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Kluge's law is a controversialProto-Germanicsound law formulated byFriedrich Kluge.[1] It purports to explain the origin of the Proto-Germaniclong consonants*kk,*tt, and*pp (Proto-Indo-European lacked aphonemic length distinction for consonants) as originating in theassimilation of*n to a precedingvoiced plosive consonant, under the condition that the*n was part of a suffix which wasstressed in the ancestralProto-Indo-European (PIE). The name "Kluge's law" was coined byFriedrich Kauffmann[2] and revived byFrederik Kortlandt.[3] As of 2006, this law has not been generally accepted by historical linguists.[4]
The resulting long consonants would subsequently have been shortened, except when they followed a short vowel; this is uncontroversial for*ss[4] (which has a different origin). Proponents of Kluge's law use this to explain why so many Proto-Germanic roots (especially ofstrong verbs) end in short*p,*t, or*k even though their likelycognates in other Indo-European languages point to final Proto-Indo-European consonants other than the expected*b,*d,*g, or*ǵ. (Indeed, non-Germanic evidence for Proto-Indo-European*b is so rare that*bmay not have been a phoneme at all; yet, in Proto-Germanic,*p was rare only at the beginnings of words.)
Much likeVerner's law, Kluge's law would have created many consonant alternations in the grammatical paradigm of a word that were becoming only partially predictable. Analogical simplifications of these complexities are proposed[5][6] as an explanation for the many cases where closely related (often otherwise identical) words point to short, long, plosive,fricative, voiceless or voiced Proto-Germanic consonants in closely related Germanic languages or dialects, even sometimes the same dialect.
The origin of Proto-Germanic (PGmc)*ll,*rr,*nn, and*mm had already been explained in Kluge's time[7] as resulting from the assimilation of consonant clusters across earliermorpheme boundaries:*ll from earlier (Pre-Germanic)*l-n,*rr from earlier*r-n,*nn from earlier*n-n and*n-w,*mm from earlier*z-m and*n-m. This is uncontroversial today,[4][6][8] except that*r-n may not have given*rr in every case.[6][8] A few examples with*-n are:[6]
Kluge[1] proposed to explain*pp,*tt, and*kk the same way (examples cited after Kroonen[6]):
Without Kluge's law, **-bn-, **-pn-, **-dn-, **-tn-, **-gn-, and **-kn- would be expected, respectively, in the Germanic forms (according toGrimm's law andVerner's law).
Kluge's law did not operate behindstressed vowels, only in the same environment asVerner's law.[1] Examples cited are after Kroonen:[5][6]
Also, even when that condition was fulfilled, Kluge's law did not act on the descendants of Proto-Indo-European*s (Proto-Germanic*z following Verner's law). Examples cited after Kroonen:[5][6]
The rise of long consonant phonemes left thePre-Germanic language with three kinds of syllables:
In other words, syllables could be long because of the specific vowel (or a following*l/*m/*n/*r), or because a long consonant from the next syllable bled in. If both occurred, the syllable was overlong. SeeMora (linguistics), which suggests that such overlong syllables are cross-linguistically rare.
