The PG phonology. The consonants.

Characteristics

1. All the G.L. of past & present have common linguistic features, some of these features are shared by other groups in the IE family, others are specifically Germanic.

2. The Germanic group of lang. acquired their specific distinctive features after the separation of the ancient Germanic tribes from other IE tribes and prior to their expansion and disintegration that is during the period of the Proto Germanic language (unattested). The aim is to provide the general idea of what the PGLang was like, to point out its linguistic ftatures. Theese PGfeatures, inherited by the descendant l-ges, represent the common features of the Germanic group.

3. Other common features developed later in the course of individual history of separate Germanic l-ges as a result of similar tendencies from PG causes. On the other hand many Germanic features have been disguised, transformed and even lost in later history.

Germanic languages possess several unique features, such as the following:

1. A large class of verbs that use a dental suffix (/d/ or /t/) instead of vowel alternation (Indo-European ablaut) to indicate past tense; these are called the Germanic weak verbs; the remaining verbs with vowel ablaut are the Germanic strong verbs

2. The shifting of stress accent onto the root of the stem and later to the first syllable of the word

3. Another characteristic of Germanic languages is the verb second or V2 word order. This feature is shared by all modern Germanic languages except modern English

4. Strict differentiation of short and long vowels

5. Tendency for assimilation and reduction

6. A great number of fricatives, small number of plosives

7. No palatal consonants at all.

2. Eng. as a world language.

English is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era, in the fifth century AD when Germanic tribes began to move from their homes in Northern Germany and Jutland in order to settle in what was then still a Celtic country — Britannia. Historically, English originated from several dialects, now collectively termed Old English, which were brought to the island of Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers beginning in the 5th century. English was further influenced by the Old Norse language of Viking invaders. At the time of the Norman conquest(1066), Old English developed into Middle English. As a result of influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century, Eng. has become the lingua franca in many parts of the world. Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first language.English today is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order: United States (215 million), United Kingdom (61 million), Canada (18.2 million),Australia (15.5 million), Nigeria (4 million),Ireland (3.8 million), South Africa (3.7 million), and New Zealand (3.6 million) 2006. Eng. is the dominant language or in some instances even the required international language of communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, radio and diplomacy. English is the language most often studied as a foreign language in the European Union (by 89% of schoolchildren). Books, magazines, and newspapers written in English are available in many countries around the world. English is also the most commonly used language in the sciences. In 1997, the Science Citation Index reported that 95% of its articles were written in English, even though only half of them came from authors in English-speaking countries.

 

3. Word stress in PG & its morphological consequences.

I.1.Proto-Indo-European (PIE) – musical accent (музичний наголос)

Proto-Germanic – stress accent (силовий наголос)

Example from Classical Greek:

mētēr “mother” (Nominative case)

mētéros “of a mother” (Genitive case)

I.2.Weakening and loss of unstressed syllables:

For example:

PIE *bheronom “to bear” > PG *beranan > OE beran > ME beren > bere > PDE bear

 

· In PIE there were two ways of word accentuation:

1. musical pitch(tone)

2. force(dynamic) stress

The position of stress was free & moveable. It could fall on any syllable of a word: on a root morpheme, on an affix, or even on the ending. It could be shifted both in form-building & word –building.

· In PG force stress became the only type of stress used. In early PG the stress was still moveable, but in late PG the position of stress was fixed on the first syllable (either root or prefix). The verbal prefixes were unstressed, the nominal & adjectival prefixes were stressed.

 

Consequences: the vowels of non-initial syllables became unstressed & therefore they were weakened & could be lost. The 1^st syllable of a word was given a special prominence.

 

The PG phonology. The consonants.

Early PG (15/5c. BC - 1/4c. AD)---- separation of PG from the west IE (centum branch) to its stabilization as a separate system.

Features:

· the existence of the fixed & moveable stress types

· there didn’t exist any difference between stressed & unstressed syllables.

Late PG (4/7c. – 11/16c. AD)---- from stabilization of PG to its dispersal into separate groups of G.dialects.

Features:

· the dynamic stress was fixed on the first root syllable

· the opposition between stressed & unstressed syllables.

Common features in PG: -a great number of fricatives, small number of plosives; - no palatal consonants at all, as in other Centum languages.

Such a quantity of fricatives appeared in PG as a result of sound shifting described as Grimm’s Law and Verner’s Law.

· B, d, g, gw were positional variants of v, ð, h, hw initially, after nasals and when doubled

· J (non-syllabic i) – “i” in the final position and before consonants Nom. Sg. harjis – Akk. Sg. hari

· w (non-syllabic u) “u” after short vowel, in final position and before “s”: Gen. Sg. trivis – Nom.Sg. triu

· syllabic sonorants “m”, “n”, “r”, “l” lost their syllabic function and became non-syllabic because there developed “u” before them “um”, “un”, “ur”, “ul”. Syllabic sonorants “i” and “u” became vowels.

