Phonetic peculiarities of Germanic Languages. Word Stress and its role in further development of Germanic languages

Linguistic Features of Germanic Languages

In ancient IE, prior to the separation of Germanic, there existed two ways of word accentuation: musical pitch and force stress (otherwise called dynamic, expiratory or breath stress). The position of the stress was movable and free, which means that it could fall on any syllable of the word – a root morpheme, an affix or an ending – and could be shifted both in form building and word-building. (cf. Russian: домом, дома, дома, etc.).

But these properties of the word accent were changed in PG. Force or expiratory stress became the only type of stress used. The stress was now fixed on the first syllable, which was usually the root of the word and sometimes the prefix; the other syllables – suffixes and endings – were unstressed. The stress could no longer move either in form-building or in word-building. This phenomenon has played an important role in the development of the Germanic languages, and especially in phonetic and morphological changes. Due to the difference in the force of articulation, the stressed and unstressed syllables underwent different changes: accented syllables were pronounced with great distinctness and precision, while unaccented became less distinct and were phonetically weakened. The differences between the sounds in stressed position were preserved and emphasised, whereas the contrasts between the unaccented sounds were weakened and lost. Since the stress was fixed on the root, the weakening and loss of sounds mainly affected the suffixes and grammatical endings. Many ending merged with the suffixes, were weakened and dropped. E.g. (the reconstructed word)PG * fiskaz Goth fisks Oicel fiscr OE fisc

The First or Proto-Germanic Consonant Shift (Grimm's Law)

Comparison with other languages within the IE family reveals regular correspondences between Germanic and non-Germanic consonants. It looks as if the Germanic consonants 'shifted' as compared with their non-Germanic counterparts. This phenomenon was first observed and later formulated in terms of phonetic law (1822) by (Rasmus Rask and Jacob Grimm. Hence its name- Grimm's Law. By Grimm's Law, which includes 3 acts, voiceless plosives (stops) developed in PG into voiceless fricatives (1 act); voiced aspirated plosives were shifted to pure voiced plosives or voiced fricatives; and voiced plosives changed into voiceless plosives (stops).

1 act	2^nd act	3d act
p] ® [f] pater – fadar [t] ® [θ] tres – Þreis [ i:] [k] ® [h] cor(d) - heorte	[b] ® [p] слабый – slepan [d] ® [t] древо – treow [g] ® [k]горе - caru	[bh]® [b] bhrata – broðor [dh]® [d] vidhave –widve [gh]® [g] гость - Gast

[bh – b - - p – f ] [ dh – d - t- θ ] [ gh – g – k – h ]

The correspondences found between IE and Germanic consonants are interpreted in the following manner: the Germanic sounds are the result of a development of the original IE sounds caused by external and internal factors.

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