f.), I reconstruct *H3e- here. Kimball lists six possible ex-amples of ha- < *H3e- (1999: 393f.): (1)  hāppar ‘price deal’, hapzi ‘is rich’, hāpperiya- ‘city, settled place’, Latin opus; (2)  hāras, hāran- ‘eagle’, Gr. órnis; (3)  hāriya- ‘bury’, Gr. orússō ‘dig’; (4)  hāri- ‘valley’, Hom. oũros ‘boundary’;2 (5)  happēna- ‘baking kiln’, Gr. optós ‘roasted’; (6)  hāliya- ‘kneel’, Gr. ōlénē ‘elbow’. Kimball rejects the etymological connection of aniya- ‘work’ with Latin onus ‘burden’ and assumes ā- < *H1o- in ārra- ‘arse’ < *H1orso-, Gr. órros, and in ār- ‘arrive’, Gr. órōra, versus ar- < *H1r- in arki- ‘testicle’ and ar- ‘stand, place one-self (1999: 387, 389). I would rather assume *H3o- in arki- ‘testicle’ and distin-guish between *H1er- ‘move’ and *H3er- ‘rise’ (cf. Oettinger 1979: 403f., 523f.). While ār- ‘arrive’ < *H1ōr- reflects the vowel of the perfect, ar- ‘stand’ < *H3or- has the root vowel of the original causative and iterative presents which spread to the middle flexion (cf. Oettinger 1979: 526). It is important to note that Hittite does not tolerate an alternation between initial h- and zero within the paradigm while the vowel alternation between -e- and -a- in the root is productive. Consequently, a methodology which does not reckon with the possibility that initial h- was restored or analogically eliminated leads to a pro-liferation of reconstructed phonemes, and this is precisely what we see in Anato- 2 This etymology seems impossible to me. INITIAL LARYNGEALS IN ANATOLIAN  3 lian studies. My reconstructions differ from the ones proposed by Melchert and Kimball in two respects. First, they are much more constrained because I do not find evidence for more than four distinct sequences (three laryngeals before *-e- and neutralization before *-o-) whereas they start from 24 possibilities (zero and three laryngeals before three vowels *e, *a, *o which may be short or long, cf. Melchert 1994: 46f., Kimball 1999: 119f.). Second, my reconstructed laryngeals are based on independent evidence from the non-Anatolian languages, especially Greek, whereas theirs are based on the internal evidence of the Anatolian lan-guages, especially Hittite. In her excellent new monograph, Rieken is quite candid about adopting the latter methodology when she concedes that her view that *H3 was always lost in Anatolian is “nicht viel mehr als eine Arbeitshypothese” (1999: 5). Any proponent of a scientific theory should indicate the type of evidence re-quired for its refutation. While it is difficult to see how a theory which posits *H2- for Hittite h- and a dozen other possible reconstructions for Hittite a- can be re-futed, it should be easy to produce counter-evidence for a theory which allows no more than four possibilities which are moreover based on independent, non-Anatolian evidence. The fact that no such counter-evidence has been forthcoming suggests that my theory is correct. In particular, the alleged instances of ha- < *H2o- all show non-apophonic o- in the non-Anatolian languages and Melchert reconstructs e-grade in these words (cf. 1987: 21 and 1994: 106, 145, 235, 257). For Hittite ais ‘mouth’, Latin ōs, I reconstruct *H1eH3s (cf. Melchert 1994: 115f., Rieken 1999: 186). My theory makes three more predictions which could but have not been re-futed: the absence of an Indo-European alternation between *e- and *a- (not *o-), the absence of Indo-European etymologies with *a- not from *H2e-, and the ab-sence of an Indo-European origin of Hittite he-  (unless -e-  represents an i-diphthong). There was no phoneme *a in Indo-European (cf. Lubotsky 1981 and 1989). The only example of Hittite a- < *a- which looks ancient is alpā- ‘cloud’, Gr. alphós, Latin albus ‘white’, also Gr. álphi ‘barley’, Old High German albiz ‘swan’ (cf. Melchert 1994: 147, Rieken 1999: 98). I think that this root was bor-rowed from a European substratum language because it is not found in Indo-Iranian or Tocharian, has a variant *elbh- in Slavic, has an alternating suffix -it-, -ut- in Germanic (cf. Boutkan 1998: 127) and the same suffix with an infixed nasal in Slavic in the word for ‘swan’, plays a role in Germanic mythology (cf. English elf) and is frequent in European geographical names (e.g., Alba, Albion, Elbe, the Alps). It supports the view that the Anatolians preceded