The system of OE consonants

Specific features of GLs in Phonetics

OE CONSONANTS

The stress system in GLs

In Proto-Germanic the stress was musical as in other ancient IELs. It was free and could fall at any syllable. In each word it was of course fixed.

After the 1^st consonant shift it became tonic and was fixed on the root-syllable. Verner’s Law however shows that the root vowel in GLs might be unstressed and this lead to the conclusion that originally GLs has a free stress system.

This was later changed with the appearance of loans form Romanic languages as Чахоян + Иванова write.

An essential feature of GLs separating them from other IE languages is their consonantal system, which developed from the original IE system. These regular correspondences between the consonants of GLs and IELs were discovered and systemized by Расмус Раск and Jacob Grimm. Called Grimm’s Law, or the 1^st consonant shift.

IE	Germ	Examples
/ p /	/ f /	Lat plěnus – Eng full
/ t /	/ þ /	Gr tres – Eng three
/ k /	/ h /	Lat octo – Goth ahtau
/ b /	/ p /	RU болото – Eng pool
/ d /	/ t /	Lat duo – Goth twan
/ g /	/ k /	RU иго – Eng yoke
/ b^h /	/ b /	sanser bhratar – Eng brother
/ d^h /	/ d /	sanser madhu – OE medu
/ g^h /	/ g /	Lat hostiss - RU гість – DE gast

Instead of an expected voiceless stop in some word would appear a voiced stop. These was explained by Karl Verner.

Verners Law: unstressed vowel+voiceless stop ® voiceless fricative ® voiced fricative voiced stop

/t/ ® /þ/ ® /ð/ ® /d/

//in the Gr word patěr the voiceless stop /t/ was preceded by an unstressed root vowel. Under these conditions the voiceless fricative /þ/ which had developed from it in accordance with the 1^st consonant shift became a voiced fricative /ð/ and finally it developed into the voiced stop /d/, i.e. Lat patěr® OE fæder

/k/ ® /h/ ® /ɣ/ (/g/

Besides under Verner’s Low – the rotacism. In West- and North-Germanic Languages /s/ (/z/ (/r/

Goth hausjan – OE hӯran – Germ hören

In the word-changing paradigm of notional PofS certain forms might bear the results of Verner’s Law, while others had none.

// wesan (быть) (wæs (был) (wæron (были)

// weorþan (становиться) (wearþ (стал) (wurdon (стали) (worden (превращенный)

The consonant pairs involved in grammatical alternation were f/b, þ/d, h/g, hw/w, s/r.

In the history of the EL consonants turned out to be far more stable than vowels and some of them remained unchanged through the whole period of their existence

// h and, c all, foa m

OE consonants can be described on the following grounds

1) place of articulation

- labial /p, b, m, f, v/

- dental /t, d, þ, ð, n, s, r, l/

- media-lingual /k’, g’, Ɣ’, x’/

- back-lingual (velar) /k, g, x, Ɣ/

- pharyngeal /h/

2) the manner of articulation

- stops /p, b, t, d, k, g, k’…./

- fricatives /f, v, θ, ð, s, z, x, x’, Ɣ’, Ɣ…/

3) voice

- voiced /b, d, g, ð, v, z…/

- voiceless /p, t, k, θ, f, s…/

4) length

- short (single) consonants /s, t, f, g…/

- long consonants (geminates) /ss, ff, tt, gg/

manner of articulation	length	voice	place of articulation
labial	dental	back- and medio-lingual	pharyngal
non-palatal	palatal
stops	short	voiceless	/p/	/t/	/k/ c	/k’/ c
voiced	/b/ /m/	/r/ /d/ /l/ /n/	/g/
geminates	voiceless	pp /p:/	tt /t:/	/k:/ cc	/k’:/ cc
	voiced	bb, mm	dd /d:/	/g:/ cʒ	/g’:/ cʒ
fricatives	short			<f-v>	<θ –ð> <s – z>	<x – x’> h <Ɣ – Ɣ’> ʒ	/h/
	geminates	voiceless	/f:/ ff	/θ:/ þþ /s:/ ss	<x: - x’:> hh

In the system of stops voiced consonants are opposed to the voiceless ones, which means that voice made a phonemic feature of stops: p-b, t-d, k-g etc.

In the system of fricatives voiced and voiceless consonants were in the relations of complementary distribution, that is in allophonic relations

System of geminates is a peculiar feature of OE consonants. Doubled cons-ts vere opposed in the length to the single cons-ts.

Among stops there existed both voiced and voiceless geminates while among fricatives only voiceless geminates were resisted.

Being opposed to single cons-ts geminates participated in meaning distinguishing which proves their phonemic status in OE

// scota – шотландец, scotta – людина

The main sourse of geminates in OE was I-mutation.

// Under certain conditions I-mutation effected not only the root vowel, but the following consonant too. If the root vowel was short, the following consonant was doubled.

//*cnusian ® cnyssan (штовхати)

// *framian ® fremman

NO DOUBLING IF

1) the root vowel was long

2) it was followed by a cluster of consonants

3) it was followed by a r. In this case i was preserved too.

However geminates turned out to be rather unstable. Having appeared at the beginning of the OE period, they disintegrated at the end of it. In ModE doubling of cons-ts doesn’t indicate length of a sound. It’s rather a graphical device used to denot shortness of the preceding vowel (potter, kiss)

In OE there also was an opposition of palatal conts-tsto non-palatal ones: /k/ - /k’/; /g/ - /g’/; /x/ - /x’/; /Ɣ/ - /Ɣ’/ which disintegrated during the MidE period.

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