The primitive form of what has now been widespread as the laryngeal theory was first proposed by Saussure in his brilliant study of 1879. Although the theory made many contributions to our understanding of problems in Indo-European historical phonology since then, it still plays a major part in solving long-standing puzzling issues. In fact, the most significant achievement in the field of the past two decades is probably the further development of the laryngeal theory. It is particularly important that recent findings within the framework of this theory have enabled us to see many seemingly isolated facts in a wider perspective of ablauting paradigms.
