Grammatischer Wechsel
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In
Overview
According to
Consequently, five pairs of consonants emerged, each pair representing a single PIE phoneme. The following table shows the precise developments from
. It is mainly in the dentals that those languages show significant differences in the patterns of grammatischer Wechsel. Note that the table lists only the outcome of word-internal consonants since word-initial consonants were generally not affected by Verner's law.PIE | PG | ON | WG | OE | OHG | MDu | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
*p | *ɸ | f | *ɸ | f/v | f | f/v | By GL p→f. |
*β | *β | b | By VL p→β. | ||||
*t | *θ | ð | *θ | θ/ð | d | d | By GL t→θ. Then θ→d German and Dutch. |
*ð | *d | d | t | By VL t→ð→d. Then d→t in German. | |||
*k | *x | – | *x/h | x/- | x/h | x/- | By GL k→x. x→h before a vowel. h is then lost between vowels in Old English and Dutch. |
*ɣ | ɣ | *ɣ | j/ɣ | ɡ | x/ɣ | By VL k→ɣ. Then ɣ→j in English and ɣ→ɡ in German, though all 3 use spelling ⟨g⟩. | |
*kʷ | *xʷ | – | *x/h | x/- | x/h | x/- | Parallel to *k. |
*ɣʷ | ɣ | *ɣ | j/ɣ | ɡ | x/ɣ | Parallel to *k, but *ɣʷ had split into *ɣ and *w by late Proto-Germanic. | |
w/- | *w | w | w | w | |||
*s | *s | s | *s | s/z | s | s/z | GL leaves s unaffected; allophone [z] in English. |
*z | r | *r | r | r | r | By VL s→z→r. |
In Old English, the fricatives took the voiced allophones [ð], [v] and [z] when they were word-internal, and in Middle Dutch also when word-initial; see: Pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩. In Old High German, the stops were moved according to the High German consonant shift. In Dutch, the idiosyncrasies of the shift mean that Dutch (like German) experiences the shift þ→d but (like English) does not experience the shift d→t; thus, the dental variety of grammatischer Wechsel is eliminated in Dutch by the normal operation of sound laws. Likewise, [f] and [v] merged in almost all Germanic languages (except Gothic and German), eliminating this variety early on. In Old Norse, [θ] and [ð] likewise merged altogether.
Within verb paradigms
Grammatischer Wechsel is the phenomenon that a verb that in PIE had a stem ending in one of those phonemes displays a differing reflex in different parts of the paradigm, a result of the movable nature of accent in PIE. The Germanic past tense derives from the PIE perfect aspect, which was always
A process of
Here are some examples:
- *f ~ *b (no examples in the modern languages) [citation needed]
- Old English: hebban – hōf hōfon hafen ("to lift", cf. heave)
- *þ ~ *d (survives in modern German)
- Old English: cweþan (cwiþþ) cwæþ – cwǣdon cweden ("to say", cf. quoth)
- Old English: sēoþan (sīeþþ) sēaþ – sudon soden ("to boil", cf. seethe)
- Modern German: schneiden – schnitt geschnitten ("to cut")
- *h ~ *g (survives in modern Dutch and modern German)
- Middle High German: zîhen zêch – zigen gezigen ("to upbraid")
- Old English: þeon (þīehþ) þāh – þigon þigen ("to prosper", cf. German gedeihen)
- Modern Dutch: slaan sla - sloeg geslagen ("to hit", Dutch lost intervocalic h)
- Modern German: ziehen - zog, gezogen ("to pull", the intervocalic h is not pronounced)
- *hw ~ *gw/w/g (survives in modern Dutch)
- Old English: sēon seah – sāwon sewen ("to see", Old English lost intervocalic h)
- (Remnant in Modern English spelling: see – saw)
- Old High German: sehan sah – sāgun gisehan/gisewan
- Modern Dutch: zien zie gezien – zag zagen ("to see", Dutch lost intervocalic h)
- Modern Swedish: se ser – såg
- *s ~ *z[a] (survives in modern Dutch, and in the English copula)
- Old English: wesan, wæs – wǣron ("to be")
- Modern English: was – were
- Old English: cēosan, cēas – curon coren ("to choose")
- Old English: frēosan, frēas – fruron froren ("to freeze")
- Old Norse (early): vesa, vas – váru ("to be", the -s- was soon replaced by -r- analogically)
- Old Norse: frjósa, frýss – fruru, frorinn ("to freeze")
- Modern Dutch: wezen, wees, was – waren ("to be")
- Modern Dutch: verliezen, verlies – verloor, verloren ("to lose")
- Modern Dutch: vriezen, vries – vroor, gevroren ("to freeze")
NB. Not all consonant apophony in Germanic verbs is caused by grammatischer Wechsel. The consonant
Between strong verbs and derived causatives
In PIE,
Examples are numerous in the older languages but are less frequent today, because some levelling has occurred, and in some cases, one verb or the other was lost.
- *f ~ *b
- Although technically not a strong verb - causative pair, modern Dutch shows the alternation in a verb with the same underlying Proto-Germanic shape.
heffen ("to lift/raise", from the strong verb *habjaną) - hebben ("to have", from the weak verb *habjaną)
- *þ ~ *d
- Modern German: leiden ("to suffer, to undergo", originally "to go", from *līþaną) – leiten ("to lead", from *laidijaną)
- *h ~ *g
- Modern Icelandic: hlæja ("to laugh", from *hlahjaną) – hlægja ("to make laugh", from *hlōgijaną)
- *hw ~ *gw/w/g (No attested examples within a single language)
- Gothic þreihan ("to press", from *þrinhwaną) – German drängen ("to push", from *þrangwijaną)
- *s ~ *z[a]
- Modern English: rise (from *rīsaną) – rear (from *raizijaną)
- Modern Dutch: genezen ("to heal", from *ganesaną) – generen ("to take care of oneself", from *nazjaną)
- Modern German: genesen ("to heal", from *ganesaną) – nähren ("to feed", from *nazjaną)
In other parts of speech
The term Grammatischer Wechsel was originally applied to any pair of etymologically-related words that had different accent placement, including also Proto-Indo-European
Notes
- ^ Rhotacism (sound change)#Germanic languages.
References
- paradigm levelling, though the older form verkoren remains more formal.