- •Lecture 1. Theoretical aspects of language history.
- •1. Social Nature of the Language.
- •2. Hierarchical Structure of Language as a System.
- •3.Linguistic Changes, Their Rate and Mechanism.
- •4. Causes of Language Evolution.
- •5. English and Other Languages in the World:
- •Spreading of English in Modern World.
- •6. Roots of the English People.
- •Glossary
- •Literature
- •Sources and Origin of English.
- •1. Proto-Germanic and Its Principal Linguistic Features.
- •Word Stress.
- •Vowels.
- •Independent Vowel Changes in Proto-Germanic: Table 1
- •Voiceless plosives of pie languages developed in pg into voiceless fricatives:
- •Ie voiced plosives shifted to voiceless plosives in pg:
- •Ie voiced aspirated plosives were reflected in pg either as voiced fricatives or as pure voiced plosives:
- •Roman Conquest of Britain.
- •3. First Germanic Alphabets.
- •Glossary
- •Literature
Independent Vowel Changes in Proto-Germanic: Table 1
PIE PG
o > a
L nox Gt naht,
R ночь OE nátt, Mod SW natt
a: > o:
L mater OE mōdor
R мать NE mother
In later PG and in separate 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 consonant; sometimes a vowel was approximated more closely to the following vowel. The resulting sounds were phonetically conditioned allophones, which could eventually coincide with another phoneme or develop into a new phoneme.
The earliest instances of progressive assimilation were common Germanic mutations; they occurred in Late PG before its disintegration or a short time after. In certain phonetic conditions, namely before the nasal [n] and before [i] or [j] in the next syllable the short [e], [i] and [u] remained or became close (i.e. appeared as [i] and [u]), while in the absence of these conditions the more open allophones were used: [e] and [o], respectively.
After the changes, in Late PG, the vowel system contained the following short and long sounds:
SHORT VOWELS i e a o u
LONG VOWELS i: e: a: o: u:
Some linguists believe that in addition to these monophthongs, PG had a set of diphthongs : [ei], [ai], [eu], [au] and also [iu]. Nowadays, however, many scholars interpret them as sequences of two independent monophthongs.
c) Consonants.
The specific peculiarities of consonants constitute the most remarkable distinctive feature of the Germanic linguistic group. In comparison with other languages within the IE family reveals regular correspondences between Germanic and non-Germanic consonants. We regularly find [f] in Germanic where other IE languages have [p]; e.g., E full, Fr plein; wherever Germanic has [p], cognate words in non-Germanic languages have [b] (E pool, R болоmo)..
The consonants in Germanic look 'shifted' as compared with the consonants of non-Germanic languages. The alterations of the consonants took place in PG, and the resulting sounds were inherited by the languages of the Germanic group.
The changes of consonants in PG were first formulated as a phonetic law by Jacob Grimm in the early 19th c. and are often called Grimm's Law. It is also known as the First or Proto-Germanic Shift of Consonants.
Grimm's Law
Jacob Grimm classified all the correspondences of the consonants in PG with those of other languages of PIE languages into three groups, which he called Acts. Many scientists believe that the consonant shift took place as a series of successive steps; it took, most probably, on some part of Germanic territory and gradually spread over the whole area.
ACT I
Voiceless plosives of pie languages developed in pg into voiceless fricatives:
PIE > PG
p > f (L pes > Gt fōtus; NE foot)
t > θ (L tres, R три > NE tree)
k > х (L cor, R сердце > OE heort)
ACT II