In linguistics, the term ablaut (from German ab- in the sense "down, reducing" + Laut "sound") designates a system of vowel gradations in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages. The term "ablaut" was coined by the linguist Jacob Grimm, though the phenomenon was first described a century earlier by the Dutch linguist Lambert ten Kate in his book Gemeenschap tussen de Gottische spraeke en de Nederduytsche (1710). Ablaut can also be called apophony, vowel gradation, or vowel alternation. Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by an open configuration of the vocal tract, in contrast to consonants, which are characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the vocal tract. ... The Proto-Indo-Europeans are the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language, a prehistoric people of the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. ... The Indo-European languages include some 443 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects spoken by about three billion people, including most of the major language families of Europe and western Asia, which belong to a single superfamily. ... Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm (January 4, 1785 – September 20, 1863), German philologist and mythologist, was born at Hanau, in Hesse-Kassel. ... // Events April 10 - The worlds first copyright legislation became effective, Britains Statute of Anne Ongoing events Great Northern War (1700-1721) War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713) Births January 4 - Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Italian composer (d. ...

Ablaut must be clearly distinguished from the later and unrelated phenomenon of umlaut (the fronting of vowels caused by a front vowel in a following syllable). Ä ä Ö ö Ü ü The term umlaut is used for two closely related notions: a special kind of vowel modification and a particular diacritic mark. ...

Ablaut in Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European had a characteristic general ablaut sequence that contrasted the vowel phonemes e/ē/o/ō/ø through the same root. The historical development in pre-Indo-European will presumably have been that the original e-grade, which could be long or short, underwent two changes in certain phonological environments: under certain circumstances it changed its colouring to (long or short) o (the o-grade), and in others it disappeared entirely (the zero-grade). Originally these five grades of ablaut will have borne a purely allophonic relationship to each other, but later they came to carry meaning, distinguishing both lexis and grammatical form. The phonological conditions which controlled ablaut have been partly but not entirely explained; a key factor was the position of the word stress. Note that when we refer simply to the e-grade or o-grade, we mean the short vowel forms, unless the lengthened grades are specified. The e-grade is sometimes called the full grade. A classic example of the five grades of ablaut in a single root is provided by the different case forms of two closely related Greek words: In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. ...

We are interested here in the syllable in bold print. Crucial is also to notice which syllable carries the word stress - that in italics, and in Greek, that with the diacritic. In this untypically neat example, we see a switch to the zero-grade when the word stress moves to the following syllable, a switch to the o-grade when the word stress moves to the preceding syllable, and a lengthening of the vowel when there is no inflection.

The zero grade

The zero grade of ablaut is the one which causes most people the greatest difficulty. In the case of *ph₂trós, which may already in PIE have been pronounced something like /pət-'ros/, it is not difficult to imagine this as a contraction of an older *ph₂terós, pronounced perhaps /pət-er-'os/, as this combination of consonants and vowels would be possible in English too. In other cases, however, the absence of a vowel strikes the speaker of a modern western European language as unpronounceable.

To understand this, one must be aware that PIE had a number of sounds which in principle were consonants, yet could operate in ways analogous to vowels. We are thinking here of the four syllabic sonorants, the three laryngeals and the two semi-vowels. The laryngeals were three consonant sounds that appear in most current reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European language. ...

The syllabic sonorants are m, n, r and l, which could be consonants much as they are in English, could also be held on as continuants and carry a full syllable stress; when this happens, we transcribe them with a small circle beneath them (for technical reasons a dot has been used in this wiki article: ṃ, ṇ, etc). Compare r and l in the modern Slavic languages, or m and n in some African languages: in Srb, the Serbian word for "Serb", the r carries much the function of a vowel; in the African word Ngazija, the name of a Bantu language, the initial N- should be pronounced with a pulse (nasal plosion), as a full syllable, without the help of a vowel. Map showing the approximate distribution of Bantu (dull yellow) vs. ...

The laryngeals could be pronounced as consonants, in which case they were probably variations on the h sound, hence we normally transcribe them h₁, h₂ and h₃. However they could also carry a syllable stress, in which case they were more like vowels, hence some linguists prefer to transcribe them ə₁, ə₂ and ə₃. The vocalic pronunciation may have originally involved the consonantal sounds with a very slight schwa before and/or after the consonant.

The phonemes u and i could be semi-vowels, probably pronouced like English w and y, or they could be pure vowels.

