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| Proto-Germanic | |
|---|---|
| PGmc, Common Germanic | |
| Reconstruction of | Germanic languages |
| Region | Northwestern Europe |
| Era | c. 500 BC–200 AD |
Reconstructed ancestor | |
| Lower-order reconstructions | |
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Proto-Germanic (abbreviatedPGmc; also calledCommon Germanic) is thereconstructedcommon ancestor of theGermanic languages.
A defining feature of Proto-Germanic is the completion of the process described byGrimm's law, a set of sound changes that occurred between its status as a dialect ofProto-Indo-European and its gradual divergence into a separate language. The end of the Common Germanic period is reached with the beginning of theMigration Period in the fourth century AD.
The Proto-Germanic language is not directly attested and has beenreconstructed using thecomparative method with other more archaic and earlier attested Indo-European languages,[note 1] extremely early Germanic loanwords in Baltic and Finnish languages (for example, Finnish kunningas 'king'), earlyrunic inscriptions (specifically theVimose inscriptions in Denmark, dated to the 2nd century CE),[2] and inRoman Empire era transcriptions of individual words (notably inTacitus'sGermania,c. AD 90[note 2]). The non-runicNegau helmet inscription, dated to the 2nd century BCE, has also been argued by some to represent the earliest attestation ofGrimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift).
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Proto-Germanic developed out of pre-Proto-Germanic during thePre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe. According to theGermanic substrate hypothesis, it may have been influenced by non-Indo-European cultures, such as theFunnelbeaker culture, but the sound change in the Germanic languages known asGrimm's law points to a non-substratic development away from other branches of Indo-European.[clarification needed][note 3] Proto-Germanic itself was likely spoken afterc. 500 BC,[7] andProto-Norse, from the second century AD and later, is still quite close to reconstructed Proto-Germanic, but other common innovations separating Germanic fromProto-Indo-European suggest a common history of pre-Proto-Germanic speakers throughout theNordic Bronze Age.
The Proto-Germanic language developed in southern Scandinavia (Denmark, south Sweden and southern Norway) and the northern-most part of Germany in Schleswig Holstein and northern Lower Saxony, theUrheimat (original home) of the Germanic tribes.[8] It is possible that Indo-European speakers first arrived in southern Scandinavia with theCorded Ware culture in the mid-3rd millennium BC, developing into theNordic Bronze Age cultures by the early second millennium BC.[citation needed] According to Mallory, Germanicists "generally agree" that theUrheimat ('original homeland') of the Proto-Germanic language, the ancestral idiom of all attested Germanic dialects, was primarily situated in an area corresponding to the extent of theJastorf culture.[9][10][11][note 4]
Early Germanic expansion in thePre-Roman Iron Age (fifth to first centuries BC) placed Proto-Germanic speakers in contact with theContinental CelticLa Tène horizon. A number of Celtic loanwords in Proto-Germanic have been identified.[12] By the first century AD, Germanic expansion reached theDanube and theUpper Rhine in the south and theGermanic peoples first entered thehistorical record. At about the same time, extending east of theVistula (Oksywie culture,Przeworsk culture), Germanic speakers came into contact with earlySlavic cultures, as reflected in early Germanicloans in Proto-Slavic.
By the third century, Late Proto-Germanic speakers had expanded over significant distance, from theRhine to theDniepr spanning about 1,200 km (700 mi). The period marks the breakup of Late Proto-Germanic and the beginning of the (historiographically recorded)Germanic migrations.
The earliest attested stage of the Germanic languages is known asProto-Norse, variably dated to the 2nd century AD,[13] around 300 AD[14] or the first century AD[15][16] inrunic inscriptions (such as theTune Runestone).
The first coherent text recorded in a Germanic language is theGothic Bible, written in the later fourth century in the East Germanic variety of theThervingiGothic Christians, who had escapedpersecution by moving from Scythia toMoesia in 348. Early West Germanic text is available from the fifth century, beginning with theFrankishBergakker runic inscription.
The evolution of Proto-Germanic from its ancestral forms, beginning with its ancestorProto-Indo-European, began with the development of a separate common way of speech among some geographically nearby speakers of a prior language and ended with the dispersion of the proto-language speakers into distinct populations with mostly independent speech habits. Between the two points, many sound changes occurred.
Phylogeny as applied tohistorical linguistics involves the evolutionary descent of languages. The phylogeny problem is the question of what specific tree, in thetree model of language evolution, best explains the paths of descent of all the members of a language family from a common language, or proto-language (at the root of the tree) to the attested languages (at the leaves of the tree). TheGermanic languages form a tree with Proto-Germanic at its root that is a branch of the Indo-European tree, which in turn hasProto-Indo-European at its root. Borrowing of lexical items from contact languages makes the relative position of the Germanic branch within Indo-European less clear than the positions of the other branches of Indo-European. In the course of the development of historical linguistics, various solutions have been proposed, none certain and all debatable.
