Glottalic Theory - Direct and Indirect Evidence

Direct and Indirect Evidence

While the Glottalic Theory was originally motivated by typological argument, several proponents, in particular Frederik Kortlandt have argued for traces of glottalization being found in a number of attested IE languages, or the assumption of glottalization explaining previously known phenomena. This lends the theory empirical support. (Similarly, the laryngeal theory was proposed before direct evidence in Anatolian was discovered.)

Among the Indo-Iranian languages, Sindhi reflects the IE non-aspirated voiced series unconditionally as implosives. Kortlandt also points out the distribution of voiced aspirates within Indo-Iranian: they are lacking from the Iranian languages and the Nuristani languages, two of the three accepted main branches of Indo-Aryan, and within the third, Indo-Aryan, also lacking from Kashmiri, which he suggests points to voiced aspirates being an innovation rather than a retention.

In Germanic, Danish stød in certain dialects (vestjysk stød) corresponds with the Proto-Germanic voiceless stops, deriving from the allegedly glottalized PIE series. Kortlandt also proposes word-final glottalization in English to be a retention, and derives features such as preaspiration in the Scandinavian languages and certain instances of gemination in High German from preglottalization as well.

In both Latin (Lachmann's law) and Balto-Slavic (Winter's law), vowels are lengthened before a "voiced" consonant. This had always been somewhat puzzling. It is the same behavior that vowels exhibit before Proto-Indo-European laryngeals, which are assumed to have included a glottal stop. It may be that the glottalic consonants were preglottalized, or that they were ejectives that became preglottalized in Italic and Balto-Slavic before losing their glottalization and becoming voiced. It is very common in the world's languages for glottal stops to drop and lengthen preceding vowels. In Quileute, for example, the sequences VCʼV, VʔCʼV, and VːCʼV, as found for example in ak’a ~ a’k’a ~ āk’a, are allophones in free variation.

In Balto-Slavic, glottalization is also directly attested, in the broken tone of Latvian and Žemaitian.

Dialects of Armenian also show glottalization. This has been argued to be influence from the other Caucasian languages, but Kortlandt argues glottalization cannot be considered a modern innovation and must be reconstructed with a wider dialectal distribution in older stages of Armenian.