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    Common Characteristics of The Germanic Languages

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    The document summarizes some key characteristics of the Germanic languages: 1. They underwent the Great Consonant Shift described by Grimm's Law, where consonants like 'p', 't', 'k' shifted to 'f', 'θ', 'h'. Verner's Law also affected some medial consonants. 2. They developed a fixed word accent on the first syllable of most words. 3. Adjectives had a twofold declension depending on whether they were used with or without a preceding article.

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    Common Characteristics of The Germanic Languages

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    ani
    717 views6 pages
    The document summarizes some key characteristics of the Germanic languages: 1. They underwent the Great Consonant Shift described by Grimm's Law, where consonants like 'p', 't', 'k' shifted to 'f', 'θ', 'h'. Verner's Law also affected some medial consonants. 2. They developed a fixed word accent on the first syllable of most words. 3. Adjectives had a twofold declension depending on whether they were used with or without a preceding article.

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    Original Title

    Lecture 2 -

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    The document summarizes some key characteristics of the Germanic languages: 1. They underwent the Great Consonant Shift described by Grimm's Law, where consonants like 'p', 't', 'k' shifted to 'f', 'θ', 'h'. Verner's Law also affected some medial consonants. 2. They developed a fixed word accent on the first syllable of most words. 3. Adjectives had a twofold declension depending on whether they were used with or without a preceding article.

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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    717 views6 pages

    Common Characteristics of The Germanic Languages

    Uploaded by

    ani
    The document summarizes some key characteristics of the Germanic languages: 1. They underwent the Great Consonant Shift described by Grimm's Law, where consonants like 'p', 't', 'k' shifted to 'f', 'θ', 'h'. Verner's Law also affected some medial consonants. 2. They developed a fixed word accent on the first syllable of most words. 3. Adjectives had a twofold declension depending on whether they were used with or without a preceding article.

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    of 6

    LECTURE 2

    Common characteristics of the Germanic Languages.


    The Germanic branch of languages possesses certain characteristics features, the
    principal of which are connected with such phenomena as:
    1. The great shift of consonants (Consonant change) თანხმოვანთა
    მონაცვლეობა
    2. Word accent. სიტყვის მახვილი
    3. The twofold declension of adjectives. ზედსართავი სახელის ორმაგი
    ბრუნება
    4. The verbal system. ზმნური სისტემა

    1. The Great Shift of Consonants (Consonant Change). Grimm’s Law

    The Indo-European consonant system is preserved almost intact in Sanskrit. It


    also appears, more or less unchanged in all other languages of this family, except the
    Germanic group. The latter, therefore, stands by itself because of characteristic
    consonant changes. The study of these changes led R. K. Rask, a Danish scholar
    (1787-1832), to the conclusion that there was a certain regularity in them. His
    findings were later formulated more completely by a German scholar, Jacob Grim
    (1785-1863), whose deductions are more commonly called as Grimm’s Law.
    According to Grimm’s Law, certain series of consonant sounds show regular shifting
    in the Germanic languages.
    The great consonant shift affected three series of Indo-European consonants:
    the labials (ბაგისმიერი) p, ph, b, bh.
    the dentals (კბილისმიერი) t, th, d, dh.
    the palatals (სასისმიერი) k, kh, g, gh.
    Act 1. The Indo-European voiceless stops (ყრუ მსკდომები) p, t, k and
    voiceless aspirated stops (ფშვინიერი მსკდომები) ph, th, kh shifted in early
    Germanic to voiceless constrictives (ყრუ კუმშვადები) f, θ, h, respectively (that is, IE
    p, t, k / ph, th, kh > Early Ger. f, θ, h).

