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In addition to the vowels, *H, and *r̥ could function as the syllabic core. In many reconstructions, instances of *iH and *uH occur instead of *ī and *ū.
Proto-Indo-Iranian is hypothesized to have contained two series of stops or affricates in the palatal to postalveolar region.[3] The phonetic nature of this contrast is not clear, and hence they are usually referred to as the primary or first series (*ć *ȷ́ *ȷ́ʰ, continuing Proto-Indo-European palatovelar *ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ) and the second or secondary series (*č *ǰ *ǰʰ, continuing Proto-Indo-European plain and labialized velars, *k, *g, *gʰ and *kʷ, *gʷ, *gʷʰ, in palatalizing contexts).
The following table shows the most common reflexes of the two series (Proto-Iranian is the hypothetical ancestor to the Iranian languages, including Avestan and Old Persian):[4][5]
Proto-Indo-European is usually hypothesized to have had three to four laryngeal consonants, each of which could occur in either syllabic or non-syllabic positions. In Proto-Indo-Iranian, the laryngeals merged as one phoneme /*H/. Beekes suggests that some instances of this /*H/ survived into Rigvedic Sanskrit and Avestan as unwritten glottal stops as evidenced by metrics.[6]
Like Proto-Indo-European and Vedic Sanskrit (and also Avestan, though it was not written down[7]), Proto-Indo-Iranian had a pitch accent system similar to present-day Japanese, conventionally indicated by an acute accent over the accented vowel.
The most distinctive phonological change separating Proto-Indo-Iranian from Proto-Indo-European is the collapse of the ablauting vowels *e, *o into a single vowel, Proto-Indo-Iranian *a (but see Brugmann's law). Grassmann's law, Bartholomae's law, and the ruki sound law were also complete in Proto-Indo-Iranian.
A fuller list of some of the hypothesized sound changes from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Indo-Iranian follows:
The Satem shift, consisting of two sets of related changes. The PIE palatals *ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ are fronted or affricated, eventually resulting in PII *ć, *ȷ́, *ȷ́ʰ, while the PIE labiovelars *kʷ *gʷ *gʷʰ merge with the velars *k *g *gʰ.[8]
Bartholomae's law: an aspirate immediately followed by a voiceless consonant becomes voiced stop + voiced aspirate. In addition, dʰ + t > dᶻdʰ.[10]
PIE
PII
Sanskrit
Avestan
English
Glossary
*ubʰtós
*ubdʰás
sámubdha
ubdaēna
web, weave
'woven' / 'made of woven material'
*wr̥dʰtós
*wr̥dᶻdʰás
vr̥ddʰá
vərəzda
'grown, mature'
*dʰéwgʰti
*dáwgdʰi
dógdhi
*daogdi
daugh(·ter)
'to milk'
The Ruki rule: *s is retracted to *š when immediately following a liquid (*r *r̥ *l *l̥), a high vowel (*i *u), a PIE velar (*ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ *k *g *gʰ *kʷ *gʷ *gʷʰ) or the syllabic laryngeal *H̥.[11] Its allophone *z likewise becomes *ž.[9]
PIE
PII
Sanskrit
Avestan
Latin
English
Glossary
*wisós
*wišás
víṣas
viša
vīrus
'poison, venom'
*ḱeHs-
*ćH̥šam
aśiṣam
sīšā
'teach!'
*ǵéwseti
*ȷ́áwšati
jóṣati
zaošō
gustus
'to like, taste'
*kʷsép-
*kšáp-
kṣáp-
xšap-
'darkness'
*plúsis
*plúšiš
plúṣi
*fruši
pūlex
'flea, noxious insect'
*nisdós
*niždás
nīḷá/nīḍá
*nižda
nīdus
nest
'nest'
Before a dental occlusive, *ć becomes *š and *ȷ́ becomes *ž. *ȷ́ʰ also becomes *ž, with aspiration of the occlusive.[12]
The "second palatalization" or "law of palatals": *k *g *gʰ develop palatal allophones *č *ǰ *ǰʰ before the front vowels *i, *e.[10] through an intermediate *kʲ *gʲ *gʲʰ.
The vowels *e *o merge with *a. Similarly, *ē, *ō merge with *ā. This has the effect of giving full phonemic status to the second palatal series *č *ǰ *ǰʰ.
PIE
PII
Sanskrit
Avestan
Latin
English
Glossary
*dédeh₃ti
*dádaHti
dádāti
dadāiti
dat
'to give'
*h₃dónts
*Hdánts
dant
dantan
dēns
tooth
'tooth'
*bʰréh₂tēr
*bʰráHtā
bhrā́tr̥
brātar
frāter
brother
'brother'
*wṓkʷs
*wā́kš
vā́k
vāxš
vōx
'voice'
In certain positions, laryngeals were vocalized to *i. This preceded the second palatalization.[15][16]
Following a consonant, and preceding a consonant cluster
PIE
PII
Sanskrit
Avestan
Latin
Glossary
*ph₂tréy
*pitráy
pitré
piθrē
patrī
'father' (dative singular)
Following a consonant and word-final
PIE
PII
Sanskrit
Avestan
Glossary
*-medʰh₂
*-madʰHi
-mahi
-maidī/-maiδi
(1st person plural middle ending)
The Indo-European laryngeals all merged into one phoneme *H, which may have been a glottal stop. This was probably contemporary with the merging of *e and *o with *a.[17]
PIE
PII
Sanskrit
Avestan
Latin
English
Glossary
*ph₂tḗr
*pHtā́
pitā́
ptā
pater
father
id
According to Lubotsky's Law, *H disappeared when followed by a voiced nonaspirated stop and another consonant:[18]
Proto-Indo-Iranian has preserved much of the morphology of Proto-Indo-European (PIE): thematic and athematic inflection in both nouns and verbs, all three numbers (singular, dual and plural), all the tense, mood and voice categories in the verb, and the cases in the noun.
Pronouns, nouns and adjectives are inflected into the eight cases of PIE: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, ablative, locative and instrumental (with also a comitative/sociative meaning).
Despite Proto-Indo-Iranian preserving much of the original morphology of Proto-Indo-European, an important innovation in the noun is the creation of a genitive plural ending *-nām used with vowel stems.[20]
^Hock, Hans Henrich (2015). "Proto-Indo-European verb-finality: Reconstruction, typology, validation". In Kulikov, Leonid; Lavidas, Nikolaos (eds.). Proto-Indo-European Syntax and its Development. John Benjamins.
Alexander Lubotsky, "The Indo-Iranian substratum" in Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European, ed. Carpelan et al., Helsinki (2001).
Asko Parpola, 'The formation of the Aryan branch of Indo-European', in Blench and Spriggs (eds), Archaeology and Language III, London and New York (1999).
Kuz’Mina, E.E. (2007). "Indo-Iranian contacts with other linguistic groups". In J.P. Mallory (ed.). The Origin of the Indo-Iranians. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. pp. 199–204. doi:10.1163/ej.9789004160545.i-763.53.
Carpelan, Christian; Parpola, Asko (2017). "On the emergence, contacts and dispersal of Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic and Proto-Aryan in an archaeological perspective". In Adam Hyllested; Benedicte Nielsen Whitehead; Thomas Olander; Birgit Anette Olsen (eds.). Language and Prehistory of the Indo-European Peoples: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective. Copenhagen Studies in Indo-European. Vol. 7. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag. pp. 77–87. ISBN9788763545310.
Holopainen, Sampsa (2019). Indo-Iranian borrowings in Uralic: Critical overview of sound substitutions and distribution criterion. Helsinki: University of Helsinki. PhD thesis.
Bjørn Rasmus G. Indo-European loanwords and exchange in Bronze Age Central and East Asia: Six new perspectives on prehistoric exchange in the Eastern Steppe Zone. Evol Hum Sci. 2022 Apr 22;4:e23. doi:10.1017/ehs.2022.16 PMID 37599704; PMCID: PMC10432883.
Holopainen, S. (2023). "The RUKI Rule in Indo-Iranian and the Early Contacts with Uralic". In Nikolaos Lavidas; Alexander Bergs; Elly van Gelderen; Ioanna Sitaridou (eds.). Internal and External Causes of Language Change: The Naxos Papers. Springer Nature. pp. 315–346. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-30976-2_11. ISBN9783031309762.
