On the relationship between stress and vowel quantity in Hittite Anthony D. Yates University of California, Los Angeles adyates@ucla.edu §1 Introduction §1.1 On Hittite “plene writing” and vowel quantity: Now generally accepted that Hittite “plene writ- ing” — viz. the repetition of identical vowel signs in the spelling of vowels or diphthongs (cf. Kimball 1999:55) — indicates vowel length (already Hrozný 1917:xii; cf. Melchert 1994:27). §1.2 Hittite vowel quantity: Similarly uncontroversial that: • Vowel length is contrastive in stressed syllables. • Hittite shows (historical) vowel lengthening and shortening processes such that: · Some Hittite surface long vowels continue Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stressed long vowels (or tautosyllabic *VH ). · Other surface long vowels are due to Hittite-internal stress-conditioned lengthening pro- cesses. · Unstressed long vowels were (historically) shortened. · “Stress” refers to the single surface prosodic prominence — called “ictus” in (e.g.) Kiparsky (2010) and Yates (forthcoming a,b) — while “accent” refers to (underlying) lexical specification for prominence. §1.3 Outstanding questions: In view of (especially) the differing treatments of Melchert (1994), Kim- ball (1999), and Kloekhorst (2008, 2014), still disputed are: • The conditions under which (certain) short vowels are lengthened. • The synchronic status of lengthening (and shortening) processes. ⇒ The extent to which plene writing can be used to diagnose word stress, and so inform our under- standing of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) prosody (cf. Yates forthcoming a). §1.4 Toward an analysis of Hittite vowel quantity: Primary aims for today: (i) (Re)assess the historical development of vowel quantity in Hittite, arguing in particular for the lengthening of stressed *é in open and closed syllables (contra Kloekhorst 2014). (§2) (ii) Provide new evidence for stressed mid vowel lengthening and unstressed vowel shortening as syn- chronic processes in Hittite (§3). (iii) Evaluate the consequences of synchronic and diachronic vowel developments for the phonemic inventory of Hittite, and discuss some outstanding problems. (§4)