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Lecture 5Proto-Germanic Language: Grimm’s and Verner’s

Law

Compiled by Valentina Singhirei,PhD.,Ass.prof.

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Germanic Parent Language (GPL) is a term used in historical linguistics to describe the chain of reconstructed languages in the Germanic group referred to as Pre-Germanic Indo-European (PreGmc), Early Proto-Germanic (EPGmc), and Late Proto-Germanic (LPGmc). It is intended to cover the time of the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE.

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Several historical linguists have pointed towards the apparent material and social continuity connecting the cultures of the Nordic Bronze Age (1800–500 BCE) and the Pre-Roman Iron Age (500 BCE–1 CE) as having implications in regard to the stability and later development of the Germanic language group. The emerging consensus among scholars is that the First Germanic Sound Shift (Grimm's law)—long considered to be the defining mark in the development of Proto-Germanic—happened as late as 500 BCE.

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Phonology of Proto-Germanic LanguageTranscriptionThe following conventions are used in this article for transcribing Proto-Germanic forms:• Voiced obstruents appear as b, d, g; this does not imply any particular analysis of the underlying phonemes as plosives /b/, /d/, /ɡ/ or fricatives /β/, /ð/, /ɣ/. In other literature, they may be written as graphemes with a bar to produce ƀ, đ and ǥ.• Unvoiced fricatives appear as f, þ, h (perhaps /ɸ/, /θ/, /x/). /x/ may have become /h/ in certain positions at a later stage of Proto-Germanic itself. Similarly for /xʷ/, which later became /hʷ/ or /ʍ/ in some environments.

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• Labiovelars appear as kw, hw, gw; this does not imply any particular analysis as single sounds (e.g. /kʷ/, /xʷ/, /ɡʷ/) or clusters (e.g. /kw/, /xw/, /ɡw/).• The "yod" sound appears as j /j/. Note that the normal convention for representing this sound in Proto-Indo-European is y; the use of j does not imply any actual change in the pronunciation of the sound.• Long vowels are denoted with a macron over the letter, e.g. ō. When a distinction is necessary, /ɛː/ and /eː/ are transcribed as ē¹ and ē² respectively. ē¹ is sometimes transcribed as æ or ǣ instead, but this is not followed here.

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• Overlong vowels appear with circumflexes, e.g. ô. In other literature they are often denoted by a doubled macron (знак долготы над гласным).• Nasal vowels are written here with an ogonek, following Don Ringe's usage, e.g. ǫ̂ /õːː/. Most commonly in literature, they are denoted simply by a following n. However, this can cause confusion between a word-final nasal vowel and a word-final regular vowel followed by /n/; a distinction which was phonemic. Tildes (ã, ĩ, ũ...) are also used in some sources.

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•Diphthongs appear as ai, au, eu, iu, ōi, ōu and perhaps ēi, ēu. However, when immediately followed by the corresponding semivowel, they appear as ajj, aww, eww, iww. u is written as w when between a vowel and j. This convention is based on the usagein Ringe 2006.• Long vowels followed by a non-high vowel were separate syllables and are written as such here, except for ī, which is written ij in that case.

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ConsonantsThe table below lists the consonantal phonemes of Proto-Germanic classified by reconstructed pronunciation. The slashes around the phonemes are omitted for clarity. If two phonemes appear in the same box, the first of each pair is voiceless, the second is voiced. Phones written in parentheses represent allophones and are not independent phonemes.

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Notes:1. [ŋ] was an allophone of /n/ before velar obstruents.2. [ŋʷ] was an allophone of /n/ before labial-velar

obstruents.3. [β], [ð] and [ɣ] were allophones of /b/, /d/ and /ɡ/ in

certain positions (see below).4. The phoneme written as f was certainly still realised as

a bilabial fricative (/ɸ/) in Proto-Germanic. This can be deduced from the fact that in Gothic, word-final b devoices to f, and also from Old Norse spellings such as aptr [ɑɸtr], where the letter p rather than the more usual f was used to denote the bilabial realisation before /t/.

