Consonants

Vowels

Vowels undergo different types of changes:

1. Qualitative change – affects the quality of a sound (e.g. [o à Λ]).

2. Quantitative change – affects the length of a sound (e.g. [i à i:]).

3. Dependent/positional change – a change that occurs in certain position or in certain phonetic conditions (e.g. bit_ – bit e [b i t à b ai t]).

4. Independent/spontaneous change – affects a certain sound in all positions irrespective of phonetic conditions and serves to distinguish a grammatical phenomenon (ablaut) (more about it in Lecture 4).

Main tendencies in Vowel Changes in the Germanic Languages:

1. Short vowels à become neutralized.

2. Long vowels à become short and more open.

à become diphthongized and more closed.

Proto-Germanic Vowel System:

Short Vowels	i	e	a	o	u
Long Vowels	i:	e:	a:	o:	u:

Some vowel correspondences between Germanic and on-Germanic Languages:

Sound Correspondence	Non-Germanic	Germanic
Latin	Русский	English	German	Swedish
[a: à o:]	m a ter	м а ть	m o ther	-	m o der
[o à a]	n o x	н о чь	-	N a cht	n a tt
[e à i]	v e ntus	в е тер	w i nd	W i nd	v i nd
[u à o]	s u nus	с ы н	s o n	S o hn	s o n

The comparison of the Germanic and non-Germanic languages within the Indo-European family reveals regular correspondences between German and non-German consonants.

First Consonant Shift (Grimm’s Law) – in the 19^th Jacob Grimm, a German scholar, discovered the existence of regular correspondence between Indo-European (IE) and German consonants and subdivided them into 3 groups:

№	Consonant Correspondences	Examples
Old	Modern
IE	PG	Non-German (Latin)	German (OE)	Non-German (Italian, рус.)	German (English, German)
	[bh,dh,gh] à aspirated voiced stops	[b, d, g] non-aspirated voiced stops	bh rāta (Hind)	b rōþor	б рат	b rother, B ruder
ru dh ira (Hind)	rēa d	-	re d
h ostis	g iest	г ость	g uest, G ast
	[b, d, g] à voiced stops	[p, t, k] voiceless stops/plosives	la b are	p ōl	б олото	p ool, P fuhl
d ecem	t īen	d ieci, д есять	t en
g enu	c nēo	g inocchio	k nee, K nie
	[p, t, k] à voiceless stops/plosives	[f, q, h] voiceless fricatives	p edis	f ōt	p iedi	f oot, F uß
t res	þ rēo	t re, т ри	th ree
c ordis	h eort	c uore	h eart, H erz

Verner’s Law – Carl Verner, a Danish scholar (19^th c.), explained the consonant correspondences as a gradual historical process (a change takes place in the course of time):

Consonant Correspondences	Latin	OE	ModE
1. [p, t, k] à voiceless stops/plosives	[f, q, h] à voiceless fricatives	[v, ð/d, g] voiced fricatives	se p tem	seo f en	se v en
pa t er	f æ đ er	fa th er
so c rus	swai h o (Gothic)	Schwa g er (Germ)
2. Rhotacism	au s is (Lithuanian)	Au s o (Gothic)	ea r, Oh r (Germ)
[s] à	[z] à	[r]

P.S.: these processes usually happened on condition that the consonants were situated between vowels and if preceded by an unstressed vowel.

Modern Examples: see th e – so dd en, dea th – dea d, wa s – we r e.

Second Consonant Shift – happened in the 9^th c. in Old High German and today we can observe it comparing English and German:

Consonant Correspondences	English	German
1. [t] à à	[ts]	t wo	z wei
[s]	wa t er	Wa ss er
2. [q] à	[d]	th ree	d rei
3. [d] à	[t]	d aughter	T ochter
4. [k] à	[h]	ma k e	ma ch en

H/w:

1. Ex. 3-5, p. 48-49 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева (copies).

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