View source for Proto-Indo-European accent

{{Short description|Pitch accent system of the proto-Indo-European language}}
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{{Contains special characters|PIE}}
'''Proto-Indo-European accent''' refers to the theoretical accentual ([[Stress (linguistics)|stress]]) system of the [[Proto-Indo-European language]].

==Description==
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is usually [[linguistic reconstruction|reconstructed]] as having a "[[Pitch-accent language|pitch accent]]" system where one syllable of each of phonological word had a higher pitch than the other syllables.{{sfnp|Ringe|2006|p=7}} The placement of this accent was not predictable from a word's [[Proto-Indo-European phonology| phonological form]]: that is, accent was [[Stress (linguistics)#Word stress|lexical, or phonemic]].{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}

PIE accent was ''free'', meaning it could stand on any syllable in a word, a feature that is preserved in the [[Vedic accent|Vedic Sanskrit accent system]]{{sfnp|Ringe|2006|pp=21-22}} (the later [[Classical Sanskrit]] had a predictable accent):
* PIE {{PIE|*bʰéromh₁nos}} 'carried' > Vedic ''bháramāṇas''
* PIE {{PIE|*dʰoréyeti}} 'holds' > Vedic ''dhāráyati''
* PIE {{PIE|*nemesyéti}} 'worships' > Vedic ''namasyáti''
* PIE {{PIE|*h₁rudʰrós}} 'red' > Vedic ''rudhirás''

In many descendants, the original free accent system was replaced with a system of ''bound'' accent. Free accent is preserved in Vedic Sanskrit (of modern Indo-Iranian languages, according to some{{who|date=September 2014}} and [[Pashto language|Pashto]]), Hellenic, Balto-Slavic and Anatolian. In [[Proto-Germanic]], free accent was retained long enough for [[Verner's Law]] to be dependent on it, but later, stress was shifted to the first syllable of the word.

In inflected words, such as nouns and verbs, the accent could either remain on the same syllable, or change position between different inflected forms. Different [[Inflection#Inflectional_paradigm|paradigm]]s of accentuation are associated with particular morphological formations.

Words where the accent remains on the same syllable are said to have ''fixed accent''. This includes thematic nouns (nouns whose inflected stem ends in a [[thematic vowel]]), and also a minority of athematic nouns.{{sfnp|Ringe|2006|p=21}} Nouns with fixed accent are divided into ''[[barytone]]s'' if they are accented on the first syllable and ''[[oxytone]]s'' if they are accented on the last syllable:
* PIE barytone {{PIE|[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/wĺ̥kʷos|*wĺ̥kʷos]]}} 'wolf' > Sanskrit nom. sg. ''[[wikt:वृक#Sanskrit|vṛ́kas]]'', gen. sg. ''vṛ́kasya'', nom. pl. ''vṛ́kās''
* PIE oxytone {{PIE|[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/suHnús|*suHnús]]}} 'son' > Sanskrit nom. sg. ''[[wikt:सूनु#Sanskrit|sūnús]]'', gen. sg. ''sūnós'', nom. pl. ''sūnávas''

Words where the position of the accent changes throughout the inflectional paradigm are said to have ''mobile accent''. This category includes most athematic nouns.{{sfnp|Ringe|2006|p=21}} This quality persisted in [[Vedic Sanskrit]] and [[Ancient Greek]], as in the declension of the nouns descended from PIE {{PIE|*[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/pṓds|pṓds]]}} 'foot, step':
:* PIE [[nominative case|nom.]] [[Grammatical number|sg.]] *pṓds > Sanskrit ''[[wikt:पद्#Sanskrit|pā́t]]'', Ancient Greek {{lang|grc|[[wikt:πούς#Ancient Greek|πούς]]}}
:* PIE [[genitive case|gen.]] sg. *pedés > Sanskrit ''padás'', Ancient Greek {{lang|grc|ποδός}}
:* PIE [[accusative case|acc.]] sg. *{{PIE|pódm̥}} > Sanskrit ''pā́dam'', Ancient Greek {{lang|grc|πόδᾰ}},
or in the conjugation of athematic verbs (compare Sanskrit root present first-person sg. ''émi'', first-person plural ''imás'').

