Linguistic features of Germanic languages

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Phonetics – 1) word stress 2) vowels 3) consonants Morphology –

Phonetics – 1) word stress
2) vowels
3) consonants
Morphology – 1)

changing of grammatical forms
2) parts of speech
Vocabulary

CONTENTS

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Early Proto-Germanic – free and movable Late Proto-Germanic – fixed on

Early Proto-Germanic – free and movable
Late Proto-Germanic – fixed on the

first syllable – root or prefix.
In simple forms the root-syllable was normally stressed.
In compound forms (especially in nouns and adjectives) the stress fell on the prefix.
In verbs the prefix was still a separate particle at that time and did not take the stress.
PG fiskaz, Gt fisks, O Icel fiskr, OE fisk

WORD STRESS

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IE short /ŏ/ and /ǎ/ correspond to GLs short /ǎ/: Gr

IE short /ŏ/ and /ǎ/ correspond to GLs short /ǎ/: Gr

octō – Goth ahtau, Rus ночь – Germ nacht
IE long /ō/ and long /ā/ correspond to GLs long /ō/: Lat frāter – Goth brōþar (брат), Lat flōs – OE blōma (цветок).
In the root syllable IE /e/ = GL /i/, if it was followed by 1) /i/ 2) /j/ 3) nasal+consonant, else IE /e/ = G /e/.
Examples: Lat medius – OE middle (середина), Lat ventus – OE wind (ветер) but Lat edere – OE etan (есть).
IE /u/ = GL /u/ if followed by 1) /u/ 2) nasal+consonant, else IE /u/ = G /o/.
Example: Lat sunus – OE sunu (сын)

VOWELS

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The 1st Consonant Shift, or Grimm’s Law IE G Examples /

The 1st Consonant Shift, or Grimm’s Law
IE G Examples
/ p /

/ f / Lat plěnus – Eng full
/ t / / þ / Gr tres – Eng three
/ k / / h / Lat noctem – Goth nahts
/ b / / p / Rus болото – Eng pool
/ d / / t / Lat duo – Goth twan
/ g / / k / Lat ego – OE ic
/ bh / / b / Sans bhratar – Eng brother
/ dh / / d / Sans madhu – OE medu
/ gh / / g / Lat hostis - Rus гость – Germ gast

CONSONANTS

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Verner’s Law: unstressed vowel + voiceless stop voiceless fricative voiced fricative

Verner’s Law: unstressed vowel + voiceless stop voiceless fricative voiced fricative

voiced stop: /t/ /þ/ /ð / /d/ Gr patěr=> OE fæder.
The consonant pairs involved in grammatical alternation were f/b, þ/d, h/g, hw/w, s/r.
Some words retained traces of Verner’s Law:
death – dead was – were

CONSONANTS

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Inflections were the principal means of form-building . Sound interchanges became

Inflections were the principal means of form-building .
Sound interchanges became very

productive.
The principal gradation in IE languages was e – o which is qualitative. (умереть – мор, беру - брал).
Suppletion- the forms of one and the same word are built from different roots or stems: иду –шел, хороший – лучше, я – меня; I-my,mine- me; ego-mei

Morphology

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Classes of nouns: 1. vocalic stems a, o, i, u formed

Classes of nouns: 1. vocalic stems a, o, i, u formed

strong declension;
2. n-stem formed the paradigm of weak declension;
3. s/r–stems;
4. root-stem nouns which had never had any stem suffix, the root and the stem in these words always coinsice.
Categories: 1. declension;
2. gender (masculine, feminine, neuter);
3. case (Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative).
4. number (singular and plural).

NOUN

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Adjective declension in all GLs has no parallel with other IE

Adjective declension in all GLs has no parallel with other IE

languages.
1. strong declension which is a combination of substantival and pronominal endings;
2. weak declenstion which reflected the declension of n-stem substantives.
Categories: 1. gender;
2. number;
3. case;
4. degrees of comparison (positive, comparative, superlative). Comparative degree was built by means of the suffixes –iza, -oza; superlative degree was built with the suffixes –ist, -ost.

ADJECTIVE

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The oldest classes are personal, demonstrative and interrogative. Personal pronoun had

The oldest classes are personal, demonstrative and interrogative.
Personal pronoun had only

two persons, the 3rd person developed later from the demonstrative pronouns.
Another ancient feature was the dual number of personal pronouns (ic – wit – wē; þu –   ʒit –  ʒē ).

PRONOUNS

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1. Strong verbs (had four principal forms - Infinitive, Past singular,

1. Strong verbs (had four principal forms - Infinitive, Past singular,

Past plural and Participle II);
faran - fōr - fōrum – farans ( ехать )
letan – lailot – lailotum – letans ( оставлять )
2. weak verbs (Past tense, Participle I);

VERBS

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3. united preterit-present verbs (used vowel gradation to derive the forms

3. united preterit-present verbs (used vowel gradation to derive the forms

of the present tense while their form of the preterit was build with the help of the dental suffix..
Examples: OE wītan (inf) - wāt (pres sg) – wĭton (pres pl) – wiste (pret sg) – wiston (pret pl) - ʓewiten (P2) (знать).
Here belong modal verbs , verbs denoting possession and verbs denoting estimation.
Categories: 1. number;
2. tense (Present and Past);
3. mood (indicative, imperative and subjunctive);

VERBS

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IE words Pure Germanic words VOCABULARY

IE words
Pure Germanic words

VOCABULARY