the Greeks and the Phry-gians in their migration from the Ukraine into the Balkans and then into Anatolia. The assumption that original long vowels were not colored by adjacent laryn-geals is still maintained by Melchert (1994: 47, 68) and Kimball (1999: 120, 144f.). Since the color of the laryngeals is under discussion and original vowel length is notoriously difficult to establish, it adds another degree of freedom to FREDERIK KORTLANDT  4 available loose reconstructions. Interestingly, the harvest of this free lunch is ex-tremely small. Kimball still subscribes to Melchert’s obsolete view that *H2ē- and perhaps *H3ē- yielded hi- in Hittite (1999: 144f.), a view which Melchert himself has fortunately withdrawn (1994: 143). Both Melchert (1994: 144) and Kimball (1999: 145) now recognize that hekur ‘crag, rock’ is a loanword from Hurrian. In-cidentally, sēhur ‘urine’ must be a loanword from Semitic (cf. Orel & Stolbova 1995: 125, #533). The derivation of henk- ‘offer, grant’, middle voice ‘bow’ < *H2ē- cannot be correct in view of the Old Hittite spellings 3sg. ha-ik-ta, 3pl. ha-in-kán-ta which “cannot be dismissed as hypercorrections” (Melchert 1994: 144, cf. Oettinger 1979: 172, 177, Rieken 1999: 336). It follows that there is sim-ply no evidence for Hittite he- < *H2ē- or *H3ē-. Kimball claims that initial *H3-, unlike *H2-, was lost in Lycian epirije- ‘sell’, Hittite happariye- < *H3ep-, Latin opus (1987: 187f. and 1999: 385), and Melchert follows her (1994: 72). Rieken has seen that this verb is actually derived from a thematic stem *Hopro-, not directly from hāppar ‘transaction’ (1999: 315). Thus, I think that the initial laryngeal was regularly lost in the verb and later restored in Hittite on the basis of the heteroclitic *H3ep-r/n-. Note that Oettinger already pro-posed two different chronological layers for hap(pa)rae- and hap(pa)rie- and an anaptyctic -i- in Lycian epirije- (1979: 352f., cf. Rieken, l.c.). I conclude that the material adduced by Oettinger, Melchert, Kimball and Rieken is fully compatible with my view that initial *H2- and *H3- were preserved before *-e- and lost before *-o- in Anatolian. REFERENCES Beekes, Robert S.P.  1969  The development of the Proto-Indo-European laryngeals in Greek. The Hague-Paris: Mouton. Boutkan, Dirk F.H.  1998  “On the form of North European substratum words in Germanic”. Historische Sprachforschung 111, 102-133. Kimball, Sara E.  1987 “*H3 in Anatolian”. In: Festschrift for Henry Hoenigswald, 185-192. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. 1999  Hittite historical phonology. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft. Kortlandt, Frederik 1984 “PIE.  *H- in Armenian”. Annual of Armenian Linguistics 5, 41-43. Lubotsky, Alexander 1981 “Gr.  pḗgnumi : Skt. pajrá- and loss of laryngeals before mediae in Indo-Iranian”. Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft 40, 133-138. 1989  “Against a Proto-Indo-European phoneme *a”. In: The new sound of Indo-European, 53-66. Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Melchert, H. Craig  1987  “Reflexes of *h3 in Anatolian”. Die Sprache 33, 19-28. INITIAL LARYNGEALS IN ANATOLIAN  5 1994  Anatolian historical phonology. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi. Oettinger, Norbert  1979  Die Stammbildung des hethitischen Verbums. Nürnberg: Hans Carl. Orel, Vladimir E. & Stolbova, Olga V.  1995  Hamito-Semitic etymological dictionary. Leiden-New York-Köln: Brill. Rieken, Elisabeth 1999  Untersuchungen zur nominalen Stammbildung des Hethitischen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.    

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Die Stammbildung des hethitischen Verbums.

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Hamito-Semitic etymological dictionary. Leiden-New York-Köln:

Hittite historical phonology. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft.

On the form of North European substratum words in Germanic”.

pajrá- and loss of laryngeals before mediae in Indo-Iranian”.

The development of the Proto-Indo-European laryngeals in Greek. The HagueParis: Mouton. Boutkan, Dirk F.H.

Untersuchungen zur nominalen Stammbildung des Hethitischen.

Initial laryngeals in Anatolian

Initial laryngeals in Anatolian

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