On the relationship between stress and vowel quantity in Hittite
Anthony D. Yates
University of California, Los Angeles
[email protected]
It is now generally accepted that Hittite “plene writing” — viz. the repetition of identical vowel
signs in the spelling of vowels or diphthongs (cf. Kimball 1999:55) — indicates vowel length, and
moreover, that some Hittite long vowels are inherited as such from PIE, while others are due to
Hittite-internal phonological processes that lengthen stressed short vowels in certain environments.
However, the conditions under which short vowels are lengthened, as well as whether these processes
are purely historical or synchronically operative in Hittite, remain disputed; see especially the
differing treatments of Melchert (1994), Kimball (1999), and Kloekhorst (2008, 2014).
Since these issues bear crucially upon the synchronic analysis of Hittite prosody and, in turn,
its implications for historical reconstruction, I reassess the relationship between stress and vowel
quantity in Hittite. In view of the strong correlation between these two variables, which is evident
(e.g.) in simplex mobile mi- and hi -verbs like (1–2), I contend that most quantitative — and to
ˇ alternations within Hittite inflectional paradigms need not be
a lesser extent, qualitative — vowel
morphologically specified, but are instead directly dependent on word stress:
(1)
(2)
a. Hitt. /ses – ts
<:i/ → šēšzi [sé:sts
<:i] ‘sleeps’
b. Hitt. /ses – ánts
<:i/ → šašanzi [s@sánts
<:i] ‘they sleep’
a. Hitt. /ta: – i/ → dāi [tá:i] ‘takes’
b. Hitt. /ta: – t:éni/ → dattēni [t@t:é:ni] ‘you take’
(KBo 19.128 vi 29)
(e.g. KUB 42.78 ii 17)
(e.g. KBo 6.2 i 8)
(e.g. KUB 36.106 Vs. 8)
Since stress assignment must be explained synchronically (cf. Yates 2015, forthcoming), it is
argued that vowel lengthening, shortening, and reduction processes are also productive in the
grammar of Hittite. It is therefore proposed that Hittite has the five vowel inventory /i(:) e a(:)
o u(:)/ (i.e. with phonemic length contrasts in the high and low vowels), and that the surface
distribution of these vowels is consistent with the phonological generalizations in (3):
(3)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Underlying long vowels (/a: i: u:/) are long when stressed
Vowels in open syllables are long when stressed
Vowels are short when unstressed
Mid vowels (/e o/) in closed syllables are long when stressed ([e: o:])
Pretonic [-back, -high] vowels (/e a(:)/) are deleted or else reduced to <a> ([@] or [a])
(3a–3c) restate generally accepted historical sound changes (Melchert 1994:130–50; cf. Kloekhorst
2008:95–101), and in the same vein, (3e) reflects the standard opinion that PIE quantitative ablaut
yielded Hitt. ∅ or <a> (as the reflex of PIE “morphological zero-grade;” cf. Oettinger 1979:78,
Schindler 1977:31) in the weak stem of mobile paradigms (viz. in pretonic position).
(3d), in contrast, has recently been challenged by Kloekhorst (2014:216–18), who disputes the
lengthening of *é in non-final closed syllables. I contend, however, that the disparate explanations
he posits in order to account for apparent counter-examples — (e.g.) initial <Vi -Vi C> spellings in
frequent ēšzi ‘is’, ēpzi ‘takes’, etc. as spellings of a word-initial glottal stop [P] (cf. Weeden 2011);
mērtu ‘let disappear’ (KUB 41.23 ii 5) and s(a)mēzzi ‘withdraws’ (HKM 5, 14; n.b. indicative!) by
“emphatic lengthening” of imperatives; and (1a) and kēnzu ‘lap’ (KBo 19.31 ii 17) as scribal errors
— are (at least collectively) implausible, and consequently, that the traditional view in (3d) must
be maintained (cf. Melchert 1994:133 with reff.). (3c) and (3d) thus together led to the phonemic
merger of Pre-Hitt. *é with PIE *ē, tautosyllabic *éh1 , and (partially) *ei as Hittite /e/ (so
Kloekhorst 2008:96). I adduce further support for this analysis from the symmetrical behavior of
“ > Hitt. hūškeši [Xó:sk:esi] (cf. Yates forthcoming)
back mid vowels: the development of PA *Húskesi
now confirms that the PA precursor of Hittite “new” /o/ ˇ(Rieken 2005; Kloekhorst 2008:35–60) —
even when it is not a conditioned reflex of PIE/PA *ó — also lengthened in closed syllables.