Grimm’s Law. (1822 was first published in “Deutch Grammar”)

I act	IE voiceless plosives >Germanic voiceless fricatives p > f t > Ө k > h k^w> h^w	L pater > E father R три > E three R кепка > E hat L quod > Gt ha
II act	IE voiced plosives > G. voiceless plosives b > p d > t g > k g^w> k^w	R болото> E pool R два > E two R иго > E yoke Gr gune > OE cwene
III act	IE voiced aspirated plosives > G. voiced plosives bh > b dh > d gh > g g^wh > g^w	Skr bhratar > E brother Skr madhu > OE medu Skr *gh > Gt gast, L hostis IE seŋg^wh > Gt siggwan

 

Exepcions:

1. The shifting didn’t take place after fricatives(f, Ө,h) & s:

L stare – Gt standan

2. The second of the consonants didn’t undergo shifting:

L o ct o Gt a ht au 1 k > h

12 12 2 t = t

The West Germanic lengthening of consonants.

Every consonant except “r” is lengthened if it is preceded by a short vowel and followed by the sonorant “j”(i) or by the sonorants “w”, ”l”, ‘r’, “n”, “m”. Before “j” the process of lengthening was the strongest, before “m”- the weakest. There appeared long consonants as a result of the doubling and an opposition based on the quantity between short and long consonants. If voiced fricatives were doubled, they became voiced plosives: a long “f” later develops into long “b”, denoted by “bb”, “ʒ”- “cʒ”, “ð” – “dd”…

The essence of this process appears to be assimilation. The consonant is assimilated to the preceding sound after producing palatal mutation (i-umlaut) in the root.

The lengthening might have been connected with changes in division of words into syllables:

Goth.: b|idjan> b|idjan>biddan

Consonants were not lengthened after a long vowel

OIcel sitja>OE sittan>OHG sizzen

Goth.: bidjan>OE biddan>OHG bitten

Goth.: saljan>OE sellan

But: Goth. d om jan>OE d em an (because after a long vowel)

Qualitative – qualitative

IE e> o> zero.

Рус. беру- сбор-брать

Germ. i/e > a, a >long o

OHG beran – barn- giburt

OE faran – f o r – f o ron – f a ren

There are 5 classes of ablaut:

I: i: - ia – i – i

II: iu – au –u – u

III: i – a – u – u

IV: i – a – ē – u

V: i - a – ē – i.

Ablaut is used in strong verbs in Gothic l-ges.

I class: reisan “вставати” – rais – risum – risans

II class: kiusan “вибирати” – kaus – kusum – kusans

III class: bindan “зв”язувати”– band – bundum – bundans

IV class: stilan “красти” - stal – stēlum – stulans

V class: giban “давати” – gaf – gēbum – gibans

 

 

The vowels played an important part in the grammar of Proto-Indo-European, because of the way they alternated in related forms (as in Modern English sing, sang, sung, and this system descended to Proto-Germanic. There were several series of vowels that alternated in this way. Each member of such a series is called a grade (ступінь), and the whole phenomenon is known as gradation or ablaut. One such series in PIE, for example was ĕ, ŏ and zero. This series was used in some of the strong verbs: the e-grade appeared in the present tense, the o-grade in the past singular, and the zero-grade in the past plural and the past participle (in which the accent was originally on the ending). This is the series that was used in sing, sang, sung, though it was blurred by the vowel changes, which took place in Proto-Germanic. PIE ŏ regularly changed to PG ă, as it has been shown before.

The vowels.

1. The basic vowel symbols are a, e, i, o, u. They could be both short and long. The set of vowels in Proto-Germanic can be represented in the following way:

back vowels: ā, ō, ū; front vowels: ī, ē.

 

Note: According to Zhluktenko, originally there were only four long vowels in PG: æ, ī, ū, ō. Later in West Germanic languages æ > ā. Apart from ē, that developed from PIE ē through æ, in Old Germanic languages there appeared one more ē that resulted from diphthong ai in unstressed syllable (Goth. haihait).

 

In tracing vowel changes in Old Germanic languages we have to distinguish between stressed and unstressed syllables, since these give different results.

There was a strict difference between short and long vowels. There were 8 monophthongs and 3 diphthongs in PG.

PG Vowels

Front Back

Short i, e a, u

Long i, eo, u

Diphthongs: /ai/, /eu/, /au/.

IE short /a/ and /o/ merged in PG short /a/.

IE short /i/, /e/, /u/ could correspond to PG /e/, /i/, /o/.

IE long vowels were unchanged. /i/>/i/, /u/>/u/. IE long /a/ and /o/ merged in PG long /o/.

In Early PG there were 4 long vowels: /i/, /u/, /o/ /e/. Then appeared /a/.

 

High підняття

I u

Front e Mid o Back

a

Low

 

11. Umlaut – is a case of regressive assimilation, when the vowel is changed under the influence of the following vowel.

1) i-umlaut (Front Mutation)

2) u-umlaut (Back Mutation)

I-Umlaut /a/, /o/, /u/ change into /e/, if the following vowel is /i/, /i/ or /j/.

Later i, i and j disappeared or changed to e. (dailjan – delan)

I-Umlaut in OE took place in prewritten period on the territory of the British Isles.

