Class Infinitive Preterite Sg. Preterite Pl. Participle II

Vowel Gradation (Ablaut) in IE and Germanic.

Germanic Fracture. In Germanic languages the quality of a stressed vowel is in some cases dependent on a following sound. The earliest manifestation of this principle has been termed Fracture or Breaking. Fracture concerns two pairs of vowels: e-i, u-o.

An IE e in the root syllable correspond to Germanic i, if it is followed by i, j or the cluster ‘nasal+consonant ’: Lat. v e nt us- OE w i nd; Lat. m e d i us- OE m i dd e ‘middle’.

In Gothic the general law is modified by a specific feature. Every e becomes i, and only before the consonants r, h, hw this i changes back into e: Lat. s e dere- Goth. s i tan ‘sit’; but Lat. f e rr e- Goth. b ai r an ‘carry’- the digraph ai is pronounced [e].

IE u – Germanic u, if it is followed by u or by the cluster ‘nasal+consonant ’; otherwise the IE u corresponds to Germanic o: Sanskr. s u nus ‘son’ – OE s u nu.

Vowel Gradation, which J.Grimm termed Ablaut, may be defined as the patterned variation of vowel-sound in relation to meaning, in forms of the same root: OE dr ī fan ‘drive’-dr ā f-dr i fon-dr i fen. This is called root-gradation: MnE dr i ve-dr o ve-dr i ven.

Gradation may be qualitative, when the vowel is varied in quality (as in dr ī fan –dr ā f), or quantitative, when the variation is a matter of length (as between the preterite singular and plural of ‘stelan’-”to steal”: st æ l- st ǣ lon.

In IE there was the basic gradation series; full grade e, o (Gmc. e, a), lengthened grade, and reduced grade or zero-grade.

That is to say, the basic vowels e and o (or a) might also be lengthened or reduced to the vanishing-point. E.g., the word for ‘knee’ had in Proto-Indo-European the variant forms *gen-, *gon-, *gn-. The e-grade appears in Latin ‘g e nu’ and the o-grade in Greek ‘g o nu’.

In the Germanic languages it is the zero-grade *gn- that appears; by Grimm’s law this becomes kn-, as in Goth. ‘ kn iu’ and OE ‘ cn ēō(w)’.

The system of Gradation in Germanic languages is best seen in the Strong Verbs of the Gothic language.

1. Goth. r ei san r ai s r i sum r i sans

OE r ī san r ā s r i son r i sen

‘rise’ ei [i:] - ai - i - i

2. Goth k iu san k au s k u sum k u sans

OE c ēō san c ēā s c u ron c o ren

‘choose’ iu - au - u - u

3. Goth. b i ndan b a nd b u ndum b u ndans

OE b i ndan b a nd b u ndon b u nden

‘bind’ i - a - u - u

n Note: Class 3 – The consonant following the root vowel is always a liquid (плавный), r or l, or a nasal (носовой), m or n, followed by another consonant. They are bound to be syllabic (слогообразующие). In Germanic, a syllabic consonant develops into a group ‘ u+consonant’: n>un, r>ur, l>ul.

4. Goth. st i lan st a l st ē lum st u lans

OE st e lan st æ l st ǣ lon st o len

‘steal’ i - a - ē - u

n Class 4 – the root vowel is always followed by a single consonant, either a liquid r or l, or a nasal m. The u of the participle II - the same way as in class 3.

n But, there is a long ē in the past plural form, which doesn’t fit into the system. If we compare Gothic facts with Latin, we can see that there are several words which have a short e in their present stem, but a long ē in the perfect: s e deō ‘sit’, perfect s ē d ī. Here is a quantitative gradation e-ē. As the Latin e corresponds to Gothic i, and as Latin long ē – to Gothic long ē, the alternation st i lan-st ē lum in Gothic class 4 can be traced back to the Latin s e deō- s ē d ī.

5. Goth. g i ban g a f g ē bum g i bans

OE g ie fan g ea f g ēā fon g ie fen

‘give’ i - a - ē - i

n Class 5 – The root vowel is always followed by a single consonant, other than a liquid or a nasal. The long ē – the same way as in class 4. But, since the consonant in this class isn’t sonorous, it couldn’t be syllabic and develop into a group ‘u+consonant’. The i of participle ll has been introduced on the analogy of the infinitive.

Classes 1-5 of Gothic Strong Verbs illustrate the basic gradation system prevailing in Germanic languages.

Classes 6 and 7 stand apart.

Conclusion: If we discard all additional vocalic changes which obscured the original gradation series, we can see that the grade |e| is characteristic of infinitive forms, the grade |a| is characteristic of preterite singular forms, and the reduced or zero-grade is characteristic of preterite plural forms and of participle II.

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