The document provides an overview of the history and development of the Germanic languages from Proto-Indo-European. It describes how the comparative method was used to reconstruct Proto-Germanic and traces the branches of the Germanic language family tree. It also summarizes the two major sound shifts that occurred in Proto-Germanic: the first sound shift involved changes to stops and fricatives, and Verner's Law further modified voiceless fricatives based on stress.
The document provides an overview of the history and development of the Germanic languages from Proto-Indo-European. It describes how the comparative method was used to reconstruct Proto-Germanic and traces the branches of the Germanic language family tree. It also summarizes the two major sound shifts that occurred in Proto-Germanic: the first sound shift involved changes to stops and fricatives, and Verner's Law further modified voiceless fricatives based on stress.
The document provides an overview of the history and development of the Germanic languages from Proto-Indo-European. It describes how the comparative method was used to reconstruct Proto-Germanic and traces the branches of the Germanic language family tree. It also summarizes the two major sound shifts that occurred in Proto-Germanic: the first sound shift involved changes to stops and fricatives, and Verner's Law further modified voiceless fricatives based on stress.
The document provides an overview of the history and development of the Germanic languages from Proto-Indo-European. It describes how the comparative method was used to reconstruct Proto-Germanic and traces the branches of the Germanic language family tree. It also summarizes the two major sound shifts that occurred in Proto-Germanic: the first sound shift involved changes to stops and fricatives, and Verner's Law further modified voiceless fricatives based on stress.
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History of English
Lecture 2 1. Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The word was first used in the middle of the 19th century to emphasize the difference between a newer approach to the study of language and the more traditional approach of philology. Unlike philologists, linguists are involved in the study of spoken languages and to the problems of analyzing them as they operate at a given point in time. 2. Historical linguistics, also called Diachronic Linguistics, is the branch of linguistics concerned with the study of phonological, grammatical, and semantic changes, the reconstruction of earlier stages of languages, and the discovery and application of the methods by which genetic relationships among languages can be demonstrated. The Comparative method This method is concerned with the reconstruction of an earlier language or earlier state of a language on the basis of a comparison of related words and expressions in different languages or dialects derived from it. The comparative method was developed in the course of the 19th century for the reconstruction of Proto-Indo- European and was subsequently applied to the study of other language families. The family tree of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Indo-European
Western branch ____________Eastern branch
Western branch __________________________________________________
West European ___________________________________________________
West Germanic North Germanic East Germanic West Germanic West Germanic Old High German High German Old Saxon Low German Old Low Franconian Dutch Old English English Old Frisian Frisian Plyny the Elder All Germanic tribes were passing through the stage of developing called barbarism. We learn about ancient Teutons from Caesar, Plyny the Elder, etc. According to Plyny Germanic tribes in the 1 century AD consisted of 5 groups: -the Vindili (the Goths, the Burgundians, spoke East G.L.) -the Ingevones (North-western Germ. territ., North Sea) -the Istveons (the western part, the shores of Rhein) -the Herminones (the southern part) -the Hillavions (inhabited Scandinavia, spoke northern G. L.) The main features of Germanic languages The main features of G.L. on 3 linguistic levels: -phonetic -grammatical -lexical Phonetic features - stress, accent. In Indo-European languages the accent was free or moving and tonic. Later in G.L. it became fixed on the 1 root syllable (except verbs with a prefix) and was dynamic. It had brought the reduction of endings. The PG phoneme system The works of Jacob Grimm and Karl Verner
Comparing the phoneme system of Germanic languages with
other IE languages, Jacob Grimm discovered a set of correspondences between PIE consonants and the PG ones. The most prominent peculiarity of the Germanic system of consonants is a big number of fricative phonemes and a relatively small number of stops/plosives. At the same time in the reconstructed PIE phoneme system there was a rich number of stop (проривні) consonants. This system underwent great changes in PG. Table 1.Comparative Table of the IE and Germanic System of Consonants
Place of IE Germanic
articulation consonants consonants Labial p, b, bh p, b, f Dental t, d, dh t, d, þ Velar Pure k, g, gh k, g, x Labial velar k w , g w , g w h kw, gw, xw THE FIRST SOUND-SHIFTING Aspirated voiced Voiced stops Voiceless stops Voiceless stops Дзвінкі Глухі проривні Fricatives Придихові дзвінкі проривні Глухі фрикативні проривні
Norse trēs treis þrír Three tū tu þú thou PIE /k/ became in Germanic /x/ as in Modern German ach or Scots loch. In Old English and other early Germanic languages it usually appears with the spelling h. It was lost between vowels in prehistoric OE, but it can be seen in other Germanic languages. The IE voiced stops /b/, /d/, and /g/ became in Germanic the corresponding voiceless stops /p/, /t/ and /k/. The /b/ occurred only rarely in PIE, but examples of its development to Germanic /p/ can be seen in the English words deep. b p PIE /b/ > PG /p/ d t PIE /d/ > PG /t/ g k PIE /g/ > PG /k/
Latin Greek Gothic English
decem deka taihun ten
edō edō itan eat
Latin Greek Gothic English
ager agros akrs acre genus genos kuni kin PIE had a series of phonemes that appeared in Sanskrit as bh, dh and gh, and in Greek as the letters phi, theta, and chi (transliterated in the Latin alphabet ad ph, th, and ch respectively). The exact nature of the original sounds is disputed, but traditionally they have been called aspirated voiced stops (придихові дзвінкі проривні), and represented by the symbols bh, dh, and gh. In many positions they developed into voiced stops in various Germanic languages. bh b PIE /bh/ > PG /b/; dh d PIE /dh/ > PG /d/
Old Indian Latin Gothic English
bhrātar frāter brōþar brother Old Indian Gothic Old English Old Saxon mádhyas midjis mid middi
Latin IE Gothic English
hostis *ghostis gasts guest It was followed by a series of smaller changes, usually called Verner’s Law, in which voiceless fricatives became voiced if the preceding syllable was unstressed, but otherwise remained unchanged. This may have taken place in the 1 st century of our era. Compare Sanskrit bhrātar and Gothic brōþar; Sanskrit pitā(r), Latin pater, ON faðir, Gothic fadar.
PG voiceless fricatives f, þ, h that appeared due to first sound- shifting, and s (<IE s) in the inter-vocal position and at the end of the word remained voiceless if the main stress fell on the previous vowel. If the previous vowel was unstressed fricatives f, þ, h, s became voiced, that is moved to b, d, g, z. f >b : Latin caput, ON hofoþ, Gothic haubiþ, OS hōbid; t >d : Sanskrit mátā(r), Russ. мать, матери, OS môdar;