    IE p, ph > Gmc. f

    Skr. pitár Gt. fadar


    Lat. pater OE fæder (MnE father)
    Russ. пять OE. fīf ( MnE five )

    IE t, th > Gmc. θ

    Gr. Tries Gt. ƀreis


    Lat. trēs OE ƀrēo
    Russ. Три OE ƀrēo (MnE three)

    IE k, kh > Gmc. h

    Skr. cunas (dog) Gt. hund (hound)


    Lat. centum OE hundred

    NOTES: There are two notable exceptions to this series of changes when
    voiceless stops remain unaffected: a) when immediately preceded by “s”, and b) when
    two voiceless stops occur next to each other, only the first stop of the group is
    affected. Examples:
    a) Voiceless stops immediately preceded by “s”:
    Russ. cтoять OE standan (MnE stand)
    Lat. piscis Gt. fisks; OE fisc (MnE
    fish)
    b) Two voiceless stops occurring next to each other:
    Lat. Octo OE. eahta (MnE 8)

    Act 2. The Indo-European voiced stops b, d, g shifted in early Germanic to


    voiceless stops p, t, k, respectively (i.e. IE b, d, g > Early Germanic p, t, k).

    IE b > Gmc p

    Lat. labi (sink away) Gt. slēpan


    Russ. cлaбeть OE. slǣpān (MnE to sleep)

    IE d > Gmc t

    Skr. dvā Gt. twai


    Lat. duo OE. twā, tū; twā; (MnE two)
    Skr. ad (eat) OE. étan (MnE eat)

    IE g > Gmc k

    Gr. egō Gt. ik


    Lat. ego OE. ic (MnE I )
    Act 3. The Indo-European voiced aspirated stops (მჟღერი ფშვინიერები)“bh,
    dh, gh“ shifted in early Germanic to voiced constrictives (მჟღერი კუმშვადები)
    respectively. It must be noted that Indo-European “bh” appears only in Sanskrit,
    while in Greek it was represented by “ph” and in Latin by “f” (that is, IE bh, dh, gh
    > Germanic b, d, g).

    IE bh > Gmc. b

    Skr. bhratar Gt. brōƀar


    Gr. phrator OHG. brooder
    Lat. frater OE. brōƀor (MnE brother)

    IE dh > Gmc. ð (>d)

    Skr. Madhu OE. medu (honey)


    Lat. Medius Gt. midjis (middle)

    IE gh > Gmc. g

    Skr. Ghost-is Gt. gasts


    Lat. hostis MnE guest

    The consonant shift helps linguists to distinguish between the native and loan
    element.

    2. Verner’s Law
    In spite of the wide applicability and great regularity of Grimm’s law,
    subsequent researches showed some cases for which the law provided no explanation.
    According to Grimm, the Indo-European “p” preserved as such in Latin and
    Greek, was changed to an “f” in Germanic languages.
    piscis fish
    pēs fēt (feet)
    In other words, According to the Grimm’s law the original voiceless stops “p, t,
    k“ were changed to constrictives: “f, ƀ, h”. But then it was noted that in such a pair of
    words as Lat. “centum” and English “hundred” the correspondence between the “c”
    and “h” was according to rule, but that between the “t” and “d” was not. The “d” in
    the English word “hundred” should have been a voiceless constrictive “ƀ” – hunƀred.
    This and many other examples were great puzzle to scholars until explained by
    Karl Verner, who in 1875 formulated the law which is called after him. Verner found
    that initial consonants and those protected by the accent in Indo-European and
    Germanic suffered no variation, while certain medial or final voiceless consonants in
    early Germanic, when not protected by the accent or by contact with other voiceless
    consonants, became voiced.
    The only consonants affected by Verner’s Law were “f, θ, h” (from IE “p, t,
    k”) and “s” (inherited from Indo-European, it was not involved in the consonant
    shift). They became the corresponding voiced sounds “v, ð, g” and “z”. But for
    English and the other West Germanic languages these appear as “v, d, g” and “r” from
    “z”, by a substitution called rhotacism. So the word “hundred” therefore quite
    regularly corresponds to “centum” .
    Interesting illustrations of Verner’s law occur in names of kinship relationship,
    such as “father, mother”. These words show regular correspondence to original forms,
    as shown by Latin “pater, mater”. But proper Old English forms, were “fæder, mōdor”,
    which are not regular, according to the consonant change. This anomaly is explained
    by the position of the Indo-European accent preserved only in the Skr. “pitár, mãtár”.
    The successive changes may be represented, as far as the consonants are concerned,
    by the following forms:
    Early Gmc. father, mother [θ]
    then father, mother [ð]
    later Gmc. fáder, móder, by shifting of accent.
    The change from “s” to “z” under Verner’s law (so called rhotacis) may be
    illustrated by some Modern English words. In Old English there is verb “forleosan”
    (“to lose”) the principal forms of which are:
    forlsan, forleas, forluron, forloren
    in which “r” replaced the “s” of the stem in the last two forms. This participial form
    with “r” from original “z” is still preserved in the adjective “forlorn” (უბედური,
    ბედკრული, მიტოვებული).

