The New Sound of Indo-European: Essays in Phonological Reconstruction 9783110857344, 9783110105360

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The New Sound of Indo-European

Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 41

Editor

Werner Winter

Μ out on de Gruyter Berlin · New York

The New Sound of Indo-European Essays in Phonological Reconstruction

edited by

Theo Vennemann

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

1989

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

The New sound of Indo-European : essays in phonological reconstruction / edited by Theo Vennemann. p. cm. —(Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs : 41) Proceedings of a workshop held during the Seventh International Conference on Historical Linguistics held Sept. 9-13, 1985 at the University of Pavia. Includes bibliographies and index. ISBN 0-89925-521-3 (alk. paper) 1. Indo-European languages—Phonology. Historical—Congresses. 2. Reconstruction (Linguistics)—Congresses. 3. Typology (Linguistics)—Congresses. I. Vennemann, Theo. II. International Conference on Historical Linguistics (7th : 1985 : University of Pavia) III. Series. P583.N49 1989 414—del 9 89-30698 CIP

Deutsche Bibliothek Cataloging in Publication Data

The new sound of Indo-European : essays in phonological reconstruction / [7th Internat. Conference on Histor. Linguistics held Sept. 9-13, 1985 at the Univ. of Pavia]. Ed. by Theo Vennemann. — Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1989 (Trends in linguistics : Studies and monographs ; 41) ISBN 3-11-010536-5 NE: Vennemann, Theo [Hrsg.]; International Conference on Historical Linguistics ; Trends in linguistics / Studies and monographs

© P r i n t e d on acid free paper © Copyright 1989 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form—by photoprint, microfilm or any means—nor transmitted nor translated into a machine language without written permission from the publishers. Typesetting: H. Charlesworth & Co Ltd., Huddersfield—Printing: Bosch-Druck, Landshut—Binding: Lüderitz und Bauer, Berlin—Printed in Germany.

Contents

Preface

ix

List of Contributors

xv

I. Opening remarks Paper Konrad Koerner Comments on reconstructions in historical linguistics Discussion Pierre Swiggers Reconstruction and historical linguistics [Discussion of Koerner's paper]

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17

II. Laryngeal Theory Papers R. S. P. Beekes The nature of the Proto-Indo-European laryngeals Alfred Bammesberger The Laryngeal Theory and the phonology of Prehistoric Greek Leo A. Connolly Laryngeal metathesis: An Aryan peculiarity? Alexander Lubotsky Against a Proto-Indo-European phoneme *a William R. Schmalstieg Monophthongizations: More plausible than laryngeals! Discussions of papers on Laryngeal Theory Pierre Swiggers On (the nature of) Proto-Indo-European laryngeals [Discussion of Bammesberger's and Beekes's papers] Paul J. Hopper Remarks on R. S. P. Beekes, 'The nature of the Proto-Indo-European laryngeals'

23 35 43 53 67

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Contents

III. Glottalic Theory Papers Philip Baldi—Ruth Johnston-Staver Historical Italic phonology in typological perspective Frederik Kortlandt Lachmann's law Theo Vennemann Phonological and morphological consequences of the 'Glottalic Theory' Thomas V. Gamkrelidze Language typology and Indo-European reconstruction Michael Job Sound change typology and the 'Ejective Model' Richard Schrodt Neue Forschungen zur germanischen Lautverschiebung—ein Fall von Paradigmenwechsel? Jens Elmegärd Rasmussen Die Tenues Aspiratae: Dreiteilung oder Vierteilung des indogermanischen Plosivsystems und die Konsequenzen dieser Frage für die Chronologie einer Glottalreihe Pierre Swiggers Towards a characterization of the Proto-Indo-European sound system Eric Hamp The Indo-European obstruent features and phonotactic constraints Discussions of papers on Glottalic Theory Pierre Swiggers Latin phonology and the 'Glottalic Model' [Discussion of Baldi— Johnston-Staver's, Kortlandt's, and Vennemann's papers] Paul J. Hopper Remarks on Baldi—Johnston-Staver, 'Historical Italic phonology in typological perspective' Paul J. Hopper Remarks on F. Kortlandt, 'Lachmann's law' Claude Boisson Letter to Theo Vennemann Theo Vennemann Reply to Claude Boisson's remarks Paul J. Hopper Remarks on Τ. V. Gamkrelidze, 'Language typology and Indo-European reconstruction'

85 103

107 117 123

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153 177 209

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221 223 225 227

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Contents

Theo Vennemann Indo-European consonant shifts—Algebra, arithmetic, or normal science? [Discussion of Job's and Schrodt's papers] Paul J. Hopper Remarks on J. E. Rasmussen, 'Die Tenues Aspiratae: Dreiteilung oder Vierteilung des indogermanischen Plosivsystems und die Konsequenzen dieser Frage für die Chronologie einer Glottalreihe' Jens Elmegard Rasmussen Erwiderung auf Paul J. Hoppers 'Remarks' Michael Back 'Das Arlbergmodell'—ein Diskussionsbeitrag Claude Boisson Lettre aux participants de l'Atelier sur l'indo-europeen du Congres de Pavie

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245 249 255

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IV. Concluding remarks Winfred P. Lehmann Notes on the Workshop: Reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European sound system and their consequences 267

Index of forms Index of names

271 295

Preface

1 The Workshop The Seventh International Conference for Historical Linguistics, which took place at the University of Pavia from 9 to 13 September, 1985, included a workshop titled Reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European Sound System and Their Consequences, which I was asked to organize by the President of the International Society for Historical Linguistics, Professor Anna Giacalone Ramat. The Workshop was announced in the Call for Papers of the Circulars of the Society; in addition, I addressed a little over fifty Indo-European phonologists by letter, using a snowballing technique whereby every addressee could suggest any number of additional addressees—a method which very quickly began producing onomastic circles because the same names started to be repeated early in the game. About thirty of the scholars addressed declined because of other commitments. Some suggested they would like to attend but not deliver papers. Of these, three assumed the role of Chief Discussants, in the sense that they would try to comment on several of the contributed papers and would, at the Meeting, automatically have the floor after every delivered paper; they were Claude Boisson, Paul Hopper, and Winfred Lehmann. Abstracts and short versions of papers were distributed among those planning to attend the Workshop, the idea being that this method would leave more time for discussion at the meeting itself. The Workshop Meeting was scheduled by the Conference Organizers to take place on a single day, Friday, 13 September. The four sessions and two discussion periods were chaired by Professors Aldo Prosdocimi (Padua), Yakov Malkiel (Berkeley), Oswald Panagl (Salzburg), and Henry Hoenigswald (Philadelphia). The discussions were lively, and the dividing line between members and guests of the Workshop became rather blurred in the process. At the end of the Meeting, the participants decided that a publication should result from the Workshop. 1 Papers were circulated among members, everyone being invited to comment on everybody else's paper. Both papers and comments are included in this volume, with omissions and changes only as were recommended by the referee of the Trends in Linguistics Series and the Publisher. The name of the Workshop, 'Reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European Sound System and Their Consequences', turned out to be too clumsy for some purposes. Therefore, in correspondence with the Editor-in-Chief at Mouton de Gruyter, Dr. Marie-Louise Liebe-Harkort, herself a linguist, and with the

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Series Editor, I began using, tongue in cheek, 'The New Sound of IndoEuropean' as a reference. Somehow this reference found its way into the Publisher's Catalogue. At that point I saw no other solution but to make it the official title of the book. I hope it will not offend anyone, especially those contributors and readers who believe, on the strength of old and new arguments, in the traditional reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European sound system.

