Linguistic Features of the Germanic Languages

Phonetic Features

All the Germanic Languages of the past and present have common linguistic features that are not shared by other groups of languages in the Indo-European family (Slavonic group, Romance group, etc.). These features are characteristic of the Germanic group only. They appeared during the period of the Proto-Germanic Language, before it split into a certain number of the Germanic languages. First of all we are going to discuss the common Germanic phonetic features.

 

Word Stress/Accent

Indo-European (Non-Germanic) Proto-Germanic
1. free stress (movable, i.e. can appear in any part of a word (root, prefix, suffix)); 1. fixed stress (can’t move either in form- or word-building and is usually placed on root or prefix);
2. pitch stress (musical) 2. dynamic stress (force, breath stress)
E.g.: русский E.g.: German English
б`елый `Liebe `white
белизн`а `lieben `whiteness
белов`атый `lieberhaft `whitish
бел`ить ge`liebt `whitewash

 

The Proto-Germanic type of stress led to the formation of the following peculiarities of the Germanic languages as compared to non-Germanic Indo-European languages:

· phonetic – as a result of the fixed position of the stress the unstressed syllables were becoming weaker and weaker, they got less distinct and neutral sounds (such as “schwa”) appeared;

· morphological – as a result of the fact that the stress was fixed on the root and the syllables following the root were always unstressed and weak, many Germanic languages began to lose suffixes and grammatical endings and became ANALYTICAL LANGUAGES.

 

E.g.: Old English (OE) [`sunu]

Middle English (ME) [`sunə]

New English (NE) [`sun]

Modern English (ModE) [`sΛn] (the word “son”)

 

Vowels

 

Vowels undergo different types of changes:

1. Qualitative change – affects the quality of a sound (e.g. [o à Λ]).

2. Quantitative change – affects the length of a sound (e.g. [i à i:]).

3. Dependent/positional change– a change that occurs in certain position or in certain phonetic conditions (e.g. bit_ – bite [bit à bait]).

4. Independent/spontaneous change – affects a certain sound in all positions irrespective of phonetic conditions and serves to distinguish a grammatical phenomenon (ablaut) (more about it in Lecture 4).

Main tendencies in Vowel Changes in the Germanic Languages:

1. Short vowels à become neutralized.

2. Long vowels à become short and more open.

à become diphthongized and more closed.

 

Proto-Germanic Vowel System:

Short Vowels i e a o u
Long Vowels i: e: a: o: u:

Some vowel correspondences between Germanic and on-Germanic Languages:

Sound Correspondence Non-Germanic Germanic
Latin Русский English German Swedish
[a: à o:] mater мать mother - moder
[o à a] nox ночь - Nacht natt
[e à i] ventus ветер wind Wind vind
[u à o] sunus сын son Sohn son

Consonants

The comparison of the Germanic and non-Germanic languages within the Indo-European family reveals regular correspondences between German and non-German consonants.

First Consonant Shift (Grimm’s Law) –in the 19th Jacob Grimm, a German scholar, discovered the existence of regular correspondence between Indo-European (IE) and German consonants and subdivided them into 3 groups:

 

№ Consonant Correspondences Examples
Old Modern
IE PG Non-German (Latin) German (OE) Non-German (Italian, рус.) German (English, German)
[bh,dh,gh] à aspirated voiced stops [b, d, g] non-aspirated voiced stops bhrāta (Hind) brōþor брат brother, Bruder
rudhira(Hind) rēad - red
hostis giest гость guest, Gast
[b, d, g] à voiced stops [p, t, k] voiceless stops/plosives labare pōl болото pool, Pfuhl
decem tīen dieci, десять ten
genu cnēo ginocchio knee, Knie
[p, t, k] à voiceless stops/plosives [f, q, h] voiceless fricatives pedis fōt piedi foot, Fuß
tres þrēo tre, три three
cordis heort cuore heart, Herz

 

Verner’s Law –Carl Verner, a Danish scholar (19th c.), explained the consonant correspondences as a gradual historical process (a change takes place in the course of time):

 

Consonant Correspondences Latin OE ModE
1. [p, t, k] à voiceless stops/plosives [f, q, h] à voiceless fricatives [v, ð/d, g] voiced fricatives septem seofen seven
pater fæđer father
socrus swaiho(Gothic) Schwager(Germ)
2. Rhotacism ausis (Lithuanian) Auso (Gothic) ear, Ohr (Germ)
[s] à [z] à [r]

P.S.: these processes usually happened on condition that the consonants were situated between vowels and if preceded by an unstressed vowel.

Modern Examples: seethe – sodden, death – dead, was – were.

 

Second Consonant Shift –happened in the 9th c. in Old High German and today we can observe it comparing English and German:

 

Consonant Correspondences English German
1. [t] à à [ts] two zwei
[s] water Wasser
2. [q] à [d] three drei
3. [d] à [t] daughter Tochter
4. [k] à [h] make machen

H/w:

1. Ex. 3-5, p. 48-49 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева (copies).


Lecture 4