Examples and Observations:

"Rask's and Grimm's work . . . succeeded in establishing once and for all that the Germanic languages are indeed part of Indo-European. Secondly, it did so by providing a brilliant account for the differences between Germanic and the classical languages in terms of a set of amazingly systematic sound changes."

"Grimm's Law can be considered a chain reaction: aspirated voice stops become regular voiced stops, voiced stops in turn become voiceless stops, and voiceless stops become fricatives. . . .

"Examples of this change taking place at the beginning of words are provided in (1) . . .. Sanskrit is the first form given (except for kanah which is Old Persian), Latin the second, and English the third. It is important to remember that the change takes place only once in a word: dhwer corresponds to door but the latter does not change to toor:

• bhrater-frater-brother

• dhwer-foris-door

• ghordho-hortus-yard (<Old English geard)

• pitr-pater-father

• tu-tu-thou

• krnga-cornu-horn

• kanab-cannabis-hemp (<Old English henep)

• danta-dentis-tooth

• jna-gnoscere-know/ken

Thus, Grimm's Law distinguishes Germanic languages from languages such as Latin and Greek and modern Romance languages such as French and Spanish. . . . The change probably took place a little over 2,000 years ago."

(Elly van Gelderen, A History of the English Language. John Benjamins, 2006)

"It remains unclear whether Grimm's Law was in any sense a unitary natural sound change or a series of changes that need not have occurred together. It is true that no sound change can be shown to have occurred between any of the components of Grimm's Law; but since Grimm's Law was among the earliest Germanic sound changes, and since the other early changes that involved single non-laryngeal obstruents affected only the place of articulation and rounding of dorsals . . ., that could be an accident. In any case, Grimm's Law is most naturally presented as a sequence of changes that counterfed each other."

(Donald Ringe, A Linguistic History of English: From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic. Oxford Univ. Press, 2006)

Also Known As: Germanic Consonant Shift, First Consonant Shift

15. VERNER’S LAW

(Note: it's important, for the file to display properly, that Mac users have the font Times OE- 2 installed in your font folder. If some fonts display oddly below, you do not have the Times OE-2 font installed.)

Both Rasmus Rask and Jakob Grimm, at the time of their deaths, were aware that there were exceptions to Grimm's Law, but no one at that time could account for these exceptions. That remained for the Danish linguist Karl Verner (1846 - 1896) to do.

Verner noticed that a great number of exceptions to Grimm's Law also had a regularity and system of their own, and could be explained logically as well. By examining Sanskrit, which preserved the older Indo-European stress patterns and which did not undergo the Germanic Consonant shift, and comparing Sanskrit and Germanic cognates, Verner was able to see that stress patterns in words had influenced the pronunciation of nearby consonants.

To see the effect of stress on nearby consonants, say the words "exist" and "exit." Most people pronounce the first /Ig'zIst/ and the second /EksIt/. (I use the symbol /E/ to stand for the mid front lax vowel.) Notice how the voiceless velar stop /k/ in "exit" becomes the voiced velar stop /g/ when it follows an unstressed (unaccented) vowel and is surrounded by voiced sounds.

Verner concluded the changes described by Rask and Grimm occurred in early Germanic times, and then another set of consonant shifts occurred later caused by stress patterns. And then (this is crucial) the stress shifted to the first syllable, effectively hiding the causes of the succeeding shift and making it almost impossible to recognize. Verner published his results in 1875, and the patterns he described came to be known as Verner's Law.

Verner was thus able to explain a whole category of seeming exceptions to Grimm's Law: Indo-European voiceless stops /p/, /t/, and /k/ shifted to early Germanic voiceless fricatives /f/, /q/ and /x/, according to Grimm's Law. Then, later, those voiceless fricatives that followed an unstressed syllable and were surrounded by voiced sounds shifted further to become the voiced fricatives, /ð/, and /g/. Oddly, Verner's Law also appeared to apply to the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/, which shifted to /z/. In all West Germanic languages, of which English is one, the /ð/ shifted again to /d/ and the /z/ shifted (by a process known as rhoticism) to /r/.

16. OE to NE

The phonetic structure had undergone significant changes in comparison with other Germanic languages, especially in the system of vocalism. There are 44 sounds in Standard English (The Queen's English): 12 vowels, 9 diphthongs and 23 consonants.

It will be more correct to record and study the sounds of OE on the phonological level rather than on the phonetic, since their specific phonetic features are unknown. OE is based on the dialects, constituting Common Germanic language, that is why its phonetic structure should be considered to be one developed from Common Germanic. Distinctions between the two systems are determined by changes which had taken place in the Prewritten and Early Old English period. These changes point out the origin of the OE system and the ways of its development. In the system of vowels both stressed and unstressed vowels underwent some changes. Shifts in the system of stressed vowels were stipulated by the fact that long vowels were not particularly clear cut in the transition from the ME period to NE. The diphthongization of vowels was closely connected with this phenomenon. Moreover, during the historical development the OE diphthongs were monophthongized and in ME due to the vocalization of consonants new diphthongs arose. The consequent cause of vowel changes was a widely spread (especially in the Early OE period full or partial assimilation of the vowel to the neighbouring sound. The vowels in the unstressed syllables were subjected to a significant weakening stipulated by the strong dynamic stress. The weakening took place gradually, in writing it was exposed only during transition from OE to ME. At the end of OE all unstressed vowels turned into vowels of the middle rise. In ME e was reduced to [à] and by the end of the period it was lost in flexions ending in consonants. This cause explains a great number of monosyllabic words in English.