2

The themes

While the Workshop was in no way intended to be prejudiced for or against any particular topic and approach in Proto-Indo-European phonology, almost the entire discussion, either positively or negatively, involved only two themes, the second of them to double the extent of the first: the Laryngeal Theory and the Glottalic Theory. This may be surprising to some, and I must admit that initially it was to me. Some of the papers and discussions contribute to one of the two, some argue against them, some use them as starting points and actually go beyond them. Yet the affinity to either the one or the other is in almost all cases great enough to warrant their subsumption under one of these two headings. How can the collective choice of such a seemingly narrow focus be explained? I would like to sketch an answer to this puzzle. Looked at from the point of view of the philosophy of science, the grand name of Theory is not really warranted for either of the two approaches. They only form portions of theories, such as phonological, morphological, and lexicological theories of Proto-Indo-European and theories of the phonological development of the Indo-European languages. They are thus best viewed as hypotheses, or sets of hypotheses, within such theories. I therefore prefer to speak about the laryngeal and glottalic hypotheses in this preface. One amazing aspect of the limitation to these hypotheses is the fact that neither of them is new. The former is more than a century old, as Mayrhofens elegant survey of 1981 timely reminded us. The latter is, if we consider Pedersen's radical approach of 1951 as the first dig at this site of Proto-IndoEuropean archaeology, more than a third of a century old. Even if 1972/1973—the time of the publication of Gamkrelidze/Ivanov's and Hopper's answer to the problem focused on by Pedersen in 1951, highlighted by Jakobson in 1957, and theoretically underpinned by Greenberg in 1970—is considered a new beginning, the problem had been studied by the time of the Workshop for a dozen years; again Mayrhofer deserves our gratitude for having put these developments, in 1983, into the perspective of an ongoing

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process of rethinking the bases of our understanding of Proto-Indo-European phonology. What made these two hypotheses so attractive in 1985 that they, their consequences, and possible alternatives were studied to the exclusion of nearly everything else? The laryngeal hypothesis has dramatically changed our view not only of the phonology but also of the morphology and lexicology of Proto-Indo-European and, furthermore, of the history of the daughter languages. The glottalic hypothesis has so far not progressed very much beyond solving the original distributional problems of traditionally reconstructed Proto-Indo-European which it was designed to resolve. But it has created a spirit of freedom and openness, enabling scholars to look afresh at many portions of Proto-IndoEuropean grammar that seemed solved and settled forever. It has enticed two of the inventors of the hypothesis, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, to attempt a new synthesis of our grammatical understanding of Proto-Indo-European; their two-volume magnum opus was published in 1984. Time will tell whether the right moment was chosen for this enormous effort, because it seems to me that the book is far from being closed on the details—or even on the basic structure—of the Proto-Indo-European plosive inventory. While the laryngeal hypothesis appears to me to have reached a high degree of maturity, a stage where sophisticated comparative work has become possible to stabilize the results suggested by purely internal reconstruction, the glottalic hypothesis to me still seems to be in its infancy. It too may eventually have a revolutionizing effect on Proto-Indo-European grammar, but somehow that event is still to come. And I think that it will come in a very different way than for the laryngeal hypothesis. The laryngeal hypothesis, by adding new structural and phonetic elements not only to the phonological system but also to the morphology and lexicology, by necessity changed almost all of Proto-Indo-European grammar on purely theoretical grounds. Such a development is out of the question for the glottalic theory, which reinterprets structural units of Proto-Indo-European phonology without adding any new ones. Therefore I believe that any revolutionary effect of the glottalic hypothesis will not come about on purely theoretical grounds but on heuristic grounds, namely by the liberating effect on those who appreciate it, even if they do not believe it—at least not in the shape in which it was proposed by its three inventors. There may be one further aspect of the two hypotheses that makes them so attractive to Indo-Europeanists. That is the volatile nature of the posited structural elements and properties and the resultant speculative character of all proposals dealing with them. Much more than in other parts of Indo-European phonology, the units and properties investigated elude immediate identification or simple methodological inference. Though the evidence produced for them must therefore be quite indirect, the descriptive and explanatory success of the two hypotheses—plus, in the case of the laryngeal hypothesis, the later

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discovery of some elements of the posited sort in a previously unavailable language, Hittite—strengthened the faith in the speculative kind of reconstruction characterizing both approaches. The epistemological attitude making these developments possible has its analog, and perhaps for some its model, in the natural sciences where hypotheses and entire theories have in our century become more and more abstract, postulating entities and properties whose justification consisted less in direct identification or simple inference but in the overall descriptive and explanatory success of the theories of which they were part, plus occasional 'direct' observation by a predicted trace in the sky or on a screen. Perhaps then, in the final analysis, the great attraction of the two hypotheses reflects the general epistemological Zeitgeist. But this Zeitgeist may still not be enough to explain the appeal of the two hypotheses. In the nineteenth century, reconstruction was entirely concentrated on studying the internal relations obtaining among the Indo-European languages. The 'comparative method' was comparative only inasmuch as more than one Indo-European language was considered; it was not comparative in the sense in which we understand the term 'language comparison' today. The laryngeal hypothesis in its classical manifestations is in this respect a typical brain child of the nineteenth century. General linguistics, the discipline whose task it is to produce general theories of languages, i.e. theories encompassing all human languages, and to do so on comparative grounds, is, even though its roots are older than Indo-European studies, essentially a discipline of the twentieth century. General theories of language structure, language use, and language change have created gauges by which language specific hypotheses can be measured; new avenues for supporting or weakening claims concerning Proto-Indo-European and its later developments have thereby been opened. Furthermore, linguists, both grammarians of specific languages and those striving for general theories, by studying more and more human languages, many of which only became known for the first time in our century, have produced an arsenal of 'system prototypes' and 'change prototypes' to which Indo-Europeanists may turn for ideas when internal Indo-European comparisons do not force any specific solution upon them. Such an approach is not strictly speaking typological but is rather the application of general theories of language, and the comparative utilization of actually observed other systems and changes, to problems of structure and change in a specific language family and its history. Nevertheless it has been labeled 'typological reconstruction'. What is meant is not a new kind of reconstruction but a shift of emphasis in the choice of methods for arriving at, and supporting or weakening, specific reconstructional claims. This shift of emphasis may, for want of a better term, be called the typological turn in reconstruction. The laryngeal and glottalic hypotheses differ considerably in view of the typological turn; but it has been important for both. As to the laryngeal

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hypothesis, the typological turn has inspired new life into the question of what Saussure's 'coefficients' were phonetically, because the arsenal of laryngeal 'system and change prototypes' now greatly exceeds that available to the pioneers of the hypothesis; but the hypothesis existed, and continues to exist for many laryngealists, before and without the typological turn. By contrast, the glottalic hypothesis is a genuine child of the typological turn; it did not and could not exist before or without it. And this may easily be the most important component in the appeal of this approach: rethinking specific grammars in the light of the general theory of language is a major research front in language studies. The choice of themes may therefore have been a manifestation not only of a global scientific Zeitgeist but also of a more autochthonous linguistic Zeitgeist. In this respect the two hypotheses, and especially the glottalic one, may prove to be keys to the entire edifice of Proto-Indo-European grammar, because for the study of most of its other aspects—syllable structure, accentuation, intonation, the category system, the stratification of the lexicon, the sound shifts (to name but a few)—the typological turn still has to happen. Here we will undoubtedly witness many changes in the future, among them a relativization, or reevaluation, of the weight of the individual branches, such as Germanic versus Indie, for the reconstruction of the various aspects of the Proto-language and its stages. Perhaps such names as Indo-European or Indo-Germanic will receive a new significance, or truth-in-naming, from such re-weighing. The theoretical revolution and heuristic liberation initiated with the two hypotheses may thus only be the beginning; at the end of this process may stand a totally restructured edifice. If that should be so, the exaggerated names Laryngeal Theory and Glottalic Theory may turn out to be deserved after all, even though for reasons not sanctioned by the philosophy of science. Needless to add they may also both turn out to be totally false. The papers collected in this volume open both perspectives. Theo Vennemann

Note 1.

