The old Germanic languages, their classification and principal features.

Grimm’s and Verner’s laws.

Grimm’s law: The first Germanic consonant shifts took place in the V-II cent. BC. Jacobs Grimm’s Law. According to Grimm, he classified consonant correspondences between indoeuropean and germanic languages.

There are 3 acts of this law:

1. IE plosive (stops) p, t, k correspond to G voiceless fricatives f, Ө, h. Eg: пламя – flame, пена – foam, колода – holt.

2. IE voiced plosives b, d, g, →G voiceless fricatives p, t, k. Eg: бассейн - pool, дерево – free, иго – yoke.

3. IE aspirated voiced plosives bh, dh, gh →to voiced plosives without aspiration. Eg: bhrāta – brother, rudhira – red, ghostis – guest.

The second consonant shift was Carl Verner’s law. According C.Verner all the common germanic consonants became voiced in intervocalic position if the preceding vowel was unstressed.

p-f > v septem

t-Ө > đ, d сто – hund (OE)

k-x > j, g

s-s > z/r auris – ēare

Devoicing took place in early common germanic when the stress was not yet fixed on the root.

A variety of Verner’s law is rhotacism (greek letter rho). [s] →[z]→[r] we find traces of this phenomenon in form of the verb to be →was – were, is – are; ist – sind – war.

II consonant shift occurd in dialects of sothern germanic. Eg: еда – eat – essen, вода – water – wasser, hope – hoffen, bed – bett.

Ch (G) → C (OE) : reich – ricostan.

The old Germanic languages, their classification and principal features.

OLD GERMANIC:

§ East-germanic

o Gothic

o Vandalic

o Burgudean

§ North-germanic

o O. Norwegian

o O. Danish

o O. Swedish

o O. Icelandic

§ West-germanic

o High germanic

o Anglo-Saxon

o Franconic

o Old English

o Old Dutch

Gothic is extremely important as The Gothic Gostel is considered to be the first written text connected with Germanic languages and other European languages.

The first group is dead, but vandalic had similar features with Spain and burgudean with French.

The second group (north-germanic) – was not until the 10th cent, it was called “old Norse” (древне северный). After the 10th cent. North split into O. Norwegian, O. Danish, O. Swedish, O. Icelandic. Historically the most important is O. Icelandic:

1. it had the largest body of written records, dated back to 12-13 cent. (the Elder Edda, the Younger Edda, numerous sagas).

2. Icelandic had retained a more archaic grammar and vocabulary than many other G. Lang.

The third group (west-germanic) consists of 5 members:

1. O.English → Mid. English → Mod. English.

2. O. Frisian → Frisian.

3. O. Saxon → Low G. dialects (Wothern)

4. O. Low Franconian → M. Dutch: Netherlandish, Africans.

5. O. High German → Middle High German → Mod. German (Yiddish).

Principal features:

Old German languages show differences in comparison with other European Lang on 3 main linguistic levels: grammatical, phonetic and lexical.

Grammatical level – the most important innovation in G. was the emergence of the new types of verbs – “weak”, past tense with the dental suffix –d-: open – opened, work – worked.

Phonetic peculiarities – 1) accent (word stress) in IE was free and musical; in protogerm. Accent become fixed on the root syllable and dynamic, 2) Grimm’s law.

 

 

2. Numerals:cardinal and ordinal numerals from 1 to 3 are declined from 4 – 19 are usually invariable if they used as attribute to a substantive. Numerals denoting tens have their genitive in –es- or in –a-, -ra-, Dative in –un-.

1. The numeral ān is declined as a strong adj.

2. muscul. “twegen” neut tū, twā, fem. twā.

3. the word “both” begen, bū is declined in the same way as twegen, tū.

The ordinal numerals, with the exeption of ōÞer “2-nd” are declined as weak adjectives.

ōÞer “2-nd” is declined as a strong adj.

ME cardinal numerals developed from OE.