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Grimm's and Verner's law

Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift or the Rask's rule), named after Jacob Grimm, is a set of statements describing the inherited Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic (the common ancestor of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family) in the 1st millennium BC. It establishes a set of regular correspondences between early Germanic stops and fricatives and the stop consonants of certain other centum Indo-European languages (Grimm used mostly Latin and Greek for illustration). Grimm's law consists of three parts, which must be thought of as three consecutive phases in the sense of a chain shift:[1]

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1. Proto-Indo-European voiceless stops change into voiceless fricatives.

2. Proto-Indo-European voiced stops become voiceless stops.

3. Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirated stops become voiced stops or fricatives (as allophones).

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The chain shift can be abstractly represented as:bʰ → b → p → ɸdʰ → d → t → θgʰ → g → k → xgʷʰ → gʷ → kʷ → xʷ

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Here each sound moves one position to the right to take on its new sound value. Notice that the new sound value entails the loss of a feature at each of the three steps. First the aspiration feature is lost, then voice and finally stop leaving a continuant.The voiced aspirated stops may have first become voiced fricatives before hardening to the voiced unaspirated stops "b", "d", and "g" under certain conditions; however, some linguists dispute this. See Proto-Germanic phonology.

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Grimm's law was the first non-trivial systematic sound change to be discovered in linguistics; its formulation was a turning point in the development of linguistics, enabling the introduction of a rigorous methodology to historical linguistic research. The correspondences between Latin p and Germanic f was first noted by Friedrich von Schlegel in 1806. In 1818 Rasmus Christian Rask elaborated the set of correspondences to include other Indo-European languages such as Sanskrit and Greek, and the full range of consonants involved. In 1822 Jacob Grimm, the elder of the Brothers Grimm, in his book Deutsche Grammatik, formulated the law as a general rule (and extended to include standard German).

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Further changes following Grimm's law, as well as sound changes in other Indo-European languages, can sometimes obscure its effects. The most illustrative examples are used here:

Non-Germanic (unshifted) cognates

Change Germanic (shifted) examples

Ancient Greek: πούς (poús), Latin: pēs, pedis, Sanskrit: pāda, Russian: под (pod) "under; floor", Lithuanian: pėda, Latvian pēda

*p→f [ɸ] English: foot, West Frisian: foet, German: Fuß, Gothic: fōtus, Icelandic, Faroese: fótur, Danish: fod, Norwegian, Swedish: fot

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Non-Germanic (unshifted) cognates

Change Germanic (shifted) examples

Ancient Greek: τρίτος (tritos), Latin: tertius, Welsh: trydydd, Sanskrit: treta, Russian: третий (tretij), Lithuanian: trečias, Albanian: tretë

*t→þ [θ] English: third, Old Frisian: thredda, Old Saxon: thriddio, Gothic: þridja, Icelandic: þriðji, Danish: tredje

Ancient Greek: κύων (kýōn), Latin: canis, Welsh: ci (pl. cwn) *k→h [x] English: hound, Dutch:

hond, German: Hund, Gothic: hunds, Icelandic, Faroese: hundur, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish: hund

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Non-Germanic (unshifted) cognates

Change Germanic (shifted) examples

Latin: quod, Irish: cad, Sanskrit: kád, Russian: ко- (ko-), Lithuanian: kas

*kʷ→hw [xʷ] English: what, Gothic: ƕa ("hwa"), Icelandic: hvað, Faroese: hvat, Danish: hvad, Norwegian: hva

Latin: verber "rod", Homeric Greek: ῥάβδος (rabdos) "rod, wand", Lithuanian: virbas

*b→p [p] English: warp, West Frisian: werpe, Dutch: werpen, Icelandic: verpa, varpa, Faroese: verpa, Gothic wairpan

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Non-Germanic (unshifted) cognates

Change Germanic (shifted) examples

Latin: decem, Greek: δέκα (déka), Irish: deich, Sanskrit: daśan, Russian: десять (desyat'), Lithuanian: dešimt

*d→t [t] English: ten, Dutch: tien, Gothic: taíhun, Icelandic: tíu, Faroese: tíggju, Danish, Norwegian: ti, Swedish: tio

Latin: gelū, Greek: γελανδρός (gelandrós), Lithuanian: gelmenis, gelumà

*g→k [k] English: cold, West Frisian: kâld, Dutch: koud, German: kalt, Icelandic, Faroese: kaldur, Danish: kold, Norwegian: kald, Swedish: kall

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Non-Germanic (unshifted) cognates

