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 19^th 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 (19^th 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 9^th 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