All overlong syllables were then turned into long syllables by shortening the long consonant. This is uncontroversial for*ss, which derives from Proto-Indo-European*t-t,*d-t and*dʰ-t clusters across morpheme boundaries (which were probably pronounced[tst] in Proto-Indo-European):[4][8]
Kluge[1]: 183 proposed to extend this explanation to cases where Proto-Germanic roots that constituted long syllables ended in*p,*t, or*k, while different consonants at the same places of articulation would be expected based on apparently related roots (in Proto-Germanic or other Indo-European branches). Examples cited after Kroonen:[6]
Kluge's law had a noticeable effect on Proto-Germanicmorphology. Because of its dependence onablaut andaccent, it operated in some parts of declension and conjugation, but not in others, giving rise to alternations of short and long consonants in both nominal and verbal paradigms. Kroonen[5][6] compared these alternations togrammatischer Wechsel (the alternation of voiced and voiceless fricatives in Proto-Germanic, caused byVerner's law) and especially to theconsonant gradation of the neighboringFinnic andSami languages. This is most conspicuous in then-stem nouns and the "néh₂-presents" (imperfective verbs formed from perfective ones by adding the Proto-Indo-European suffix*néh₂-/*nh₂-), but also occurs inmn-stems and directional adverbs.[6]
Kluge's law created long consonants in the genitive singular, which ended in*-n-és in Proto-Indo-European, and in the genitive plural (*-n-óHom). It did not operate in the dative plural: although the*n of*-n̥-mis was in direct contact with the root in Proto-Indo-European, it was syllabic, so it became*-un- early on the way to Proto-Germanic[4] (soon assimilated to*-ummiz[4][8]), preventing the operation of Kluge's law.[6]
Schematic (after Kroonen),[5]: 32 where C represents the initial and the final consonant of the root, and G represents itsVerner variant if it had one:
| n-stem paradigm | PIE | PGmc |
|---|---|---|
| nominative sg. | C_́C-ō | C_C-ô |
| genitive sg. | C_C-n-és | C_CC-iz |
| locative > dative sg. | C_C-én-i | C_G-ini |
| accusative sg. | C_C-ón-m̥ | C_G-anų |
| nominative pl. | C_C-ón-es | C_G-aniz |
| genitive pl. | C_C-n-óHom | C_CC-ǫ̂ |
| dative pl. | C_́C-n̥-mis | C_C-ummiz |
| accusative pl. | C_C-on-n̥s | C_G-unz |
| "fever" | PIE | PGmc |
|---|---|---|
| nominative sg. | *kréyt-ō | *hrīþô |
| genitive sg. | *krit-n-és | *hrittiz |
| locative > dative sg. | *krit-én-i | *hridini |
| accusative sg. | *krit-ón-m̥ | *hridanų |
Naturally, this led to three different kinds of consonant alternation (examples after Kroonen):[5]
| friction + voice + length | friction + length | length only | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nominative sg. | *tōgô | *rīhô | *wekô | *sterô |
| genitive sg. | *takkiz | *rikkiz | *wukkiz | *sturriz |
| Meaning | twig/branch, prong | stringing pole, line | wick | infertile animal |
The nominative singular of roots ending in plosives thus became difficult to predict from the cases where Kluge's law had operated; and the pure length opposition was more common than the others, because it was not limited to plosives.[6]
In Proto-Indo-European, such words regularly would have had a nominative singular in*-mḗn and a genitive in*-mn-és. However, in the genitive singular, it appears that the*-m- dropped out of the middle of the resulting three-consonant cluster already in PIE, making themn-stems look liken-stems: Proto-Indo-European*bʰudʰ-mēn,*bʰudʰ-mn-és >*bʰudʰmēn,*bʰudʰnés ("bottom") > Ancient Greekπυθμήν[pytʰˈmɛ̌ːn] from the nominative, but Sanskritbudʰná- and Latinfundus from the genitive. This would have allowed assimilation of*n to the now preceding consonant; Kroonen (2011)[6] proposed that this happened in such words, yielding e.g. Proto-Germanic*budmô,*buttiz ("bottom").
