Programme

Szemerényi’s law: a critical survey of the evidence
Tijmen Pronk, Institut za hrvatski jezik / Leiden University
Today it appears to be widely accepted that the lengthened grade vowel in the nominative
singular of hysterodynamic nouns of the type *ph 2 tēr was the result of earlier loss of final *-s
with compensatory lengthening of the preceding consonant, which was subsequently
shortened with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel (Szemerényi 1999: 116).
The development is generally referred to as Szemerényi’s law, although the basic idea behind
it is much older (cf. Collinge 2009: 237).
Nussbaum (1986: 129f.) added to Szemerényi’s hypothesis by suggesting that
collectives ending in a long vowel and a resonant can be explained in a similar way. The
collective ending *-h 2 would have been lost with eventual compensatory lengthening of the
vowel in the preceding syllable. Szemerényi’s law has also been employed to explain a
number of further isolated lengthened grades.
Beekes (1990) provided several arguments against Szemerényi’s law. He argued that
the asigmatic nom.sg. of the h 2 -stems proves the existence of originally asigmatic
nominatives. He further argued that case endings like gen. sg. *-ei-s, *-en-s provide
counterevidence against Szemerényi’s law. A similar argument applies to the thematic acc.pl.
ending *-o-ns.
During the lecture, the strengths and weaknesses of Szemerényi’s law will be
discussed. We will also address the question whether alternative accounts of the lengthened
grade may provide a better explanation for the data.
References:
Beekes, Robert S. P. 1990 “Wackernagel’s explanation of the lengthened grade”,
Sprachwissenschaft und Philologie: Jacob Wackernagel und die Indogermanistik
heute. Wiesbaden, 33–53.
Collinge, N. E. 2009 The laws of Indo-European. Amsterdam–Philadelphia.
Nussbaum, Alan 1986 Head and horn in Indo-European. Berlin–New York.
Szemerényi, Oswald 1999 Introduction to Indo-European linguistics. Oxford.
34