[[PIE phonology MOC]]
# PIE <span class="recon">/e/</span>-laryngeal colouring
When next to laryngeals <em class="recon">h₂</em> and <em class="recon">h₃</em>, underlying short <span class="recon">/e/</span> has allophones indistinguishable from underlying <span class="recon">/a/</span> and <span class="recon">/o/</span> respectively.

- <span class="recon">/eh₂/</span> or <span class="recon">/h₂e/</span> :: <em class="recon">ah₂</em> or <em class="recon">h₂a</em>
<!--SR:!2023-11-09,71,270-->
- <span class="recon">/eh₃/</span> or <span class="recon">/h₃e/</span> :: <em class="recon">oh₃</em> or <em class="recon">h₃o</em>
<!--SR:!2024-02-26,155,310-->


Naturally this complicates reconstruction,
however the underlying vowel can often be deduced using clues in other forms,
for example if another form of a stem with <em class="recon">h₂a</em> exhibits [[Ablaut|o-grade]] ablaut <em class="recon">h₂o</em>,
the underlying phonemes of the former must be <span class="recon">/h₂e/</span>,
since <em class="recon">a</em> cannot take on o-grade.[^2017]

[^2017]: For further discussion and examples, see 2017\. [[Sources/@ringeProtoIndoEuropeanProtoGermanic2017|From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic]], p. 16

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#state/tidy | #SemBr | #flashcards/linguistics/PIE/phonotactics