Ancient Germanic system of consonants

Ancient Germanic system of conso-nants was different from that of Indo-European in the number of stops and fricatives. Germanic languages had more fricatives than stops, Indo-European – v.v. Germanic consonants included labials p,b,f; dentals t,d,th; back sounds k,g,h; kw,gw,xw. These changes are explained by shifts.

Consonant Shifts

The changes in the Germanic consonant system are explained by three shifts.

Grimm's law (also known as the Germanic Sound Shift) was the first systematic sound change ever to be discovered. (1820) Grimm dis-covered a set of regular correspondences between early Germanic stops and fricatives and the stop consonants of other Indo-European languages.

It consists of three parts:

1. Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirated stops lose their aspiration and changed into plain voiced stops:

PIE *bh, *dh, *gh > PGmc *b, *d, *g

§ Sanskrit *bhrata > OE brothor

§ Sanskrit madhu > OE medu (meadow)

Sanskrit *ghordho- 'enclosed place' > OE *gard-

2. Proto-Indo-European voiced stops became voiceless:

PIE *b, *d, *g > PGmc *p, *t, *k

§ Russian болото = E pool

§ Latin edere > OE etan

§ Latin granum> OE corn

3. Proto-Indo-European voiceless stops changed into voiceless fricatives:

PIE *p, *t, *k > PGmc *f, *þ, *h

§ Latin pater > OE faeder

§ Latin tres  > OE. þree

§ Latin octo > OE. eahta

Verner's law, stated by Karl Verner in 1875 describes a his-torical sound change in the proto-Germanic language – exception from Grimm’s Law.

Вопрос 12

Consonant Shifts

The changes in the Germanic consonant system are explained by three shifts.

Grimm's law (also known as the Germanic Sound Shift) was the first systematic sound change ever to be discovered. (1820) Grimm dis-covered a set of regular correspondences between early Germanic stops and fricatives and the stop consonants of other Indo-European languages.

It consists of three parts:

1. Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirated stops lose their aspiration and changed into plain voiced stops:

PIE *bh, *dh, *gh > PGmc *b, *d, *g

§ Sanskrit *bhrata > OE brothor

§ Sanskrit madhu > OE medu (meadow)

Sanskrit *ghordho- 'enclosed place' > OE *gard-

2. Proto-Indo-European voiced stops became voiceless:

PIE *b, *d, *g > PGmc *p, *t, *k

§ Russian болото = E pool

§ Latin edere > OE etan

§ Latin granum> OE corn

3. Proto-Indo-European voiceless stops changed into voiceless fricatives:

PIE *p, *t, *k > PGmc *f, *þ, *h

§ Latin pater > OE faeder

§ Latin tres  > OE. þree

§ Latin octo > OE. eahta

Вопрос 13

The second shift

Grimm also discovered another ("Second") consonant shift, which accounts only for the consonant system of German.

For example:

§ English two vs German zwei /t – z/

§ English pipe vs German Pfeife /pf-f-/

§ English make vs German machen /k -x-/

§ * p→ff  - schla f en, Schi ff – slee p, shi p

§ *p→pf  - A pf el, Pf uhl, -a pp le, p ool

§ * t→ss - e ss en, da ss, au s ^- ea t, tha t, ou t

§ *t→ts - Z eit, Z wei -   t ide, t wo

§ *k→ch - ma ch en, bre ch en - Make, break

§ *d→t - T ag, Mi tt el, Va t er
cf. d ay, mi dd le, father

§ þ→ð→d - D orn,, d urch, Bru d er cf. th orn, th rough, bro th er

The third shift

The third shift took place only in Danish, where voiceless stops became aspirat-ed at the begin-ning of a word.

blad, but, bade

Verner's law, stated by Karl Verner in 1875 describes a his-torical sound chan-ge in the proto-Germanic language – exception from Grimm’s Law.

The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) voiceless stops

*p, *t, *k

should have changed into Proto-Germanic (PGmc) *

f, *þ, *x,

according to Grimm's Law. However, there appeared to be a lot of words with a voiced consonant

*b, *d or *g.

§ PIE * phatēr → PGmc * fadēr

(instead of expected * faþēr)

Вопрос 14

System of vowels

Indo-European system of vowels included 5 short and 5 long ones (a, o, u, i, e). The first three were used in stressed syllables and are considered the basic ones.

The change of stress had a great influence on the vowel system. We observe the processes of Ablaut and Umlaut.

Ablaut

The process of ablaut (from German ab- «off» + laut «sound») is a vowel change accompanying a change in grammatical function. For example, the vowel change in English from i to a to u in sing (present tense), sang – (past), sung (past-participle).

Umlaut

The process of umlaut (from German um- «around», «transformation» + laut «sound») is a modification of a vowel which causes it to be pronounced more to the front of the mouth to accommodate a vowel in the following syllable. This process is found in many — especially Germanic — languages. Example – woman – women. Note that English, being a Germanic language, has preserved some of these changes in irregular inflected forms such as man/men, tooth/teeth, long/length, old/elders, etc., even though it has lost the suffixes that originally caused them, and has changed their spelling.

Вопрос 15