The following papers were presented in the Workshop sessions but are published elsewhere: V. Shevoroshkin, 'On Indo-European laryngeals and vowels'; W. Merlingen, 'Über die Grundlagen der Indogermanistik'.

References Gamkrelidze, Thomas V., and Vjaceslav V. Ivanov 1972 'Lingvisticeskaja tipologija i rekonstrukcija sistemy indo-evropejskix smyenyx.' Working Papers of the Conference on the Comparative-Histori-

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cal Grammar of the Indo-European Languages (12-14 December 1972). Moscow, 15-18. 1973 'Sprachtypologie und die Rekonstruktion der gemeinindogermanischen Verschlüsse.' Phonetica 27, 150-156. 1984 Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A reconstruction and historical typological analysis of a protolanguage and a proto-culture. 2 vols. Tbilisi: Publishing House of the Tbilisi State University. [In Russian; English translation forthcoming at Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin.] Greenberg, Joseph H. 1970 'Some generalizations concerning glottalic consonants.' I JAL 36, 123-145. Hopper, Paul J. 1973 'Glottalized and murmured occlusives in Indo-European.' Glossa 7, 141-166. Jakobson, Roman 1957 'Typological studies and their contribution to historical comparative linguistics.' Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Linguists (Oslo), 17-25. Mayrhofer, Manfred 1981 Nach hundert Jahren: Ferdinand de Saussures Frühwerk und seine Rezeption durch die heutige Indogermanistik ( = Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Klasse, 8). Heidelberg: Carl Winter. 1983 Sanskrit und die Sprachen Alteuropas: Zwei Jahrhunderte des Widerspiels von Entdeckungen und Irrtümern ( = Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, I. Phil.-hist. Klasse, 5). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Pedersen, Holger 1951 Die gemeinindoeuropäischen und die vorindoeuropäischen Verschlußlaute. Kopenhagen: Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser, 32.5.

List of Contributors

MICHAEL BACK, Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar, Universität Freiburg i. Br., Belfortstraße 18-Postfach, D-7800 Freiburg i. Br., West Germany. PHILIP BALDI, Linguistics Program, College of the Liberal Arts, Pennsylvania State University, 425 Moore Building, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA. ALFRED BAMMESBERGER, Institut für Englische Philologie, Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Katholische Universität Eichstätt, Ostenstraße 26-28, D-8078 Eichstätt, West Germany. R. S. P. BEEKES, Faculteit der Letteren, Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, Rijnsburgerweg 88, NL-2333 AD Leiden, The Netherlands. CLAUDE BOISSON, Universite Lyon 2. Mailing address: 6, Place Jean Mace, F-69007 Lyon, France. LEO A. CONNOLLY, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Memphis State University, Memphis, Tennessee 38152, USA. Mailing address: 3454 Fox Meadows Road, Memphis, Tennessee 38115, USA. THOMAS V. GAMKRELIDZE, Tsereteli Institute of Oriental Studies, Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR, Acad. Tsereteli St. 3, 380062 Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR. ERIC P. HAMP, Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago, Classics Building, 1010 East 59th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA. PAUL J. HOPPER, Linguistics Program, Department of Anthropology, University Center at Binghamton, State University of New York, Binghamton, New York 13901, USA. MICHAEL JOB, Institut für Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft, University of Munich, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, D-8000 München 22, West Germany. RUTH JOHNSTON-STAVER, Linguistics Program, College of the Liberal Arts, Pennsylvania State University, 425 Moore Building, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA. E. F. KONRAD KOERNER, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa, 78 Laurier E., Ottawa, Ontario K I N 6N5, Canada. Mailing address: 119 Chemin des Capucines, Les Jardins du Chateau, Hull, Quebec J9A 1S8, Canada.

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Contributors

FREDERIK Η. Η. KORTLANDT, Faculteit der Letteren, Vakgroep: Slavische Taal- en Letterkunde, Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden. Mailing address: Cobetstraat 24, NL-2313 KC Leiden, The Netherlands. WINFRED P. LEHMANN, Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA. Mailing address: 3800 Eck Lane, Austin, Texas 78734, USA. ALEXANDER LUBOTSKY, Department of Comparative Linguistics, Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, Witte Singel 25, Leiden, The Netherlands. Mailing address: Fagelstraat 48, NL-2334 AZ Leiden, The Netherlands. JENS ELMEGÄRD RASMUSSEN, Institute for Linguistics, University of Copenhagen, Njalsgade 96, DK-2300 Kobenhavn S, Denmark. WILLIAM R. SCHMALSTIEG, Department of Slavic Languages, Pennsylvania State University, N-438 Burrowes Building, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA. RICHARD SCHRODT, Institut für Germanistik, University of Vienna, Universitätsstraße 7, A-1010 Wien 1, Austria. PIERRE SWIGGERS, Departement Linguistiek, Faculteit Wijsbegeerte en Letteren, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Blijde-Inkomstraat 21, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium. THEO VENNEMANN, Institut für Deutsche Philologie, University of Munich, Schellingstraße 3 RG, D-8000 München 40, West Germany.

I.

Opening remarks

Comments on reconstructions in historical linguistics Konrad Koerner

0.0

Introductory remarks

0.1 It is an interesting fact that, unlike structuralists, historical linguists have generally tended to be reticent about making theoretical statements regarding the practice of their field. Most of them have been avoiding laying bare the methodological principles which underlie their research or facing up to epistemological questions about what they are really doing. This observation is particularly true about one of the most essential aspects of their craft, the practice of reconstruction of unattested forms. Reasons for this reticence would have to be sought in the history of historical linguistics, both inside the development of historical linguistic technique and the 'Zeitgeist' during which the field was established. 0.2 Despite Friedrich Schlegel's suggestions for historical comparative research in his Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (1808), which inspired Bopp to establish, as some of us would say, the first 'paradigm' in linguistics as a science, Bopp did not attempt any reconstruction in his work but was satisfied to place the grammar of one Indo-European language side by side with the others. As a matter of fact, Bopp was and remained a comparativist and basically a descriptivist avant la lettre; the historical component advocated by Jacob Grimm had no effect on his procedure if we ignore his attempt to explain the origin of particular verb forms. 0.3 It is generally acknowledged (e.g. Pedersen 1931:267; Jespersen 1922:80) that it was August Schleicher who first established the practice of reconstruction in linguistics, beginning with a first theoretical statement in 1852 (in the preface to his Formenlehre der kirchenslawischen Sprache·, cf. Koerner 1982:24), and ending by writing up a 'fabel in indogermanischer Ursprache' in 1868, the year of his premature death. This exercise was received with much criticism by subsequent generations of historical linguists and was, at times, the subject of ridicule. Delbrück, a member of the 'junggrammatische Richtung' regarded it as 'ein Scherz' (1880:53), a 'pleasantry' (Delbrück (1882:52)), and Robert King, almost 100 years later seems to echo this view when he refers to the chuckling of the linguist at such a curious endeavor (1969:154-5). That not everybody took such a position may be gathered from the fact that Herman Hirt attempted a revision

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of the story in accordance with the state of affairs of the 1930s (cf. Hirt 1939:113-115), and that, as recently as 1979, Winfred P. Lehmann and Ladislav Zgusta (1979:462ff.) undertook a similar exercise, in the same year that Robert Jeffers and Ilse Lehiste (1979:108) characterized Schleicher's and Hirt's reconstructions as 'unfortunate exercises'. 0.4 It should be said, however, that Jeffers and Lehiste were referring to reconstructions in syntax, not in phonology and morphology, which was the aim of Schleicher, Hirt, and others, a fact that leads us to believe that the issue is much more complex than it first may have appeared. First, there may be no clear-cut divisions between two camps of scholars, 'the realists' and 'the formalists', as William F. Wyatt (1972:688) suggested and as Kenneth Shields (1980:225) reiterated. Indeed, the characterization of Schleicher as a 'realist' in matters of reconstruction is perhaps not as self-evident, when we read in his posthumous Indogermanische Chrestomathie (1869:342): 'Dass diese Grundformen wirklich einmal vorhanden gewesen sind, wird durch die Aufstellung derselben nicht behauptet.' However, it is clear that Schleicher wanted to demonstrate what the historical linguist, equipped with the instruments of scientific procedure, could do. He might have been overly confident of his method, but his basic approach merits more than a chuckle.