==Reflexes==
The Vedic accent is generally considered the most archaic{{why?|date=April 2025}}, fairly faithfully reflecting the position of the original PIE accent.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}} [[Avestan language|Avestan]] manuscripts do not have written accent, but we know indirectly that at some period the free PIE accent was preserved (e.g. Avestan *r is devoiced yielding ''-hr-'' before voiceless stops and after the accent — if the accent was not on the preceding syllable, *r is not devoiced{{efn |Compare e.g. Avestan ''vəhrka-'' 'wolf' with devoicing, as opposed to Vedic ''[[wikt:वृक#Sanskrit|vṛ́kas]]'', Ancient Greek {{lang|grc|[[wikt:λύκος#Ancient Greek|λύκος]]}}, but ''mərəta-'' 'dead' without devoicing, as opposed to Vedic ''[[wikt:मृत#Sanskrit|mṛtás]]'', Ancient Greek {{lang|grc|[[wikt:βροτός#Ancient Greek|βροτός]]}}.}}).

Ancient Greek also preserves the free PIE accent in its nouns (see [[Ancient Greek accent]]), but with limitations that prevent the accent from being positioned farther than the third syllable from the end (next from the end if the last vowel was long). However, Greek is almost completely worthless for reconstructing the PIE accent in verbs, because (other than in a few cases) it is consistently positioned as close to the start as the rules allow.

Proto-Germanic initially preserved the PIE free accent{{according to whom?|date=April 2025}}, with some innovations.  In the last stage of Proto-Germanic, the accent was replaced by a stress accent on the first syllable of the word, but prior to that it left its traces in the operation of [[Verner's law]].

[[Anatolian languages]] show traces of the old PIE accent in the lengthening of the formerly accented syllable. Compare:
* PIE [[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/dóru|*dóru]] 'tree; wood' > Hittite, Luwian ''[[wikt:𒋫𒀀𒊒|tāru]]''
* PIE [[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/wódr̥|*wódr̥]] 'water' > Hittite ''[[wikt:𒉿𒀀𒋫𒅈#Hittite|wātar]]'', but PIE {{PIE|*wedṓr}} 'waters' (collective) > Hittite ''widār''

Some [[Balto-Slavic languages]] also retain traces of the free PIE accent. For the reconstruction of the Proto-Balto-Slavic accent, the most important evidence comes from [[Lithuanian language|Lithuanian]], from [[Latvian language|Latvian]] (traditionally Lithuanian is thought as more relevant, but that role is being increasingly being taken over by Latvian{{sfnp |Kapović |2008 |p=271}}), and from some Slavic languages, especially Western [[South Slavic languages]] and their archaic dialects. The Balto-Slavic accent is continued in the [[Proto-Slavic accent]]. Accentual alternations in inflectional paradigms (both verbal and nominal) are also retained in Balto-Slavic. It used to be held{{by whom?|date=April 2025}} that Balto-Slavic has an innovative accentual system, but nowadays, according to some researchers{{who?|date=April 2025}}, Balto-Slavic is taking a pivotal role in the reconstruction of the PIE accent (see below){{citation needed|date=April 2025}}.

Indirect traces of the PIE accent are said{{by whom|date=April 2025}} to be reflected in the development of certain sounds{{which?|date=April 2025}} in various branches{{vague|date=April 2025}}. For the most part, however, these are of limited, if any, utility in reconstructing the PIE accent{{according to whom|date=April 2025}}{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}

==Unaccented words==
Some PIE lexical categories could be unaccented ([[clitics]]). These are chiefly [[Proto-Indo-European particles|particles]] (PIE {{PIE|[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/-kʷe|*-kʷe]]}} 'and' > Vedic ''[[wikt:च#Sanskrit|-ca]]'', Latin ''[[wikt:-que#Latin|-que]]'', Ancient Greek ''[[wikt:τε#Greek|τε]]'') and some forms of [[Proto-Indo-European pronouns|pronouns]] (PIE {{PIE|[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/éǵh₂|*moy]]}} 'to me' > Vedic ''me'').

Vedic Sanskrit evidence also indicates that the [[Proto-Indo-European verb]] could be unaccented in some syntactical conditions, such as in finite position in the main clause (but not sentence-initially, where verbs would bear whatever accent they would have borne in subordinate clauses). The same is true of [[vocatives]], which would be deaccented unless they appeared sentence-initially.

