Hittite phonology

Plosives

Hittite had two series of consonants, one which was written always geminate in the original script, often called the fortis series, and an other that was always simple, also known as lenis. In cuneiform, all consonants sounds except for glides could be geminate. In plosives, the geminate series is the one descending from Proto-Indo-European voiceless stops, while the simple plosives come from both voiced and voiced aspirate stops. Because of this reason, some have regarded their distinction from the lenis as one of voice. However, the majority view is that they were either differenced by length or tenseness.

This is supported by the fact that Akkadian, the language from which the Hittites borrowed the cuneiform script, had voicing; nevertheless, Hittite scribes used voiced and voiceless signs interchangeably. Kloekhorst has also argued that the absence of assimilatory voicing is also evidence for a length distinction. He points out that the word "e-ku-ud-du – [ɛ́kʷtːu]" does not show any voice assimilation. However, if the distinction was one of voice, agreement between the stops should be expected since the velar and the alveolar plosives are known to be adjacent, given that the "u" in this word does not stand for a vowel, but represents labialization instead.^[1]

Resonants

All resonants in Hittite coincide with their respective etymological pronunciations in Proto-Indo-European, which makes it unlikely that they were pronounced differently. Just like in the parent language, in Hittite resonants were syllabic when found in inter-consonantal position.^[2] These were written in Hittite with cuneiform sign containing the vowel "a" (e.g. wa-a-tar [wáːtr̩], la-a-ma-an [láːmn̩]). However, it is not well known if Hittite had a bilabial syllabic nasal, in final position it is known to add an epenthetic vowel /ɔ/ (e.g. Hitt. eš-un – [ɛ́ːʃɔn] < PIE *h₁és-m̥).^[3] And there are cognates that may point that PIE *m̥ merged with Hitt. /a/ in medial and initial position.^[4]

Just like plosives, resonants in Hittite had short and long variants.^[5] However this distinction wasn't inherited from PIE, it's often believed to have been caused by assimilation instead.^[6]

Affricate

The affricate is written in Hittite with signs containing a "z". This phoneme is known to have as a main phonological source the affrication of a "*t" when followed by an "*s" or an "*i̯". This is supported by the fact that t-stem nouns have a nominative ending in "z", and by some verbal desinences descending from a prehistorical sequence "*ti". Therefore the following development is usually assumed [tːj] > [tːʲ] > [t͡ɕ] > [t͡ʃ] > [t͡s].^[7] However, nothing excludes the possibility of it being pronounced as a post-alveolar or palatal affricate.

Advocates of a voice/voiceless series propose a voiced counterpart which is rather controversial. The claim is that whenever "z" is geminate it represents [t͡s], while when simple it should be read as [d͡z].^[8]

Fricatives

Hittite is believed to have had a sibilant, a pharyngeal fricative, and a labialized pharyngeal fricative; each one with their respective simple and geminate counterparts. They where written in the original script with signs containing "š" and "ḫ". In Akkadian cuneiform, these originally stood for a voiceless postalveolar fricative and a voiceless velar fricative respectively.

The exact pronunciation of the Hittite phoneme written with signs having an "š" cannot be determined with absolute certainty. The cuneiform syllabary adopted by Hittite scribes had only two signs for sibilants, i.e. "š" and "z". However the sign "z" had already been chosen to represent the affricate /t͡s/. This leaves "š" as the only choice left to represent Hittite's sibilant. As a result, the fact that "š" was originally pronounced as a voiceless postalveolar fricative in Akkadian doesn't really tell us much about it's value in Hittite. It can only be said with certainty that "š" stood for a single phoneme.^[9] Since the phoneme "š" descends from Proto-Indo-European *s, it could be asserted that it was pronounced as a voiceless alveolar sibilant. However, it has been noted that "š" appears in Ugaritic loanwords as "t", such as the Hittite royal name "Šuppiluliuma", which is written in Ugaritic as "tpllm". This strongly suggests a pronunciation of [ʃ], and since Ugaritic already had a sign for an alveolar sibilant, it's unlikely that Hittite's "š" had stood for an alveolar fricative.^[10] The most common proposed values for "š" are alveolar, post-alveolar, and palatal fricative. For these reasons, the usage of [s] or [ʃ] to represent "š" has become a conventional custom in the field, and does not necessarily reflect the author's opinion on the subject.

The place of articulation of the phonemes written with signs containing an "ḫ" is even more uncertain. The sound is known to descent from Proto-Indo-European "h₂", and it's suspected to descent from "h₃" as well (see laryngeal theory). It can only be asserted with confidence that it was a fricative. It's colouring qualities in Hittite and PIE suggests a pharyngeal or uvular place of articulation. Some Ugaritic borrowings transcribe "ḫ" as a voiceless pharyngeal, e.g "ḥtṯ > ḫattuš". However, it has also been transcribed as "ġ", which may indicate a Hittite had voice allophones of its phonemes. ^[11]

Labialization

Hittite had four labialized obstruents; two velar plosives, and two pharyngeal fricatives.

Labialized velars are known to descent from PIE's labiovelars. The classic example of this development is the Proto-Indo-European root verb "*h₁égʷʰti ~ *h₁gʷʰénti" > "ekuzi ~ akuanzi". It is supported by the fact that the first person singular aorist is e-ku-un, instead of the unattested *e-ku-nu-un, that would be expected if the "u" was vocalic. This is also strengthened by the first person plural present form e-ku-e-ni, instead of the expected e-ku-me-ni (as in Hittite true verbal u-stems). It has also been noted that it can be written as "eukzi", which serves as an argument for assuming labialization, since thus, the rounding happened simultaneously with the plosive instead of following it as a semivowel.^[12] These phenomena has also been attested in other verbs such as tarukzi/tarkuzi "he dances".^[13]

Similar observations can be made about the verb taruḫḫu- [tːr̩ħːʷ-] "to overpower". Just like the verb "eku-", "taruḫḫu-" has an aberrant first person aorist for a u-stem noun (ta-ru-uḫ-ḫu-un instead of *ta-ru-uḫ-ḫu-un-un), and an abnormal first person plural aorist too (tar-ḫu-u-en instead of *tar-uḫ-me-en). This would suggest that the PIE sequence "h₂u̯" became Hittite ḫu-u [ħːʷ]. Evidence of laryngeal labialization has been found outside Hittite as well, Lycian has Trqqñt- "Stormgod" < tr̥h₂u̯ént- "powerful", where the "q" most likely represents a labialized velar plosive descending from the PIE segmental sequence "h₂u̯". Because of this reason, some scholars have regarded this to be an Anatolian feature, and not exclusive to Hittite.^[14][15]

Plene spelling

Plene spelling is the practice of writing a vowel redundantly. The usage of plene spelling was never consistent at any given period of Hittite's history, and in general, it was more common in earlier texts.^[18]. However it certainly represented some phonemic features. The most obvious is vowel length as in ne-e-pí-iš which should be analyzed phonologically as [nɛ́ːpiʃ]. It has been argued that it can represent stress as well.