Cowgill's law
says that a
PIE laryngeal , and possibly , turns into in
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
when directly preceded by a sonorant and followed by . This law is named after Indo-Europeanist
Warren Cowgill
Warren Crawford Cowgill ( ; December 19, 1929 – June 20, 1985) was an American linguist. He was a professor of linguistics at Yale University and the Encyclopædia Britannica's authority on Indo-European linguistics. Two separate Indo-Europea ...
.
This law is still controversial, although increasingly accepted.
Donald Ringe
Donald Ringe () is an American linguist and Indo-Europeanist.
He has been described as a historical linguist and as a mathematical linguist. He is multi-lingual. His work is on language family trees and the Proto-Indo-European language, a ...
(2006) accepts it;
Andrew Sihler
Andrew Littleton Sihler (born 25 February 1941 in Seattle) is an American linguist and comparative Indo-Europeanist.
Biography
Sihler received his Bachelor of Arts ''cum laude'' in 1962 from Harvard College, where he studied Germanic languages, ...
(1995) is noncommittal.
Examples are fairly few:
*
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
' "alive" (whence English ''quick'') <
PIE
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), fruit preserves ( jam tart ...
' (cf. ')
* Proto-Germanic ' acc. du. "us two" (cf. , , ) <
PIE
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), fruit preserves ( jam tart ...
' (cf. ';
Ved. ' acc. du. "us two" < ')
* Possibly ' "husband's brother" <
PIE
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), fruit preserves ( jam tart ...
' (cf. ',
Ved. ', ')
The first two examples, however, have good alternative explanations which don't involve Cowgill's law:
* Proto-Germanic ' < PIE '.
* Proto-Germanic ' < PIE ' acc./dat. du. "us two at least" (other accusative personal pronouns may have been built the same way: Proto-Germanic ' acc. sg. "me", ' acc. sg. "you (sg.)", and ' acc./dat. du. "you two" ).
Since Germanic results from earlier PIE , and since the change occurred before Grimm's law applied (according to Ringe), the resulting change would be actually > . This would have been more likely if was a voiced velar obstruent to begin with. If was a voiced labiovelar fricative as is occasionally suggested, the change would therefore have been: > .
References
{{reflist
Germanic sound laws