*Kʷetwóres Rule

This article contains characters used to write reconstructed Proto-Indo-European words (for an explanation of the notation, see Proto-Indo-European phonology). Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode combining characters and Latin characters.

It has been observed by earlier scholars, but it was only in the 1980s that it attracted enough attention to be named, probably first by Helmut Rix in 1985. Examples:

• *kʷetwóres < *kʷétwores "four" (Latin: quattuor)
• singular accusatives,
  • of r-stems, *swes-ór-m̥ < *swés-or-m̥ "sister" acc. singular
  • of r-stems, *ǵʰes-ór-m̥ < *ǵʰés-or-m̥ "hand" acc. singular
  • of s-stems, *h₂ews-ós-m̥ < *h₂éws-os-m̥ "Ausos" (Vedic Sanskrit uṣā́sam)

The rule is fed by an assumed earlier sound law that changes è to ò after an accented syllable: *kʷetwóres < *kʷétwores < *kʷétweres.

Rix invoked the rule in the 1998 preface to the Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben (p. 22) to explain why in the PIE perfect the root ó grade is accented: *ǵe-ǵónh- / *ǵé-ǵn̥h- < *ǵé-ǵenh- / *ǵé-ǵn̥h- "created/engendered".

The rule has been invoked by Mottausch to explain accented ó grades in the PIE nominal ablaut.

• G. Klingenschmitt Die Lateinische Nominalflexion (1992), p. 44.
• M. Kümmel, Stativ und Passivaorist (1996), p. 9.
• K.-H. Mottausch, Die idg. Nominalflexion und die o-Stufe HS 113 (2000).
• K.-H. Mottausch, Die thematischen Nomina im Idg. HS 114 (2001).
• H. Rix, sūdor and sīdus in: FS Knobloch (ed. Ölberg, 1985), p. 348
• K. Stüber, Die primären s-Stämme (2002), p. 24f.