Word-final vowel shortenings in the Rigveda and the nominative singular of PIE *eh2- and *ih2-stems

Abstract

The common reconstruction of *eh2- and devī́-type *ih2-stem singular nominatives as *-ah2 (< *-eh2) and *-ih2 includes no overt marking of the nonneuter nominative singular. Instead of taking this for granted and searching for a motivation in the history of those stems, we raise the possibility of a reconstruction with overt marking (*-āh2, *-īh2). In the second part, the distribution of some word-final vowel shortenings in the Rigveda is analysed in order to determine whether they correlate with the different origins of the vowels or not. The distributions prove interesting, and call for further investigation, but since shortening seems possible irrespective of the origin of the vowel, the Vedic evidence cannot help decide between the two possible reconstructions.