Lecture 3,4 Linguistic Features of Germanic Languages

All the Germanic languages of the past and present have common linguistic features: some of these features are shared by other groups in the Indo-European family; others are specifically Germanic. The Germanic group acquired their specific distinctive features after the separation of the ancient Germanic tribes from other Indo- European tribes and their further expansion and disintegration.

musical pitch and force stress

The position of the stress was free and movable and could be shifted, could fall on a root morpheme, an affix or an ending.

These properties of the word accent were changed in Proto-Germanic. The stress was now fixed on the first syllable (usually it was the root of the word). The stress could no longer move either in form-building or word-building. And even now there is a sharp distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables. Accented syllables were pronounced clearly distinctly. Many endings merged with the suffixes were weakened and dropped.

e.x. PG fiskaz – Gt (gothic) fisks – O Icel. fiskr - OE fisc – ME fish

II. Vowels underwent different kinds of alterations:

-qualitative

-quantitative

-independent

-dependent

Qualitative changes affect the quality of the sound [o > a] [p >f]

Quantitative changes make long sounds short or visa versa short sounds long [i : > ı]

Dependent changes are restricted to certain positions or phonetic conditions ( a sound changes under the influence of the neighboring sounds).

Independent changes or regular affect a certain sound in all positions.

Strict differentiation of long and short vowels is commonly regarded as an important characteristic of the Germanic group. Long vowels tended to become closer and to diphthongize. Short vowels often changed into more open sounds. This tendency can be seen in the earliest vowel changes which distinguished the PG vowel system from its PIE source.

The Germanic long vowel [o:] reflected two vowels Indo-European ones [ : ] and [a:].

Long vowel [a:] wasn’t from the Germanic language it came from different sources:

[e:] in Gothic

[ æ ] Old English

[a:] Old High German

Gt sēmen – OE sæd- HG sāt (seed)

In Germanic Languages the vowels displayed a tendency to positional assimilative changes: the pronunciation of a vowel was modified under the influence of the following or preceding consonants. This process affected two pairs of vowels: e and i, and o and u. The direction of the change may be formulated in the following way: