io6 PHONOLOGY Among the vowels of Primitive Indo-European it has been customary to postulate the so-called ‘ shwa ' (2). This is based on such comparisons as Skt. pitdr - r father ' : Gk. mrrjp, etc. Skt. sthitd - ' stood 1 : Gk. oraros, etc. In such cases the 9 was considered to represent the reduced grade of the original long vowels, corresponding to the zero grade of the short vowels e, a t o. It was supposed to have become i in Indo-Iranian, and a in all the other IE languages. I have shown elsewhere 1 that this reconstruction is without justification, and that it was due to a faulty analysis of the Sanskrit words concerned. In these words the i is IE i and it is part of the suffix, not part of the root. Skt. sthitd- should be analysed sth-itd and its formation therefore differs from that of the related words, so that the phonetic reconstructions based on these comparisons become void. The same analysis is to be adopted in all the relevant forms : sth-iti- ' standing ’ (cf. snih-iti-) sth-ird - f firm ' (cf . sthdydn, stheman, Pa. theta-), aor. 3 sg. asth-ita 4 stood ' (cf. avad-i-ran, etc.), perf. I pi. dad-ima (contrast pres, dadmds), stan-i-hi 1 roar ' (cf. stanayitnu -, etc.), s-itd- 4 bound ’ (cf. sindti , sisdya , etc.), s-itd- 4 sharp " (cf. Ved. sisayd Av. saeni, etc.), krav-is- 4 raw flesh ' (cf. roc-ts- f etc,, and Lith. kraujas, etc.). It is also clear, and established by many examples in Sanskrit that in the zero grade the original long vowels are completely elided : e.g. in the present tense of dd and dhd t dadvds , dadmdq, datU f daisi , dadhvds , dadhmds , dhatse , dhatsva , etc. (likewise in Iran- ian. Av. dadomahi, dasia f daste, dazde, dadamaide, etc.) ; the same elision is found in the participles dattd r given 1 and °tta (devdtta- 4 given by the gods etc.) and in Av. ptar- 4 father ' beside p-itdr. If this 9 had been confined to the comparatively few words in which Sanskrit i appeared to correspond to a in the other lan- guages, it would never have acquired very great importance in Indo-European theory. It was due to its becoming a basic element in the early theories of apophony that it acquired such importance in the traditional theory of Indo-European. In the comparative dictionaries this 9 , so insecurely founded, appears in the utmost profusion in IE reconstructions, particularly in the case of the so-called disyllabic roots. Skt. i is also suffixal when it appears after such roots and the h which constituted the final element of the root is elided {tdritum<*tam-itum). The 1 TPS. 1949, pp. 22-61.