*a> æ> e

*a> æ

*o> e

* o > oe> e

* u > y:

*u> y

I-Umlaut in OHG

In OHG Mutation took place starting from the 8^th century.

a> a(e)

a > æ

o> ö

o > oe

u> ü

U-Umlaut (Back Mutation)

OE: 7-8 centuries

The short frot vowels æ, e, I were diphthongized when the back vowels u, o, a were present in the following syllable.

i> io OE sifon> siofon

e> eo OE efor> eofor

æ> ea OE saro> searu

This process differs from I-Umlaut in 3 respects:

· it effected almost exclusively short vowels

· it effected only front vowels

· its results are less unifor m

Palatal mutation before ‘h’

e> eo> ie> i

OE cneht> cneoht> cnieht> cniht

 

Inflectional system of PG.

Simplification of the inflectional system

It is often asserted that Germanic languages have a highly reduced system of inflections as compared with Greek, Latin, or Sanskrit. Although this is true to some extent, it is probably due more to the late time of attestation of Germanic than to any inherent "simplicity" of the Germanic languages. It is in fact debatable whether Germanic inflections are reduced at all. Other Indo-European languages attested much earlier than the Germanic languages, such as Hittite, also have a reduced inventory of noun cases. Germanic and Hittite might have lost them, or maybe they never shared in their acquisition.

Inflections were certainly the principal formbuilding means used:

- they were found in all parts of speech that could change their forms

- they were usually used alone, but could also occur in combinations with other means

In PG there are 5 parts of speech which can be declined – noun, adjective, pronoun, numeral, verb.

Noun had such categories:

- gender (masc, fem, neut)

- number (singular, plural)

- case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, instrumental)

- declension (strong, weak, minor, root)

Verb had such categories:

- voice (active, passive)

- mood: indicative (denotes a statement), imperative (commands, was used only in present of active voice), subjunctive (2 functions – grammatical & semantic)

- tense (present, preterite)

- number (singular, plural, dual)

- person (1, 2, 3)

Adjective

- declension (weak, strong)

- degrees of comparison (positive, comparative, superlative)

Pronoun

- number (sg, pl, dual)

- person (only personal pronouns)

- case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental)

- gender (only in demonstrative pronouns)

Numerals from 1 to 4 had case.

 

Strong verbs n Gothic.

Strong verbs form their preterite by ablaut (nima ‘I take’, nam ‘I took’) or simply by reduplication (háita, ‘I call’, haíháit ‘I called’), or else by ablaut and reduplication combined (tēka ‘I touch, taítōk ‘I touched’). The strong verbs are subdivided into two classes: non-reduplicated and reduplicated verbs. The non-reduplicated verbs are divided into six classes according to the first six ablaut classes given in the previous lecture. The reduplicated verbs, which form their preterite by ablaut and reduplication combined belong to the seventh class.

A. Non-reduplicated strong verbs in Gothic.

Class 1. Ablaut grades i: - ai – i – i
	Infinitive	Pret. Single	Pret. Plural	Past Participle
Gothic	beidan “await”	báiþ	bidum	bidans
OE	Bīdan	bād	bidon	biden
OHG	Bītan	beit	bitun	gibitan

 

To this class belong: beitan “to bite”, dreiban “to drive’, greipan “to seize”, weihan “to fight”, bi-leiban “to remain”; ga-smeitan “ to smear”, steigan “to ascend’ etc.

 

Class II. Ablaut grades iu – au – u – u
	Infinitive	Pret. Single	Pret. Plural	Past Participle
Gothic	-biudan “to bid”	-báuþ	-budum	-budans
OE	Bēodan	bead	budon	boden
OHG	Biotan	bōt	butun	gibotan

 

Here belong: biugan “to bend”; driugan “to serve as a soldier”; giutan “to pour”; kiusan “to test’, liusan “to lose” etc.

 

Class III. Ablaut grades i – a – u – u
	Infinitive	Pret. Single	Pret. Plural	Past Participle
Gothic	hilpan “to help”	halp	hulpum	hulpans
OE	Helpan	healp	hulpon	Holpen
OHG	Helfan	half	hulfun	giholfan

 

To this class belong all strong verbs having a medial nasal or liquid + a consonant, and a few others in which the vowel is followed by two consonants other than nasal or liquid + consonant. For example, baírgan “to keep”, bliggwan “to beat”, brinnan “to butrn”; hwaírban “to walk”, swiltan “to die” etc.

 

Class IV. Ablaut grades i – a – ē - u
	Infinitive	Pret. Single	Pret. Plural	Past Participle
Gothic	niman “to take”	nam	nēmum	Numans
OE	beran to “bear”	bær	bæron	boren
OHG	Beran	bar	bārun	giboran

 

To this class belong strong verbs whose stems end in a single nasal or liquid, and a few others. For example, brikan “to break”, qiman “to come” stilan “to steal”, ga-timan “to suit” etc.

