Cowgills Law

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal, August 2014

Co gill s la i Greek1) states that the PIE vowel *o, of whatever origin, develops into Greek u when
flanked by a labial (*m, *b, *bh, *p, *gw, *kw, *ghw, *w, *h3) and a resonant (*m, *n, *l, *r), or vice
versa.

Some classical examples:

PIE meaning Greek
*nkwt-s night nks
*bhli-om leaf phllon
*ml-eh2 mill l
w
*h3ngh -s nail nuks

The law is clearly invalid as stated. There are countless counterexamples, including such emblematic
Greek phoneme sequences as /pol/ (2075 dictionary entries in a Perseus Greek Dictionary Headword
Search) or /phor/ (1378). Even allowing for compound words, repetitions and entries involving
morpheme boundaries, it is clearly the case that not every *o in Greek turns into u in the given
environment.

On the other hand, there may be some cases of Greek *o > u where the vowel does not stand
between a labial and a resonant, or a resonant and a labial. I think a pretty good case can be made
for the preverb/preposition sun(- ith , hi h sho s a number of exact lexical correspondences
with *som- or *ko - in other Indo-European languages. Initial s- is explained by the original shape
ksun(-), which may simply be an amalgamation of *ko with *som > *kso . Unexpected u then
refle ts the orki g of Co gill s la 2.

So, while it is undeniable that some PIE *o s gi e u in Greek, the conditions under which this happens
are far from clear. It has ee suggested that apopho i *o is ot i put for Co gill s La see for
instance this blogpost by Christopher Culver), but in that case, what about G. l, from a seemingly
ablauting verbal root *mol- ~ *mel-?

My suggestion for a solution involves getting rid of two of the conditions stated in the first
paragraph: of whatever origin, and resonant. As I will try to demonstrate below, only PIE *o s of a
specific origin turned into u in Greek, and only when in the neighbourhood of a labial consonant (*m,
*b, *bh, *p, *gw, *kw, *ghw, *w, *h3).

The Paradebeispiel for Co gill s law in Greek is arguably the word nks ight , and this same word
a also offer a i sight i to the e a t ir u sta es u der hi h Co gill s la operated. As I have
argued else here, I elie e that PIE had four series of te tals : elar *K, u ular *Q, la ialized elar
*Kw and (marginally) labialized uvular *Qw, correspo di g to traditio al *K, *K, a d *Kw (twice).
Originally there had been only two series, the velar and the uvular, and the labialized series had
arisen through labialization caused by neighbouring pre-PIE **u or **.

I the ord for ight , the labialization of the velar is most economically explained if it was caused
by a preceding **. The word can then be reconstructed as ** gt-3 > *nokwt-. In Greek, long **
developed into u here instead of o, because of the labial consonant following it (which had been

1
There is a other Co gill s law in Germanic, which concerns the hardening of *h3 to *kw (as in quick).
2
Cf. also Hom. ks s o o < *ksom-is ith Co gill s la , s. koins id. < *kom-is (without it).
3
I prefer ** gt over ** kt, as the latter would in my opinion have given *noh3t-
caused by ** itself in the first place). The presence of u, finally, caused the following labiovelar to
lose its labiality, and the result is Greek nukt-.

The same argument applies more or less to G. nuks ail . We a re o stru t pre-PIE **f gh- > PIE
*h3noghw-, but pre-Greek *h3nughw-. Paradigmatic levelling between NA *nukh- ith Saussure s
effect) and oblique *onkhw- ~ *onukh- (with prothetic vowel) must have produced attested nux,
nukh-4.

Another case where we can deduce the presence of pre-PIE ** from the following consonant is the
ord for a e , PIE *h1nh3 , G. *numa, numa, noma. If *h3 is the labialized counterpart of
*h2 (phonetically /w/ vs. // , then we can reconstruct something like pre-PIE **d x-man-, giving
pre-Greek * a, obl. *enmat-, with further diverse developments according to dialect.

I the other ases here e ha e e ide e for Co gill s la , the origi of *o (G. u) out of earlier **
cannot be demonstrated directly, but can be assumed on the strength of the evidence provided by
ight , ail a d a e . That ould allo us to re o stru t pre-PIE **bhl-, ** l-, ** k s -, etc.

In the majority of cases, where *o in a labial environment gives G. o, the origin of the *o can be
assumed to have been pre-PIE ** or a secondarily lengthened pre-PIE **.

Finally, if Greek really provides evidence for a different treatment of PIE *o from ** vs. PIE *o from
**, then we should be using different symbols in our PIE reconstructions. My suggestion would be
*:

PIE meaning Greek

* kwt-s night nks
*bhli-om leaf phllon
*ml-eh2 mill l
*h3nghw-s nail nuks

4
Thereby eliminating an awkward homophony between the nominatives of ail a d ight .