Hirt's law

proper noun

A Balto-Slavic sound law stating that the inherited Proto-Indo-European stress would retract to a non-ablauting pretonic vowel or a syllabic sonorant if it was followed by a consonantal (non-syllabic) laryngeal that closed the preceding syllable.

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Meanings

proper noun
  1. A Balto-Slavic sound law stating that the inherited Proto-Indo-European stress would retract to a non-ablauting pretonic vowel or a syllabic sonorant if it was followed by a consonantal (non-syllabic) laryngeal that closed the preceding syllable.

Origin

Named after Hermann Hirt, who postulated it in 1895.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

Hirt's law. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hirt's%20law

MLA

“Hirt's law.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hirt's%20law. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Hirt's law,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hirt's%20law.

Source: Hirt's law on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.