Change Germanic (shifted) examples

Lithuanian: gyvas *gʷ→kw [kʷ] English: quick, West Frisian: kwik, kwyk, Dutch: kwiek, Gothic: qius, Icelandic, Faroese: kvikur, Danish: kvik, Swedish: kvick, Norwegian kvikk

Sanskrit: bhrātṛ *bʰ→b [b]/[β] English: brother, West Frisian, Dutch: broeder, German: Bruder, Gothic: broþar, Icelandic, Faroese: bróðir, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian: broder

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Non-Germanic (unshifted) cognates

Change Germanic (shifted) examples

Sanskrit: mádhu 'honey', Homeric Greek: μέθυ methu

*dʰ→d [d]/[ð] English: mead, East Frisian: meede, Dutch: mede, Danish/Norwegian: mjød, Icelandic: mjöður , Swedish: mjöd

Ancient Greek: χήν (khēn), Sanskrit: hamsa (swan)

*gʰ→g [ɡ]/[ɣ] English: goose, West Frisian: goes, guos, Dutch: gans, German: Gans, Icelandic: gæs, Faroese: gás, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish: gås

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Non-Germanic (unshifted) cognates

Change Germanic (shifted) examples

Homeric Greek: ἐάφθη (eáphthē) "sang, sounded", ὀμφή (omphē) "voice"

*gʷʰ→gw [ɡʷ](After n)

English: sing, West Frisian: sjonge, Dutch: zingen, German: singen, Gothic: siggwan, Old Icelandic: syngva, syngja, Icelandic, Faroese: syngja, Swedish: sjunga, Danish: synge/sjunge

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Non-Germanic (unshifted) cognates

Change Germanic (shifted) examples

Sanskrit: gharmá-, Avestan: garəmó, Old Prussian: gorme

*gʷʰ→gw→b, g or w(Otherwise merged with existing g and w)

English: warm, West Frisian: waarm, Dutch, German: warm, Swedish: varm, Icelandic: varmur

This is strikingly regular. Each phase involves one single change which applies equally to the labials (p, b, bʰ, f) and their equivalent dentals (t, d, dʰ, þ), velars (k, g, gʰ, h) and rounded velars (kʷ, gʷ, gʷʰ, hʷ). The first phase left the phoneme repertoire of the language without voiceless stops, the second phase filled this gap but created a new one, and so on until the chain had run its course.

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Verner's law

Verner's law, stated by Karl Verner in 1875, describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, *s, *h, *hʷ, when immediately following an unstressed syllable in the same word, underwent voicing and became respectively the fricatives *b, *d, *z, *g, *gʷ.

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(In Proto-Germanic, voiced fricatives *[β ð ɣ] were allophones of their corresponding voiced plosives *[b d ɡ] when they occurred between vowels, semivowels and liquids, so we write them here as *b, *d, *g. But the situations where Verner's law applied resulted in fricatives in these very circumstances, so we understand these phonemes as fricatives in this context.)

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The problemWhen Grimm's law was discovered, a strange irregularity was spotted in its operation. The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) voiceless stops *p, *t and *k should have changed into Proto-Germanic (PGmc) *f (bilabial fricative [ɸ]), *þ (dental fricative [θ]) and *h (velar fricative [x]), according to Grimm's Law.

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Indeed, that was known to be the usual development. However, there appeared to be a large set of words in which the agreement of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Baltic, Slavic etc. guaranteed PIE *p, *t or *k, and yet the Germanic reflex was voiced (*b, *d or *g).

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At first, irregularities did not cause concern for scholars since there were many examples of the regular outcome. Increasingly, however, it became the ambition of linguists to formulate general and exceptionless rules of sound change that would account for all the data (or as close to all the data as possible), not merely for a well-behaved subset of it (see Neogrammarians).

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One classic example of PIE *t → PGmc *d is the word for 'father'. PIE *ph2tēr (here, the macron marks vowel length) → PGmc *fadēr (instead of expected *faþēr). The structurally similar family term *bʱrātēr 'brother' did indeed develop as predicted by Grimm's Law (Gmc. *brōþēr). Even more curiously, we often find both *þ and *d as reflexes of PIE *t in different forms of one and the same root, e.g. *werþanan 'to turn', preterite singular *warþ 'he turned', but preterite plural and past participle *wurd- (plus appropriate inflections).

