Historical phonology (1)

1. Comparison of Indo-European and Proto-Germanic consonant systems

2. Grimm’s law

3. Verner’s law

4. Consonant shifts

5. Interpretation of consonant shifts

6. Other phonetic processes in the system of Germanic consonants.

Key-words: Grimm’s law, Verner’s law, diphthongs/monophthongs, sound clusters, shift, rhotacism, gemination, Holtzmann’s Law, sound law, aspiration, fricatives, plosives.

Questions and tasks:

1. Give the interpretation of the First consonant shift.

2. Which one of the Germanic consonant shifts lasts till nowadays?

3. Find the examples of cognates from different languages to illustrate all acts of Grimm’s Law, Verner’s Law.

4. Find the examples to illustrate the process of gemination, rhotasism.

5. Find examples to illustrate the Second (High German) consonant shift.

6. You are given the correspondences: Engl. Foot, Germ. Fuß. Reconstruct the consonants of Indo-European root.

7. There is the correspondence: Lat. Pondus «wight», Engl. Pound and Germ. Pfund. Is it a genetic relatedness or borrowing?

8. Give the Engl. Cognate for Germ. Netz.

9. There are the words: Engl. Plight, Germ. Pflicht, Engl. Pit, Germ. Pfütze, Engl. Penny, Germ. Pfennig. What do they illustrate?

10. There are Germ. Zunge, Zopf. Give Engl. equivalent cognates.

11. There are Germ. Essen, Wasser, Kessel. Give Engl. Equivalent cognates.

12. There are Engl. Thank, Germ. Danken, Engl. That, Germ. Das. Prove the correspondence of the pairs.

13. Explain the correspondence of cognates: Engl. Apple, Germ. Apfel.

14. There are Lat. piscis, Goth. fisks, OHG fisc, Germ. Fisch, Engl. fish. Reconstruct IE root vowel.

15. Prove the relatedness of Lat. tu, Russ. ты, Goth. Þu, Engl. thou, Germ. du.

16. Prove the relatedness of Russ. борода, Engl. beard, Germ. Bart. Reconstruct IE root vowel.

17. Prove the relatedness of Russ. яблоко, Engl. apple, Germ. Apfel. Reconstruct IE root vowel.

18. Which Indo-European consonant corresponds to German z in Netz?

19. You are given the following German words: Eiche, machen, Loch, wack, sucken. Fill in the missing letters to get English cognates for them: oa _, ma _e, lo _, wa _e, see _.

20. Find Ukrainian and Russian genetic equivalents to the following English words: red, apple, eye, yellow, pool, nail, cold, water, snow, be, sit, eat, beat, I, my, wax using sound correspondences.

21. Find English genetic equivalents to the following German words: schlafen, sitzen, Pforte, opfern, Pfeife, Pfeffer, Katze, Kopf, zwei, Pfund, Wurzel, Nuss, wass, schaffen, Tisch, Wasser, Zimmer, Zaun, Wolke, Meer, machen, Buch, Vogel, Tier.

Read the following citations of acknowledged linguists. Make your comments:

1. “Sound change ‘operates blindly’”. (Hock H., Joseph B. Language History, Language Change and Language Relationship. Berlin, NY. 1996. P.123).

2. “There clearly must be limits on the extent to which simplification can progress: If phonetic simplicity were permitted to run its full course, it would change all words to something like [ə]”. “Human language requires a certain degree of complexity to successfully communicate meaning, variation and creativeness”. (Hock H., Joseph B. Language History, Language Change and Language Relationship. Berlin, NY. 1996. P.127).