 

Class V. Ablaut grades i– a – ē - i
	Infinitive	Pret. Single	Pret. Plural	Past Participle
Gothic	mitan “to measure”	mat	mētum	mitans
OE	Metan	mæt	mæton	Meten
OHG	Mezzan	maz	māzzun	gimezzan

 

To this class belong strong verbs having i (aí) in the infinitive, and whose stems end in a single consonant other than a liquid or a nasal: bidjan “to pray”, itan “to eat”, ligan “to lie down” etc.

 

Class VI. Ablaut grades a – ō – ō - a
	Infinitive	Pret. Single	Pret. Plural	Past Participle
Gothic	faran “to go”	fōr	fōrum	farans
OE	Faran	fōr	fōron	færen
OHG	Faran	fuor	fuorun	gifaran

 

To this class belong: alan “to grow”, ga-daban “to beseem”, skaban “to shave”, standan “to stand”, malan “to grind”.

 

1. Reduplicated Strong verbs in Gothic.

The perfect was formed in the parent language partly with and partly without reduplication. The reason for this is unknown. Compare Sanskrit va-várta “I have turned”, Gothic warþ, warst, warþ; pl. va-vrtimá + Gothic waúrþum; Gothic wáit “I know’, lit. “I have seen”. The reduplicated syllable originally contained the vowel e. In Gothic the vowel in the reduplicated syllable would regularly be i, except in verbs beginning with r, h, hw, where the aí is quite regular.

In the singular the accent was on the stem and in the dual and plural originally on the ending with corresponding change of ablaut.

The reduplicated verbs in Gothic are divided into two classes: a) verbs that retain the same vowel stem through all tenses, and form their preterite simply by reduplication, as haítan “to call”; haíháit, haíháitum, háitans; (b) verbs which form their preterite by reduplication and ablaut combined. These verbs have the same stem-vowel in the preterite singular and plural, and the stem-vowel of the past poarticiple is the same as that of the present tense.

 

Division (a) Class VII.
	Infinitive	Pret. Singular	Past Participle
Gothic	falþan “to fold”	faífalþ	falþans
	haldan “to hold”	haíhald	haldans

 

Division (b) Class VII
	Infinitive	Pret. Singular	Past Participle
Gothic	grētan “to weep”	gaígrōt	grētans
	lētan “to let”	lailōt	lētans

Weak verbs in Old Germ.l.

In Gothic they are divided into four classes according to the infinitives end in –jan, pret. –ida. (-ta); -ōn, pret. –ōda; -an, pret. –áida; -nan, pret. –nōda. The weak preterite is a special Germanic formation, and many points connected with its origin are still uncertain

 

1. First Weak Conjugation.

In Gothic the verbs of this conjugation are sub-divided into two classes: - (1) verbs with a short stem syllable, as nasjan “to save”, or with a long open syllable, as stōjan “to judge”; (2) verbs with a long closed syllable, as sōkjan “to seek”; and polysyllabic verbs.

Germanic suffix –j- in different Germanic languages reflected as –ia-, -ij-, -i-.

 

Sub-class (1)	Infinitive	Preterite	PP
Gothic	nasjan “to rescue’	nasida	nasiþs
OE	Nerian	nerede	nered
OHG	Nerian	nerita	(gi)nerit
Sub-class (2)
Gothic	Sōkjan	sōkida	sōkiþs
OE	Sēcan	sōhte	sōht
OHG	Suohen	suohta	(gi)suohit

2. Second Weak Conjugation.

PG forms corresponding to the Gothic and OHG were *salbō-mi, *salbō-zi, *salbō-đi, Plural *salbō-miz, salbō-đi, with stem-forming suffix being –o-.

	Infinitive	Preterite	PP
Gothic	salbōn “to anoint’	salbōda	salbōþs
OE	Endian	endode	endod
OHG	Machôn	machôta	gimachot

 

3. Third Weak Conjugation.

It had a stem-forming suffix –ai- that apears only in Gothic (Preterite and Past participle), in Present the alternation of vowels proves to be a – ai. In other Germanic languages the suffix fell out or appeared as –e-.

 

	Infinitive	Preterite	PP
Gothic	haban “to have”	habaida	habaiþs
OE	Habban	hæfde	hæfd
OHG	Haben	habêta	gihabêt

 

Fourth Weak Conjugation

 

This class of verbs is characteristic of the Gothic language only. They belong to the so-call inchoative class of verbs, that is denoting the beginning of the action.

 

Preterite-present verbs

These are the verbs inflected in the present like the preterite of strong verbs and in the past like the preterite of weak verbs. The following verbs, most of which are defective, belong to this class:

cann – he knows

dear – he dares

sceal – he shall

mo t – he must

mæj – he may

a h – he possesses

þearh – he needs

ann – he grants

 

Ablaut-series: Gothic witan “to know”.

 

INF   witan   OE witan	PRESENT	PAST
1^st Sing.	2^nd Sng.	Pl.	Subj.	Pret.Sng	Subj. Pret.	Pres.Part.
wáit I know	wáist	witum	witjau	Wissa	wissēdjáu	witands
Wāt	1 & 3 Sng. wāt	witon		wisse wisson Pl.

 

Compare PDE wi t “розум, ум”; witty “розумний, дотепний”, and Russian ве д ать. (Grimm’s Law).