In the evolutionary history of a language family, philologists consider a genetic "tree model" appropriate only if communities do not remain in effective contact as their languages diverge. Early Indo-European had limited contact between distinct lineages, and, uniquely, the Germanic subfamily exhibited a less treelike behaviour, as some of its characteristics were acquired from neighbours early in its evolution rather than from its direct ancestors. The internal diversification of West Germanic developed in an especially non-treelike manner.[17]
Proto-Germanic is generally agreed to have begun about 500 BC.[7] Its hypothetical ancestor between the end of Proto-Indo-European and 500 BC is termed Pre-Proto-Germanic. Whether it is to be included under a wider meaning of Proto-Germanic is a matter of usage.
Winfred P. Lehmann regardedJacob Grimm's "First Germanic Sound Shift", or Grimm's law, andVerner's law,[note 5] (which pertained mainly to consonants and were considered for many decades to have generated Proto-Germanic) as pre-Proto-Germanic and held that the "upper boundary" (that is, the earlier boundary) was the fixing of the accent, or stress, on the root syllable of a word, typically on the first syllable.[18] Proto-Indo-European had featured a moveablepitch-accent consisting of "an alternation of high and low tones"[19] as well as stress of position determined by a set of rules based on the lengths of a word's syllables.
The fixation of the stress led to sound changes in unstressed syllables. For Lehmann, the "lower boundary" was the dropping of final-a or-e in unstressed syllables; for example, post-PIE*wóyd-e >Gothicwait, 'knows'.Elmer H. Antonsen agreed with Lehmann about the upper boundary[20] but later foundrunic evidence that the-a was not dropped:ékwakraz ... wraita, 'I, Wakraz, … wrote (this)'. He says: "We must therefore search for a new lower boundary for Proto-Germanic."[21]
Antonsen's own scheme divides Proto-Germanic into an early stage and a late stage. The early stage includes the stress fixation and resulting "spontaneous vowel-shifts" while the late stage is defined by ten complex rules governing changes of both vowels and consonants.[22]
The following changes are known or presumed to have occurred in the history of Proto-Germanic in the wider sense from the end of Proto-Indo-European up to the point that Proto-Germanic began to break into mutually unintelligible dialects. The changes are listed roughly in chronological order, with changes that operate on the outcome of earlier ones appearing later in the list. The stages distinguished and the changes associated with each stage rely heavily on Ringe, who in turn summarizes standard concepts and terminology.[23]
This stage began with the separation of a distinct speech, perhaps while it was still forming part of the Proto-Indo-European dialect continuum. It contained many innovations that were shared with other Indo-European branches to various degrees, probably through areal contacts, and mutual intelligibility with other dialects would have remained for some time. It was nevertheless on its own path, whether dialect or language.
Allophonic colouring of*/e/ adjacent to laryngeal consonants:
|
Merging of PIE "palatovelar" and "velar" plosives ("centumization"):
|
Epenthesis of*/u/ before thesyllabicsonorants:
|
An epenthetic*/s/ was inserted already in PIE after dental consonants when they were followed by a suffix beginning with a dental.
|
| Geminate consonants are shortened after a consonant or a long vowel —*káyd-tis 'act of calling' (pronounced*káydstis) >*káyssis >*káysis >*haisiz 'command' |
| Word-final long vowels are lengthened to "overlong" vowels —*séh₁mō 'seeds' >*séh₁mô >*sēmô |
Lossof laryngeals, phonemicising theallophones of*/e/:
|
| Cowgill's law:*/h₃/ (and possibly*/h₂/) is strengthened to*/g/ between a sonorant and*/w/ —*n̥h₃mé 'us two' >*n̥h₃wé[clarification needed] >*ungwé >*unk |
| Vocalisation of remaining laryngeals:*/H/ >*/ə/ —*ph₂tḗr 'father' >*pətḗr >*fadēr;*sámh₂dʰos 'sand' >*sámədʰos >*samdaz |
| Velars are labialised by following*/w/:*éḱwos 'horse' >*ékwos >*ékʷos >*ehwaz |
Labiovelars are delabialised next to*/u/ (or*/un/) or before*/t/:
|
This stage began its evolution as a dialect ofProto-Indo-European that had lost its laryngeals and had five long and six short vowels as well as one or two overlong vowels. The consonant system was still that of PIE minus palatovelars and laryngeals, but the loss of syllabic resonants already made the language markedly different from PIE proper. Mutual intelligibility might have still existed with other descendants of PIE, but it would have been strained, and the period marked the definitive break of Germanic from the other Indo-European languages and the beginning of Germanic proper, containing most of the sound changes that are now held to define this branch distinctively. This stage contained various consonant and vowel shifts, the loss of the contrastive accent inherited from PIE for a uniform accent on the first syllable of the word root, and the beginnings of the reduction of the resulting unstressed syllables.
