Getting Proto-Germanic stress: phonetics and historic

accentology

Anton Zimmerling

Moscow State University of Humanities/Russian State University of Humanitiesmeinmat@yahoo.com

University of Stockholm

FONOLOGIKOLLOKVIUM

• Tisdag, den 21 Oktober 2008.

Voicing of intervocal I.E. stops in Proto-Germanic:

Indo-Eur. Proto-Ger.

I.E. voiceless stops → Ger. voiceless fгicatives

P, T, K, Kw F, Þ, X, Xw

Initial stress → Ger. voiceless intervocal fricatives

ÁTA A-Þ-A

Non-initial stress → Ger. voiced intervocal fricatives

ATÁ A-Ð-A

Old I.E. non-final fricative s → Ger. fricative z or its reflexes

ASÁ A-Z-A > ARA

A diachronic correspondence does not allow for postulating stress/absence of stress on a

synchronic level.

• NB!• I.E. *pətēr is reflected in Gothic with a

voiced fricative, Goth. fadar, and it is somehow connected with the placement of I.E. word accent, but one cannot establish, whether Gothic accent remained on the 2nd syllable or not/ whether it changed its fonetic manefistation (tonal accent → mixed dynamic accent).

I.E.. *s, *t in Germanic I.E. final and and penultimate *-s-, *-t- after unstressed vowels → Germanic final fricatives *z,

*đ

ÁNISI ANIZ>ANR

I.E. final and penultimate *s,*t after stressed vowels →

Germanic fricatives *s, *þ

ANÍSI ANIS

• Only two pairs of fricatives — о.г. s/z, þ/đ, going back to I.E. *s, *t alternate in I.E. nominal and verbal endings: other fricatives do not occur in Germanic endings.

Verner’s Law in inlaut and auslaut

Voicing of medial fricatives

Voicing of final fricatives

Set of fricatives s: z, f: v, þ :đ, χ: γ, χu : gu (5 pairs)

s: z, þ: đ (2 pairs)

Presence of a subsequent vowel

Relevant Irrelevant

Presence of stressed syllable in a word form

Relevant Irrelevant

Prosodic domain Word form as a whole Unstressed part of a word form: penultimate + final syllable final reduced vowel + + penultimate syllable

Possible prosodic interpretations

Voicing of the onset ot the stressed syllable absence of voicing of the finale of the stressed syllable

Word-final weakening &

Voicing in an unstressed environment

General formula for both cases

Absence of the devoicing of the final of the stressed syllable

Balto-Slavic accent paradigms and Germanic accent

• Germanic verbal stems with Holzmann’s Law (Verschärfung) have Balto-Slavic cognates within the mobile a.p., while Germanic verbal stems with-*j/*w and without Holzmann’s Law have Balto-Slavic cognates within the immobile a.p. and root stress..

• а) Rus. доить, жевать, ковать, dial. бруить, сновать, травить, блевать, immediately verify the prediction, one stem is not represented, two verbs — быть and плыть, have undergone accentual shift.

• б) Ger. сеять, веять, шить, (у)-спеть, баять, маяться, знать, греть.

Lexical meanings of ‘Holzmann’s ‘ verbs from the mobile a.p.

Lexical meaning of verbs from the immobile a.p.

Germanic oxytonese

Germanic forms Italo-Celtic cognates with short vowels

Balto-Slavic cognates with long vowels

Goth. wair , O.I. verr, O.E., O.S., O.H.G. wer

Lat. Vir, viri, Ir. Fer, Wal. Gwr (pl. gwyr), Bret. Gour

Latv. Vĩrs, Lith. Výras, O.Pr. Wyras;

cf. O.Ind. Vīrah “man”, Avest. vīra- “hero”; Umbr. Weiro-

Old Germanic Accent and word classes

Initial stress Non-initial stress: РТ vs НТ

Normal / late timing

(NT)

Tonal and dynamic peaks on the root syllable

Tonal and dynamic peaks not earlier than of the post-root vowel (NT)

Early timing (ET) The tone starts before the stressed vowel (ET)

Conclusions I: comparative studies

• 1) Free stress existed after the breakup of the Ger. Protolanguage. Germanic oxytona in most cases conform to the placement of the Balto-Slavic accent.

• 2) In word belonging to the mobile a.p., there were regular ties between tonics and posttonics. These ties were responsible for a number of fonetic and morphonologic processes.

• 3) The main position for accentological mutations was the onset of a non-initial stressed syllable in words from the Baltic-Slavic mobile a.p. → Germanic oxytona: voiceless fricatives got voiced in this position, diphtongic glides -j,-w got lengthened. Consonant mutations prove for the relevance of free stress in Old Germanic languages.

