Linguistic features of Germanic languages.

Plan:

1. Phonetics.

1. Word stress.

2. Vowels.

3. Consonants.

2. Grammar.

1. Form-building means.

2. Strong and Weak verbs.

3. Vocabulary.

1. (a) In ancient Indo-European languages before the separation of Germanic languages there existed two ways of the stress: Musical tone and force stress. The position of the stress was free and movable, which means that it could fall on any syllable of the word – a root-morpheme, an affix (prefix, suffix) or an ending – and could be shifted both in form-building and word-building. (E.g. Rus. домом, дома, домовничать, дома).

Both properties were changed in P.G. Force stress, which is also called dynamic or breath stress became the only type of stress used. Besides, in late P.G. the word stress was stabilized. The stress became fixed and could fall on one syllable, mainly on a root, and only sometimes on the prefixes or suffixes, the endings were unstressed. Besides, the stress could no longer move in form-building or word-building. E.g. be’come – be’coming – form building; be’come – over’come – word building.

The fixed position of the stress played a great role in morphological system of Germanic languages. Because due to the difference in the force of articulation, the stressed syllables were pronounced with great distinctness and precision, while unstressed syllables were pronounced weak.

This difference between the sounds in stressed position were preserved and emphasized, whereas the contrasts between the unstressed sounds were weakened and lost. Since the stress was fixed on the root, the weakening and loss of sounds mainly affected the suffixes and grammatical endings. Many endings merged with suffixes were weakened and dropped. E.g. the reconstructed P.G. word “fish”, with its descendants in Old Germanic languages: P.G. fisk[az]; O.E. fisc; M.E. fish.

2. Throughout history the vowels underwent great alterations. These alterations were four types:

   • qualitative

   • quantitative

   • dependent

   • independent

Qualitative changes affect the quality of the sound. E.g. [o>a] – Germanic language, [p>f]. Quantitative changes make long sounds short and short sounds long. E.g. [i>i:]. Dependent changes are restricted to certain positions or phonetic conditions, for instance, a sound may change under the influence of the neighboring sounds or the stress. Independent changes take place irrespective of phonetic conditions; it means they affect a certain sound in all positions.

In stressed syllables the oppositions between vowels were carefully maintained and the number of stressed vowels grew. In unstressed positions the original contrasts between vowels were weakened or lost, and in this syllable only short vowels could occur. And in the late P.G. short vowels in the unstressed position tended to be reduced or neutralized to [e]. Another peculiarity – long vowels tended to become closer [i:] and short vowels had a tendency to become open [i].

E.g. [o] I.E. – [^] Europe. Latin: nox – P.G. nacht.

[a:] I.E. – [o:]. Latin: mater – O.E. modor.

[e] I.E. – [i]. Latin: ventus – Gothic: winds.

After all these changes the vowel system of Germanic languages contained the following sounds: Short vowels: [I; e; a; o; u], Long vowels: [i:, e:, a:, o:, u:] and five diphthongs: [ei; ai; eu; au; iu]

2. Comparison with other languages of Indo-European family reveals regular correspondences between Germanic consonants and non Germanic one. E.g. G.[f] – I.E. languages [p]. O.E. full; Rus. полный; Fr. plein. Wherever G. [p] – in non-Germanic [b]. E. pool; Rus. болото.

The consonants in Germanic languages look “shifted”. And these changes were first formulated by Jacob Grimm in the early 19^th c. That’s why these alterations are called Grimm’s law or “first consonant shift”(Proto-Germanic consonant shift).

By the terms of Grimm’s law voiceless 1). plosives developed into voiceless fricatives. E.g. I.E. [p; t; k] – [f; θ; h]. Latin: pes – G.: fot – M.E.: foot.

tres – threo – three

cor – heort – heart.

2). I.E. voiced plosives changed into Germanic voiceless plosives. E.g. I.E. [b; d; g] – [p; t; k]. Rus. : болото – O.E. pol – M.E.: pool

Latin: decem – tiem – ten

genu – cneo – knee.

3). I.E. voiced fricatives changed into Germanic voiced plosives. E.g. I.E. [bh; dh; gh] – [b; d; g]. O. Ind.: bhrata – O.E. brothor – M. E.: brother

rudhire – read – read

Another important series of consonants changes in Germanic languages was discovered in the late 19^th c. by Danish scholar Carl Verner. And these changes are called Verner’s law.

Verner’s law explains some correspondences of consonants, which seemed to contradict Grimm’s law, and were regarded as exceptions. According to Verner’s law early Germanic voiceless fricatives [f;θ; h; s] became voiced between vowels if the preceding vowels were unstressed. E.g. [θ] – [d; ∂]. O.E.: hundrath – M.E. hundred.