With the processes in (3) thus established qua historical developments, I argue for their implementation in the synchronic grammar of Hittite, developing an analysis in terms of Optimality
Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993/2004) that relies primarily on constraints that can be motivated both synchronically and diachronically. (3c), for example, is effected by a high-ranking
constraint against unstressed long vowels; from a purely historical perspective, this constraint
drives the across-the-board historical shortening of unstressed inherited long vowels (cf. Melchert
1994:76), while synchronically it explains why — with very few exceptions (cf. below) — each
prosodic word contains just one surface long vowel (e.g. lagān [l@ká:n] ‘inclined’ (KBo 12.96 iv 14)
← /la:k – á:nt – ∅/). Moreover, beyond providing an economical account of regular vowel alternations in mobile paradigms such as (1–2), these constraints explain historically unexpected forms
x
wh
like kuēnzi [kw é:nts
<:i] ‘kills’ ( kuanzi < PIE *g én-ti ) — traditionally ascribed to analogy (cf.
Melchert 1994:135) — as the direct result of the application of productive Hittite morphophonological processes (← /kw en – ts
<:i/).
Finally, the evolution of the synchronic Hittite vowel system is discussed from a typological and
phonetic perspective, and I briefly consider some patterned exceptions to the general rule that every
word has a single surface long vowel, e.g. idālawēšzi [ita:lawé:s:ts
<:i] ‘becomes evil’ (KBo 6.4 iv 2).
It is proposed that these forms “inherit” their unstressed long vowel from their derivational base
(idālu–) (cf. Kimball 1999:129), and I suggest formalizing this relationship using Output-Output
Correspondence theory (e.g McCarthy and Prince 1995).
References
Kimball, Sara. 1999. Hittite Historical Phonology. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der
Universität Innsbruck.
Kloekhorst, Alwin. 2008. Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon. Leiden / Boston:
Brill.
———. 2014. Accent in Hittite: A Study in Plene Spelling, Consonant Gradation, Clitics, and
Metrics. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
McCarthy, John, and Alan Prince. 1995. Faithfulness and reduplicative identity. In J.N. Beckman,
Dickey L.W. and S. Urbanczyk (eds.), University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers 18: Papers
in Optimality Theory, 249–384. University of Massachusetts.
Melchert, H. Craig. 1994. Anatolian Historical Phonology. Amsterdam / Atlanta: Rodopi.
Oettinger, Norbert. 1979. Die Stammbildung des hethitischen Verbums. Nürnberg: Hans Carl.
Prince, Alan, and Paul Smolensky. 1993/2004. Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in
Generative Grammar. Oxford / Malden, MA: Blackwell.
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Rieken, Elisabeth. 2005. Zur Wiedergabe von hethitisch /o/. In Gerhard Meiser and Olav Hackstein (eds.), Sprachkontakt und Sprachwandel: Akten der XI. Fachtagung der indogermanischen
Gesellschaft, Halle an der Saale, 17. bis 23 September 2000, 537–549. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
Schindler, Jochem. 1977. A Thorny Problem. Die Sprache 23.25–35.
Weeden, Mark. 2011. Spelling, phonology and etymology in Hittite historical linguistics. Bulletin
of the School of Oriental and African Studies 74(01).59–76. doi:10.1017/S0041977X10000716.
Yates, Anthony D. 2015. On Hittite Verbal Prosody: Synchronic Evidence for (Non-)Default
Accentuation. Paper presented at the 226th Annual Meeting of the American Oriental Society,
New Orleans, LA, 13–16 March 2015.
———. forthcoming. Anatolian Default Accentuation and its Diachronic Consequences. IndoEuropean Linguistics (Ms. available at https://ucla.academia.edu/AnthonyYates).
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