Miller's law (linguistics) explained

Miller's law proposes that an aspirated consonant in Proto-Greek became deaspirated after a nasal consonant ending an accented vowel. It was identified by Indo-Europeanist D. Gary Miller.

Examples:

• el|ὄμβρος|ómbros "rain" < PIE (cf. la|imber, sa|अभ्र|abhrá, hy|ամպրոպ|amprop, txb|iprer)
• el|τύμβος|túmbos "tomb" < PIE (cf. mga|tomm, hy|թումբ|tʻumb)
• el|θρόμβος|thrómbos "clot" < PIE (cf. is|drambr, lv|dramblys)
• el|θάμβος|thámbos "amazed" < PIE (cf. en|dumb)
• el|κύμβη |kúmbē "cup, bowl" < PIE (cf. sa|कुम्भ|kumbʰá)

Counterexamples where, because the accent falls on another syllable or because a laryngeal separates the aspirated consonant from the nasal, the law is not triggered:

• el|ὀμφαλός "navel" < PIE
• el|ὀμφή "voice" < PIE
• el|γόμφος "peg" < PIE (possibly exhibiting the Saussure effect)

References

• Post-Nasal Deaspiration in Ancient Greek: Mirage or Reality? . Batisti . Roberto . July 16–18, 2022 . Universidad Autónoma de Madrid . 10th International Colloquium on Ancient Greek Linguistics . November 15, 2024.
• Book: Miller, D. Gary . 2014 . Ancient Greek Dialects and Early Authors: Introduction to the Dialect Mixture in Homer, with Notes on Lyric and Herodotus . Boston . De Gruyter . 978-1-61451-493-0.
• Nikolaev . Alexander . 2023 . New Phrygian ⟨ε⟩δικες, Greek θιγγανω (with remarks on Miller's Law and the treatment of *dʰs in PIE) . Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology . 27 . 858–879 .
• Book: Probert . Philomen . Willi . Andreas . A rule of deaspiration in ancient Greek . 2012 . Laws and Rules in Indo-European . Oxford University Press . 125–133 .