Thus any of these could replace the ablaut vowel when it was reduced to the zero-grade: the pattern CVrC (eg. *b^herg^h-) could become CrC (*b^hrg^h-).

When the ablaut vowel was followed by i or u, the result was a diphthong. Ablaut is nevertheless regular, and looks like this:

However, not every PIE syllable was capable of forming a zero grade; some consonant structures inhibited it in particular cases, or completely. So for example, although the preterite plural of a Germanic strong verb (see below) is derived from the zero grade, classes 4 and 5 have instead vowels representing the lengthened e-grade, as the stems of these verbs could not have sustained a zero grade in this position.

Note that there are modern languages, such as Moroccan Arabic and the various Berber languages, which function similarly to how the zero-grade sonorants and laryngeals are assumed to have operated. In these languages, long strings of phonemic consonants are possible, any of which (often including stops) can be pronounced as a vocalic (syllabic) element. Syllabification typically works cyclically, and according to a sonorance hierarchy (which varies from language to language but typically looks something like y > w > r > l > m,n > fricative > stop). A sample set of syllabification rules is Moroccan Arabic, also known as Darija, is the language spoken in the Arabic-speaking areas of Morocco, other than in official communications of governmental and other public bodies, which use Classical Arabic, as is the case in most Arabic-speaking countries. ... The Berbers (also called Imazighen, free men, singular Amazigh) are an ethnic group indigenous to Northwest Africa, speaking the Berber languages of the Afroasiatic family. ...

• A sequence of two vocalic elements is prohibited.
• A sequence of three consonantal elements is prohibited.
• Elements higher in the sonorance hierarchy should be syllabified in preference to elements lower in the sonorance hierarchy.
• Ties are broken by syllabifying from right to left.

Hence /twmra/ [tumra], /tmwra/ [tmura], /twynmrla/ [twinmr̩la], /tywmnlra/ [tiwm̩nl̩ra], /tnmnmrwya/ [tnm̩nm̩ruya], /tnmnmrmya/ [tn̩mn̩mr̩mya], /twwwwwa/ [twuwuwa], /twwwwwwa/ [tuwuwuwa], etc.

There is no inherent restriction in the vocal tract preventing the pronunciation of a long series of consonants. A syllabic stop may be distinguished in slow speech by the presence of a minimal schwa sound before (or after) it, but in faster speech often only by the greater energy used in pronouncing the sound and the separate articulation of the sound from the consonant before (or after) it. In normal speech, for example, the Moroccan Arabic phrase /xsˤsˤk tktbi/ [xs̩ˤːk tˢk̩tˢbi] "you (fem.) must write" will have no audible voicing until the /b/. Moroccan Arabic, also known as Darija, is the language spoken in the Arabic-speaking areas of Morocco, other than in official communications of governmental and other public bodies, which use Classical Arabic, as is the case in most Arabic-speaking countries. ...

The a-grade

It is still a matter of debate whether PIE had an original a-vowel at all. In later PIE, the disappearance of the laryngeal h₂ could leave an a-colouring and this may explain all occurrences of a in later PIE. However some argue that the e-grade could sometimes be replaced by an a-grade without the influence of a laryngeal. This is controversial, but might help to explain the vowels in class 6 Germanic verbs, for example.

Subsequent development of Ablaut

Although PIE only had this one, basically regular ablaut sequence, the development in the daughter languages is frequently far more complicated, and few reflect the original system as neatly as Greek. Various factors such as vowel harmony, assimilation with nasals, or the effect of the presence of laryngeals in the Indo-European roots and their subsequent loss in most daughter languages, mean that a language may have several different vowels representing a single vowel in the parent language. Thus while ablaut survives in some form in all Indo-European languages, it becomes progressively less systematic over time. In Germanic, for example, there are several parallel (but still regular) ablaut sequences and in modern English the vowel alterations appear to be entirely irregular. The laryngeals were three consonant sounds that appear in most current reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European language. ...

Ablaut explains vowel differences between related words of the same language. For example:

• English fetch and foot both come from the same IE root *ped-, the common idea being "going". The former comes from the e-grade, the latter from the lengthened o-grade.
• German Berg (hill) and Burg (castle) both come from the root *b^herg^h-, which presumably meant "high". The former comes from the e-grade, the latter from the zero-grade. (Zero-grade followed by r becomes ur in Germanic.)

