{"history":[],"article":{"id":"47b23f32-464c-44b1-ac49-2e9275cdf550","title":"Brugmann's law","slug":"brugmann-s-law","content":":::summary\n:::\n\n# \n**Brugmann's law**, named for [Karl Brugmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/karl-brugmann), is a [sound law](https://bliptext.com/articles/sound-law) stating that in the [Indo-Iranian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-iranian-languages), the earlier [Proto-Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european) normally became in Proto-Indo-Iranian but *ā in [open syllables](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-syllable) if it was followed by one consonant and another vowel.\nFor example, the Proto-Indo-European noun for 'wood' was *dόru, which in Vedic became.\nEverywhere else, the outcome was, the same as the reflexes of PIE and.\n\n# Overview\nThe theory accounts for a number of otherwise puzzling facts.\n[Sanskrit](https://bliptext.com/articles/sanskrit) has for \"fathers, mothers, brothers\" but for \"sisters\", a fact neatly explained by the traditional reconstruction of the [stems](https://bliptext.com/articles/word-stem) as for \"father, mother, brother\" but for \"sister\" (cf. Latin pater, māter, frāter but soror).\nSimilarly, the vast majority of n-stem nouns in [Indic](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-aryan-languages) have a long stem-vowel, such as \"Brahmins\", \"dogs\" (from ), correlating with information from other Indo-European languages that they were originally *on-stems.\nThere are also some exceptions, including \"ox\", which in the earliest Indic text, the [Rigveda](https://bliptext.com/articles/rigveda), shows forms as \"oxen\".\nThey were later replaced by \"regular\" formations ( and so on, some as early as the Rigveda itself), but the notion that the short stem vowel might have been from an -stem is supported by the unique [morphology](https://bliptext.com/articles/morphology-linguistics) of the Germanic forms: Old English oxa nominative singular \"ox\", exen plural; the Old English plural stem, such as the nominative, continues [Proto-Germanic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-germanic) *uhsiniz < *uhsenez, with e > i in noninitial syllables followed, in Old English, by an umlaut.\nThis is the only Old English n-stem that certainly points to -vocalism, rather than -vocalism.\n\n# Exceptions\nThe rule seems to apply to only an that is the [ablaut](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-european-ablaut) alternant of.\nNon-apophonic, with no alternant, developed into Indo-Iranian : \"master, lord\" > Sanskrit , not (there is no such root as \"rule, dominate\").\nAlternatively, it is explained by the voiceless consonant after the vowel (see also Sanskrit < ), but to adopt a form of the sound law that affects only in open syllables, followed by a voiced consonant, seems to be a slim basis for a rule that is so general in Indo-Iranian.\nLimiting the original environment to that before voiceless consonants then requires levelling of long-vowel forms to perfects and nouns with final voiceless consonants in [Pre-Indo-Iranian](https://bliptext.com/articles/pre-indo-iranian).\nThat faces particular problems in explaining the archaic form 'he/she has reached' <, with its very idiosyncratic synchronic relation to Sanskrit 'reach'.\nSeveral exceptions can be addressed by the [laryngeal theory](https://bliptext.com/articles/laryngeal-theory).\nThe form that is traditionally reconstructed as \"sheep\" (Sanskrit ), is a good candidate for again reconstructing, as (with an o-colouring laryngeal), rather than an ablauting o-grade.\nPerhaps the most convincing confirmation comes from the inflection of the [perfect](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfect-grammar): a Sanskrit root like \"sit\" has for \"I sat\" and for \"he, she, it sat\".\nThe conventional 19th century wisdom saw it as some kind of \"therapeutic\" reaction to the Indo-Iranian merger of the endings *-a \"I\" and *-e \"he/she/it\" as, but it was troubling that the distinction was found only in roots that ended with a single [consonant](https://bliptext.com/articles/consonant).\nThat is, \"saw\" is both first- and third-person singular, but a form like would have been allowed by Sanskrit [syllable](https://bliptext.com/articles/syllable) structure.\nThe mystery was solved when the ending of the perfect in the first person singular was reanalyzed, on the basis of [Hittite](https://bliptext.com/articles/hittite-language) evidence as, beginning with an a-colouring [laryngeal](https://bliptext.com/articles/laryngeal-theory).