In addition to prepositions that indicated relative locations (such as "in" or "over"), Proto-Germanic had a large set of directional adverbs: "locative" ones (with meanings such as "inside" or "on top"), "allative" ones (with meanings such as "into" or "up") and "ablative" ones (with meanings such as "out from the inside" or "down from above"). Many, but not all of these forms had long consonants. Kroonen (2011, 2012)[6][9] reconstructed examples like this and attributed them to Kluge's law:
| preposition | "locative" | "allative" | "ablative" | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PIE | *upó | *up-nói | *up-néor*up-nó | *upó-neh₁ |
| PGmc | *uba | *uppai | *uppeor*uppa | *ubanē |
| meaning | over | on top | up | down from above |
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(August 2013) |
| néh₂-presents | PIE | PGmc |
|---|---|---|
| 3p. singular | C_C-néh₂-ti | C_CC-ōþi |
| 3p. plural | C_C-n̥h₂-énti | C_G-unanþi |
| This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(August 2013) |
The law had sparked[when?] discussions about its chronology in relation toGrimm's law andVerner's law. The problem is that the traditional ordering (1. Grimm, 2. Verner, 3. Kluge) cannot account for the absence of voice in the Proto-Germanic geminates.[citation needed] Therefore, it has been proposed[according to whom?] to rearrange the order of events so that the Proto-Germanic geminates' loss of voice may be equated with that part of Grimm's law that turns mediae into voiceless tenues. This would mean that characteristics noted in Kluge's law happened before (or between different phases of) those of Grimm's law. If accepted, this has further consequences, because those characteristics of Verner's law must in fact, precede those of Kluge's law, or otherwise it can not be explained why both the reflexes of Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirated plosives and Proto-Indo-European voiceless plosives underwent the changes characteristic in Kluge's law. Consequently, this would put Verner's law chronologically in the first position, followed by Kluge's, and finally by Grimm's law.
Under the updated view, the processes may be summarized by the following table:
| Pre-Proto-Germanic | -tʰnV́- | -dʱnV́- | -dnV́- | All three sets of stops occur before accented suffixes. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verner's law | -dʱnV́- | -dʱnV́- | -dnV́- | Voiceless stops occurring after an unaccented syllable are voiced. |
| Kluge's law | -dːV́- | -dːV́- | -dːV́- | Stop + *n becomes, before an accented vowel, a geminate. |
| Grimm's law and stress shift | -tːV- | -tːV- | -tːV- | Voiced stops are devoiced, and accent is shifted to the initial syllable. |
Soon after the initial publications,[10][1] Kluge's law came to be considered an unnecessary hypothesis by several authors. With rather few exceptions, introductory texts have ignored it, and more detailed works on Proto-Germanic have generally dismissed it rather briefly; according to Guus Kroonen, "it has been seriously challenged throughout the 20th century, and nowadays even borders on the uncanonical in both Indo-European and Germanic linguistics".[5]: 53
Beginning withReinhold Trautmann,[11] several authors (e.g.Jerzy Kuryłowicz,[12]: 133–134 Sarah Fagan,[13]: 38 and Don Ringe[4]: 115 ) have stated that there are very few or no cases where a Proto-Germanic root with a long plosive corresponds to, or is best explained as corresponding to, a Proto-Indo-European root followed by a suffix that began withn.
Rosemarie Lühr and Kroonen countered by presenting long lists of examples, especially (as they point out) ofn-stem nouns.[14][6]