• 4) Long-vocalic roots with post-root stress could ungergo vowel shortening. Cf. words with final sonorants: Goth. sǔnus “sun”, mǐmz “meat”, wǐnds “wind” but O.Pr. сынъ, O.Gr. Μήρος, O.I. vātas “wind’, vānt prpl “blowing”), and -j, -w-, which are reflexes of I.E. long diphtongs.

Conclusion II: historic fonetics

• Word with Verner’s law and voicing of intervocal fricatives had early timing т.е. anticipating tonal movement before the stress vowels: this movement affected the onset of the tonic syllable. Anticipating tonal movement characteristic of ET also affected glides –j- и –w-, which led to their lenghening and resyllabofication: : *daj-΄an > *daj-΄jan.

• Where neither fonologically relevant pair of fonemes nor glides were present, ET did not trigger any changes in segmental fonetics.

• Lexical divergences of Old Germanic languages regarding Verner’s law, should be explained not in terms of stress fluctuation sensu strictu, but with the fact that different Ger. Languages could generalize either variants with ET or NT in words from the mobile a.p.

• Obsolete cases of Verner’s law in forms of one and the same word in one and the same language, may reflect not the retraction of stress, but coexisting variants with NT and ET. Cf. Goth. sais-lep ~ sai-zlep (VII class pret.), and words with an intervocalic cluster fricative + voiced + stressed vowel (Goth. fidwor, izwis, izwara).

References-I

• ДЫБО В.А. 1961. Сокращение долгот в кельто-италийских языках и его значение для балто-славянской и индоевропейской акцентологии” // Вопросы славянского языкознания. № 5, 1961 г.

• ДЫБО В.А.1961a. Некоторые германо-славянские акцентологические параллели” // Всесоюзная конференция по вопросам славяно-германского языкознания — Минск 23–30 ноября 1961 г.

• ДЫБО В.А. Германское сокращение индоевропейских долгот, германский «Verschärfung» (закон Хольцмана) и балтославянская акцентология // Linguistica. Zagreb, 2005.

• DYBO, Vladimir A. Balto-Slavic Accentology and Winter’s Law // Studia Linguarum, 2, 2002, 291-515.

• ЦИММЕРЛИНГ А.В. Раннегерманское ударение. Фонетика и компаративистика. // Лингвистическая полифония. Сб. в честь юбилея проф. Р.К.Потаповой. М., 2007, 265-323.

• ZIMMERLING, ANTON. Accentological reconstruction and feasible fonetic features // Problemy izuchenija dal’nego rodstva jazykov (k 55-letiju S.A.Starostina. RGGU, March 25-28, 2008).

References-II

• VERNER, Karl. Eine Ausnahme aus der ersten Lautverschiebung // KZ, 23 (1876), 97-138.

• WOOD, Francis Asbury. Germanic Studies, 2. I. Verner’s Law in Gothic. Chicago. The University of Chicago Press. 1895.

• THURNEYSEN, Rudolf. “Spirantenwechsel im Gotischen”// IF 8 (1898): 208-14.

• JESPERSEN, Otto. “Voiced and Voiceless Consonants in English” // Linguistica Linguistica: Selected Papers in English, French, and German (by Otto Jespersen). Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard, 1933, 346-83.

• HIRT, Hermann. 1898. Grammatisches und Etymologisches // BGDGL 23: 288-357.

• HIRT, Hermann. Indogermanische Grammatik. Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1929.

References-III

• HOPTMAN, Ari E. Verner’s Law, Stress and the Accentuation of Old Germanic Poetry. A thesis submitted to the faculty of the graduate school of the university of Minnesota. University of Minnesota, 2002.

• LIBERMAN, Anatoly. The phonetic organization of Early Germanic // AJGLL 2 (1990), 1-21.

• LÜHR, Rosemarie. Germanische Resonantengemination durch Laryngal // MSzS 35 (1976): 73-92.

• MAŃCZAK, Witold. “La restriction de la règle de Verner à la position médiane et le sort du s final en germanique”// HS 103 (1990): 92-101.

• SMOCZYŃSKY, Wojciech. Hiat laryngalny w językach bałto-słowiańskich. Kraków, Wydawnictwo Universyteti Jagiellońskiego, 2003.

• SUZUKI, Seiichi. Final Devoicing and Elimination of the Effects of Verner’s Law in Gothic // IF 99 (1994): 217-51.

Acknowledgements

• The research was carried out with financial support of Russian Foundation of Humanities, project RGNF № 06-04-00203a