Winter’s Law was postulated by Werner Winter in 1978. It is a sound law which operates n Balto-slavic short vowels according to which they lengthen before unaspirated voiced steps, and that syllable gains rising, acute accent.
Formulation:
Werner proposed a “tentative rule”- In Baltic and Salvic language, The Proto-Indo-European sequence of short vowel plus voiced stop was reflected by lengthened vowel plus voiced stop, while short vowel plus aspirate developed into short vowel plus voiced stop.
Propositions:
- The original formation of winter’s law stated that the vowels regularly lengthened in front of PIE voiced stops in all environments.
- The word lengthened must be replaced by acute, length and timbre.
- Werner formed acute vowels by merging his law with long vowels of laryngeal origin.
- The rule only holds not only for the sequences of short vowel plus voiced stop, but also for sequences with an intervening resonant.
Criticisms:
Although the law is widely accepted, not every scholar in Balto-Slavic historical linguistics accepts winter’s law. A study of counter examples by Patri (2006) claims that there is no such law at all. According to him, exceptions to the law create a too heterogeneous and voluminous set of data to allow any phonological generalization.