PIE laryngeal deletion

PIE laryngeals were deleted in a number of circumstances when not adjacent to a syllabic.¹

A laryngeal separated from an o by a sonorant, all in the same syllable was deleted. Since in some categories the o grade is more common, this can mean an underlying H rarely surfaces.
- e.g. terh₁- ‘bore’, tórmos ‘borehole’
- /o-yh₁-/, the Core IE thematic optative.
Pinault's rule A laryngeal preceded by an (underlying) non-syllabic followed by an (underlying)_ */y/_ is deleted.²
- e.g. imperfective stem of root werh₁- ‘to say’ is wéry(e/o)-
- imperfective stem of root h₂arh₃- ‘to plow’ is h₂ary(e/o)-
- contrast with imperfective stem of root snéh₁- ‘to spin’ is sneh₁ye/o-
A laryngeal in the position C_CC is dropped i.e. /C_CC/ > /CCC/.
- e.g. /dʰugh₂tr-/ → dʰugtr-
An utterance-final laryngeal was deleted (after PIE *e-laryngeal colouring) if preceded by a syllabic. A vocative constitutes a complete utterance. Remains productive in Rigvedic.
- e.g. /-ah₂/ → voc. -a.

#state/tidy | #SemBr

Footnotes