Cover not available
Part of
The Form of Structure, the Structure of Form: Essays in honor of Jean Lowenstamm
Edited by Sabrina Bendjaballah, Noam Faust, Mohamed Lahrouchi and Nicola Lampitelli
[Language Faculty and Beyond 12] 2014
► pp. 67–82

Understanding what has happened 
with the ablaut

A chapter from linguistics

| LLL, Université d’Orléans

This article first examines the status of ablaut in comparative Indo-European linguistics, especially in Franz Bopp (Vocalismus, oder sprachvergleichende Kritiken), Jakob Grimm, Karl Brugmann, Ferdinand de Saussure (Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes) and Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (Versuch einer Theorie phonetischer Alternationen). The existence of affixation in this language family led to the denial of a morphology based on ablaut until 1870s. It is then shown that following the redefinition of the relationship between phonology and morphology in SPE, analyses of Afro-Asiatic languages (especially Jean Lowenstamm’s apophonic path) shed new light on the matter.

Published online: 17 December 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.12.06ber
References
Anderson, Stephen R
1985 Phonology in the Twentieth Century. Theories of Rules and Theories of Representations. Chicago: UCP.Google Scholar
Baudouin de Courtenay, Jan
1895 Versuch einer Theorie phonetischer Alternationen. Ein Kapitel aus der Psychophonetik. Strassburg: Trübner, translated by Edward Stankiewicz in Baudouin de Courtenay 1972: 144–212.Google Scholar
1972 Anthology: The Beginnings of Structural Linguistics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Bergounioux, Gabriel
2007 “Indo-européen: de l’adjectif au nom.” Critique 715: 1004–1014.Google Scholar
2009 “L’enjeu de l’apophonie dans le Mémoire. Soixante années d’études indo-européennes.” Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 62: 33–46.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard
1909 A Semasiological Differentiation in Germanic Secondary Ablaut. Ph.D. University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Bopp, Franz
1816 Über das Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenem der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache. Frankfurt am Main: Undreäischen Buchhandlung.Google Scholar
1836 Vocalismus oder sprachvergleichende Kritiken über J. Grimm’s Deutsche Grammatik und Graff’s althochdeutschen Sprachsatz mit Begründung einer neuen Theorie des Ablauts. Berlin: Nikolaischen Buchhandlung.Google Scholar
1866–1873 Grammaire comparée des langues indo-européennes comprenant le sanscrit, le zend, l’arménien, le grec, le latin, le lithuanien, l’ancien slave, le gothique et l’allemand. Paris: Imprimerie Impériale/Imprimerie Nationale.Google Scholar
Bréal, Michel
1866–1869 “Introduction.” Bopp 1866–1873, I-LVII (1866); I-XXXVIII (1868); I-LXXXIV (1869).
Chomsky, Noam, and Morris Halle
1968 The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Graff, Eberhard Gottlieb
1835–1843 Althochdeutsche Sprachschatz, 6 vol. Berlin: Nikolaischen Buchhandlung.Google Scholar
Grammont, Maurice
1895 La Dissimilation consonantique dans les langues indo-européennes et dans les langues romanes. Dijon: Imprimerie Darantière.Google Scholar
Grimm, Jacob
1819–1840 Deutsche Grammatik. Göttingen: Dieterichschen Buchhandlung.Google Scholar
Guerssel, Mohand, and Jean Lowenstamm
1996 “Ablaut in Classical Arabic Measure I Active Verbal Forms.” In Studies in Afroasiatic Grammar, ed. by Jacqueline Lecarme, Jean Lowenstamm, and Ur Shlonsky, 123–134. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman
1963 Essais de linguistique générale. Paris: Minuit.Google Scholar
1971 “The Kazan’ School of Polish Linguistics and Its Place in the International Development of Phonology.” In Selected Writings, II: Word and Language, 394–428. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Jones, William
1807 “Lecture to the Asiatic Society.” In Works, with the Life of the Author by Lord Teignmouth, vol. 3, 24–46. London: John Stockdale.Google Scholar
Kaye, Jonathan, Jean Lowenstamm, and Jean-Roger Vergnaud
1985 “The Internal Structure of Phonological Elements: A Theory of Charm and Government.” Phonology 2: 305–328. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lamberterie, Charles de
