Peculiarities of Germanic Languages

1. Indo-European Family. The Germanic group of languages:

1.1. East Germanic

1.2. North Germanic

1.3. West Germanic

2. Linguistic peculiarities of Germanic languages:

2.1. Word stress

2.2. The Germanic Vowel Shift

2.3. The First Consonant Shift (Grimm’s Law)

2.4. The Second Consonant Shift (Verner’s Law)

2.5. Germanic Rhotacism

1. Indo-European Family. The Germanic group of languages.

The historical (genealogical) classification of languages groups them according to their origin from a common linguistic ancestor. English belongs to the Germanic group which is one of the twelve groups of Indo-European (IE) family.

The Germanic languages in the modern world are:

· English (Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries);

· Danish (Denmark);

· German (Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Switzerland);

· Afrikaans (South African Republic);

· Swedish (Sweden);

· Icelandic (Iceland).

The history of the Germanic group begins with the Proto-Germanic (PG) language. The Proto-Germanic is the linguistic ancestor or the parent-language of the Germanic group. It is supposed to have split from related IE languages between the 15^th and 10^th c. B.C. PG is an entirely pre-historical language. It was never recorded in written form. In the 19^th century it was reconstructed by methods of comparative linguistics from written evidence in descendant languages.

The Old Germanic languages form 3 groups:

· East Germanic;

· North Germanic;

· West Germanic.

1.1. East Germanic

The East Germanic subgroup was formed by the tribes who returned from Scandinavia at the beginning of our era. The most numerous and powerful were the Goths. The Gothic language is now dead but it is presented in written records of the 6^th c. (e.g. Ulfilas’ Gospels – a manuscript of about 200 pages, 5^th -6^th c.).

This is a translation of the Gospels from Greek into Gothic by Ulfilas, (a West Gothic bishop). Other East Germanic languages have left no written traces (Vandalic, Burgundian).

1.2. North Germanic

The North Germanic tribes lived on the southern coasts of the Scandinavian peninsula and in Northern Denmark (since the 4^th c.). They spoke Old Norse or Old Scandinavian. There are runic inscriptions dated the 3d-9^th c. Runic inscriptions were carved on objects made of hard material. The alphabet was called runic alphabet or the runes.

Other languages are: Old Danish, Old Norwegian, Old Swedish.

The north Germanic subgroup includes two more languages: Icelandic and Faroese, whose origin goes back to the Victory Age.

1.3. West Germanic

West Germanic tribes dwelt in the lowlands between the Oder and the Elbe. They spoke Old High German (8^th c.), Old English (7^th c.), Old Saxon (9^th c.), Old Dutch (12^th c.)

2. Linguistic Peculiarities of Germanic Languages

2.1. Word Stress

In ancient IE the position of the stress was free and movable, it could fall on any syllable of the word. It could be shifted (e.g. R. домом, дома, дома). In early PG word stress was still movable but in late PG its position in the word was stabilized. The stress was fixed on the first syllable, other syllables - suffixes and endings – were unstressed. The stress was no longer movable. In Modern English there is a sharp contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables. The main stress falls on the root-morpheme and is never shifted in building grammatical forms:

be'come be'coming over'come

The fixing of word stress played a very important role in the development of the Germanic languages. Unstressed syllables were phonetically weakened and lost. This weakening affected mostly suffixes and endings. Many suffixes merged with endings, they were weakened and dropped.

PG * fiskaz

Gt fisks

OIcl fiskr

OE fisc

2.2. The Germanic Vowel Shift

Throughout history vowels showed a strong tendency to change. They underwent

· qualitative change

· quantitative change

· dependent change

· independent change

IE short [o] > in Germanic more open [a] and in PG they merge into [o].

OE maZan, mxZ

IE long [R] was narrowed to [o:] and merged with [o:].

2.3. The First Consonant Shift (Grimm’s Law)

It was formulated by Jacob Grimm in the early 19^th. It consists of three major consonant changes.

Firstly, the aspirated voiced stops appeared in Latin as voiced fricatives and in Germanic as unaspirated voiced stops:

IE aspirated voiced stops > voiced fricatives > Germanic voiced stops

bh dh gh

b d g

Sanscrit bhrator – Gothic bropar

dhrsnoti – OE dear (to dare)

rudhiras – OE read (red)

Secondly, the voiceless stops retained in Latin became voiceless fricatives.

IE voiceless stops > Germanic voiceless fricatives

p t k

f p h

Ukrainian - Gothic fimf

Latin tres - OE pri

Ukrainian - Gothic hwapar

OE hwxper

Thirdly, the voiced stops also retained in Latin became voiceless stops.

IE voiced stops > Germanic voiceless stops

b d g

p t k

R. болото – OE pol (pool)

Lat. duo – OE twa (two)

Lat. genu – OE cneo (knee)

Greek agros – OE xcer (acre)

These correspondences between Latin and English are important as English borrowed many words from Latin so that the same word etymologically may have come into English through two different channels, once through Germanic and a second time through Latin. In the following pairs the 1^st word is Germanic and the second Latin:

Exceptions to Grimm’s Law:

1) sp

st the second element didn't change

sk

Rus. стать – Gothic standan

Latin hostis – Mod E guest

2) pt

kt the 1^st elements are changes, but t is not

Sanscrit nakta – Gothic nahts

2.4. The Second Consonant Shift (Verner’s Law)

Danish scholar Carl Verner discovered another series of consonant changes in the late 19^th century. By Verner’s Law the voiceless fricatives which had developed through stage 2 became voiced when they were in a voiced environment and when the stress in IE was on the syllable which preceded this consonant.

This result in the following changes:

f > v

th > d

k > g

In addition the voiceless fricative /s/ became /z/ and then in North and West Germanic developed further to /r/. This change is called Germanic Rhotacism. The effects of this change by Verner’s Law are not very visible in Mod E, because of various developments which have taken place subsequently. In Old E the variation between the original consonants and the new one can be seen in the present and singular preterite tense as compared with the preterite plural and past participle of strong verbs.

OE weorpan – preterite plural wurdon

forleosan – past participle forloren (Mod E adj forlorn)

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 3537