Winter's law
Encyclopedia
Winter's law, named after Werner Winter who postulated it in 1978, is a sound law operating on Balto-Slavic short vowels */e/, */o/, */a/ (< PIE
*h₂e), */i/ and */u/, according to which they lengthen before unaspirated voiced stops in a closed syllable, and that syllable gains rising, acute accent.
Compare;
Winter's law is important for several reasons. Most importantly, it is supposed to show the difference between the reflexes of PIE */b/, */d/, */g/, */gʷ/ in Balto-Slavic (in front of which Winter's law operates in closed syllable), and PIE */bʰ/, */dʰ/, */gʰ/, */gʷʰ/ (before which there is no effect of Winter's law). This shows that in relative chronology Winter's law operated before PIE aspirated stops */bʰ/, */dʰ/, */gʰ/ merged with PIE plain voiced stops */b/, */d/, */g/ in Balto-Slavic.
Secondary, Winter's law is also supposed to show the difference between the reflexes of PIE *h₂e > */a/ and PIE */o/ which otherwise merged to */a/ in Balto-Slavic. When these vowels lengthen in accordance with Winter's law, one can see that old */a/ (< PIE *h₂e) has lengthened into Balto-Slavic */ā/ (which later gave Lithuanian /o/, Latvian /ā/, OCS /a/), and old */o/ has lengthened into Balto-Slavic */ō/ (which later gave Lithuanian and Latvian uo, but still OCS /a/). In later development that represented Common Slavic innovation, the reflexes of Balto-Slavic */ā/ and */ō/ were merged, as one can see that they both result in OCS /a/. This also shows that Winter's law operated prior to the common Balto-Slavic change */o/ > */a/.
The original formulation of Winter's law stated that the vowels regularly lengthened in front of PIE voiced stops in all environments. As much as there were numerous examples that supported this formulation, there were also many counterexamples, such as OCS stogъ "stack" < PIE *stógos, OCS voda "water" < PIE } (collective noun formed from PIE }). An adjustment of Winter's law, with the conclusion that it operates only on closed syllables, was proposed by Matasović
in 1994, which, unlike most of the other prior proposals, successfully explains away most counterexamples. Matasović's revision of Winter's law has been used in the Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben
. Other variations of the blocking mechanism for Winter's law have been proposed by Kortlandt
, Shintani, Rasmussen
, Dybo
and Holst but they have not gained wide acceptance.
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
*h₂e), */i/ and */u/, according to which they lengthen before unaspirated voiced stops in a closed syllable, and that syllable gains rising, acute accent.
Compare;
- PIEProto-Indo-European languageThe Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
*sed- "to sit" (that also gave Latin sedeō, Sanskrit sīdati, Ancient Greek hézomai and English sit) > Proto-Balto-Slavic *sēd-tej > Lithuanian sė́sti, OCSOld Church SlavonicOld Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
sěsti (with regular Balto-Slavic *dt > *st dissimilation; OCS and Common SlavicProto-Slavic languageProto-Slavic is the proto-language from which Slavic languages later emerged. It was spoken before the seventh century AD. As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; the language has been reconstructed by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic...
yatYatYat or Jat is the thirty-second letter of the old Cyrillic alphabet. Its name in Old Church Slavonic is jěd’ or iad’ . In the common scientific Latin transliteration for old Slavic languages, the letter is represented by e with caron: .The yat represented a Common Slavic long vowel...
/ě/ is a regular reflex of PIE/PBSl. */ē/). - PIE *h₂ebl- "apple" (that also gave English apple) > Proto-Balto-Slavic *ābl- > standard Lithuanian obuolỹs (accusative óbuolį) and also dialectal forms of óbuolas and SamogitianSamogitianSamogitian can refer to:* Anything pertaining to Samogitia , the Lowlands of Lithuania* Samogitian dialect, a dialect of the Lithuanian language, sometimes regarded as a Baltic language...
óbulas, OCS ablъko, modern Serbian/Croatian jȁbuka, Slovene jábolko etc.
Winter's law is important for several reasons. Most importantly, it is supposed to show the difference between the reflexes of PIE */b/, */d/, */g/, */gʷ/ in Balto-Slavic (in front of which Winter's law operates in closed syllable), and PIE */bʰ/, */dʰ/, */gʰ/, */gʷʰ/ (before which there is no effect of Winter's law). This shows that in relative chronology Winter's law operated before PIE aspirated stops */bʰ/, */dʰ/, */gʰ/ merged with PIE plain voiced stops */b/, */d/, */g/ in Balto-Slavic.
Secondary, Winter's law is also supposed to show the difference between the reflexes of PIE *h₂e > */a/ and PIE */o/ which otherwise merged to */a/ in Balto-Slavic. When these vowels lengthen in accordance with Winter's law, one can see that old */a/ (< PIE *h₂e) has lengthened into Balto-Slavic */ā/ (which later gave Lithuanian /o/, Latvian /ā/, OCS /a/), and old */o/ has lengthened into Balto-Slavic */ō/ (which later gave Lithuanian and Latvian uo, but still OCS /a/). In later development that represented Common Slavic innovation, the reflexes of Balto-Slavic */ā/ and */ō/ were merged, as one can see that they both result in OCS /a/. This also shows that Winter's law operated prior to the common Balto-Slavic change */o/ > */a/.
The original formulation of Winter's law stated that the vowels regularly lengthened in front of PIE voiced stops in all environments. As much as there were numerous examples that supported this formulation, there were also many counterexamples, such as OCS stogъ "stack" < PIE *stógos, OCS voda "water" < PIE } (collective noun formed from PIE }). An adjustment of Winter's law, with the conclusion that it operates only on closed syllables, was proposed by Matasović
Ranko Matasovic
Ranko Matasović is a Croatian linguist, Indo-Europeanist and Celticist.He was born and raised in Zagreb where he attended primary and secondary school. At the Faculty of philosophy at the University of Zagreb he graduated linguistics and philosophy, receiving M.A. in linguistics in 1992 and Ph.D...
in 1994, which, unlike most of the other prior proposals, successfully explains away most counterexamples. Matasović's revision of Winter's law has been used in the Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben
Lexikon der Indogermanischen Verben
The Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben is an etymological dictionary of the Proto-Indo-European verb. The first edition appeared in 1998, edited by Helmut Rix. A second edition followed in 2001. The book is based on the Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch by Julius Pokorny...
. Other variations of the blocking mechanism for Winter's law have been proposed by Kortlandt
Frederik Kortlandt
Frederik Herman Henri Kortlandt is a professor of descriptive and comparative linguistics at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is an expert on Baltic and Slavic languages, the Indo-European languages in general, and Proto-Indo-European, though he has also published studies of languages in...
, Shintani, Rasmussen
Jens Elmegård Rasmussen
Jens Elmegård Rasmussen is associate professor of Indo-European Studies and head of the Roots of Europe research center at the University of Copenhagen. He is an expert on Proto-Indo-European and Indo-European languages in general, especially morphophonemics, but he has also published articles on...
, Dybo
Vladimir Dybo
Vladimir Antonovich Dybo is a Russian linguist whose areas of research include the Slavic languages, Indo-European, Nostratic, and Nilo-Saharan....
and Holst but they have not gained wide acceptance.