Vowel Gradation – Ablaut

Abstract

Abstract no. The term ablaut is German for ‘sound variety’ or the like. The purely English synonym gradation was once more common than it is nowa­ days (though the prevailing terminology still speaks of ablaut grades). Apophony (Fr. apophonie) has never been favored by more than a few important scholars writing in English. All three terms refer to the same feature of PIE phonology and its reflexes in the IE daughter languages, namely a pattern of vowel alternations. Ablaut is conspicuous in the interrelations of Greek forms such as 1rfroµ0tL ‘fly’, 1rorr, ‘flight’, 1rrepov ‘wing’ (root "pet-) and also in Sanskrit, Baltic and Slavic, and the Germanic languages (where such things as NE drive, drove, driven; skim, scum; and white, wheat are traceable to it). In Greek the inherited patterns have been analogically extended, leveled, and other­ wise confused; in Latin such disturbances were likewise very extensive, and moreover were coupled with regular sound laws which effaced the original patterns. Thus, for example, the PIE alternation "ew ∼"ow∼ "u is a transparent embodiment of the basic alternating framework ("e∼"o∼ 0) when followed by "w. This remains transparent in Greek ev∼ov∼v and Go. iu∼au∼ u, but in Latin the pattern was first denatured by an Italic sound law (61) into "ow, "ow, "u, and by a later L sound law (61.2) further to ii, ii, ii, in which no similarity to the basic pattern e∼ o∼0 can be detected. Amid this ruin, L established alternations of its own invention.