10. West-germanic branch

Around the beginning of our era there would be west-german tribes, dwelt in the lowlands between the Older and the Alb, bordering on the Slovenian tribes in the east and the Celtic tribes in the south. On the eve of their great migrations of the 4th-5th centuries the W-G included several tribes. The main tribe was the tribe of Franconians or Francs. Later they subdivided into low, middle and high Franconians. In the early middle ages the Francs consolidated (объединились) into a powerful tribal alliance. Towards the 8th century their kingdom grew into one of the largest states in Western Europe. The Eastern part, the East Franconian Empire, comprised several kingdoms. The franconian dialects were spoken in the North of the Empire. The high Germanic dialects consolidated into a common language known as Old High German.

26, 27. Phonetic system of early new English.

ENE witnest the greatest events in the history of English vowels. The great vowel shift which involved the change of old English monophthongs and probably some of the differs. The great vowel shift in the name giving to a series of changers of long vowels between the 14th and the 18 centuries. During this period all the long vowels became closer or were defenised. The changers can be defined as independent as they were not caused by any apparent phonetic conditions in the syllables but effected regularly in any positions. All the vowels became closer and some of the vowels occupied the place of the next vowel. (ME I: ME time e (наобор.) NE time). It is important to note that the great vowel shift (unlike most of the earlier phonetic changes) wasn’t followed by any regular spelling changers. The modification in the pronunciation of word was not reflected in the written forms. During the shift the names of some English letters were changed for the long vowels. ME a(a:) e(e:) o(o:) NE a(ei)e(i:)o(ou)i(ai). As compared the great vowel change of the NE period seem few. The short vowels in early NE were on the whole more stable than the long vowels. Only 2 short vowels out of 5 underwent certain alterations. This vowels are (a)and (u)1(a) is reflected first as (лягушка)2(o)when it was preceded by w.*water (галка) NE water(o).middle e short (u) became (галка).

Evolution of consonants in Early New English

One of the most important events in the system of consonants was the loss of quantitative distinctions. It should be recalled that in OE long consonants were apposed to short at the phonological level. In ENE long consonants were shortened and the phonetic opposition through quantity was lost. Other alteration took place in 16th century the fricative were subjunctive in voice under certain phonetic conditions, they were pronounced as voiced if they were preceded by the unstressed vowel and followed by stressed one. *ENE possess came from ME possessen.

Билет №11

11. Phonetic system of germanic languages. Word stress. Vowels. Consonants.

The peculiar Germanic system of word accentuation is one of the most important distinguishing features of the group. It is known that in ancient indo-european existed 2 ways of word accentuation:

1. musical pitch

2. force stress

The position of the stress was free and moveable. It could fall on any syllable of the word and could be shifted both in form-building and word-building. Both these prosperities were changed in protogermanic. Force and expiratory stress became the only of stress used.

The stress was fixed on the 1st syllable which was usually the root of the word and sometimes the prefix. The other syllables were unstressed. The stress could no longer move.

Vowels.

Throughout history beginning with protogermanic, vowels displayed a strong tendency to change. Strict differentiation of long and short vowels is supported by the different directions of their changes. While long vowels generally tended to become closer and to diphenise (распадаться на дифтонги (я хз как это слово точно пишется)), short vowels often changed into more open sounds.

In later protogermanic the vowels displayed a tendency to positional assimilative changes. The pronunciation of a vowel was modified under the influence of the following or proceeding consonant. Sometimes a vowel was approximated more closely to the following vowel. After the changes in late protogermanic the vowel system contained the short and long sounds (e, a, i, o, u). in addition to these sounds protogermanic had asset of diphthongs (ei, ai, eu, au, iu).

Consonants.

The consonants in Germanic looked shifted as compared with the consonants of non-germanic language. The alteration of the consonants took place in protogermanic and the resulting sounds were inherited by the languages of the Germanic group. The changes of consonants in protogermanic were first formulated in terms of the phonetic low by Jacob Grimm in the early 19th century and are often called Grimm’s low. By the terms of the low voiceless plosives developed into voiceless fricatives. Indo-european voiced plosives were shifted to voiceless plosives and indo-european voice aspirated plosives were reflected either as voiced fricatives or as pure voiced plosives.

Another important series of changes were discovered by Carl Verner, a Danish scientist, in the 19th century. According to Verner’s low, all the early protogermanic voiceless fricatives which are [f, x, s, {th}] inherited from protoindoeuropean became voiced between vowels if the preceding vowel was unstressed. In the absence of these conditions they remained voiceless.