Loss of word-final non-high short vowels*/e/,*/a/,*/o/ —*wóyde '(s)he knows' >*wóyd >*wait
|
Grimm's law: Chain shift of the three series of plosives. Voiced plosives had already been devoiced before a voiceless obstruent prior to this stage. Labiovelars were delabialised before*/t/.
|
Verner's law: Voiceless fricatives are voiced when preceded by an unaccented vowel, including cases where the vowel and fricative are separated by a sonorant (/n, m, r, l, j, w). This allophonic voicing became phonemic only after the regularization of stress placement (see below).
|
| All words become stressed on their first syllable. The PIE contrastive accent is lost, phonemicising the voicing distinction created by Verner's law. |
| Word-initial*/gʷ/ >*/b/[dubious –discuss] —*gʷʰédʰyeti "(s)he is asking for" >*gʷédyedi >*bédyedi >*bidiþi "(s)he asks, (s)he prays" (with -þ- by analogy) |
| Unstressed*/owo/ >*/oː/ —*-owos 'thematic first du.' >*-ōz |
| Unstressed*/ew/ >*/ow/ before a consonant or word-finally —*-ews 'u-stem gen. sg.' >*-owz >*-auz |
Unstressed*/e/ >*/i/ except before*/r/ —*-éteh₂ 'abstract noun suffix' >*-eþā >*-iþā >*-iþō
|
Unstressed*/ji/ >*/i/ —*légʰyeti '(s)he is lying down' ~*légʰyonti 'they are lying down' >*legyidi ~*legyondi >*legidi ~*legyondi >*ligiþi ~*ligjanþi (with -þ- by analogy)
|
Merging of non-high back vowels:
|
By this stage, Germanic had emerged as a distinctive branch and had undergone many of the sound changes that would make its later descendants recognisable as Germanic languages. It had shifted its consonant inventory from a system that was rich in plosives to one containing primarily fricatives, had lost the PIE mobile pitch accent for a predictable stress accent, and had merged two of its vowels. The stress accent had already begun to cause the erosion of unstressed syllables, which would continue in its descendants. The final stage of the language included the remaining development until the breakup into dialects and, most notably, featured the development of nasal vowels and the start ofumlaut, another characteristic Germanic feature.
| Word-final*/m/ >*/n/ —*tóm 'that, acc. masc.' >*þam >*þan 'then';*-om 'a-stem acc. sg.' >*-am >*-an >*-ą |
| */m/ >*/n/ before dental consonants —*ḱm̥tóm 'hundred' >*humdan >*hundan >*hundą;*déḱm̥d 'ten' >*tehumt >*tehunt >*tehun |
| Word-final*/n/ is lost after unstressed syllables, and the preceding vowel is nasalised —*-om 'a-stem acc. sg.' >*-am >*-an >*-ą;*-eh₂m >*-ān >*-ą̄ >*-ǭ;*-oHom 'genitive plural' >*-ân >*-ą̂ >*-ǫ̂ |
| Nasal*/ẽː/ is lowered to*/ɑ̃ː/ —*dʰédʰeh₁m 'I was putting' >*dedēn >*dedę̄ >*dedą̄ >*dedǭ |
Elimination of*/ə/:
|
Assimilation of sonorants:
|
| Loss of word-final*/t/ after unstressed syllables —*déḱm̥d 'ten' >*tehunt >*tehun;*bʰéroyd '(s)he would carry, subj.' >*berayt >*berai;*mélid ~*mélit- 'honey' >*melit ~*melid- >*meli ~*melid- >*mili ~*milid- |
| */ɣʷ/ >*/w/, sometimes*/ɣ/ —*snóygʷʰos 'snow' >*snaygʷaz >*snaiwaz;*kʷekʷléh₂ 'wheels (collective)' >*hʷegʷlā >*hʷewlā >*hweulō |
Long a is raised:
|
Earlyi-mutation:*/e/ >*/i/ when followed by*/i/ or*/j/ in the same or next syllable —*bʰéreti '(s)he is carrying' >*beridi >*biridi;*médʰyos 'middle' >*medyaz >*midjaz;*néwios 'new' >*newyaz >*niwjaz
|
*/e/ >*/i/ when followed by a syllable-final nasal —*en 'in' >*in;*séngʷʰeti '(s)he chants' >*sengʷidi >*singwidi '(s)he sings'
|
*/j/ is lost between vowels except after*/i/ and*/w/ (but it is lost after syllabic*/u/). The two vowels that come to stand in hiatus then contract to long vowels or diphthongs —*-oyh₁m̥ 'thematic optative 1sg sg.' >*-oyum >*-ayų >*-aų;*h₂eyeri 'in the morning' >*ayiri >*airi 'early'
|
| */n/ is lost before*/x/, causingcompensatory lengthening and nasalisation of the preceding vowel —*ḱónketi '(s)he hangs' >*hanhidi (phonetically*[ˈxɑ̃ːxiði]) |
Loans into Proto-Germanic from other (known) languages or from Proto-Germanic into other languages can be dated relative to each other by which Germanic sound laws have acted on them. Since the dates of borrowings and sound laws are not precisely known, it is not possible to use loans to establish absolute or calendar chronology.
