On the Development of the Proto-Indo-European *u̯ih1-ró-, ‘Man’, in Latin

Abstract

The present article investigates the problem of the etymology and development of the Latin word vir, ‘man,’ usually assumed to have descended from the Proto-Indo-European form *u̯ih1 -ró-, ‘man’, but with somewhat irregular and not commonly accepted pretonic shortening of the vowel in view of the cognates in Indo-Iranian and Baltic. The shortening is usually explained as an effect of Dybo’s Rule, but it is pointed out that there might be a simpler solution to explaining the change, namely, the socalled Osthoff’s law, which occurred in the prehistory and history of Latin at least three times.