\nIn other words, while Brugmann's Law was still operative, a form of the type in the first-person singular did not have an open root syllable.\nA problem for the interpretation is that [roots](https://bliptext.com/articles/root-linguistics) that quite plainly must have ended in a consonant cluster including a laryngeal, such as < \"beget\" and therefore should have had a short vowel throughout (like \"see\" < ) nevertheless show the same patterning as : first-person singular, third-person singular.\nWhether that is a catastrophic failure of the theory or just levelling is uncertain, but after all, those who think the pattern seen in roots like has a morphological, not phonological, origin, have their own headaches, such as the total failure of this \"morphological\" development to include roots ending in two consonants.\nSuch an argument would anyway cut the ground out from under the neat distributions seen in the [kinship](https://bliptext.com/articles/kinship) terms, the special behaviour of \"ox\" and so on.\nPerhaps the most worrisome data are [adverbs](https://bliptext.com/articles/adverbs) such as Sanskrit, [Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-greek) (< ) (meaning \"motion from or to a place or location at a place\", depending on the case of the noun that it governs) and some other forms, all of which appear to have ablauting vowels.\nThey also all have a voiceless stop after the vowel, which may or may not be significant.\n\n# Current status\nBrugmann's Law is widely accepted among specialists in Indo-European and Indo-Iranic linguistics.\n[Jerzy Kuryłowicz](https://bliptext.com/articles/jerzy-kury-owicz), the author of the explanation of the matter (in his Études indoeuropéennes I), eventually abandoned his analysis for of an appeal to the theory of marked vs unmarked morphological categories.\n[Martin Joachim Kümmel](https://bliptext.com/articles/martin-joachim-k-mmel) compares Brugmann's Law to developments in [Anatolian](https://bliptext.com/articles/anatolian-languages) and [Tocharian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/tocharian-languages) and to [Saussure](https://bliptext.com/articles/ferdinand-de-saussure)'s losses of laryngeals near *o in the internal reconstruction of pre-PIE *o as longer than *e (Kümmel 2012:308).","current_revision":null,"created_by":"kACnuQmH5k9Nr5VNVEpVeg7XpvUmMctD","created_at":"2025-01-26T07:03:50.177Z","updated_at":"2025-01-26T07:03:50.177Z","search_vector":"'brugmann':1 'law':3","search_content":" \n \n\n# \n**Brugmann's law**, named for [Karl Brugmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/karl-brugmann), is a [sound law](https://bliptext.com/articles/sound-law) stating that in the [Indo-Iranian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-iranian-languages), the earlier [Proto-Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european) normally became in Proto-Indo-Iranian but *ā in [open syllables](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-syllable) if it was followed by one consonant and another vowel.\nFor example, the Proto-Indo-European noun for 'wood' was *dόru, which in Vedic became.\nEverywhere else, the outcome was, the same as the reflexes of PIE and.\n\n# Overview\nThe theory accounts for a number of otherwise puzzling facts.\n[Sanskrit](https://bliptext.com/articles/sanskrit) has for \"fathers, mothers, brothers\" but for \"sisters\", a fact neatly explained by the traditional reconstruction of the [stems](https://bliptext.com/articles/word-stem) as for \"father, mother, brother\" but for \"sister\" (cf. Latin pater, māter, frāter but soror).\nSimilarly, the vast majority of n-stem nouns in [Indic](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-aryan-languages) have a long stem-vowel, such as \"Brahmins\", \"dogs\" (from ), correlating with information from other Indo-European languages that they were originally *on-stems.\nThere are also some exceptions, including \"ox\", which in the earliest Indic text, the [Rigveda](https://bliptext.com/articles/rigveda), shows forms as \"oxen\".\nThey were later replaced by \"regular\" formations ( and so on, some as early as the Rigveda itself), but the notion that the short stem vowel might have been from an -stem is supported by the unique [morphology](https://bliptext.com/articles/morphology-linguistics) of the Germanic forms: Old English oxa nominative singular \"ox\", exen plural; the Old English plural stem, such as the nominative, continues [Proto-Germanic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-germanic) *uhsiniz i in noninitial syllables followed, in Old English, by an umlaut.\nThis is the only Old English n-stem that certainly points to -vocalism, rather than -vocalism.