Most loans fromCeltic appear to have been made before or during theGermanic Sound Shift.[12][27] For instance, one specimen*rīks 'ruler' was borrowed from Celtic*rīxs 'king' (stem*rīg-), withg →k.[28] It is clearly not native because PIE **ē →*ī is typical not of Germanic but Celtic languages. Another is*walhaz 'foreigner; Celt' from the Celtic tribal nameVolcae withk →h ando →a. Other likely Celtic loans include*ambahtaz 'servant',*brunjǭ 'mailshirt',*gīslaz 'hostage',*īsarną 'iron',*lēkijaz 'healer',*laudą 'lead',*Rīnaz 'Rhine', and*tūnaz, tūną 'fortified enclosure'.[note 6] These loans would likely have been borrowed during the CelticHallstatt and earlyLa Tène cultures when the Celts dominated central Europe, although the period spanned several centuries.
FromEast Iranian came*hanapiz 'hemp' (compareKhotanesekaṃhā,Ossetiangæn(æ) 'flax'),[29]*humalaz, humalǭ 'hops' (compare Ossetianxumællæg),*keppǭ ~ skēpą 'sheep' (comparePersiančapiš 'yearling kid'),*kurtilaz 'tunic' (cf. Ossetkʷəræt 'shirt'),*kutą 'cottage' (compare Persiankad 'house'),*paidō 'cloak',[30]*paþaz 'path' (compareAvestanpantā, gen.pathō), and*wurstwą 'work' (compare Avestanvərəštuua).[note 7] The words could have been transmitted directly by theScythians from theUkraine plain, groups of whom entered Central Europe via the Danube and created theVekerzug Culture in theCarpathian Basin (sixth to fifth centuries BC), or by later contact withSarmatians, who followed the same route.[31] Unsure is*marhaz 'horse', which was either borrowed directly fromScytho-Sarmatian or through Celtic mediation.
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Numerous loanwords believed to have been borrowed from Proto-Germanic are known in the non-Germanic languages spoken in areas adjacent to the Germanic languages.
The heaviest influence has been on theFinnic languages, which have received hundreds of Proto-Germanic or pre-Proto-Germanic loanwords.[32][33] Well-known examples include PGmc*druhtinaz 'warlord' (compare Finnishruhtinas),*hrengaz (later*hringaz) 'ring' (compare Finnishrengas, Estonianrõngas),[34]*kuningaz 'king' (Finnishkuningas),[2]*lambaz 'lamb' (Finnishlammas),[35]*lunaz 'ransom' (Finnishlunnas).[36]
Loanwords into theSamic languages,Baltic languages andSlavic languages are also known.
The termsubstrate with reference to Proto-Germanic refers to lexical items and phonological elements that do not appear to be descended from Proto-Indo-European. The substrate theory postulates that the elements came from an earlier population that stayed amongst the Indo-Europeans and was influential enough to bring over some elements of its own language. The theory of a non-Indo-European substrate was first proposed bySigmund Feist, who estimated that about a third of all Proto-Germanic lexical items came from the substrate.[note 8]
Theo Vennemann has hypothesized aBasque substrate and aSemiticsuperstrate in Germanic; however, his speculations, too, are generally rejected by specialists in the relevant fields.[37]
The following conventions are used in this article for transcribing Proto-Germanic reconstructed forms:
The table below[citation needed] lists the consonantal phonemes of Proto-Germanic, ordered and classified by their reconstructed pronunciation. The slashes around the phonemes are omitted for clarity. When two phonemes appear in the same box, the first of each pair is voiceless, the second is voiced. Phones written in parentheses representallophones and are not themselves independent phonemes. For descriptions of the sounds and definitions of the terms, follow the links on the column and row headings.[note 9]
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Labialised | |||||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | (ŋ) | (ŋʷ) | ||||||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | k | (g) | kʷ | (gʷ) | ||||
| Fricative | ɸ | (β) | θ | (ð) | s | z | x | ɣ | xʷ | ɣʷ | ||
| Trill | r | |||||||||||
| Approximant | j | w | ||||||||||
| Lateral Approximant | l | |||||||||||
Notes:
Grimm's law as applied to pre-proto-Germanic is achain shift of the original Indo-Europeanplosives. Verner's Law explains a category of exceptions to Grimm's Law, where a voiced fricative appears where Grimm's Law predicts a voiceless fricative. The discrepancy is conditioned by the placement of the original Indo-European word accent.