1.0 Fields of application and problems of reconstruction When speaking of reconstruction, it appears desirable first to distinguish between what is usually referred to as 'internal reconstruction'—and I am leaving here aside Manfred Mayrhofer's polemic use (1982) of 'externe Rekonstruktion'—and what is mostly termed, though perhaps not satisfactorily so, 'the comparative method'. As regards the latter term (which may include 'internal reconstruction'), the expression 'comparative reconstruction', as used by Jeffers and Lehiste (1979 passim), may be preferable. The addition ' . . . based on the data of more than one (related) language' may have to be added in order to avoid ambiguity. But this is simply a matter of definition.

1.1

Attitudes towards reconstruction in historical linguistics

In a 1977 paper, Lucia Wald (1977:199-200) distinguished between three positions concerning the goal of reconstruction in historical linguistics, which, in her view, varies from one extreme to the other:

Reconstructions in historical linguistics

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de la position schleicherienne, qui considerait les prototypes comme autant de formes reelles, a la position saussurienne, qui interpretait les unites seulement comme des valeurs d'un systeme abstrait, ou a celle de Meillet, qui voyait en elles le resume d'une formule de correspondances entre langues attestees. On a parle aussi de la reconstruction d'un modele de la langue indo-europeenne.

Wald does not supply any evidence for her characterizations, introducing instead her statement with an 'on le sait'. It is fair to say that Schleicher was fairly optimistic in his belief that through the application of rigorous methods of comparison the system of Proto-Indo-European could be recaptured. But we do not know whether he believed in the 'reality' of his own reconstructions, certainly not as far as syntax is concerned which, in effect, he did not regard as a welldefined domain of what he called 'Glottik', a science of language that could rival successfully the natural sciences of his day such as botany or geology. Saussure, for his part, was a theorist of a much higher order than Schleicher, who proceeded inductively as he had learned it from the natural sciences. Saussure's contribution to the reconstruction of Indo-European phonology is well known (cf. Koerner 1985), and his position regarding the phonetic reality of his hypothesized constructs—he was the first to make use of the term 'phoneme' in the sense of an abstract unit belonging to a system of interrelationships—in his Memoire is well known too. The views of his former pupil, Antoine Meillet, are perhaps somewhat less clear, as he ventured a more optimistic statement in his popular essay, La Methode comparative en linguistique historique of 1925, where he said: 'Mais, lä oü eile aboutit pleinement, la comparaison aboutit a restituer une langue initiale' (Meillet 1970[1925]: 13). In his much more widely used Introduction a letude comparative des langues indoeuropiennes, from the first edition of 1903 through the eighth edition which appeared about a year after his death, we see Meillet assuming what has been properly characterized a positivistic position which does not venture beyond what can be ascertained through careful analysis of attested data: La grammaire comparee des langues indo-europeennes est dans la situation ού serait la grammaire comparee des langues romanes si le latin n'etait par [recte: pas] connu: la seule realite a laquelle eile ait affaire, ce sont les correspondances entre les langues attestees. Les correspondances supposent une realite commune; mais de cette realite on ne peut se faire une idee que par des hypotheses, et ces hypotheses sont inverifiables: la correspondance seule est done l'objet de la science. On ne restitue pas par la comparaison une langue disparue: la comparaison des langues romanes ne donnerait du latin parle au IVe siecle ap. J.-C. ni une idee exacte, ni une idee complete; il n'y a pas de raison de croire que la comparaison des langues indo-europeennes soit plus instructive. On ne restitue done pas l'indo-europeen. (Meillet 1937:40-41)

Indeed, Meillet is quite emphatic on the question of the (non-) reconstruction of Indo-European, when he restates his position a few pages later:

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En somme, ce qui fournit la methode de la grammaire comparee n'est pas une restitution de l'indo-europeen, tel qu'il a ete parle: c'est un systeme defini de correspondances entre les langues historiquement attestees. Tout ce qui est expose dans le present ouvrage, sous quelque forme que ce soit, doit etre entendu en ce sens, meme dans les passages ou, pour abreger, l'indo-europeen est pose comme connu. (Meillet 1937:47; emphasis in the original) Meillet concludes his chapter on method of comparative linguistics by stating (p. 50) that it would be absurd to venture the reconstruction of a protolanguage, and that only systems of correspondences allow us an idea of the nature of an earlier, unattested stage of a given language (cf. also Bonfante [1945:87-88, note 2], for further quotations from Meillet's writings). To be sure, such a position is not an intermediary one between Schleicher and Saussure (who in effect did not address this question in his Memoire, and who took a modestly positivistic position in the Cours), but marks the opposite end if a line between the positions of Schleicher and Meillet were to be drawn. In his Geneva lectures on general linguistics and the history of Indo-European languages of 1907 to 1911, Saussure took the position that one would expect him to do if one is familiar with his synchronic work, namely, that if (a) comparison is made with a view to reconstruction, there is no other reason for comparison in historical linguistics; (b) it would be ridiculous to reconstitute isolated words; what should be reconstructed, albeit hypothetically—since a reconstruction reflects the state of research which is constantly in progress, are systems, wholes (ensembles), in effect systems of (relative) values which may be in opposition to one another (cf. Saussure 1931:299-303, 1968:489^96, for details). Saussure's successors, such as Bloomfield and Hjelmslev, for instance, confining themselves to the level of phonology, took similar, if not more restrictive positions. In Language Bloomfield (1933:309) stated: 'The comparative method tells us, in principle, nothing about the acoustic shape of reconstructed forms.' Hjelmslev, for example, maintained: 'On ne reconstruit pas des variantes, mais des phonemes' (1937:37), and further on (1937:40): 'Les sons de l'indo-europeen, les phonemes dans l'acceptation saussurienne, se definissent comme des formes pures sans egard ä leur expression.' Most historical linguists of today will take a somewhat more moderate position on the phonetic reality of phonological reconstructions, but it seems to me that no one takes a naive position on this issue as is traditionally, though perhaps not correctly, attributed to Schleicher, and which can still be found in the linguistic literature of the twentieth century, though less and less frequently. 1 It is clear that the ongoing discussion concerning the number of laryngeals in the IndoEuropean parent language is a good indication of the relativity of such reconstructions (cf. Mayrhofer 1983 for a survey of this debate). But phonology has not only received more attention since Schleicher's pioneering work 125

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years ago than the other levels of language, scholars are also more confident in reestablishing earlier stages of phonological systems or partial systems. The debate on Indo-European syntax, which for the most part has been concerned with questions of word order, especially during the past ten to fifteen years, shows that unanimity on whether Indo-European was a VSO, SOV or SVO language has not been reached (cf. Miller 1975). Indeed, Paul Friedrich (1975:6) admitted to 'insuperable problems' in the reconstruction of protosyntaxes (cf. Lightfoot 1983 for a critique of recent research), while at the same time other scholars (e.g. Lehmann 1974) are confident that they are on the right track. 1.2