Onomatopoetic roots often end in a long plosive in Germanic languages. Examples[6]: 125 include theOld Norse wordsklappa "to clap",okka "to sigh", andskvakka "to make a gurgling sound", Old Swedishkratta and modern Germankratzen "to scratch", modern Norwegiantikka "to tap", Old Frisiankloppa and modern Germanklopfen "to knock", and Old Englishcluccian "to cluck". Long consonants more generally are ubiquitous in Germanic nicknames such as Old EnglishTotta fromTorhthelm,Beoffa fromBeornfriþ,Blæcca for a black-haired man (note the short/k/ inblæc),Eadda (and GermanOtto) from all names with Proto-Germanic*Auda-,[15] a long list ofGothic ones whose referents are often difficult or impossible to reconstruct (Ibba,Faffo,Mammo,Oppa,Riggo,Wacca, etc.; possibly alsoatta, meaning "father"), German ones such as – accounting for theHigh German consonant shift –Fritz (*Fritta(n)-) fromFriedrich,Lutz (*(H)lutta(n)-) fromLudwig, andSicko (*Sikkan-) fromSi(e)gmar, and finally IcelandicSolla fromSólrún,Magga fromMargrét,Nonni fromJón,Stebbi fromStefán,Mogga fromMorgunblaðið, andlögga "cop" fromlögreglan "the police";[6] Gąsiorowski[15] further proposed to explain the otherwise enigmatic English wordsdog,pig,frog,stag, (ear)wig, and Old Englishsucga "dunnock" and*tacga ~*tecga "young sheep" (not attested in the nominative singular) as nicknames formed to various nouns or adjectives. Some authors, such as Trautmann[11] and Fagan,[13] have tried to ascribeall long plosives of Proto-Germanic to "intensive" or "expressive gemination" on the basis of the idea that the roots that contained them had meanings connected to emotions, including intensity and iteration; this idea, first formulated by Gerland[16] – long before Kluge published), was accepted e.g. in the extremely influential,Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch[17] as well as the more specialist works of Seebold[18] and Kluge & Seebold,[19] and was considered "still perhaps the most widely accepted explanation" by Ringe.[4]: 115
Lühr[14] andJens Elmegård Rasmussen,[20] approvingly cited by Kroonen,[6] as well as Kortlandt,[3] countered that most nouns with long plosives or evidence of consonant gradation did not have meanings that would fit this hypothesis. The same works pointed out that "expressive gemination" does not explain why so many of these nouns aren-stems. Moreover, expressive gemination cannot explain the many cases where Proto-Germanic*/pːtːkː/ correspond to Proto-Indo-European*/bʱdʱɡʲʱɡʱ/ (as in Old Englishliccian "to lick" from Proto-Indo-European*leiǵh-, where**licgian would be expected in Old English[21]: 17 ), it cannot explain Proto-Germanic*/ptk/ corresponding to Proto-Indo-European*/bʱdʱɡʲʱɡʱ/ (as in Old Englishdēop from Proto-Indo-European*dʰeubʰ-[3]: 3 [6]: 128 [21]: 16 ), and it cannot explain Proto-Germanic*/ptk/ corresponding to Proto-Indo-European*/ptkʲk/ (as in Middle Dutchtoken "to push" from Proto-Indo-European*duk-), while Kluge's law followed by analogy has no problem with such phenomena.[6]: 125 Kroonen added: "Moreover, the Expressivity Theory [sic] seems to contain a critical theoretical fallacy. It isa priori implausible that a completely new range ofphonemes (i.e. geminates) could be introduced into a linguistic system by extra-linguistic factors such as charged semantics. In this respect, some versions of the Expressivity Theory are truly comparable to what in biology is known as Aristotle'sgeneratio spontanea hypothesis [...], which revolved around the idea that living organisms, such as flies and eels, come about spontaneously in decaying corpses."[6]: 125 Finally, the nicknames with long consonants (including Gothicatta) aren-stems;n-stem nicknames occur in other Indo-European branches as well, such as LatinCatō,Varrō,Nerō and GreekPlatōn,Strabōn,[6] and "Germanic has many personalizing or individualizingn-stems that are structurally identical with the hypocorisms [nicknames], e.g.OHGchresso 'groundling' tochresan 'to crawl' (Kuryłowicz 1957[12]) [...]".[6]: 82
Most of the Proto-Germanic long plosives are voiceless; but while long voiced plosives were rare, they do have to be reconstructed in a few cases. The hypothesis of expressive gemination has trouble explaining this, as Trautmann admitted while rejecting Kluge's law: "Wie wir uns freilich das Nebeneinander von z. B.kk- gg- k- g- zu erklären haben, weiss ich nicht" – 'I do not know, however, how we ought to explain the coexistence of e.g.kk- gg- k- g-'.[11]: 66 Kroonen says: "The only existing theory that is powerful enough to explain such root variations, is the one that acknowledges consonant gradation and the underlying mechanism of the paradigmatic contaminations. The co-occurrence ofONriga 'to lift heavily' :MLGwriggen 'to twist' :MEwricken 'to wiggle', for instance, implies two different expressive formations within the Expressivity Theory, the choice between a voiced and voiceless geminate being arbitrary, erratic, or, in other words, scientifically unfalsifiable. By reconstructing a paradigm*wrikkōþi,*wrigunanþi <*uriḱ-néh₂-ti,*uriḱ-nh₂-énti, on the other hand, the only irregular form is*wrigg-, which may be explained readily by contamination of*wrig- and*wrikk-."[6]: 124