| Labiovelar reduction (nearu) | Grimm's law: Voiceless to fricative | Grimm's law: Voiced to voiceless | Grimm's law: Aspirated to voiced | Verner's law | Labiovelar dissolution | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| labials | p >ɸ | b >p | bʱ >b,β | ɸ >b,β | ||
| dentals | t >θ | d >t | dʱ >d,ð | θ >d,ð | ||
| velars | k >x | ɡ >k | ɡʱ >ɡ,ɣ | x >ɡ,ɣ | ||
| labiovelars | kʷ >k ɡʷ >ɡ ɡʷʱ >ɡʱ | kʷ >xʷ | ɡʷ >kʷ | ɡʷʱ >ɡʷ,ɣʷ | xʷ >ɡʷ,ɣʷ | ɡʷ,ɣʷ >w,ɣ |
p,t, andk did not undergo Grimm's law after a fricative (such ass) or after other plosives (which were shifted to fricatives by the Germanic spirant law); for example, where Latin (with the originalt) hasstella 'star' andoctō 'eight', Middle Dutch hasster andacht (with unshiftedt).[39] This originalt merged with the shiftedt from the voiced consonant; that is, most of the instances of/t/ came from either the original/t/ or the shifted/t/.
(A similar shift on the consonant inventory of Proto-Germanic later generatedHigh German. McMahon says:[40]
Grimm's and Verner's Laws ... together form the First Germanic Consonant Shift. A second, and chronologically later Second Germanic Consonant Shift ... affected only Proto-Germanic voiceless stops ... and split Germanic into two sets of dialects,Low German in the north ... andHigh German further south)
Verner's law is usually reconstructed as following Grimm's law in time, and states that unvoiced fricatives:/s/,/ɸ/,/θ/,/x/ are voiced when preceded by an unaccented syllable. Theaccent at the time of the change was the one inherited from Proto-Indo-European, which was free and could occur on any syllable. For example, PIE*bʰréh₂tēr > PGmc.*brōþēr 'brother' but PIE*meh₂tḗr > PGmc.*mōdēr 'mother'. The voicing of some/s/ according to Verner's Law produced/z/, a new phoneme.[4] Sometime after Grimm's and Verner's law, Proto-Germanic lost its inherited contrastive accent, and all words became stressed on their root syllable. This was generally the first syllable unless a prefix was attached.
The loss of the Proto-Indo-European contrastive accent got rid of the conditioning environment for the consonant alternations created by Verner's law. Without this conditioning environment, the cause of the alternation was no longer obvious to native speakers. The alternations that had started as mere phonetic variants of sounds became increasingly grammatical in nature, leading to the grammatical alternations of sounds known asgrammatischer Wechsel. For a single word, the grammatical stem could display different consonants depending on its grammatical case or its tense. As a result of the complexity of this system, significant levelling of these sounds occurred throughout the Germanic period as well as in the later daughter languages. Already in Proto-Germanic, most alternations in nouns were leveled to have only one sound or the other consistently throughout all forms of a word, although some alternations were preserved, only to be levelled later in the daughters (but differently in each one). Alternations in noun and verb endings were also levelled, usually in favour of the voiced alternants in nouns, but a split remained in verbs where unsuffixed (strong) verbs received the voiced alternants while suffixed (weak) verbs had the voiceless alternants. Alternation between the present and past of strong verbs remained common and was not levelled in Proto-Germanic, and survives up to the present day in some Germanic languages.
Some of the consonants that developed from the sound shifts are thought to have been pronounced in different ways (allophones) depending on the sounds around them. With regard to original/k/ or/kʷ/ Trask says:[41]
The resulting/x/ or/xʷ/ were reduced to/h/ and/hʷ/ in word-initial position.