    3. The Germanic Accent

    Word stresss is one of the main characteristics of Germanic languages. In Indo-


    European the accent was free. It could fall on any part of a word, and was often
    shifted in one and the same word from the root to the ending and back again. This
    free accent was retained in the earliest Germanic, but later on it was replaced by a
    fixed stress, falling regularly upon a particular syllable of the word. The law of
    Germanic accent is as follows: generally it fell on the root syllable of a word, but in
    nouns and adjectives and in verbs, derived from either, it fell on the first syllable of
    the word, whether root or prefix. The chief exception occurred ony in verbs
    beginning with one of the following prefixes: be-, for- , over-. For instance:

    be´cuman > become for´gyfan > forgive


    be´fealan > befall for´gytan > forget
    be´ginnan > begin ofer´sēon > oversee, etc.

    Verner has shown that this shifting of the place of the accent took place later
    than Germanic consonant shift.

    4. The Twofold Adjective Declension

    Another peculiarity of the Germanic languages in their earliest forms is a


    twofold declension of adjectives which depends upon the difference in their usage. In
    Germanic languages every adjective could be declined with two sets of endings
    according to its syntactical functions in the sentence.
    Thus, the strong form, as it was called by J. Grimm, was employed when the
    adjective was used predicatively or attributively without a preceding article or
    demonstrative pronoun. The adjective took on the weak form when used absolutely,
    that is, as an attribute after the definite article or demonstrative pronoun. For
    instance:

    dieser (der) gute Mann (weak form) = this (the) good man
    ein guter Mann (strong form) = one good man

    The strong form corresponds in general to the adjective inflection in the cognate
    languages (მონათესავე ენებში), while the weak form was developed in early
    Germanic, and may thus be regarded as a peculiarity of the languages belonging to
    this branch.
    This twofold declension of adjectives was lost in the further development of
    English, as well as in other West Germanic languages except High German, but it was
    still preserved in Old English.

    5. The Verbal System

    The last characteristic feature of Germanic languages is related to the verbal


    system. According to the way, how they form their preterite (that is, past form), all
    verbs in Germanic languages are divided into two groups – weak and strong. Weak
    verbs form their preterite with a dental suffix -d (-t). This was the most extensive way
    of formation of the preterite for most Germanic verbs which are nowadays known as
    regular verbs. Thus, dental preterite, the -d (-t) or – ed of English, originated in early
    Germanic.
    Less characteristic, although still important, is the way how strong verbs form
    their preterite with the help of vowel change or “gradation” as in “write – wrote”;
    “give − gave”, “take – took”, etc. This was the peculiarity by which tenses were
    distinguished in Germanic, as it had no parallels in any other Indo-European
    languages.
    In addition to this, there are some other important peculiarities of the Germanic
    verbal system. The Germanic verbal system is extremely simple, and there are few
    inflectional forms. Germanic had only two inflectional tenses present and past, the
    former was used for all present and future time, the latter for all past time.

    REFERENCES:
    1. Kraveishvili M., History of the English language. Tbilisi: Ganatleba, 1998.

    STUDY QUESTIONS
    1. What are the main characteristic features of Germanic languages?
    2. Why does the Germanic group of languages stand by itself?
    3. Define the essence of Grimm’s law.
    4. What contradictions were found in Grimm’s law? Give example.
    5. What is the essence of Verner’s law? Give examples.
    6. Discuss the peculiarities of the Germanic accent.
    7. What is the essence of the twofold adjective declension in the Germanic
    languages. Discuss the difference between the strong and the weak forms of Old
    Germanic adjectives.
    8. Discuss the main peculiarities of the Germanic verbal system. What is the main
    principle of differentiation between weak and strong verbs in the Germanic
    languages? Give examples.

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