[k] – [∂; g]. O. Icel. cunctari – O.E. hanga – M.E. hang.

These changes happened because of daring spirit of the Germanic tribes. Verner’s explanation has been rejected as naïve and romantic. Some philologists attributed the shift to the physiological peculiarities of the glottis of the Teutons. The mouth cavity was more expanded, that’s why the articulation of sounds was more energetic, speaking about vowels. But the articulation of consonants was less energetic and tense. Different linguists consider that these changes happened because of internal requirements of the language system, and exactly, the need for more precise phonetic distinction. But the systematic point of view explains that every subsystem in language tends to preserve a balanced symmetrical arrangement. If this balance is broken, it will soon be restored by means of the changes.

2. (a) Like other I.E. languages Old Germanic languages had a synthetic grammatical structure. It means that the relationships between the parts of a sentence were shown by the forms of the words rather than their position in the sentence or by auxiliary verbs. In later history of the Germanic languages they developed into analytical languages. In the early periods grammatical forms were built:

• by means of inflections (suffixes and endings). E.g. O.E.: macian – macode (Past Simple).

• by vowel interchange in the root of the word. E.g. bear – bore.

• by suppletion. E.g. Latin: ego (common case) – mei. (M.E. I – me).

1). Means of inflections became the most productive means. Originaly, in early Germanic languages the word consisted of three parts: root, stem-suffix and ending. In late Germanic languages stem-suffixes lost their force and merged with the endings. The structure of the word was simplified: three- morpheme word turned to two-morpheme (root, ending). E.g. Proto Germ.: fisc – a –z (pl.) Got.: fisc-s.

This simplification was evoked by heavy Germanic word stress fixed on the root. Ending became the main means of form building.

2). Vowel gradation or ablaut. This means inherited from I.E. languages. Vowel gradation did not reflect any phonetic changes but was used as a special independent device to differentiate between words and grammatical forms built from the same root. The principal gradation was observed in the form building by means of vowels [e] – [o]. E.g. Rus.: несу – ноша. This kind of ablaut is called qualitative, as the vowels differ only in quality. Alternation of short and long vowels, and also alternation with a lack of vowel represent quantitative ablaut. E.g. Latin: legi (elected) – long vowel; lego (elect) – short vowel. Rus.: short vowel – [е] – [о] беру – сбор; neutral vowel or loss of vowel - брал.

The Germanic languages employed both types of ablaut – qualitative and quantitative, and their combinations. Ablaut was the most frequent means in building the principal forms of strong verbs. Gradation vowels were combined with other sounds in different classes of verbs and thus yielded several new gradation series.

E.g.

Indo-European languages	e	o	Zero	Zero
Proto-Germanic language	e\i	a	Zero	Zero
Principal forms	Infinitive	Past sing.	Past pl.	Participle 2
Class 1	reisan	rais	risum	risans M.E. to rise.

2. The bulk of the verbs in P.G. languages fall into two large groups called strong and weak. These terms were proposed by J. Grimm; he called the verbs strong because they had preserved the richness of form since the age of the parent-language and in this sense could be contrasted to weak verbs lacking such variety of form. The main difference between these groups lies in the means of building the principal forms: the Present tense; the Past tense and Participle 2. The strong verbs built their principal forms with the help of root vowel interchanges and grammatical endings.

The weak verbs built the Past tense and Participle 2 by inserting a special suffix between the root and the ending [∂] [d].

E.g.

	Infinitive	Past tense	Participle 2	Modern English
Old English	macian	macode	macod	make, made

3. Until recently it was believed that Germanic languages had a large proportion of words, which have no parallels in other group of the Indo-European family. But most words are made up of roots shared by other Indo-European languages.

These words refer to different semantic spheres: natural phenomena, plants and animals, verbs denoting basic activities of a man. But some words occurred only in Germanic languages. Semantically, they belong to basic spheres of life: nature, sea, home life. There were a lot of borrowings in Germanic language from two languages. Some of the early borrowings were made at the time when the Germanic tribes lived close together as a single speech community. E.g. Celtic: iron, basket, house, ball. A large number of words must have been borrowed from Latin prior to migration of West Germanic tribes to Britain. These words reflect the contacts of the Germanic tribes with Rome and the influence of the Roman civilization on their life. E.g. Latin: trade, religion, wine, money, sun, vision. French borrowings: government, prince, duke, prison, army, painter, air, place, aunt, uncle. Scandinavian borrowings: call, cast, law, fellow, sky, big, they, them, cake, husband.

Lecture 4