==Interpretation==
No purely phonological rules for determining the position of PIE accent have been ascertained for now.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}} Nevertheless, according to the traditional doctrine{{whose?|date=April 2025}}, the following can be said of the PIE accentual system: PIE [[Vowel stems|thematic]] [[Nominal (linguistics)|nominals]] and thematic verbal stems all had fixed accent (i.e. on the same syllable throughout the paradigm), which was inherited in all attested daughter languages{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}, although there exist some uncertainties{{for whom?|date=April 2025}} regarding the simple thematic present.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}} Some athematic nominals and verb stems also had fixed accent (chiefly on the root){{citation needed|date=April 2025}}, but most had alternating, mobile accent, exhibiting several characteristic patterns{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}; in all of them{{dubious|date=April 2025}} the surface accent was to the left in one group of inflected forms (nominoaccusative of nominals, active singular of verbs), and to the right in the rest{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}. These supposed facts are often interpreted{{by whom?|date=April 2025}} as being the result of the interplay between individual morphemes, each of which belonged, unpredictably, to one of several theoretical accentual classes in PIE.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}} According to this view, endings and stems could all be underlyingly{{what?|date=April 2025}} accented or not, the leftmost underlying accent surfaced, and the words with no underlying accent were accented by default on the leftmost syllable.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}

==Alternative theories==
Traditionally the PIE accent has been reconstructed in a straightforward way, by the comparison of Vedic, Ancient Greek and Germanic; e.g. PIE {{PIE|[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/ph₂tḗr|*ph₂tḗr]]}} 'father' from Sanskrit [[wikt:पितृ#Sanskrit|pitā́]], Ancient Greek {{lang|grc|[[wikt:πατήρ#Ancient Greek|πατήρ]]}}, Gothic ''[[wikt:𐍆𐌰𐌳𐌰𐍂#Gothic|fadar]]''. When the position of the accent matched in these languages, that was the accent reconstructed for "PIE proper". It was taken for granted that the Vedic accent was the most archaic and the evidence of Vedic could be used to resolve all the potentially problematic cases.

It was shown, however, by [[Vladislav Illich-Svitych]] in 1963 that the Balto-Slavic accent does not match the presupposed PIE accent reconstructed on the basis of Vedic and Ancient Greek — the Greek-Vedic barytones correspond to Balto-Slavic ''[[fixed paradigm]]s'' (or barytone, or ''1'' accent paradigm), and Greek-Vedic oxytones correspond to Balto-Slavic ''[[mobile paradigm]]s'' (or ''2'' accent paradigm, with orthotonic word-forms and forms-''[[enclinomenon|enclinomena]]'').{{sfnp |Kapović |2008 |p=272}} Moreover, in about a quarter of all cognate Vedic and Ancient Greek etymons accents do not match at all;{{sfnp |Kapović |2008 |p=272}} e.g.
* PIE {{PIE|[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂éǵros|*h₂éǵros]]}} 'field' > Ancient Greek {{lang|grc|[[wikt:ἀγρός#Ancient Greek|ἀγρός]]}} : Vedic ''[[wikt:अज्र#Sanskrit|ájras]]''
* PIE {{PIE|[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/swéḱuros|*swéḱuros]]}} 'father-in-law' > Ancient Greek {{lang|grc|[[wikt:ἑκυρός#Ancient Greek|ἑκυρός]]}} : Vedic ''[[wikt:श्वशुर#Sanskrit|śváśuras]]''
* PIE {{PIE|[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/kʷóteros|*kʷóteros]]}} 'which' > Ancient Greek {{lang|grc|[[wikt:πότερος#Ancient Greek|πότερος]]}} : Vedic ''[[wikt:कतर#Sanskrit|katarás]]''

===Valence theory===
In 1973 (an early version of the hypothesis was presented in 1962),{{sfnp|Dybo|1981|p=262}} the Moscow accentological school, headed by linguists [[Vladimir Dybo]] and [[Sergei Nikolaev (linguist)|Sergei Nikolaev]], reconstructed the PIE accentual system as a system of two tones or ''valences'': + (dominant) and − (recessive).{{sfnp |Starostin |Dybo |Nikolaev |1978}}{{sfnp |Nikolaev |1989}}{{sfnp |Dybo |2007 |pp=47–50}} Proto-Indo-European would thus not have, as is usually reconstructed, a system of free accent such as is found in Vedic, but instead every morpheme would be inherently dominant or recessive, and the position of the accent would be later determined in various ways in the various daughter languages (depending on the combinations of (+) and (−) morphemes), so that Vedic would certainly ''not'' be the most archaic language. Many correspondences among IE languages, as well as certain phenomena in individual daughters dependent on PIE tones, should corroborate this interpretation.{{efn |For example, the problem of secondary reflexes in Italo-Celtic of PIE *{{PIE|R̥H}} of ''an'', ''ar'', ''al'' (there are no examples for *''am'') beside the usual ''mā'', ''nā'', ''rā'', ''lā'' that are usually reconstructed. According to Dybo, such dual reflexes are based on the old opposition of two PIE tones; the reflexes of type ''Rā'' match the Balto-Slavic fixed accent paradigm, whereas the reflexes of type ''aR'' match the Balto-Slavic mobile accent paradigm.}}