2007 “La théorie des laryngales en indo-européen.” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1: 141–166. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lowenstamm, Jean
1996 “CV as the Only Syllable Type.” In Current Trends in Phonology Models and Methods, ed. by Jacques Durand, and Bernard Laks, 419–442. Salford: European Studies Research Institute.Google Scholar
1999 “The Beginning of the Word.” In Phonologika 1996: Syllables!?, ed. by John Renison, and Klaus Kühnammer, 153–166. The Hague: Thesus.Google Scholar
2000 “The Image of a Segment.” In Naturally! Linguistic Studies in Honour of Wolfgang Ulrich Dressler Presented on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday, ed. by Chris Schaner-Wolles, John Rennison, and Friedrich Neubarth, 281–290. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.Google Scholar
2003 “À propos des gabarits.” Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes 32: 7–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 “On Little n, root, and Types of Nouns.” In The Sounds of Silence: Empty Elements in Syntax and Phonology, ed. by, Jutta Hartmann, Veronika Hegedus, and Henk van Riemsdjik, 105–143 Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
2010 “Derivational Affixes as Roots (Phasal Spellout meets English Stress Shift)”. Ms., LLF.
2012 “German Umlaut, an Outline of a Minimalist Account.” Available at [URL]
forthcoming. “La phonologie métrique.” In History of the Language Sciences ed. by Sylvain Auroux, Konrad Koerner, Hans-Joseph Niederehe, and Kees Versteegh Berlin Walter de Gruyter
Meillet, Antoine
1995 “Pour un manuel de linguistique générale.” Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei CCCXCII: 1–245.Google Scholar
Ohala, Joseph
2010 “A Brief Historical Survey of Phonetic-Phonological Feature System.” In Un siècle de phonétique expérimentale, ed. by Louis-Jean Boë, and Coriandre-Emmanuel Vilain, 23–42. Lyon: ENS Editions.Google Scholar
Rey, Christophe
2011 Nicolas Beauzée, précurseur de la phonétique dans l’Encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert, la Grammaire générale et l’Encyclopédie méthodique de Panckoucke. Paris: Champion.Google Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de
1879 Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes. Leipzig: Teubner.Google Scholar
1995 Phonétique. Il manoscritto di Harvard, ed. by Maria-Pia Marchese. Padova: Unipress.Google Scholar
1996 Premier cours de linguistique générale (1907): d’après les cahiers d’Albert Riedlinger = Saussure’s first course of lectures on general linguistics (1907): From the Notebooks of Albert Riedlinger, ed. by Eisuke Komatsu, and George Wolf. Oxford: Pergamon.Google Scholar
1997 Deuxième Cours de linguistique générale (d’après les cahiers d’A. Riedlinger) = Saussure’s Second Course of Lectures on General Linguistics from the Notebooks of Albert Riedlinger, ed. by Eisuke Komatsu, and George Wolf. Oxford: Pergamon.Google Scholar
2001 Ecrits de Linguistique Générale. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Scheer, Tobias
2010 A Guide to Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface Theories, How Extra-Phonological Information is Treated in Phonology since Trubetzkoy’s Grenzsignale. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 “Aspects of the Development of Generative Phonology.” In The Continuum Companion to Phonology, ed. by Bert Botma, Nancy C. Kula, and Kuniya Nasukawa, 397–446. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Schleicher, August
1874 A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin Languages [ Compendium der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen (1861–1862) ] translated by Herbert Bendall. London: Trübner and Co.Google Scholar
Ségéral, Philippe
1995 Une théorie généralisée de l’apophonie. Ph.D. Université Paris 7.Google Scholar
Stankiewicz, Edward
1972 “Baudouin de Courtenay: His Life and Work.” In Anthology: The Beginnings of Structural Linguistics, ed. by Edward Stankiewicz, 3–48. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Szemérinyi, Oswald
1996 Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Trubetzkoy, Nikolaj S
1939 Grundzüge der Phonologie. Prague: Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 7.Google Scholar
[
Unsigned] 1841 “Review of “Bopp’s Vocalismus.”” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 49: 199–213.Google Scholar