Recent discussions of the 'reality' of reconstructions

The perhaps best known exchange on the question of the so-called reality of a reconstructed language was the one between two Romanists, Ernst Pulgram and Robert A. Hall, some 25 years ago. Since that time we find incidental remarks on this issue in the literature (e.g. Katicic 1970:115-117), a fairly lengthy treatment of reconstructions on all levels of language, including the semantic one, in a monograph by Henrik Birnbaum (published in 1978, esp. pp. 20-51), but, as far as I am aware, no debate has taken place in recent years on this issue. In the meantime, historical linguists, especially those with a particular theoretical bent, have continued to proliferate hypotheses regarding the shape of Indo-European or other non attested parent languages (e.g. Germanic or Slavic), to the extent that I believe Saussure's requirement that 'le linguiste doit savoir ce qu'il fait', the linguist must know what he is really doing, appears to be called for. In this context, Pulgram's (1959:422-423) observations merit being cited at some length: . . . when we reconstruct, through the methods of comparative historical linguistics, an array of asterisked Proto-Indo-European forms, the procedure itself implies that the result of our endeavors is a uniform construct. We are, in fact, creating an idiolect—not of speakers, to be sure, but of the scholar, of the method, as it were. This procedural circumstance spares us a priori all scruples and worries over uniformity. But note that the result emanates from the method, that different procedures would deliver different results.... it must be conceded that such a reconstruction is something of a fiction, since 'the terms Proto-, Ur-, Primitive are firmly attached to formulae which are timeless, nondialectal, and non-phonetic' [Twaddell, 1948:194]. Anything in linguistics that is timeless, non-dialectal, and non-phonetic, by definition does not represent a real language. This is to say, the uniformity which reconstructed Proto-Indo-European exhibits is not representative of a reality.

It is well known that Robert Hall (1960) found Pulgram's position too rigid, and in fact produced a translation of a passage from Orwell's Animal Farm into

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'reconstructed Proto-Romance' (1960:204-205) to illustrate his point that such reconstructions can be 'reasonably realistic, and a valuable exercise both in its own right and as a yardstick by which to measure the realism of other reconstructed proto-languages for which we have no controls' (1960:205), as Latin more or less represents the parent of the Romance languages. Pulgram, for his part, defended his position in his 1961 paper on 'The nature and use of proto-languages', formulating his caveat in the following manner (1961:19): My line of argument will not entail a rejection of the comparative method of historical linguistics, nor generate an injunction against the reconstruction of proto-languages for purposes of historical linguistics. But I do want to call attention to the inherent limitations of these procedures, to the fallacies and delusions which are bound to attend the rash endorsement of some substantive deductions drawn from the insubstantial presence of these creatures fashioned by ourselves, often with more confidence than prudence.

Every one familiar with the scholarship of Pulgram and Hall will realize and appreciate that at the root of this debate is Pulgram's view that as Latin represents something as close as can be to a proto-language of the Romance languages (and since he has no vested interest in Indo-European), there is no particular incentive to engage in reconstruction. Instead Romanists are (or should be) interested in the downward development of individual Romance languages from the common source. (Hall, for his part, has produced a series of articles and books on the reconstruction of 'Proto-Romance' as he sees it; cf. Hall 1950; 1983). However, in this paper we are concerned not only with the question of the socalled reality of Proto-Romance and the value of reconstruction within this particular branch of Indo-European, but much more so with the general validity and use of reconstructions in general, even outside the field of IndoEuropean. In other words, we may ask ourselves whether we could take a skeptical attitude toward the reconstruction of proto-languages, while at the same time subscribing to Radoslav Katicic's argument (1970:115-116): The reconstructed system will always be A MODEL of the real one: Some distinctions will be neglected and some allophones will remain unclassified into phonemes. This model, however imperfect in some cases, will always give us a true if not complete picture of the phonological system we try to decode from the phonological correspondences among genetically-related languages.

Katicic (1970:116) goes on to assure us: The data provided by the comparative method about the phonological system of the proto-language are quite pertinent and trustworthy, they must only be interpreted in the right way. (Emphasis added: K.K)

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in historical linguistics

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From this, he concludes (ibid.) that 'the sceptical attitude towards the reconstruction of proto-languages is not justified.' By distinguishing between (1) the proto-language, (2) the reconstructed model of such a proto-language, and (3) the 'historical interpretation' of this model, Katicic addresses the question of the 'realism of reconstructed forms'—only to side-step it by connecting this issue with that of the 'unity' (his term for uniformity, it seems) of the proto-language and to relate the 'realism' question to the model, not to the proto-language itself, stating (1970:116-117): It remains to be seen in every case of genetic relationship if the reality represented by the reconstructed model of the proto-language was in fact a linguistic unity or a linguistic variety. It is necessary always to remember that what is reconstructed in comparative linguistics is a diasystem which can be interpreted historically (Pulgram 1964:375ff.). The reconstructed model of a proto-language suggests the absolute unity only because by definition it expresses the invariants of a variety. To understand it as a denial of that variety is to misunderstand it.

What we may draw from this fuzzy argument is the following: First, the historical linguist does not reconstruct a language (or part of the language), but a model which represents or is intended to represent the underlying system or systems of such a language. Further, in order to do reconstructive work, the linguist must assume uniformity. The question of 'realism' or 'reality' of reconstructed forms thus evaporates. (In Katicic's monograph, what is meant by 'realism' is defined nowhere.) Isidore Dyen, writing about the same time as Katicic, tackles, after having made what is usually referred to as the 'regularity hypothesis (of phonetic/phonemic change)' into a 'law', in particular the question of 'uniformity' in linguistic reconstruction. He identifies two distinct positions taken by linguists on the subject, namely, one which does in general not attribute uniformity to any dialect, but which regards the assumption as needed 'for the functioning of the comparative method' (Dyen 1969:507-8), and which regards it as necessary to neglect non uniformities in order to establish 'a single formula', an idiolect. Other scholars, such as Kent (1948) and Marchand (1955), assume 'the protolanguage . . . to be uniform, at least in the sense that there was an earlier dialect that was uniform [and that] this assumption (was) needed to establish the scientific vality of reconstruction' (1969:517). Dyen (1969:518) concludes: The Kent-Marchand view of the assumption of proto-language uniformity is perhaps best regarded as a hypothesis; taken literally, however, this hypothesis requires us to believe that the highly improbable event of a uniform dialect occurred wherever there is a reconstructed proto-language.

In effect, at least this is particularly evident from Kent (1948:194), though Marchand (1955:428) comes in a close second on this issue, these authors want

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to believe in the (relative) uniformity of a proto-language since such a belief is closely tied to their scientific credo.

2.0

Concluding remarks

From the above discussion, it has become obvious, though not quite clear, that there are a number of important issues surrounding the methodology, philosophy, and epistemology of reconstruction in historical linguistics. Recent discussions by scholars with a fairly strong bent toward theory and systematization in diachronic linguistics such as Korhonen (1974) and Nyman (1982) have added to the complexity of the matter by introducing metalinguistic, if not metatheoretical, considerations. For instance, Korhonen (1974:124) suggests that we regard the proto-language 'purely as a synchronic metalanguage onto which the properties of the genetically related languages are projected' ('Die Grundsprache kann rein als synchrone Metasprache gesehen werden, auf welche die Eigenschaften der verwandten Sprachen projiziert werden.') This is generally correct, as we usually do not hypothesize the presence of a particular category or feature in the proto language if we do not have at least indirect evidence of its probability from attested languages. Saussure's 'coefficients sonantiques', arguably arrived at for purely theoretical considerations, are cited as a counter-example. In Nyman's view, Saussure's 'abstract representations' were not confirmed by the the findings of Kuryiowicz and others, but, 'strictly speaking', 'the Hittite data rendered some reconstructions less abstract' (Nyman 1982:39). In other words, even there we are still a few steps removed from the elusive 'reality' of reconstructed language systems. It seems to me that our metalanguage has changed, become more formal and seemingly concise, but that the question of what the historical linguist is really doing has still not been satisfactorily answered. We are not in a situation of either/or, as Zawadowski (1962) suggested, distinguishing between a comparative grammar that is 'based on attested correspondences' (something fairly close to Meillet's program), on the one hand, and a 'conjectural' approach which attempts actual reconstruction of protoforms. It seems that historical linguists do both now, taking an inductivedeductive approach instead of making a choice in favour of either an entirely deductive theoretical stance or a totally inductive one that shies away from venturing hypotheses or a theoretical leap. One wonders, however, whether N. E. Collinge2 is correct in saying, 'after all, philologists reconstruct formulae, where linguists seek entities'. At least one may ask what is the nature of these entities: are they in some way real? Perhaps these are questions that a workshop

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on 'Reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European Sound System and their Consequences' should address, keeping in mind Meillet's dictum, 'Science lives on proofs, not truths'.3

Notes 1.

