with an over-normal force of breath, changed in the same way: the muscle tension, being slight as is always the case with voiced sounds, was overcome by the increased expiration, and bh, dh, gh became ₺, ð, y (see Note).

Al (3) The weak stops became voiceless in accordance with 13, 2: b, d, g>p, t, k.

NOTES. (a) Step (1) and (2) may have occurred at the same or nearly the same time; step (3) was considerably later; the whole process, in every case, probably began with words of strong emphasis and gradually extended over all words containing the respective sounds; words that were habitually unaccented seem to have been affected late; this explains the fact that in the oldest stages of Germanic languages (Runic Norse and Gothic) a few words are found that do not exhibit change (3): Gothic du 'to' and dis--Ger. zershould be *tu, *tis- (compare Eng. to, Lat. dis-), but retained the original sounds on account of their unemphatic character. Compare the treatment of final t in Middle Franconian, 33, 1.

(b) Germanic ƒ was originally bilabial (I, 17), but became labiodental in consequence of an inclination towards a sharper, more distinct pronunciation.

(c) Germanic x in initial position became h, by reason of the relative inertness of the back of the tongue. This change took place during the first century a.d.

(d) b is the usual philological sign for the voiced bilabial spirant [v] (I, 17); for the voiced velar spirant [y], compare I, 34.

Examples. (1) p, t, k>f, þ, x.

Lat. pecu 'cattle,' Eng. fee, Ger. Vieh.

tres 'three,' Eng. three, Goth. preis.

cornu 'horn,' Eng. horn, Ger. Horn.

sequor 'follow,' Ger. sehen (but: Gesicht) 'follow with the eyes.'

(2) bh, dh, gh>ħ, ð, y (later b, d, g, see 29).

Lat. fero, Sc. bhárāmi 'carry,' Eng. bear.

Lat. medius, Sc. mádhyas 'middle,' Eng. mid, Goth. midjis. Gk. steicho 'step,' Ger. steigen, Goth. steigan (=[stiryan]). (3) b, d, g>p, t, k.

Lith. bald 'swamp': Eng. pool.

Lat. decem 'ten': Goth. taihun, Eng. ten.

NOTE. Lat. f comes from IE. bh or dh, medial d from IE. dh, Gk. ch from IE. gh.

The student should collect a complete list of all instances of the Germanic consonant changes occurring in the Gothic specimen text on page 198, and in the corresponding passage of the English gospel translation.

Whenever p, t, k were preceded by a voiceless spirant (either old, i.e., directly preserved from IE., or new, i.e., developt in the Germanic consonant shift), they remained unchanged because the preceding spirant consumed a comparatively large force of expiration: Lat. stella 'star,' from *sterula: Goth. stairnō, Lat. octō 'eight': Ger. acht, rectus 'right': recht.

The Labio-Velars. q, gh, g, in principle, became Gc. xw, yw, kw, but these sound combinations show a gradually increasing tendency to give up either the velar, or the labial element; in general, before back vowels, which are habitually labialized, the labial element [w] is lost by being merged with the following vowel, while it is retained before front vowels. Compare: Lat. quod: Goth. ha, Eng. what, Ger. was -Lat. sequor: Goth. saihan, Ger. sehen, Gesicht; Gk. omphe 'voice,' from IE. *songhá: Goth. siggwan 'sing,' Ger. singen Gk. thermós 'warm,' from IE. *ghermós, Ger. warm; Lat. veniō 'come,' from IE. *gmjō: (Goth. quiman), Ger. kommen - Lat. vivus 'alive,' from IE. *geigos: Goth. qius, Eng. quick, Ger. Queck-.

Analogy and other conditions have brought about so many complications in the treatment of these sounds that a detailed discussion would go far beyond the limits of this book.

23. Verner's Law (Grammatical Change). The great number of Germanic voiced spirants that had arisen from

the transition of IE. bh, dh, gh into b, o, y received a further increase thru a peculiar consequence of the strong stress accent of later Indo-European times: When a voiceless spirant in Germanic (f, þ, x, s) followed a syllable without the IE. stress accent, the contrast in the transition from the unaccented to the (relatively) accented syllable caused a narrowing of the glottis and tension of the vocal chords, so that the spirant became voiced - provided that it was surrounded by voiced sounds. Consequently, IE. p, t, k, s are represented in Germanic by voiceless f, þ, x, s only when the preceding syllable had the IE. accent, or when they were in initial position, but by b, d, y, z when they were not immediately preceded by the IE. accent. (Sievers: Die stimmlosen Spiranten bleiben stimmlos im Nachlaut der indogermanisch betonten Silbe.)-Theoretical IE. groups like ápa, áta, áka became Germanic afa, apa, axa, but apá, atá, aká changed to aba, aða, aya, and ása remained unchanged, while asá changed to aza. Compare the analogous treatment of Engl. éxit — exámine, éxercise exért, etc.-Germanic z later became r; this change is called rhotacism (from rho, the Greek name of the letter r).