Dybo lists several shortcomings in the traditional approach to the reconstruction of PIE accent.{{efn |Cited after {{sfnp |Kapović |2008 |p=272}}}} Amongst others, incorrect belief in the direct connection between the PIE accent and [[Indo-European ablaut|ablaut]], which in fact does not explain the position of PIE accent at all. Usually, for example, it is thought that zero-grade should be unaccented, but that is evidently not valid for PIE (e.g. {{PIE|[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/wĺ̥kʷos|*wĺ̥kʷos]]}} 'wolf', {{PIE|[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/septḿ̥|*septḿ̥]]}} 'seven' etc.) according to the traditional reconstruction. Furthermore, Dybo claims that there is no phonological, semantic or morphological reason whatsoever for the classification of certain word to a certain accentual type, i.e. the traditional model cannot explain why Vedic ''[[wikt:वृक#Sanskrit|vṛ́kas]]'' 'wolf' is barytone and Vedic ''[[wikt:देव#Sanskrit|devás]]'' 'deity' is oxytone. According to Dybo, such discrepancies can only be explained by presupposing lexical tone in PIE.

==See also==
* {{section link|Proto-Indo-European nominals|Athematic accent/ablaut classes}}

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
<references />

==Sources==
{{sfn whitelist |CITEREFRinge2006}}
{{refbegin}}
* {{Cite book |author-link=Donald Ringe |first=Don |isbn=978-0-19-928413-9 |language=en |last=Ringe |mode=cs1 |oclc=64554645 |ol=7405151M |date=2006 |location=New York |publisher=[[Oxford University Press|Oxford University Press]] |title=From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic |url=https://ia801802.us.archive.org/26/items/don-ringe-2006-from-proto-indo-european-to-proto-germanic/DON_RINGE_2006_From_Proto-Indo-European_to_Proto-Germanic.pdf}}
* {{cite book |last=Dybo |first=V. A. |author-link=Vladimir Dybo |editor=Ivanov, V. V. |script-title=ru:Славянская акцентология: Опыт реконструкции системы акцентных парадигм в праславянском |url=https://inslav.ru/images/stories/people/dybo/Dybo1981_Slavanskaja%20akcentologija.%20Opyt%20rekonstrukcii%20sistemy%20akcentnyx%20paradigm%20v%20praslavanskom.pdf |location=[[Moscow]] |publisher=[[:ru:Наука (издательство)|Nauka]] |year=1981 |language=ru}}
* {{cite book | last=Kapović | first=Mate |author-link=Mate Kapović | title=Uvod u indoeuropsku lingvistiku | location=[[Zagreb]] | publisher=[[Matica hrvatska]] | year=2008| isbn=978-953-150-847-6| language=hr}}
* {{cite journal |url=http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/Nikolayev_Bsl.pdf |last=Nikolaev |first=S. L. |author-link=Sergei Nikolaev (linguist) |title=The Balto-Slavic Accentuation System and its Indo-European Origins. |language=ru |journal=Historical Accentology and the Comparative Method |location=Moscow |year=1989 |publisher=Nauka |pages=46–109}}
* [[Sukač, Roman]], ''Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and Balto-Slavic Accentology''. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.
* {{cite journal |title=A tonological hypothesis on the origin of paradigmatic accent systems |last1=Starostin |first1=S. A. |author-link=Sergei Starostin |last2=Dybo |first2=V. A. |author2-link=Vladimir Dybo |last3=Nikolaev |first3=S. L. |author3-link=Sergei Nikolaev (linguist) |journal=Estonian Papers in Phonetics |year=1978 |location=Tallinn |pages=16–20 |url=http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/tonacc.pdf}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite web|url=https://www.italian-journal-linguistics.com/app/uploads/2021/05/9_Kuemmel.pdf|title=Voiceless high vowels and syncope in older Indo-European|work=Martin Kümmel, department of Indo-European linguistics, [[University of Jena]]}}
*{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/download/kummelljubljana2019.pdf_202011/k%C3%BCmmelljubljana2019.pdf.pdf|title=Uvular Stops or a Glottal Fricative? Theory and Data in Recent Reconstructions of PIE "Laryngeals"|work=Martin Kümmel, department of Indo-European linguistics, [[University of Jena]]}}
{{refend}}

{{Proto-Indo-European language}}

[[Category:Proto-Indo-European language|Accent]]
[[Category:Tone (linguistics)]]