Lachmann's law
{{Short description|Sound law for Latin vowels}}
{{no footnotes|date=July 2024}}
{{Contains special characters|PIE}}
Lachmann's law is a somewhat disputed phonological sound law for Latin named after German Indo-Europeanist Karl Lachmann who first formulated it in 1850.{{sfn|Weiss|2020|p=190}} According to it, vowels in Latin lengthen before Proto-Indo-European voiced stops which are followed by another (unvoiced) stop.
Examples
- PIE *{{PIE|h₂eǵtos}} 'led' > {{lang|la|āctus}} (cf. short vowel in Ancient Greek wikt:ἄγω#Ancient Greek)
- PIE *{{PIE|ph₂gtos}} 'fortified' > {{lang|la|pāctus}} (cf. short vowel in Sanskrit wikt:पज्र#Sanskrit)
- PIE *{{PIE|tegtos}} 'covered' > {{lang|la|tēctus}} (cf. short vowel in Ancient Greek wikt:στέγω#Ancient Greek)
Explanations
According to Paul Kiparsky, {{sfn|Kiparsky|1965}} Lachmann's law is an example of a sound law that affects deep phonological structure, not the surface result of phonological rules. In Proto-Indo-European, a voiced stop was already pronounced as voiceless before voiceless stops, as the assimilation by voicedness must have been operational in PIE ({{PIE|*h₂eǵtos}} → {{PIE|*h₂eḱtos}} 'forced, made'). Lachmann's law, however, did not act upon the result of the assimilation, but on the deep structure {{PIE|*h₂eǵtos}} > {{lang|mis|*agtos}} > {{lang|la|āctus}}.
Jay Jasanoff defends the Neogrammarian analysis of Lachmann's law as analogy followed by sound change.{{sfn|Jasanoff|2004}} (*{{PIE|aktos}} ⇒ *{{lang|mis|agtos}} > *{{lang|mis|āgtos}} > {{lang|la|āctus}}). Although this formulation ultimately derives from Ferdinand de Saussure, Jasanoff's formulation also explains problems such as:
- {{PIE|magism̥os}} > *{{lang|mis|magsomos}} > {{lang|la|māximus}} {{IPA|/māksimus/}}
- {{PIE|aksī}}- ⇒ *{{lang|mis|agsī}}- > {{lang|la|āxī-}} {{IPA|/āksī-/}}
- {{PIE|pōds}} > *{{lang|mis|pōs(s)}} ⇒ *{{lang|mis|ped-s}} > *{{lang|mis|pēts}} > {{lang|la|pēs(s)}}
Because Lachmann's law also does not operate before PIE voiced aspirate stops, glottalic theory reinterprets the law as reflecting lengthening before glottalized stops, not voiced stops.
See also
- Winter's law, a similar law operating in Balto-Slavic
References
{{reflist}}
=Sources=
- {{citation |authorlink=Jay Jasanoff |first=Jay |last=Jasanoff | chapter=Plus ça change. . . Lachmann's Law in Latin |editor=J. H. W. Penney |title=Indo-European Perspectives: Studies in Honour of Anna Morpurgo Davies |location=Oxford and New York |year=2004 |pages=405–416 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-925892-5 |chapter-url=http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~jasanoff/pdf/Lachmann%27s%20Law.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170406132537/http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~jasanoff/pdf/Lachmann's%20Law.pdf|archive-date=6 April 2017}}
- {{citation |last=Kiparsky |first=Paul |year=1965 |title=Phonological Change |publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology}}. PhD dissertation.
- {{citation |authorlink=Ranko Matasović |last= Matasović |first= Ranko | title= Kratka poredbenopovijesna gramatika latinskoga jezika |publisher= Matica hrvatska |year= 1997 |location= Zagreb |isbn= 953-150-105-X }}
- {{Cite book |last=Weiss |first=Michael L. |title=Outline of the historical and comparative grammar of Latin |date=2020 |publisher=Beech Stave Press |isbn=978-0-9895142-7-9 |edition=Second |location=Ann Arbor}}