Similarly, Piotr Gąsiorowski felt that it was "methodologically unsound to invoke" "psycholinguistic factors" and other hypotheses of irregular development "until we have tried everything else", in this case, a regular sound law such as Kluge's.[21]: 21 Kroonen pointed out that, by virtue of having first been published in 1869,[16] the hypothesis of expressive gemination "basically stems from the time before the rise of theNeogrammarian doctrine ofAusnahmslosigkeit der Lautgesetze" ('exceptionlessness of the sound laws').[5]: 53
As pointed out above, long consonants did not exist in Proto-Indo-European, and many Germanic roots are attested with a long consonant in some of the ancient languages, but with a short one in others (often together with a short or a long vowel, respectively). This led the "Leiden School" to postulate that the Germanic roots with long plosives were not inherited from Proto-Indo-European, but borrowed from asubstrate language. Kroonen[6]: 12 reported that his doctorate at the University of Leiden was originally intended
to investigatethe influence of lost non-Indo-European languages on the Proto-Germanic lexicon. [...] During the course of time, however, my dissertation gradually developed into a study of the Proto-Germanicn-stems and their typicalmorphology. The reason for this change of direction was that the most important formal criterion that had been used in order to isolate non-Indo-European words from the rest of the lexicon – the Proto-Germanic geminates – turned out to be significantly overrepresented in this morphological category.
The advocates of the Leiden Substrate Theory had defined the typical Germanic cross-dialectal interchange of singulate and geminate roots as the prime indicator of prehistoric language contact. For this reason, this substrate language had even been dubbed the "Language of the Geminates". Yet, beside the fact that geminates were not at all distributed randomly across the vocabulary, as would be expected in the case of language contact, the interchanges proved to be far from erratic. In fact, they turned out to be strikingly predictable in nature.
While it is by no means impossible that there was "a substrate language with geminates", or even "that Kluge's law was triggered by the absorption of speakers of this substrate language into the PIE dialect that ultimately became known as Germanic", Kroonen found no evidence for such hypotheses and stressed that a long consonant in a Germanic root may not be taken as evidence that this root was borrowed.[5]: 62
Long plosives are very rare in the known Gothic material; other than the abovementioned nicknames (includingatta), they are attested only inskatts ("money"),smakka ("fig";n-stem) and the Latin loanword,sakkus ("sack").[6] Therefore, Kuryłowicz[12] and Fagan[13] argued that long plosives were absent in Proto-Germanic and only arose in Proto-Northwest Germanic – so that, if Kluge's law exists at all, it must have operated between Proto-Germanic and Proto-Northwest Germanic, not between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic.
Lühr[14] and Kroonen[6] have pointed out that strong verbs with/ptk/ following a long vowel, diphthong or "resonant" are common in the Gothic Bible, and that many of these are clearly related to iteratives with long consonants that are attested in Northwest Germanic languages. Kroonen[6]: 82, 111 further drew attention to the fact that the Old SaxonHeliand, an epic poem about the life of Jesus, contains only three words with long plosives of potentially Proto-Germanic origin (skatt "treasure, money",likkōn "to lick";upp,uppa,uppan "on top", "up", "down from above"), while such words "are ever-present in Middle Low German", and approvingly cited the hypothesis by Kuryłowicz[12]: 140 that words with long plosives were considered stylistically inappropriate for a Christian religious work because long plosives were so common in nicknames – they may have sounded too colloquial and informal.