 

Ablaut series: Gothic kunnan “to know”, OE cunnan > PDE can.

 

INF Gothic kunnan OE cunnan	PRESENT	PAST
1^st Sing.	2^nd Sng.	Pl.	Subj.	Pret.Sng	Subj. Pret.	Pres.Part.
kann I know	kant	kunnum		Kunþa	kunþēdjáu	Kunnands
can(n)	1-3 Sng can(n)	cunnon		cūðe cūðon Pl.

 

 

Ablaut series: Gothic *skulan “to be obliged to”, OE sculan “to be obliged” > PDE shall.

 

 

INF Gothic *sculan OE Sculan	PRESENT	PAST
1^st Sing.	2^nd Sng.	Pl.	Subj.	Pret.Sng	Subj. Pret.	Pres.Part.
skal ‘I owe’	kant	kunnum		Kunþa	kunþēdjáu	kunnands
sceal	1-3 Sng sceal	sculon		scolde scoldon Pl.

 

 

Preterite-presents also include:

 

(V-ablaut series)	Gothic	OE
Magan	magan “to have power” > PDE may, might
(VI-ablaut series)	*ga-mōtan	mōt(an) “to be allowed to”, “to be able to” > PDE must
	Áihan	āgan “own, possess, have” > PDE owe; PP āgen > “own, to own”, Pret. Sing. āhte > ought

 

A. Anomalous verb *wiljan “to wish, desire” in Gothic.

 

Present
Singular	Plural
1. wiljáu 2. wileis 3. wili Dual wileits	1. wileima 2. wileiþ 3. wileina
Preterite
Indicative	Subjunctive (optative)
Sing 1. wilda	Wildēdjáu

These verbs are very important for later periods. From these verbs we get the present day core modal verbs. There is an important difference: in OE pr-pr verbs were morphologically defined; in PrDE modal verbs are syntactically defined. There were 12 pr-pr verbs in OE, in Gothic – 14. They are subdivided into classes in analogy to the strong verbs.

The basic forms of pr-pr verbs:

- Infinitive;

- Pres.Sg

- Past tense

- Participle II

Some forms of separate pr-pr verbs are not attested – must has no Past Tense because it already was inherited in Past. And 2 verbs do not follow any of these classes:

Majan – mæj – majon – meahte/mihte – no P II - may

Jeneah – jenujon – jenohte – no Inf – no P II - enough

Infinitive, Participle

When the verb is inflected for the categories so far discussed, it is said to be a finite form of the verb. But alongside these forms there also three non-finite forms of most verbs. The first is the infinitive proper, which is essentially a noun formed from the present tense verbal stem; consider PDE “to run”. The second is the present participle, which is an adjective formed from the present stem, analogous to forms like PDE ‘running’. The third is the preterite participle, an adjective sometimes but not always based on the preterite stem of the verb, and etymologically identical with forms like ‘driven’ in ‘I have driven’ or ‘a driven man’.

INFINITIVE is not only an indefinite form f a verb. Originally infinitives were verbal agent nouns. (Nomina Agentis) – віддієслівні іменники.

Infinitive as a frm of verbs appeared in IE languages after disintegration of the IE unity. Germ. inf. derives from the noun with the suffix –no-. in old Germ. lang-es analogical forms could be declined. They later developed into verbal form, and prepositions (OE t o, OHG zi, zu, OIsl. At) – into a particle that goes with the verb. Germ. inf. didn’t have categories of the mood and tense. Nly later appeared analytical forms of the inf.

Participles are verbal agent adjectives. It can be declined by case, and in Latin, Russian by tense and mood.We distinguish ParticipleI (active) and Part.II (passive). Participle I is formed from strong and weak verbs by adding suffix –nd-. Participle II: strong verb + n weak verb + þ/d/t.

In England Participle I is –ing form.

Nominals, their categories.

Noun had such categories:

- gender (masc, fem, neut)

- number (singular, plural)

- case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, instrumental)

- declension (strong, weak, minor, root)

Adjective

declension (weak, strong)

- degrees of comparison (positive, comparative, superlative)

Pronoun

- number (sg, pl, dual)

- person (only personal pronouns)

- case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental)

- gender (only in demonstrative pronouns)

Numerals from 1 to 4 had case.

Categories of noun.

The noun in Old German had such categories:

- gender (masc, fem, neut) This distinction was not a grammatical category, it was merely a classifying feature. The gender

a) regulates the forms of adj and rticles accompanying nouns

b) to a certain extent regulates which specific forms of the case and number endings appear on the nouns.

- number (singular, plural) Like in ME all the German lang-es distinguish SG and Pl.

- case:

Nominative can be defined as the case of the active agent

Accusative is the use of the direct object, and also the case required by a preposition

Similarly, a number of prepositions regularly require Genitive. It was primarily the case of nouns and pronouns serving as attribute to their nouns.

The Dative was the chief case used with the prepositions or as an indirect personal object.

Rare even in the eldest attested stages was used Vocative or the case of address: the only Germ. Lang showing this case is Goth.

Instrumental (no in Gothic) is used to dentify the instrument of an action.

