Proto-Indo-European Lexicon (PIE Lexicon)
Proto-Indo-European Lexicon (PIE Lexicon) is a generative etymological dictionary of Indo-European languages. It is an academic open source database published online at the address http://pielexicon.hum.helsinki.fi.
The dictionary is planned to comprise the main bulk of the vocabulary of more than one hundred of the most ancient Indo-European languages when the first phase of the project has been accomplished. Afterward, the project is intended to expand to its second phase, in which the later Indo-European languages will be added to the database.
The dictionary automatically generates the Indo-European data, quoted in a stem form (i.e. without inflectional endings), on the basis of a set of digitised Indo-European sound laws and a primary phoneme inventory postulated for the Proto-Indo-European language. Thus, it formalizes the prediction of descendant forms from reconstructed Proto-Indo-European forms.
System[edit]
The sound system postulated by the Proto-Indo-European Lexicon is based on Jouna Pyysalo’s 2013 dissertation, System PIE: The Primary Phoneme Inventory and Sound Law System for Proto-Indo-European. In this monography Pyysalo presents a possible solution to the Proto-Indo-European laryngeal problem and postulates a primary phoneme inventory for Proto-Indo-European, intending to revise the Indo-European sound laws into a system consistent internally and with the data. The work is rooted in the comparative method of reconstruction in Indo-European linguistics.
Phonology[edit]
Pyysalo segmentally analyses the traditionally postulated proto-phonemes of the historical theories and comparatively infers a minimal set of phonemes for the PIE consisting of twenty-eight paired segments:
| Vowels | Short | *o | *e | *ɑ | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Long | *ō | *ē | *ɑ̄? | ||||
| Sonorants | Consonantal | *i̯ | *l | *m | *n | *r | *u̯ |
| Vocalic | *i | *l̥ | *m̥ | *n̥ | *r̥ | *u | |
| Obstruents | Voiceless | *h | *k | *p | *s | *t | |
| Voiced | *ɦ | *g | *b | *z | *d |
Length, syllabicity and voicing and contrasts are claimed to be allophonic, which would leave an inventory of fourteen phonemes.
Laryngeal consonants[edit]
The solution to the Proto-Indo-European laryngeal problem, viz. the question of the phonetic interpretation and the number of "laryngeals" of the proto-language, has been disputed ever since Bedřich Hrozný's demonstration of the Indo-European character of the Hittite language. Pyysalo 2013 proposes an inductive solution to the problem, according to which:
- Proto-Indo-European had a single "laryngeal", reconstructed as a glottal fricative with voiceless and voiced variants *[h] and *[ɦ], both segmentally preserved in Hittite ḫ.
- Proto-Indo-European *h/ɦ was always accompanied by PIE *ɑ (the reinterpreted Schwa Indogermanicum), thus appearing in the diphonemic pairs PIE *hɑ *ɑh *ɦɑ *ɑɦ.
Digitised lexicon[edit]
Since June 2014, the data and sound laws proposed in Pyysalo 2013 have been in an ongoing process of digitalisation at http://pielexicon.hum.helsinki.fi. The resulting lexicon application automatically generates descendant words from hypothesized Proto-Indo-European forms, using Foma scripts to model sound changes and display them chronologically.
Historical Background[edit]
Historically, the PIE Lexicon continues the comparative tradition of Indo-European linguistics, attempting to offer a more regular account of PIE ablaut than is offered by the prevailing laryngeal theory.
Despite this, the two views are not straightforwardly opposed: rather than standing in opposition to the laryngeal theory, the System PIE (and its digitised Lexicon) can be characterised as incorporating elements from all historical mainstream schools of thought, i.e. from the Paleogrammarians, the Neogrammarians, the laryngeal theory and monolaryngealism.
Thus, for instance, the solution to the laryngeal problem, PIE *hɑ *ɑh *ɦɑ *ɑɦ, contains PIE *ɑ, the former Schwa Indogermanicum inherited from the Neogrammarians, the single laryngeal from monolaryngealism, but also accepts the colouring rules of the laryngeal theory, thus e.g. deriving the vowel Neogr. *a from PIE *ɑe (cf. Møller's Ae -> a), and so forth.
Problems and criticism[edit]
Currently the main problem (and criticism) of the theory is the lack of typological parallel for the existence of diphonemic PIE *hɑ *ɑh *ɦɑ *ɑɦ in the languages of the world, as already mentioned in Pyysalo 2013 (461-2): although the Neogrammarians already demonstrated the existence of the vowel *ǝ (reinterpreted as PIE *ɑ in System PIE) and the Anatolian data preserves a single laryngeal Hittite ḫ, "It is desirable that a typological parallel be found for a system of phonemes PIE *ɑ and PIE *ḫ choosing each other (strict phonotactical selection) in diphonemic PIE *ɑḫ : ḫɑ (...)".
References[edit]
- http://pielexicon.hum.helsinki.fi
- https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/41760
- https://code.google.com/p/foma/
External links[edit]
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