Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hung. Volume 72 (3), 325–332 (2019) DOI: 10.1556/062.2019.72.3.4 0001-6446 © 2019 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest THE DERIVATION OF THE TIBETAN PRESENT PREFIX g- FROM ḥ- NATHAN W. HILL Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures SOAS, University of London e-mail: nh36@soas.ac.uk According to the communis opinio it is arbitrary whether a Tibetan verb takes the prefix g- or ḥ- in its present stem. This paper instead argues that ḥ- [ɣ] originated as a phonetically conditioned vari- ant of g-; a pattern that became obscured through the coinage of denominative verbs and analogical developments. Key words: Tibetan verb, internal reconstruction, historical phonology, verb morphology. According to the communis opinio it is arbitrary whether a Tibetan verb takes the pre- fix g- or ḥ- in its present stem (e.g. Coblin 1976; Beyer 1992: 164–177; Hill 2010a: xv–xxi). Implicitly this view suggests the two prefixes have distinct origins, like the Latin perfect for which some verbs continue the inherited aorist whereas other con- tinue the inherited perfect (Weiss 2009: 409–414). For those subscribing to this under- standing of the morphology of the Tibetan present, the task remains to explain the ori- gins of g- and ḥ-. Here, I explore an alternative, namely that these two prefixes have the same origin and their distribution is originally phonologically conditioned. 1 Before looking at the distribution of g- and ḥ- across verb paradigms, it is use- ful to remind ourselves of the pronunciations these letters probably reflect. The pro- 1 Michael Radich proposed g- < *ḥ- in a document ‘one prefix to rule them all’ (4th of Janu- ary 2005), which he wrote in the context of a first year classical Tibetan class taught by Cameron Warner at Harvard University. The statistics of the distribution of these two prefixes in Tibetan verbs used here come from Michael’s paper, which in turn were derived from my then draft Tibetan dic- tionary, later published as Hill 2010a. I have adjusted Michael’s original statistics with reference to Hill 2005a; Jacques 2010; and Hill and Zadoks 2015. Abel Zadoks proposed to me in a conversa- tion from around 2014 that g- < *ḥ- before voiceless fricatives. It was only in 2018 that I brought these two suggestions together and explored this matter further on my own. I hereby extend heartfelt thanks to both Michael and Abel for their insights. I also thank the European Research Council for support via the Synergy Grant ASIA-609823.