2. 3.

Bonfante, who cites a number of scholars' opinion on this question, including Pisani (1936:35), who is quite emphatic about the value of reconstruction, quotes at length from a paper by Helmut Amtz of 1936 (Bonfante 1945:88-89 n.2), where the author argues, against Friedrich Kluge, that 'wir [erschliessen] das Idg. [i.e., IndoEuropean] mit voller Sicherheit', and that we do not simply have to do with an 'Arbeitshypothese': 'Wenn wir behaupten, der Vater habe im Idg. zur Zeit der Trennung *patir, der Sohn sünus oder *sünus, die Mutter *mäter geheissen, setzen wir den Stern nur, weil uns keine idg. Texte erhalten sind, dagegen nicht etwa, weil die genannten Formen unsichere Konstruktionen darstellten. Selbstverständlich vermögen wir nicht den gesamten Wort- und Formenschatz, auch nicht alle Feinheiten im Lautstand des Idg. zu erschliessen. Bei vielen Erscheinungen vermögen wir nicht zu sagen, ob sie bereits idg. waren oder erst nach der Trennung aus gemeinsamer Grundlage entwickelt wurden. Trotzdem vermögen wir mehr als genug völlig sicher zu erschliessen, um mit dem Idg. als einer fassbaren, nicht hypothetischen Grösse arbeiten zu können.' See his recent book, The Laws of Indo-European (Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1985). Quoted in Gustave Guillaume, Foundations for a Science of Language, excerpts from the manuscripts translated by Walter Hirtle & John Hewson (Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1984), p. 25.

Reconstruction in historical linguistics A select bibliography Arntz, Helmut 1936 Gemeingermanisch. Germanen und Indogermanen: Volkstum, Sprache, Heimat, Kultur. Festschrift für Herman Hirt, vol. I, 429ff. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Back, Michael 1979 Die Rekonstruktion des idg. Verschlußlautsystems im Lichte der einzelsprachlichen Veränderungen. KZ 93.179-95. Bailey, Charles-James N. 1972 The Integration of Linguistic Theory: Internal reconstruction and the comparative method in descriptive analysis. Linguistic Change and Generative Theory: Essays from the UCLA Conference on Historical Linguistics in the Perspective of Transformational Theory, February 1969 ed. by

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Robert P. Stockwell & R[onald] K. S. Macauley, 22-31. Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press. Benveniste, Emile 1954 Problemes semantiques de la reconstruction. Word 10.251-64. (Repr. in E.B., Problemes de la linguistique generale [vol. I], 289-307. Paris: Gallimard, 1966.) Birnbaum, Henrik [1978] Linguistic Reconstruction: Its potentials and limitations in new perspective. Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man. Bomhard, Allan R. 1984 Toward Proto-Nostratic: A new approach to the comparison of Proto-IndoEuropean and Proto-Afroasiatic. Foreword by Paul J. Hopper. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Bonfante, Giuliano 1945 On Reconstruction and Linguistic Method. Word 1.83-94, 132-61, and 2.155-56 [1946: Additional Notes on Reconstruction], Comrie, Bernard 1980 Morphology and Word Order Reconstruction. Historical Morphology ed. by Jacek Fisiak, 83-96. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Costello, John 1983 Syntactic Change and Syntactic Reconstruction: A tagmemic approach. Dallas, Tex.: Summer Institute of Linguistics; Arlington, Tex.: University of Texas at Arlington. Dyen, Isidore 1969 Reconstruction, the Comparative Method, and the Proto-Language Uniformity Assumption. Lg 45.499-518. Dyen, Isidore—David F. Aberle 1974 Lexical Reconstruction: The case of the Proto-Athapaskan kinship system. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ferguson, Thaddeus 1976 A History of the Romance Vowel Systems through Paradigmatic Reconstruction. The Hague: Mouton. Friedrich, Paul 1975 Proto-Indo-European Syntax. (= Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph 1.) Butte, Mt: Montana College of Mineral Science & Technology. Hall, Robert Α., Jr. 1950 The Reconstruction of Proto-Romance. Lg 26.6-27. 1960 On Realism in Reconstruction. Lg 36.203-206. [Reply to Pulgram 1959.] 1983 Proto-Romance Morphology. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, [A Proto-Romance Phonology appeared in 1976 (New York: Elsevier).] Hermann, Eduard 1907 Ueber das Rekonstruieren. KZ 41.1-64. Hjelmslev, Louis 1937 Quelques reflexions sur le systeme phonique de l'indo-europeen. Melanges linguistiques offerts ά Μ. Holger Pedersen ..., ed. by L. Hjelmslev, 36-44. Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget.

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Hoenigswald, Henry M. 1950 The Principal Step in Historical Linguistics. Lg 26.357-364. 1960 Language Change and Linguistic Reconstruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hymes, Dell H. 1955 Positional Analysis of Categories: A frame for reconstruction. Word 11.10-23. Jeffers, Robert J. 1976 Syntactic Change and Syntactic Reconstruction. Current Progress in Historical Linguistics ed. by William M. Christie [ = Papers from II. ICHL], 1-10. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Jeffers, Robert J.—Ilse Lehiste 1979 Principles and Methods for Historical Linguistics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (First paperback ed., 1982.) Katicic, Radoslav 1970 A Contribution to the General Theory of Comparative Linguistics. The Hague: Mouton. Koerner, E. F. Konrad 1975 Zu Ursprung und Geschichte der Besternung in der historischen Sprachwissenschaft: Eine historiographische Notiz. KZ 89.185-90. (Ital. transl. in Simone & Vignuzzi 1977, 253-58.) 1982 The Schleicherian Paradigm in Linguistics. GL 22.1-39. 1985 The Place of Saussure's Memoire in the Development of Historical Linguistics. Papers from the Sixth International Conference on Historical Linguistics ed. by Jacek Fisiak, 323-45. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Korhonen, Mikko 1974 Ueber den Charakter der sprachgeschichtlichen Rekonstruktionen. Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Jahrgang 1974, 113-25. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Kortlandt, Frederik 1985 Proto-Indo-European Glottalic Stops: The comparative evidence. FLH 6.183-201. Lehmann, Winfred P. 1974 Proto-Indo-European Syntax. Austin & London: University of Texas Press. Lightfoot, David W. 1983 Reconstructing a Proto-Syntax. Language Change ed. by Irmengard Rauch & Gerald F. Carr, 128-42. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [An earlier version appeared in Ramat et al. 1980:27-45.] Marchand, James W. 1955 Was There a Uniform Proto-Indo-European? Orbis 4, 428-31. Mayrhofer, Manfred 1982 Über griechische Vokalprothese, Laryngaltheorie und externe Rekonstruktion. Serta Germanica: Festschrift fur Günter Neumann, ed. by Johann Tischler, 177-92. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität. 1983 Sanskrit und die Sprachen Alteuropas: Zwei Jahrhunderte des Widerspiels