Many of the consonants listed in the table could appear lengthened or prolonged under some circumstances, which is inferred from their appearing in some daughter languages as doubledletters. This phenomenon is termedgemination. Kraehenmann says:[42]
Then, Proto-Germanic already had long consonants ... but they contrasted with short ones only word-medially. Moreover, they were not very frequent and occurred only intervocally almost exclusively after short vowels.
The voiced phonemes/b/,/d/,/ɡ/ and/ɡʷ/ are reconstructed with the pronunciation of stops in some environments and fricatives in others. The pattern of allophony is not completely clear, but generally is similar to the patterns of voiced obstruent allophones in languages such as Spanish.[43] The voiced fricatives ofVerner's law, which only occurred in non-word-initial positions, merged with the fricative allophones of/b/,/d/,/ɡ/ and/ɡʷ/. Older accounts tended to suggest that the sounds were originally fricatives and later "hardened" into stops in some circumstances. However, Ringe notes that this belief was largely due to theory-internal considerations of older phonological theories, and in modern theories it is equally possible that the allophony was present from the beginning.[44]
Each of the three voiced phonemes/b/,/d/, and/ɡ/ had a slightly different pattern of allophony from the others, but in general stops occurred in "strong" positions (word-initial and in clusters) while fricatives occurred in "weak" positions (post-vocalic). More specifically:
Labiovelars were affected by the following additional changes:
These various changes often led to complex alternations, e.g.*sehwaną[ˈsexʷɑnɑ̃] 'to see',*sēgun[ˈsɛːɣun] 'they saw' (indicative),*sēwīn[ˈsɛːwiːn] 'they saw' (subjunctive), which were reanalysed and regularised differently in the various daughter languages.
Kroonen posits a process ofconsonant mutation for Proto-Germanic, under the nameconsonant gradation.[47] (This is distinct from the consonant mutation processes occurring in the neighboringSamic andFinnic languages, also known asconsonant gradation since the 19th century.) The Proto-Germanic consonant gradation is not directly attested in any of the Germanic dialects, but may nevertheless be reconstructed on the basis of certain dialectal discrepancies in root of then-stems and theōn-verbs.
Diachronically, the rise of consonant gradation in Germanic can be explained byKluge's law, by which geminates arose from stops followed by a nasal in a stressed syllable. Since this sound law only operated in part of the paradigms of then-stems andōn-verbs, it gave rise to an alternation of geminated and non-geminated consonants in the same paradigms. These were largely regularized by various ways of analogy in the Germanic daughter languages.[47]
Since its formulation, the validity of Kluge's Law has been contested. The development of geminate consonants has also been explained by the idea of "expressive gemination".[48][49] Although this idea remains popular, it does not explain why many words containing geminated stops do not have "expressive" or "intensive" semantics.[50] The idea has been described as "methodically unsound", because it attempts to explain the phonological phenomenon through psycholinguistic factors and other irregular behaviour instead of exploring regular sound laws.[51]
The origin of the Germanic geminate consonants remains a disputed part of historical linguistics with no clear consensus at present.
| n-stems | PIE | PGM |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | C_́C*-ōn | C_C-ō |
| genitive | C_C*-n-ós | C_CC-az |
| neh₂-presents | PIE | PGM |
|---|---|---|
| 3p. singular | C_C*-néh₂-ti | C_CC-ōþi |
| 3p. plural | C_C*-nh₂-énti | C_G-unanþi |
The reconstruction ofgrading paradigms in Proto-Germanic explains root alternations such as Old Englishsteorra 'star' <*sterran- vs.Old Frisianstera 'id.' < **steran- andNorwegian (dial.)guva 'to swing' <*gubōn- vs. Middle High Germangupfen 'id.' <*guppōn- as generalizations of the original allomorphy. In the cases concerned, this would imply reconstructing ann-stem nom.*sterō, gen.*sterraz < PIE*h₂stér-ōn,*h₂ster-n-ós and anōn-verb 3sg.*guppōþi, 3pl.*gubunanþi <*gʱubʱ-néh₂-ti,*gʱubʱ-nh₂-énti.
Proto-Germanic had four short vowels,[52] five or six long vowels, and at least one "overlong" or "trimoraic" vowel. The exact phonetic quality of the vowels is uncertain.