!!! The Dative Sg: 1) ending –ai as in maujai (to the girl)

2) ending –au as in magau (to the boy)

- declension (strong, weak, minor, root)

- declension (weak, strong)

- degrees of comparison (positive, comparative, superlative)

Pronoun

- number (sg, pl, dual)

- person (only personal pronouns)

- case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental)

- gender (only in demonstrative pronouns)

Numerals from 1 to 4 had case.

20. Noun structure in PG. The original reconstructed structure of noun in PG as in other Indo-European languages included three components: root, stem-forming suffix and inflection. The root rendered lexical meaning; stem-forming suffix was placed between root and inflection. Its original function might have been to classify nouns according to various lexical groups. Inflections served as means of connection in sentences together with prepositions.

Neither of Indo-European languages preserved words with an ideal three-component structure. Normally stem-forming suffixes coalesced with inflection or root. Though in Gothic one can trace stem-forming suffixes by comparing forms of other stems. For example, Dative and Accusative Plural of nouns with vowel-stems:

 

Masculine in –a-	Masculine in –i-	Feminine in –ō-	Masculine in –u-
Dative wulf-a-m	gast-i-m	gib-ō-m	sunum
Accusative wulf-a-ms	gast-i-ns	gib-ō-s	sununs

 

In Gothic, as in the oldest periods of the other Germanic languages, nouns are divided into two great classes, according as the stem originally ended in a vowel or consonant. Nouns, whose stems originally ended in a vowel, belong to the vocalic or so-called Strong Declension. Those, whose stems end in –n, belong to the Weak Declension.

Strong declension of noun.

A. The Vocalic or Strong Declension.

Weak declension of nouns.

B. Weak Declension (n-stems).

In the parent language the nom. Sing ended partly in –ēn, -ōn, and partly in –ē, -ō. The reason for this difference is unknown. Here belong masculines, feminines and neuters.

Singular	Plural
Nom. hana “cock”	hanans
Acc. Hanan	hanans
Gen. hanins	hananē
Dat. hanin	hanam

 

 

Like hana are declined a great number of masculines: aha “mind”, ahma “spirit”, atta “father’, brunna “well”, blōma “flower”, falga “cross”, gajuka “companion”, garda “fold’, guma “man”, nuta “fisherman” etc.

Personal pronouns

PG personal pronouns had 3 persons, 3 numbers in the first and second persons and 3 genders in the third person.

First person

Sing. Dual Plural

Nom ik wit weisa

Gen meina *ugkara unsara

Dat mis ugkis uns, unsis

Acc mik ugkis uns, unsis

Reflexive pronouns

The reflexive pronoun originally referred to the chief person of the sentence irrespectively as to whether the subject was the first, second or third person singular and plural.

Gen seina(себе)

Dat sis(собі)

Acc sik(себе)

Demonstrative

The simple demonstrative sa, þata, sō was used both as demonstrative pronoun this, that, and as definite article, the.

 

SINGULAR	PLURAL
Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine
Nom. sa	þata	sō	þái	þō	Þōs
Acc. Þana	þata	þō	þans	þō	Þōs
Gen. þis	þis	þizōs	þizē	þizē	þizō
Dat. þamma	þamma	þamma	þáim	þáim	þáim

The vocabulary of PG

The sources of information about the oldest vocabulary of Germ. Lang-es were: runic inscriptions, toponymy, texts of literary monuments and modern vocabulary of Germ. Languages, which are examined with the help of the comparative-historical method.

The vocabulary can be divided into 3 layers:

1. Common IE words

2. Common Germanic words

3. Words of separate Germ. Lang-es

Common IE vocabulary includes terms of relationship, numerals and names of some plants and animals. The vocabulary of unknown origin forms 30% of the vocabulary of PG. the oldest borrowings were from Celtic and Latin. We also distinguish prattle words borrowed from childish lang., so called traveling words borrowed from unknown lang. and attested in many Germ. lang-es, folk words used in everyday speech and having special semantic meanings.

According to lexical meanings of the words (semantic field) we distinguish a) natural phenomena; b) industrial terms; c) cultural terms, etc.

According to stylistics we distinguish neutral, common used and stylistically coloured (poetic, official, bookish and professional vocabulary) vocabulary. Common used words are the names of things which surround us. They are used in everyday speech and are stylistically neutral: OHG ackar (поле), leban (жити), OE bringan (приносити), wind (вітер). Poetic terms were used in PG epos and included metaphors, epithets, similes and synonims: hilde-leoma (світоч бою – меч). In “Beowulf” there were used 37 nouns which denote the worrier.

Bookish lang. appeared in Late CG and is connected with the development of science and culture. A lot of such words were borrowed from Latin and Greek: L credo> OE creda; L regula> OE regol.

The IE legacy, isogloss.