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The solution

Karl Verner was the first scholar to note the factor governing the distribution of the two outcomes. He observed that the apparently unexpected voicing of voiceless stops occurred if they were non-word-initial and if the vowel preceding them carried no stress in PIE. The original location of stress was often retained in Greek and early Sanskrit, though in Germanic stress eventually became fixed on the initial (root) syllable of all words. The crucial difference between *patḗr and *bʰr tērā́ was therefore one of second-syllable versus first-syllable stress (cf. Sanskrit pitā́ versus bhr tāā́ ).

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The *werþ- : *wurd- contrast is likewise explained as due to stress on the root versus stress on the inflectional suffix (leaving the first syllable unstressed). There are also other Vernerian alternations, as illustrated by German ziehen 'to draw, pull' : zogen 'to tug, drag' ← PGmc. *teuhanan : *tugōjanan ← PIE *déuke/o : *duk´-éHₐ- 'lead'.

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There is a spinoff from Verner's Law: the rule accounts also for PGmc *z as the development of PIE *s in some words. Since this *z changed to *r in the Scandinavian languages and in West Germanic (German, Dutch, English, Frisian), Verner's Law resulted in alternation of *s and *r in some inflectional paradigms, known as grammatischer Wechsel.

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For example, the Old English verb ceosan 'choose' had the past plural form curon and the past participle (ge)coren ← *keusanan : *kuzún ~ *kuzánaz ← *ǵéusonom : *ǵus-ń̥t ~ *ǵusénos 'taste, try'. We would have chorn for chosen in Modern English if the consonantal shell of choose and chose had not been morphologically levelled (cf. obs. German †kiesen 'to choose' : gekoren 'chosen').

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On the other hand, Vernerian *r has not been levelled out in En were ← PGmc *wēzún, related to En was. Similarly, En lose, though it has the weak form lost, also has the archaic form lorn (now seen in the compound forlorn) (cf. Dutch verliezen : verloren); in German, on the other hand, the *s has been levelled out both in war 'was' (pl. waren 'were') and verlieren 'lose' (part. verloren 'lost').

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The following table illustrates the sound changes according to Verner. In the bottom row, for each pair, the sound on the right represents the sound changed according to Verner's Law.PIE *p *t *k *kʷ *s

Grimm *ɸ *θ *x *xʷ

Verner *ɸ *β *θ *ð *x *ɣ *xʷ *ɣʷ *s *z

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Conclusion on Verner’s Law

Alterations according to Verner’s law are summarized in the following table, where o denotes any preceding vowel,

but a is used for the following one, for example:PIE opá PGmc ofá oЂá óbaPIE otá PGmc oþá oðá óða West

Germanic -óda

PIE oká PGmc ohá ogá óga

PIE osá PGmc osá ozá óza óra

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The Dutch linguist Karl Verner paid attention that as a result of the first consonant shift the PGmc fricatives remained voiceless or became voiced in the dependence with the fact what syllable was stressed in the PIE. The consonants became voiced if the vowel in the preceding syllable was unstressed, and it did not happen if the stress was in another position. The established tendency allowed to draw the conclusion that in the period of the first consonant shift the position of stress was free in PGmc.

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Dating the change described by Verner's lawIt is worth noting that the change in the pronunciation of the consonant, described by Verner's Law, must have occurred before the shift of stress to the first syllable. The voicing of the new consonant in Proto-Germanic is conditioned by which syllable is stressed in Proto-Indo-European, yet this syllabic stress has disappeared in Proto-Germanic, so the change in the consonant must have occurred at a time when the syllabic stress in earlier Proto-Germanic still conformed to the Indo-European pattern.

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However, the syllabic stress shift erased the conditioning environment, and made the variation between voiceless fricatives and their voiced alternants look mysteriously haphazard ([,hæp’hæzəd]-.1) случайный Syn: random , accidental , casual 2) бессистемный). Until recently it was assumed that Verner's law was productive after Grimm's Law. Now it has been pointed out (Vennemann 1984:21, Kortlandt 1988:5-6) that, even if the sequence is reversed, the result can be just the same in the given certain conditions. Noske (2012) argues that Grimm's Law and Verner's Law must have been part of a single bifurcating [‘baıfəkeıtıƞ] (раздваивающийся ) chain shift.