Ablaut also explains vowel differences between cognates in different languages.

• English tooth comes from Germanic *tanþ-uz, which is obviously related to Latin dens, dentis and Greek ὀδούς, ὀδόντος (same meaning), which we know in the English words dentist and orthodontic. The reconstructed IE root is identical to the Latin: *dent-. The consonant differences can be explained by regular sound shifts in primitive Germanic, but not the vowel differences: by the regular laws of sound changes, Germanic a goes back to PIE o. The explanation is that the Germanic and Greek words developed from the o-grade, the Latin word from the e-grade.
• English foot, as we have seen, comes from the lengthened o-grade of *ped-. Greek πούς, ποδός and Latin pes, pedis (cf. English octopus and pedestrian), come from the (short) o-grade and the e-grade respectively.

For the Engish-speaking non-specialist, the best reference work for quick information on IE roots, including the difference of ablaut grade behind related lexemes, is Calvert Watkins, The American Heritage dictionary of Indo-European Roots, 2nd edition, Boston & New York 2000. Calvert Watkins is a professor Emeritus of linguistics and the classics at Harvard University. ...

(Note that in discussions of lexis, we normally cite IE roots in the e-grade and without any inflections.)

Ablaut and grammatical function

In PIE, there were already ablaut differences within the paradigms of verbs and nouns. These were not the main markers of grammatical form, since the inflection system served this purpose, but they must have been significant secondary markers.

As an example of ablaut in the paradigm of the noun in PIE, we might take *pértus, from which we get the English words ford and (via Latin) port.

An example in a verb: *b^heid^honom "to wait" (cf. Scots "bide").

In the daughter languages, these came to be important markers of grammatical distinctions. The vowel change in the Germanic strong verb, for example, is the direct descendent of that which we saw in the Indo-European verb paradigm. Examples in modern English are:

It was in this context of Germanic verbs that ablaut was first described, and this is still what most people primarily associate with the phenomenon. A fuller description of ablaut operating in English, German and Dutch verbs and of the historical factors governing these can be found at the article West Germanic strong verb. In grammar, the infinitive is the form of a verb that has no inflection to indicate person, number, mood or tense. ... This article is about the grammatical term. ... In linguistics, a participle is an adjective derived from a verb. ... In the Germanic languages, strong verbs are those which mark their past tenses by means of ablaut. ...

The same phenomenon is displayed in the verb tables of Latin, Ancient Greek and Sanskrit. Examples of ablaut as a grammatical marker in Latin are the vowel changes in the perfect stem of verbs. Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Greek (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA – Hellenic) constitutes its own branch of the Indo-European languages. ... The Sanskrit language ( संस्कृता वाक्) is one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family and is not only a classical language, but also an official language of India. ...

Ablaut can often explain apparently random irregularities. For example, the verb "to be" in Latin has the forms est (he is) and sunt (they are). The equivalent forms in German are very similar: ist and sind. The difference between singular and plural in both languages is easily explained: the IE root is *es-. In the singular, the stem is stressed, so it remains in the e-grade, and it takes the inflection -t. In the plural, the inflection -nt is stressed, causing the stem to reduce to the zero grade: s-. The present tense is the tense (form of a verb) that is often used to express: Action at the present time A state of being A habitual action An occurrence in the near future An action that occurred in the past and continues up to the present Contents // Categories: Grammatical... The term perfect has different meanings: Look up Perfect in Wiktionary, the free dictionary For the mathematical concept, see perfect number. ...

Some of the morphological functions of the various grades are as follows:

e-grade:

• Present tense of thematic verbs; root stress.
• Present singular of athematic verbs; root stress.
• Accusative and vocative singular, nominative/accusative/vocative dual, nominative plural of nouns.

o-grade:

• Verbal nouns with ending stress.
• Present tense of causative verbs; stem (not root) stress.
• Perfect singular tense.

zero-grade:

• Present dual and plural tense of athematic verbs; ending stress.
• Perfect dual and plural tense; ending stress.
• Past participles; ending stress.
• Some verbs in the aorist tense (the Greek thematic "second aorist").
• Oblique singular/dual/plural, accusative plural of nouns.

lengthened grade:

• Nominative singular of many nouns.

Note that the ablaut alternations occurred in the stem (not the root) of nouns with a stem.

Related Topics

• Inflected language; reduplication; augment