Words which have common IE root have certain lexical meaning. They reflect surrounding world, natural phenomena, things necessary for people for living. We distinguish such semantic groups of words:

· Natural phenomena: heavenly bodies, atmospheric phenomena, relief, seasons:

– сонце

– Goth. sunno, sauil

– L sol

– OIsl. sol

– OE sunna

– OSlav сльньце

– OHG sunna

– Гора, погорб

– OE hyll

– L collis

– Lithuanian kalnas

– Lettish kalns

· Names of wild animals

· Вовк

– Goth wolfs

– OE wulf

– OHG wolf

– L lupus

– OSlav влькь

· Names of plants

– береза

– OSlav брьза

– OE beorc

– OHG birihha

· Names of birds

· Parts of body

– ніс

– OSlav нось

– Lithuanian nasus

– OE nosu

– OHG nasa

– OIsl. nos

· Relatives

– син

– OSlav. Синь

– Goth sunus

– OIsl. sonr

– OE, OHG sunu

The isogloss: narrow meaning: the line on the map showing the spread of this or that ling. phenomenon; broad sense: a lexical or morphological unit common for certain group of lang-es and which is not encountered (не зустрічається) in the other lang.-es (я маю – в мене є; мешкати – проживати).

Common Germ. stock.

The common vocabulary. In the traditional view the Indo-Europeans before their dispersal (7000/4000 BC) were a nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoral people. They had cattle and sheep, for there are common words for both of these, e.g. English ox is Welsh ych, Sanskrit uksan-, and Tocharian okso. Cattle were obviously highly prized. OE feoh, Sanskrit pacu - and Latin pecu, meant both “cattle” and “wealth”, the Latin word for “money, wealth” was pecunia, and cattle figure prominently in the early writings of Indo-European peoples. They also had domestic animals, including the dog, and possibly the pig, the goat, and the goose, but there no common word for the ass, nor for the camel – English word goes back, via Latin and Greek, to a loan from a Semitic language. The Indo-Europeans certainly had horses, for which a rich vocabulary has survived, and they also had vehicles of some kind, for these are the words for wheel, axle «ось», nave “маточина (колеса)” and yoke “ярмо, хомут”. They had cheese and butter, but no common word for milk has survived, which shows how “chancy” the evidence is. No large common vocabulary has survived for agriculture, such a vocabulary is found in the European languages, but this may obviously date from after dispersal. There are, however, common words for grain, and Greek and Sanskrit have cognate words for plough and for furrow “борозна”, so there is some support to the view that the Proto-Indo-Europeans were agriculturalists.

РОЖЬ, нем. ROGGEN < PG * ruggn-/*rugis - (с обычным удвоением g перед n)< PIE *rughio- in Germanic, Baltic and Slavonic languages, PDE rye.

There is, however, no common word for beer (which an agriculturalist’s product, while there is a word for mead. On the other hand, there is no common vocabulary for hunting or fishing.

There are a number of common words for tools and weapons, including arrows, and there is no evidence to suggest that at one time the tools and weapons were made of stone: the Latin verb secāre ‘ to cut’ is related to saxum ‘a stone, rock’, and the latter is identical with OE seax, which meant ‘knife’. At one time, it seems, a stone could be a cutting instrument. The PIE people knew metal, however, for there two common words for copper and bronze, one of which survives as PDE ore, Latin aes, Sanskrit ayas, and there also words for gold and silver. There is no common terminology for the techniques of metallurgy. The vocabulary shows a familiarity with pottery and also with weaving.

They knew both rain and snow, but their summer seems to have been hot, which suggests a continental climate. The wild animals they knew include wolves, bears, otters, mice, hares, and beavers, but apparently not lions, tigers, elephants, or camels, so presumably they lived in a cool temperate zone. There has been some argument about the common Indo-European words for the beech tree, the eel, and the salmon. The beech does not grow in North-East Europe or anywhere east of Caspian, so it has been argued that the home of the Indo-Europeans must have been farther West. The eel and the salmon are not found in the rivers that flow into the Black sea, so it has been argued that this region too must be ruled out. There are, however, two weaknesses in this argument. The first is that the climate has changed since the times of he PIE: around 4000 BC, the climate of southern Russia was wetter and warmer than it is today, and there were many more trees, especially along the banks of streams and rivers; these trees almost certainly included beech. The second weakness is that we cannot be absolutely certain that these words originally referred to the species in question. E.g., it is possible thet the word for ‘salmon’ (German Lachs, Swedish lax, Russian lososi ‘salmon’, Tocharian laks ‘fish’) did not originally refer to the true salmon, but to a species of Salmo found North of the Black sea.

The view of the IE family is supported by the Indo-European names of Gods. There are a few common to the European and Asiatic languages, and they seem to be personifications of natural forces. Prominent among them, is a Sky God: he Greek Zeus, the Sanskrit Dyaus, the OE Tīw (Tuesday). He was a Father God, as we can see it from his Latin name, Jupiter, which means ‘Sky Father’.

Comparative method.

Two languages are said to be genetically related if they are divergent continuations of the same earlier language. The common or hypothesised language that serves as a common ancestor is called a proto-language, or sometimes, a parent language. In this case the divergent continuations are frequently referred to as daughter languages. A parent language and its daughters constitute a language family.