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Notes:
PIEə,a,o merged into PGmca; PIEā,ō merged into PGmcō. At the time of the merger, the vowels probably were[ɑ] and[ɑː], or perhaps[ɒ] and[ɒː]. Their timbres then differentiated by raising (and perhaps rounding) the long vowel to[ɔː][citation needed]. It is known that the raising ofā toō can not have occurred earlier than the earliest contact between Proto-Germanic speakers and the Romans. This can be verified by the fact that LatinRōmānī later emerges in Gothic asRumoneis (that is,Rūmōnīs). It is explained by Ringe that at the time of borrowing, the vowel matching closest in sound to Latinā was a Proto-Germanicā-like vowel (which later becameō). And since Proto-Germanic therefore lacked a mid(-high) back vowel, the closest equivalent of Latinō was Proto-Germanicū:Rōmānī >*Rūmānīz >*Rūmōnīz > GothicRumoneis.[53]
A newā was formed following the shift fromā toō when intervocalic/j/ was lost in-aja- sequences. It was a rare phoneme, and occurred only in a handful of words, the most notable being the verbs of the third weak class.[54] The agent noun suffix*-ārijaz (Modern English-er in words such asbaker orteacher) was likely borrowed from Latin around or shortly after this time.
The following diphthongs are known to have existed in Proto-Germanic:
Note the change/e/ >/i/ before/i/ or/j/ in the same or following syllable. This removed/ei/ (which became/iː/) but created/iu/ from earlier/eu/.[57]
Diphthongs in Proto-Germanic can also be analysed as sequences of a vowel plus an approximant, as was the case in Proto-Indo-European. This explains why/j/ was not lost in*niwjaz ('new'); the second element of the diphthongiu was still underlyingly a consonant and therefore the conditioning environment for the loss was not met. This is also confirmed by the fact that later in theWest Germanic gemination, -wj- is geminated to -wwj- in parallel with the other consonants (except/r/).[58]
Proto-Germanic had two overlong or trimoraic long vowelsô[ɔːː] andê[ɛːː], the latter mainly in adverbs (cf.*hwadrê 'whereto, whither').[59] None of the documented languages still include such vowels. Their reconstruction is due to thecomparative method, particularly as a way of explaining an otherwise unpredictable two-way split of reconstructed longō in final syllables, which unexpectedly remained long in some morphemes but shows normal shortening in others.
| Proto-Germanic | Gothic | Old Norse | Old English | Old High German |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -ō | -a | -u > Ø | -u / Ø | |
| -ô | -ō | -a | -o | |
Trimoraic vowels generally occurred atmorpheme boundaries where a bimoraic long vowel and a short vowel in hiatus contracted, especially after the loss of an interveninglaryngeal (-VHV-).[60] One example, without a laryngeal, includes the class II weak verbs (ō-stems) where a -j- was lost between vowels, so that -ōja →ōa →ô (cf.*salbōjaną →*salbôną → Gothicsalbōn 'to anoint'). However, the majority occurred in word-final syllables (inflectional endings) probably because in this position the vowel could not be resyllabified.[61] Additionally, Germanic, likeBalto-Slavic, lengthened bimoraic long vowels in absolute final position, perhaps to better conform to a word'sprosodic template; e.g., PGmc*arô 'eagle' ← PIE **h₃ér-ō just as Lithakmuõ 'stone', OSlkamy ←*aḱmō̃ ← PIE **h₂éḱ-mō. Contrast:
But vowels that were lengthened by laryngeals did not become overlong. Compare:
Trimoraic vowels are distinguished from bimoraic vowels by their outcomes in attested Germanic languages: word-final trimoraic vowels remained long vowels while bimoraic vowels developed into short vowels. Older theories about the phenomenon claimed that long and overlong vowels were both long but differed intone, i.e.,ô andê had a "circumflex" (rise-fall-rise) tone whileō andē had an "acute" (rising) tone, much like the tones of modern Scandinavian languages,[62] Baltic, and Ancient Greek, and asserted that this distinction was inherited from PIE. However, this view was abandoned since languages in general do not combine distinctive intonations on unstressed syllables with contrastive stress and vowel length.[63] Modern theories have reinterpreted overlong vowels as having superheavy syllable weight (threemoras) and therefore greater length than ordinary long vowels.
By the end of the Proto-Germanic period, word-final long vowels were shortened to short vowels. Following that, overlong vowels were shortened to regular long vowels in all positions, merging with originally long vowels except word-finally (because of the earlier shortening), so that they remained distinct in that position. This was a late dialectal development, because the result was not the same in all Germanic languages: word-finalē shortened toa in East and West Germanic but toi in Old Norse, and word-finalō shortened toa in Gothic but too (probably[o]) in early North and West Germanic, with a later raising tou (the sixth centurySalic law still hasmaltho in late Frankish).