17. Norman conquest

The Norman Conquest. The connections between Normandy and England had arisen long before the Conquest of 1066. In 1066 Duke William claimed for the English Crown referring to the fact that the childless Edward the Confessor in his will left the throne to him. He crossed the Channel and defeated the Anglo-Saxon troops at Hastings and was crowned in Westminster Abbey under the name of William I. In 1066 he administered the first census, which was the venture of an outstanding economical, social and cultural significance. People were severely punished for supplying false information, so the census was called "Doomsday book."

In the beginning, the representatives of two peoples did not mix. They spoke different languages and were subjects to different laws. But gradually, among the lowest layers of the society, a mixture began to develop. The study of English was necessary for business. The clergy also had to study English to perform their duties. The supremacy of French eventually ceased by the middle of the 14th century. This was connected with the100-Years War between France and England that started in 1339. The cause was the virtual right of English Kings to inherit the-French-throne. The-weakening, of the-French, language -influence coincided with. the period of English literature prosperity. The opening of the Parliament in 1363 took place in English, although in 1365 it came back to French. English became the language of the court by the end of the 14th century.

The growth of towns contributed to the development of trade within the country. Communication between- different regions of the country was also strengthening, thus, local dialects began to resemble each other; on the basis of London dialect the national language was forming. At the same time Anglo-Saxons assimilated a lot of French words and phrases which gradually were incorporated into the developing English language. The influence of the Norman conquest on the English language is significant.

Literature - scientific, political and belles-lettres - played an outstanding role in the development of the National language. The creative work of J.Chaucer occupies a particular place. The National Language formed and developed first in political and scientific works. In the first half of the 15th c. they were written in verse, since the second half the authors turned to prose. This contributed to the formation of grammatical norms, i.e. to further improvement of the literary language. Despite the resistance of. the church and nobility, the English language was gradually coming into common usage, so that when William Caxton, a translator and publisher, in 1477 brought a printing machine from Flandria, he started to print books in English.

Thus, the Middle English period was completed by the beginning of absolutism, which was the result of the "War of the Roses" (1455 -1485). During this war the old feudal nobility was destroyed as well as the two dynasties. The remainder reconciled owing to the marriage of Henry of Tudor and Elizabeth of York. In 1485 Henry of Tudor marked the beginning of a new dynasty under the name of Henry VII (1483-1509).

During the 15th century the conditions for the development of capitalism were being worked out. The events which took place beyond England stimulated the economical growth. And, first of all, they were geographical discoveries of 15-19^(discovery of America in 1492, a sea route to India 1498, Magellan's voyage around the world in 1519-1522). The main trade routes moved from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. The 15th c in England was often called "a transition period" in the cultural and economical respect. This period separates two centuries—the brilliant century of Chaucer from the more brilliant one of Tudor.

18. Changes in the ME alphabet and phonology

ME graphemics is not a further development of the OE one. OE letters were changed very soon after the Norman Conquest by the Carolingian minuscules. Later this script was changed by the Gothic one. Gothic writing, however, included some graphemes of OE:

1. The ligature "æ" changed into "a," "ea" or "e" in the 13th c.

2. The grapheme "ð" changed into "Þ" in the 14th century.

3. The grapheme "p" changed into "w" and then into " u,", "uu."

4. The grapheme "g" - a new grapheme which was used at the beginning of ME. ME god - OE ãod, ME bridge- OE bricã; or in such cases as yeer - year, "ã" is changed into "y."

5. The grapheme "v" was used in many cases instead of "u"

6. The grapheme "þ" disappeared and changed into the digraph "th" Some graphemes changed their distribution:

7. "c" into "k" before front vowels "i," "e" and "n," "1"

8. "u" into "o" before "m, n, w, v, u"

9. The long phoneme "u" was expressed by the digraph "ou" (as in the French language) or "ow"

10. The long "e" changed into "ie" (French):

chief, relief.

11. The French digraph "ch" [t∫] was used instead of the palatalized c [k’]

12. The voiced affricate "dã " was spelt like "g," "j," "dg": bridge, courage, joy.

13. The digraph "cw" is changed into "qu": cwen - quene

14. The long open "o," "e" were expressed by duplication.

15. In ME the final grapheme "i" was substituted by "y."

Old English vowel phonemes underwent further changes both qualitative and quantitative.

Middle English vowel phonemes system.:

short monophthongs	a, e, i, o, u
long monophthongs	a, e, e, i, o, o, u
diphthongs	ai, ei, ei, au, ou, ou, eu, eu, oi, ui, ui.

All weak vowels reduced to "e," especially in the final position:

OE nama > ME name > NE name

OE beran > ME beren > NE bear

OE sunn > ME sune > NE son