Sometimes the proto-language is an actually attested language with surviving texts. A case in point is the family of Romance languages, including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Rumanian, and others, whose common ancestor appears to be a variant of Latin. Yet English and German can be traced back only so far, and then we run out of texts. In such situations the job of a linguist is to come up with a reconstruction of the parent language, a hypothesis about the specific form of the proto-language that could have changed into the documented daughter languages.

In the classical procedure and the first prerequisite of reconstruction is that one have languages with a large number of words similar in sound and meaning. Such words are referred to as cognates, and the first thing to do is to set up lists of cognate words. Let us take, for example, the following words:

 

OE	OHG	ON	Goth.	ModE
fæder	fater	faðir	fadar	father
Þrīe	drî	þrír	þreis	three

 

First we look at the first sounds of each word in all the languages, and find out the first correspondence. Now we can determine the sound in the proto-language that could most easily resulted in the actually found sounds is *f-. Notice, that asterisk before the f implies reconstruction. This means that what follows is a reconstruction, and not an actually documented sound. A slightly more complex situation is presented by the words for ‘three’. Instead of unanimity, we find that Old High German has d, where other languages have þ, representing the sound found in Modern English bath. Other things being equal, in case like this, the linguist is inclined to let the majority rule. It is simpler to assume that one language made a change from þ to d than that three made a change from d to þ. Thus we reconstruct for Proto-Germanic the sound *þ.

The Indo-Europeans.

It is assumed that the Indo-European family of languages, with its numerous branches and its millions of speakers, has developed out of some single language, which must have been spoken thousands of years ago by some comparatively small body of people in a relatively restricted geographical area. This original language is called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). The people, who spoke it or who spoke languages evolved from it, are called Indo-Europeans. People of very different races and cultures can come to be native speakers of Indo-European languages: such speakers today include Indians, Afghans, Iranians, Greeks, Irishmen, Ukrainians, Mexicans, Brazilians, and Norwegians.

The traditional view has been that the Indo-Europeans were a nomadic or semi-nomadic people, who invaded neighboring agricultural or urban areas, and imposed their languages on them. It is believed that the initial expansion of the Indo-Europeans was simply the pushing out of the frontiers of an agricultural people, who over centuries introduced agriculture into the more thinly populated country round their periphery, inhabited by hunters or food-gatherers. This mass migration began in about 7000 BC or according to the traditional point of view it dates back to 4000BC or later.

The home of Indo-Europeans. There several opinions regarding where from the dispersal began. 1) Scandinavia, and the adjacent parts of Northern Germany, and it was often linked with a belief that the Germanic peoples were the ‘original’ Indo-Europeans; b) steppes of Ukraine, north of the Black sea; c) eastern Anatolia, to the South of the Caucasus range, and west of the Caspian sea.

Let us assume that it was the Ukrainian steppes or South Russian steppes, where about 5^th millennium BC, lived people, who formed a loosely linked group of communities with common gods and similar social organization. After 4000 BC, when the language had developed into a number of dialects, they began to expand in various directions, different groups ending up in Iran, India, the Mediterranean area, and most part of Europe. In the course of their expansion, the Indo-Europeans overran countries which had reached a higher level of civilization than they had themselves, the Aryas, for example, conquered the civilizations of Northern India, and the Persians those of Mesopotamia. Primitive nomadic peoples have overrun more advanced urban civilizations, and there is no need to postulate some special intellectual or physical prowess in the Indo-Europeans.

There is one technical factor, which played a role in the expansion of Indo-Europeans. This was the use of horse-drawn vehicles, which was characteristic of Indo-European society. The horse was a later introduction into the river valleys of the great early urban civilizations, in which the normal draught animal was the ass, and when the horse came to them, it came from the North. It is possible that Indo-Europeans were ahead of time, and it was their use of wheeled vehicles, especially the fast horse-drawn chariot, that enabled them to overrun such a large part of the Eurasian continent.

The family tree of the Indo-European languages.

PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN

 

Western branch Eastern branch

 

Western branch

West European

 

Сeltic-Italic

Celtic Italic Germanic Tocharian Hellenic Anatolian

Eastern branch

 

 

Baltic-Slavonic Arian

 

 

Baltic Slavonic Albanian Armenian Iranian Indian

 

 

The first division into an Eastern Group and a Western Group is important. The groups are marked by a number of differences in phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, which suggests that there was an early division of the Indo-Europeans into two main areas, perhaps representing migrations in different directions. One of the distinctive differences in phonology between the two groups is the treatment of the PIE palatal k, which appears as a velar [k] in the western languages, but as some kind of palatal fricative, [s] or [ ] in the Eastern languages. Thus the word for hundred is Greek he-katon, Latin centum, Tocharian känt, Old Irish cet, and Welsh cant (the c in each case representing [k]), but in Sanskrit it is satam, in Old Slavonic seto (modern Ukrainian cто). For this reason, the two groups are often referred to as the Kentum languages and the Satem languages. On the whole, the Kentum languages are in the West and the Satem languages in the East, but an apparent anomaly is Tocharian, right across in western China, which is a Kentum language. The division into Kentum and Satem languages took place around 1500 BC.

Tree of IE lang.

PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN

 

 

Western branch Eastern branch

 

 

Western branch