·

This law was first discovered by Eduard Sievers, but the Danish philologist Karl Verner was the first to publish it, and for that reason it is commonly called Verner's Law. In as far as these interchanges between voiceless and voiced spirants frequently mark distinctions between different grammatical forms of the same root (especially in the case of the verb, see 47), it is also called Grammatical Change (Grammatischer Wechsel).

Examples.

(a) IE. p>Gc. b: Gk. heptá 'seven': Goth. siðun, Eng. seven.

Interchange fb: IE. root *terp-: Goth. þarf 'I want' -parba 'want,' noun.

(b) IE. t>Gc. : Gk. patér 'father': Goth. faðar (but Gk. phrátor 'brother': Goth. brōpar).

Interchange p: d: IE. root *leit- (with varying accent, see 47) OS. Inf. lithan, Pret. sing. leth, but Pret. pl. lidun (compare NHG. leiden — litten).

(c) JE. k>Gc. y: Gk. dákru 'tear': Goth. tagr (but OHG. zahar, NHG. Zähre, with different accent).

Interchange x: g: IE. root *deuk- (Lat. dūcō 'lead') NHG. ziehen sie zogen.

(d) IE. s>Gc. z (Ger. r): Lat. auris 'ear' <ausis: Goth. ausō for *auzō, Ger. Ohr.

Interchange s: z (r): IE. root *wes- 'be' - Eng. was

were.

24. Other Consonant Changes are comparatively rare. Aside from a number of more or less perspicuous assimilations, the following are the most important:

(a) The Germanic Consonant Gemination (i.e., doubling, or lengthening): If any IE. stop was followed by n, and the next syllable had the IE. accent, this consonant group was assimilated in such a way that a long voiced stop resulted, which became voiceless at the same time with the other voiceless stops. Expressed in a formula, this means: pn', bhn', bn'>bb>pp; tn', dhn', dn'>dd>tt; kn', ghn', gn'>gg>kk: IE. *lugnós 'pliable': Ger. Locke. Many NHG. double forms, such as schneiden — schnitzen, stoßen stutzen, schnauben · schnupfen, Knauf · Knopf, ziehen zucken, etc., are due to this process (the first form of each pair coming from a form without n, the second, from one with n).

n

(b) IE. ŋ followed by k disappeared in Germanic, after the latter had become x: Gc. nx>-x, but the preceding vowel was lengthened ('compensatory lengthening,' Ersatzdehnung): Lat. vinco ‘vanquish': Goth. weihan (pronounce [wi:xan]) 'fight'; this gave rise to some important parallel forms in verbs when certain forms of the stem ended in a voiced, others, by assimilation or on account of the accent (Verner's Law), in a voiceless consonant, e.g., Lat. tongēre 'know': Goth. inf. þaŋkjan ‘think' (Germanic root *þaŋk-), pret.

paxta (Gc. root *panx-, on account of the same assimilation that we see in Lat. rectus, from regō · Ger. recht); this process is reflected in such NHG. forms as denken dachte, dünken - däuchte (Goth. punkjan - púxta), bringen — brachte (Goth. briggan — brāxta); or, thru accent variations, in fāhen — fing, seihen — sinken.

(c) sr in initial and medial position became str (t being inserted as a protection against assimilation): Sc. usrá- 'dawn': OE. eastron, Ger. Ostern 'spring time, Easter'; Sc. sru- 'flow': Ger. Strom; Lat. soror 'sister,' from IE. *swesr-: Ger. Schwester (Goth. stem swistr−).

25. The Germanic Vowel Shift. - Compare 13, 6a. The difference between long and short vowels is not merely one of time, but also of intensity: long vowels, by their very duration, demand greater energy of articulation than short vowels. The character of quantitative vowel gradation and the coincidence of the differences between long and short and narrow and wide vowels (I, 40) in German and other languages illustrate this fact. On this account, in keeping with the general tendency of the language in favor of sharp contrasts, IE. long and short vowels developt in opposite directions in Germanic: The contrast between them was intensified by increasing the articulation of long vowels, and decreasing the articulation of short vowels. This was done in accordance with the principles stated in 13, 6: Long vowels developt in the direction --ā-ō (thereby becoming lower in pitch), short vowels in the direction -ŏ- ǎ. Expressed in linguistic formulas, this development means: IE. ē>Gc. æ, IE. ā>Gc. ō; (IE. ŭ>Gc. ŏ), IE. ŏ>Gc. ă; IE. ǝ became a in Germanic, as in most other IE. languages (i in Sanscrit).

NOTE. Strictly speaking, these changes affect only accented syllables; unaccented syllables follow, in part, different principles, as will be seen in 29.