Lachmann's law

Lachmann's law

Lachmann's law is a somewhat disputed phonological sound law for Latin named after German Indo-Europeanist Karl Lachmann who first formulated it sometimes in the middle of the 19th century. According to it, vowels in Latin lengthen before Proto-Indo-European voiced stops which are followed by another (unvoiced) stop.

Compare:
* PIE *PIE|h₂eǵtos 'lead' > "āctus" (cf. short vowel in Ancient Greek "")
* PIE *PIE|ph₂gtos 'fortified' > pāctus (cf. short vowel in Ancient Greek ', Sanskrit ')
* PIE *tegtos 'covered' > "tēctus" (cf. short vowel in Ancient Greek "")

Lachmann's law is an example of sound law that affects "deep" phonological structure, not the surface result of phonological rules. In Proto-Indo-European, voiced stop was already "pronounced" as voiceless before voiceless stop, as the assimilation by voiceness must have been operational in PIE (PIE|*h₂eǵtos → PIE|*h₂eḱtos 'forced, made'). Lachmann's law, however, did not act upon the result of the assimilation, but on the deep structure PIE|*h₂eǵtos > *agtos > āctus. Dispute on Lachmann's law is a consequence of not gaining insight into that mechanism by lots of linguists.

ee also

* Winter's law, similar law operating in Balto-Slavic

References

*


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