contrast intact, as Hittite spelling varies in a way that makes it very hard to establish whether vowels were inherently long or short. Even with older texts being apparently more conservative and consistent in notation, there are significant variations in vowel length in different forms of the same lexeme. It has been thus suggested by Carruba (1981) that the so-called scriptio plena represents not long vowels but rather stressed vowels, reflecting the position of free PIE accent. Carruba's interpretation is not universally accepted; according to Melchert, the only function of scriptio plena is to indicate vowel quantity; according to him the Hittite a/ā contrasts inherits diphonemic Proto-Anatolian contrast, */ā/ reflecting PIE */o/, */a/ and */ā/, and Proto-Anatolian */a/ reflecting PIE */a/. According to Melchert, the lengthening of accented short vowels in open syllables cannot be Proto-Anatolian, and the same goes for lengthening in accented closed syllables. Consonants One of the more characteristic phonological features common to all Anatolian languages is the lenition of the Proto-Indo-European voiceless consonants (including the sibilant *s and the laryngeal *ḫ) between unstressed syllables and following long vowels. The two can be considered together as a lenition rule between unstressed morae, if long vowels are analyzed as a sequence of two vowels. All initial voiced stops in Anatolian eventually merge with the plain voiceless stops; Luwian, however, shows different treatment of voiced velar stops *G- and unvoiced velar stops *K- (initial *G being palatalized to */j/ and then lost before /i/, unlike *K), showing that this was a late areal development, not a Proto-Anatolian one. Proto-Anatolian is the only daughter language of Proto-Indo-European to directly retain the laryngeal consonants. The letter ‹ḫ› represents the laryngeal *h₂ and probably but less certainly also *h₃. The sequences *h₂w and *h₃w yield a labialized laryngeal *ḫʷ. In addition to the laryngeals, Common Anatolian was long also thought to be the only daughter to preserve the three-part velar consonant distinction from Proto-Indo-European. The best evidence for this was thought to come from its daughter language Luwian. However, Melchert disputes this and categorizes Anatolian as a centum branch. The voiced aspirated stops lost their aspiration over time and merged with the plain voiced stops. The liquids and nasals are inherited intact from Proto-Indo-European, and so is the glide *w. No native Proto-Anatolian words begin with *r-. One possible explanation is that it was true in Proto-Indo-European as well. Another is that