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von Entdeckungen und Irrtümern. Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen; Phil.-hist. Klasse, Jahrg. 1983, 121-53. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Meillet, Antoine 1925 La methode comparative en linguistique historique. Oslo: H. Aschehoug. (Repr., Paris: Champion, 1954, 1966, 1970.) 1937 Introduction ά I etude comparative des langues indo-europeennes. 7th ed. by Emile Benveniste. Paris: Hachette. (Repr., University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1964; 6th printing, 1978.) Miller, D. Gary 1975 Indo-European: VSO, SOV, SVO, or All Three? Lingua 37.31-52. Pedersen, Holger 1931 Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century. Transl. from the Danish by John Webster Spargo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press. (Repr., with the misleading title The Discovery of Language, Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1962.) Nyman, Martti 1982 Relational and Reconstructive Aspects of Grammatical Systematization: Data-oriented studies. Helsinki: Dept. of General Linguistics, University of Helsinki. Pike, Kenneth L. 1954 Axioms and Procedures for Reconstructions in Comparative Linguistics: An experimental syllabus. Glendale, Calif.: Summer Institute of Linguistics, mimeographed. (2nd rev. ed., 1957.) Pisani, Vittore 1936 La ricostruzione dell'indoeuropeo: Prolusione al corso di storia comparata di lingue classiche e neolatine Cagliari: Universita di Cagliari. Pulgram, Ernst 1959 Proto-Indo-European Reality and Reconstruction. Lg 35.421-26. 1961 The Nature and Use of Protolanguages. Lingua 10.18-37. 1964 Proto-Languages as Proto-Diasystems. Word 20.373-83. Ramat, Paolo, et al. (eds.) 1980 Linguistic Reconstruction and Indo-European Syntax: Proceedings of the Colloquium of the 'Indogermanische Gesellschaft', University of Pavia, 6-7 September 1979. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Schleicher, August 1852 Vorwort. Die Formenlehre der Icirchenslawischen Sprache, erklärend und vergleichend dargestellt, vii-xxiii. Bonn: H . B . König. 1861-62 Compendium der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen .... 2 vols. Weimar: H. Böhlau, iv, 764 pp. (4th ed., 1876.) 1868 Eine fabel in indogermanischer Ursprache. Beiträge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung 5.205-208. 1869 Indogermanische Chrestomathie: Schriftproben und Lesestücke mit erklärenden Glossaren zu August Schleicher's Compendium .... Bearbeitet von Heinrich Ebel, August Leskien, Johannes Schmidt und August Schleicher. Weimar: H. Böhlau.

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Shields, Kenneth C., Jr. 1980 Sociolinguistics and the Reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European. Anthropological Linguistics 22.225-32. Simone, Raffaele—Ugo Vignuzzi (eds.) 1977 Problemi della ricostruzione in Unguistica: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Pavia, 1-2 ottobre 1975. Rome: Bulzoni. Thieme, Paul 1964 The Comparative Method for Reconstruction in Linguistics. Language in Culture and Society: A reader in linguistics and anthropology, ed. by Dell Hymes, 585-99. New York: Harper & Row. Twaddell, William Freeman 1948 The Prehistoric Germanic Short Syllables. Lg 24.139-51. Vennemann, Theo 1984 Hochgermanisch und Niedergermanisch: Die Verzweigungstheorie der germanisch-deutschen Lautverschiebungen. PBB(T) 106.1-45. Wald, Lucia 1977 Reconstruction et linguistique generale. Revue roumaine de linguistique 22.199-203. Wyatt, William F., Jr. 1972 Review of Calvert Watkins, Geschichte der indogermanischen Verbalflexion (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1969). Lg 48.687-95. Zawadowski, Leon 1962 Theoretical Foundations of Comparative Grammar. Orbis 11.5-20.

Reconstruction and historical linguistics (Discussion of Konrad Koerner's paper) Pierre Swiggers Konrad Koerner's paper ('Comments on Reconstructions in Historical Linguistics') is devoted to an important problem in the methodology of (historical) linguistics, and one which needs an expert historiographical treatment. Koerner's prolegomena call for a number of epistemological and factual remarks. 1. Reconstruction in (historical/comparative) linguistics cannot be viewed in isolation from nineteenth century models of paleontology, 1 (comparative) anatomy and textual criticism. 2 It is especially the analogy with textual criticism that should be studied in detail: compare the common focus on written forms (words/letters, paradigms, texts), and the use of genealogical trees as a visualization of filiation. Now, the interpretation of written forms constitutes a basic problem of historical-comparative linguistics, and I fail to see why Koerner did not include this problem in his discussion. (Note that in the light of this basic problem, Bopp's position can be interpreted as one which places Sanskrit at the top of the tree.) 2. As to the reality of reconstructed forms (whatever the length of the segment), I have some doubts about the distinction made by L. Wald, which serves as the basis—and as the conclusion—of Koerner's discussion in 1.1. More specifically, I cannot agree with the distinction drawn between 'la position saussurienne, qui interpretait les unites seulement comme des valeurs d'un systeme abstrait', and 'celle de Meillet, qui voyait en elles le resume d'une formule de correspondances entre langues attestees'. It suffices to read chapter I ('Methode') of Meillet's Introduction ä l'etude comparative des langues indoeuropeennes (1937) 8 to see that what Meillet is after is the reconstruction, by means of established correspondences and through a correct interpretation of anomalies ( T a r suite, on ne peut restituer un mot indo-europeen ou une forme indo-europeenne avec certitude que dans la mesure ou la formation de ce mot, la structure de cette forme sont devenues anomales. C'est surtout avec des anomalies de l'epoque historique q u ' o n restitue la regle de l'epoque indoeuropeenne', 1937: 8 46), of a common system: Pour se former une idee juste de l'indo-europeen, il importe de 'restituer' autant qu'il est possible des mots particuliers de forme et de sens definis, et Ton y reussit souvent. Mais le procede de la comparaison met surtout en evidence des types generaux de formation, ce qui entraine un caractere abstrait de l'expose: lä meme ou Ton vient a poser des mots

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indo-europeens, c'est le systeme qui ressort . . . L'ensemble des correspondances phonetiques, morphologiques et syntaxiques permet cependant de prendre une idee generale de l'element commun des langues indo-europeennes . . . . En somme, ce que fournit la methode de la grammaire comparee n'est pas une restitution de l'indoeuropeen, tel qu'il a ete parle: c'est un systeme defini de correspondances entre des langues historiquement attestees (1937: 8 46-47). 3

With respect to Meillet's views, I would like to point out that, contrary to Koerner, I feel that these are very consistent, and there is, in my opinion, no opposition between the statement in La methode comparative en linguistique historique and the ideas expressed in the above quoted Introduction. The 'more optimistic statement' in Meillet (1925) is followed by a more skeptical passage: Que vaut cette restitution? II n'est presque jamais possible de confronter la restitution avec une realite connue. Mais il y a un cas ou on le peut; c'est celui des langues romanes. Or, la langue commune ä laquelle on est conduit par la comparaison des langues romanes ne fournit pas—tant s'en faut—tout ce qu'etait le latin au moment ou se sont separees les unes des autres les langues qui continuent le latin. Si Ton ne savait du latin que ce qu'enseignent les langues romanes, on ignorerait par exemple l'ancien futur du type amabo ou du type dicam, dices . . . . Si la comparaison fournit, ä bien des egards, des donnees qui concordent avec la realite attestee—ainsi pour la flexion verbale—eile est done loin de fournir le tout de la langue (1925:13).

3.

