5. Vocabulary

The latest scholarly research has shown that Germanic has inherited and preserved many IE features in lexis as well as at other levels.

The most ancient etymological layer in the Germanic vocabulary is made up of words shared by most IE languages. They refer to a number of semantic spheres: natural phenomena and animals, terms of kinship, verbs denoting basic activities of man, some pronouns and numerals.

Words which occur in Germanic alone and have no parallels outside the group constitute the specific features of the Germanic languages; they appeared in PG or in later history of separate languages from purely Germanic roots. Semantically, they also belong to basic spheres of life: nature, sea, home life.

Both etymological layers of the vocabulary – the IE and the specifically Germanic layer – are native words. In addition to native words the OG languages share some borrowings made from other lan­guages. Some of the early borrowings found in all or most languages of the group must have been made at the time when the Germanic tribes lived close together as a single speech community, i.e. in Late PG. It is known that the name of the metal iron was borrowed from the Celtic languages in Late PG; cf. Celt isarno, Gt eisarn, О Icel isarn, OE isen, iren. (The Teutons may have learnt the processing of iron from the Celts.) A large number of words could have been borrowed from Latin prior to the 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; they mostly refer to trade and warfare; e.g.: L pondō, Goth pund, ОIcel pund, OE pund ‘pound’; L prunus, ОIcel р1ómа, OE plūme ‘plum’; L strata via, OHG strâza, OS strâta, OE stræt ‘street’.

6. Summary: Basic Features of Germanic Languages

Germanic languages form a clearly defined group of the Indo-European family and belong to its Western or Centum division.

The Old English language belongs to the West-Germanic group of Germanic languages and shares specific Germanic features which distinguish Germanic languages from other branches of the Indo-European family. These features are as follows:

1) a peculiar alphabet;

2) fixation of the main stress on the initial syllable of the word;

3) the First Consonant Shift affecting the Indo-European voiceless and voiced stops and the spirant [s]; Verner’s Law;

4) changes of long and short vowels (o and a), ablaut, umlaut;

5) A change in the word structure;

6. reduction in the number of cases as compared to Common Indo-European;

7. development of the weak declension of the adjective with a particular categorial meaning;

8. development of a dental preterite and appearance of the strong/weak verb distinction;

9. a system of two tenses – present and past;

10. formation of seven classes of strong verbs in accordance with the type of gradation.

1 Phonologization is the reinforcement of a feature which appeared in a certain position, i.e. on the allophonic level. Phonologization occurs when the position in which the phenomenon in question was under way disappears. Positional independence is peculiar to a phoneme. Consequently, the given feature becomes phonological, relevant, and the unit containing this feature is called a phoneme [6, p.49].