\n\n# Exceptions\nThe rule seems to apply to only an that is the [ablaut](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-european-ablaut) alternant of.\nNon-apophonic, with no alternant, developed into Indo-Iranian : \"master, lord\" > Sanskrit , not (there is no such root as \"rule, dominate\").\nAlternatively, it is explained by the voiceless consonant after the vowel (see also Sanskrit < ), but to adopt a form of the sound law that affects only in open syllables, followed by a voiced consonant, seems to be a slim basis for a rule that is so general in Indo-Iranian.\nLimiting the original environment to that before voiceless consonants then requires levelling of long-vowel forms to perfects and nouns with final voiceless consonants in [Pre-Indo-Iranian](https://bliptext.com/articles/pre-indo-iranian).\nThat faces particular problems in explaining the archaic form 'he/she has reached' <, with its very idiosyncratic synchronic relation to Sanskrit 'reach'.\nSeveral exceptions can be addressed by the [laryngeal theory](https://bliptext.com/articles/laryngeal-theory).\nThe form that is traditionally reconstructed as \"sheep\" (Sanskrit ), is a good candidate for again reconstructing, as (with an o-colouring laryngeal), rather than an ablauting o-grade.\nPerhaps the most convincing confirmation comes from the inflection of the [perfect](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfect-grammar): a Sanskrit root like \"sit\" has for \"I sat\" and for \"he, she, it sat\".\nThe conventional 19th century wisdom saw it as some kind of \"therapeutic\" reaction to the Indo-Iranian merger of the endings *-a \"I\" and *-e \"he/she/it\" as, but it was troubling that the distinction was found only in roots that ended with a single [consonant](https://bliptext.com/articles/consonant).\nThat is, \"saw\" is both first- and third-person singular, but a form like would have been allowed by Sanskrit [syllable](https://bliptext.com/articles/syllable) structure.\nThe mystery was solved when the ending of the perfect in the first person singular was reanalyzed, on the basis of [Hittite](https://bliptext.com/articles/hittite-language) evidence as, beginning with an a-colouring [laryngeal](https://bliptext.com/articles/laryngeal-theory).\nIn other words, while Brugmann's Law was still operative, a form of the type in the first-person singular did not have an open root syllable.\nA problem for the interpretation is that [roots](https://bliptext.com/articles/root-linguistics) that quite plainly must have ended in a consonant cluster including a laryngeal, such as < \"beget\" and therefore should have had a short vowel throughout (like \"see\" < ) nevertheless show the same patterning as : first-person singular, third-person singular.\nWhether that is a catastrophic failure of the theory or just levelling is uncertain, but after all, those who think the pattern seen in roots like has a morphological, not phonological, origin, have their own headaches, such as the total failure of this \"morphological\" development to include roots ending in two consonants.\nSuch an argument would anyway cut the ground out from under the neat distributions seen in the [kinship](https://bliptext.com/articles/kinship) terms, the special behaviour of \"ox\" and so on.\nPerhaps the most worrisome data are [adverbs](https://bliptext.com/articles/adverbs) such as Sanskrit, [Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-greek) (< ) (meaning \"motion from or to a place or location at a place\", depending on the case of the noun that it governs) and some other forms, all of which appear to have ablauting vowels.\nThey also all have a voiceless stop after the vowel, which may or may not be significant.\n\n# Current status\nBrugmann's Law is widely accepted among specialists in Indo-European and Indo-Iranic linguistics.\n[Jerzy Kuryłowicz](https://bliptext.com/articles/jerzy-kury-owicz), the author of the explanation of the matter (in his Études indoeuropéennes I), eventually abandoned his analysis for of an appeal to the theory of marked vs unmarked morphological categories.\n[Martin Joachim Kümmel](https://bliptext.com/articles/martin-joachim-k-mmel) compares Brugmann's Law to developments in [Anatolian](https://bliptext.com/articles/anatolian-languages) and [Tocharian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/tocharian-languages) and to [Saussure](https://bliptext.com/articles/ferdinand-de-saussure)'s losses of laryngeals near *o in the internal reconstruction of pre-PIE *o as longer than *e (Kümmel 2012:308).","revisionCount":0},"hasMore":false,"nextCursor":null}

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