There are some minor points on which I disagree with Koerner:

3.1 I do not see the relevance of a distinction (or opposition) between structuralists and historical linguists (0.1), and it seems very difficult to me to label Bloomfield 'a successor of Saussure'. 3.2 Epistemological questions have perhaps been avoided by some historical linguists, but hardly by 'most of them' (0.1): apart from the French nineteenth and twentieth century school of historical linguistics (Breal, G. Paris, Saussure, Meillet, Benveniste, Martinet) and the Prague school, there is a long-standing tradition of epistemological and methodological reflection attested in a number of excellent handbooks. 4 To this I can add a list of methodologically oriented writings (in the field of historical and comparative linguistics) by various American structuralists or post-structuralists: Bloomfield, Hall, Hamp, Hockett, Moulton, Penzl, Pulgram, Sapir, Watkins, . . . 5 3.3 [ad 0.2] Schleicher is indeed an important figure in nineteenth century linguistics, but one should not disregard the fact that comparative reconstruction of grammatical systems was prepared by etymological researches (comparison and reconstruction of semantically and formally related words/roots). The output of etymology served as the input for comparative grammar (not only within Indo-European and its branches, but also for other language families).

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4. Koerner's discussion of Katicic's and Dyen's views, and his concluding remarks raise a number of 'speculative' problems, such as: what is the role of belief (conviction) within (historical) linguistics, and to what extent can diverging views be compared and contrastive ly evaluated? 6 is it possible to draw a line between linguistic work and philological work (and what would be the criteria for such a distinction)? 7 what is the relation between historical and comparative work in linguistics (cf. Meillet 1937: 8 48: 'Toute grammaire historique est du reste avant tout comparative, car, raeme pour les langues les mieux connues, il s'en faut de beaucoup que le detail de revolution de chaque parier soit atteste par des textes, et Ton ne peut utiliser les diverses formes attestees, surtout dans les parlers locaux, que par les procedes comparatifs.')? 8

Notes 1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

See Aarsleff (1982:3-41; 293-334), Christy (1983) and Wells (1973). On the link with textual criticism, see Hoenigswald (1973). The latter portion of this quotation is also given in Koerner's paper. The position ascribed to Saussure (viz. comparison is made with a view to reconstruction, and it would be ridiculous to reconstitute isolated words) is thus congruent with Meillet's; cf. Watkins (1978). See e.g. Lehmann (1952; 1962), Hoenigswald (1960), Szemerenyi (1970), Anttila (1972) and Bynon (1977). Of these, Hall and Pulgram are mentioned by Koerner. This raises of course the epistemological problem of 'the incommensurability of scientific theories'; for a recent treatment, see Stegmüller (1986: 298-310). This problem was dealt with in section XV ('Philologie romane et langues romanes; prise de conscience ou: la philologie pour quoi faire?') of the 'XVIIe Congres international de linguistique et philologie romanes' (Trier, May 19-24, 1986). The Proceedings will appear in 1989. See also Meillet (1921: 19-35) and Meillet-Vendryes (1925: introduction). On the relation between historical-comparative linguistics and general linguistics in Meillet's work, see Swiggers (1985).

References Aarsleff, Hans 1982 From Locke to Saussure. Essays on the study of language and intellectual history. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Anttila, Raimo 1972 An introduction to historical and comparative linguistics. New Y o r k London: Macmillan.

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Bynon, Theodora 1977 Historical linguistics. Cambridge: University Press. Christy, T. Craig 1983 Uniformitarianism in linguistics. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins. Hoenigswald, Henry M. 1960 Language change and linguistic reconstruction. Chicago: University Press. 1973 Linguistics. P. Wiener (ed.), Dictionary of the history of ideas. Studies of selected pivotal ideas, vol. Ill, 61-73. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Lehmann, Winfred P. 1952 Proto-Indo-European phonology. Austin: University of Texas Press. 1962 Historical linguistics: An introduction. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston. Meillet, Antoine 1921 Linguistique historique et linguistique generale (vol. I). Paris: Champion. 1925 La methode comparative en linguistique historique. Oslo-Paris: Aschehoug-Champion. 19378 Introduction ά l'etude comparative des langues indo-europeennes. Paris: Hachette (1903).1 Meillet, Antoine—Joseph Vendryes 1925 Traite de grammaire comparee des langues classiques. Paris: Champion. Stegmüller, Wolfgang 1986 Probleme und Resultate der Wissenschaftstheorie und Analytischen Philosophie, II/3: Die Entwicklung des neuen Strukturalismus seit 1973. Berlin: Springer Verlag. Swiggers, Pierre 1985 La linguistique historico-comparative d'Antoine Meillet: Theorie et methode. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 39, 181-95. Szemerenyi, Oswald 1970 Einführung in die vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Watkins, Calvert 1978 Remarques sur la methode de Ferdinand de Saussure comparatiste. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 32, 59-69. Wells, Rulon 1973 Uniformitarianism in linguistics. P. Wiener (ed.), Dictionary of the history of ideas. Studies of selected pivotal ideas vol. IV, 423-431. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

II.

Laryngeal Theory

The nature of the Proto-Indo-European laryngeals R. S. P. Beekes

1.

The number of laryngeals

Essential, of course, is the question of how many laryngeals Proto-IndoEuropean had, i.e., how many laryngeals we have to identify. We limit ourselves to the comparative evidence, leaving aside considerations based on the structure of this part of the phonological system. Such considerations must come later, after we have identified the laryngeals attested by the comparative evidence. Also, such considerations can only lead to speculations about the possible existence of more laryngeals (unless we would find confirmatory evidence later). I think that we can be very short about the evidence for the number of laryngeals: there is evidence for three, there is no certain evidence for more. Three laryngeals are required for Greek. My position on this point is well known. Recent attempts to deny this conclusion, by Lindeman (1982) and by Bammesberger (1984), are entirely unconvincing: on the contrary, they show clearly that we cannot do with less than three laryngeals and a 'triple reflex' in Greek. (Cf. my review of Bammesberger's book, which will appear in Kratylos.) This triple reflex is now clear for the Armenian prothetic vowel (see my forthcoming article on 'name' in Die Sprache). Hittite certainly points to two laryngeals, the α-coloring laryngeal showing a different reflex from the e-coloring one. It is less clear whether a third laryngeal can be identified on the basis of Hittite alone. For more than three laryngeals evidence has been presented from Hittite. There are two considerations: there would have been a second α-coloring laryngeal which is not represented by h, as is the other; and there would be a distinction between a voiced and a voiceless laryngeal expressed in writing by single vs. double h. As to the second α-coloring laryngeal, the factual evidence adduced for it is not convincing. I refer to Keiler's comments (1970:27 n.76). In recent times the idea has found little support. As to the single versus double A, there now is an alternative explanation which says that the distinction is a Hittite development, depending on the position of the accent, or rather on the length of the preceding vowel. In this case we have to do with Hittite allophones. This explanation is now being seriously studied and, though as yet far from certain, it stands a good chance of

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being correct. Here the conclusion must be that it has not been proven that the distinction goes back to Proto-Indo-European, and that it probably is an internal development of Hittite. H a m p assumes a fourth laryngeal on the basis of Albanian; see, e.g., his article in this volume. I cannot regard this as decisive. Thus, as far as the comparative evidence goes, we have three laryngeals and no more. Of course there may have been more, but the only thing we can do is to reckon with what is certain or probable.

2.

Phonetic properties of the laryngeals

There is general agreement on the following points: 1. The laryngeals were consonants, which behave, according to their patterning in the root, like resonants or s; and they were later vocalized in some positions (differently in the different languages). Keiler (1970:70ff.) is correct in stressing that the vocalization of the laryngeals is based on an inherent property of the laryngeals themselves; there was no phonological prop vowel with which one could explain away this property of the laryngeals. 2. They caused aspiration in Indo-Iranian. There has been no complete study of the relevant evidence, but it is certain that both voiced (ahäm, mähi) and voiceless stops were aspirated, and that not only h2 caused aspiration (2pl. active ending Skt. -tha k before w). N o r is there certain evidence for a development to y or w; and there is very good evidence that they were not liable to such a development.

The nature of the PIE laryngeals

25

It has often been assumed that one or more of the laryngeals were voiced. The only piece of evidence was the verb for 'to drink', Skt. pibäti