The shortened overlong vowels in final position developed as regular long vowels from that point on, including the lowering ofē toā in North and West Germanic. The monophthongization of unstressedau in Northwest Germanic produced a phoneme which merged with this new word-final longō, while the monophthongization of unstressedai produced a newē which did not merge with originalē, but rather withē₂, as it was not lowered toā. This split, combined with the asymmetric development in West Germanic, withē lowering butō raising, points to an early difference in the articulation height of the two vowels that was not present in North Germanic. It could be seen as evidence that the lowering ofē toā began in West Germanic at a time when final vowels were still long, and spread to North Germanic through the late Germanic dialect continuum, but only reaching the latter after the vowels had already been shortened.
ē₂ is uncertain as a phoneme and only reconstructed from a small number of words; it is posited by the comparative method because whereas all provable instances of inherited (PIE)*ē (PGmc.*ē₁) are distributed in Gothic asē and the other Germanic languages as *ā,[64] all the Germanic languages agree on some occasions ofē (e.g., Goth/OE/ONhēr 'here' ← late PGmc.*hē₂r). Gothic makes no orthographic and therefore presumably no phonetic distinction betweenē₁ andē₂, but the existence of two Proto-Germanic longe-like phonemes is supported by the existence of twoe-likeElder Futhark runes,Ehwaz andEihwaz.
Krahe treatsē₂ (secondaryē) as identical withī. It probably continues PIEēi, and it may have been in the process of transition from a diphthong to a long simple vowel in the Proto-Germanic period. Lehmann lists the following origins forē₂:[65]
Proto-Germanic developed nasal vowels from two sources. The earlier and much more frequent source was word-final-n (from PIE-n or-m) in unstressed syllables, which at first gave rise to short-ą,-į,-ų, long-į̄,-ę̄,-ą̄, and overlong-ę̂,-ą̂.-ę̄ and-ę̂ then merged into-ą̄ and-ą̂, which later developed into-ǭ and-ǫ̂.[67] Another source, developing only in late Proto-Germanic times, was in the sequences-inh-,-anh-,-unh-, in which the nasal consonant lost its occlusion and was converted into lengthening and nasalisation of the preceding vowel, becoming-ą̄h-,-į̄h-,-ų̄h- (still written as-anh-,-inh-,-unh- in this article).[68]
In many cases, the nasality was not contrastive and was merely present as an additional surface articulation. No Germanic language that preserves the word-final vowels has their nasality preserved. Word-final short nasal vowels do not show different reflexes compared to non-nasal vowels. However, the comparative method does require a three-way phonemic distinction between word-final*-ō,*-ǭ and*-ōn, which each has a distinct pattern of reflexes in the later Germanic languages:
| Proto-Germanic | Gothic | Old Norse | Old High German | Old English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -ō | -a | -u > — | -u / — | |
| -ǭ | -a | -e | ||
| -ōn | -ōn | -a, -u | -ōn | -an |
The distinct reflexes of nasal-ǭ versus non-nasal-ō are caused by the Northwest Germanic raising of final-ō/ɔː/ to/oː/, which did not affect-ǭ. When the vowels were shortened and denasalised, these two vowels no longer had the same place of articulation, and did not merge:-ō became/o/ (later/u/) while-ǭ became/ɔ/ (later/ɑ/). This allowed their reflexes to stay distinct.
The nasality of word-internal vowels (from-nh-) was more stable, and survived into the early dialects intact.
Phonemic nasal vowels definitely occurred inProto-Norse andOld Norse. They were preserved in Old Icelandic down to at leasta.d. 1125, the earliest possible time for the creation of theFirst Grammatical Treatise, which documents nasal vowels. The PG nasal vowels from-nh- sequences were preserved in Old Icelandic as shown by examples given in theFirst Grammatical Treatise. For example:
The phonemicity is evident from minimal pairs likeǿ̇ra 'younger' vs.ǿra 'vex' <*wor-, cognate with Englishweary.[69] The inherited Proto-Germanic nasal vowels were joined in Old Norse by nasal vowels from other sources, e.g. loss of*n befores. ModernElfdalian still includes nasal vowels that directly derive from Old Norse, e.g.gą̊s 'goose' < Old Norsegás (presumably nasalized, although not so written); compare GermanGans, showing the original consonant.
Similar surface (possibly phonemic) nasal/non-nasal contrasts occurred in the West Germanic languages down through Proto-Anglo-Frisian of AD 400 or so. Proto-Germanic medial nasal vowels were inherited, but were joined by new nasal vowels resulting from theIngvaeonic nasal spirant law, which extended the loss of nasal consonants (only before-h- in Proto-Germanic) to all environments before a fricative (thus including-mf-,-nþ- and-ns- as well). The contrast between nasal and non-nasal long vowels is reflected in the differing output of nasalized long*ą̄, which was raised toō in Old English and Old Frisian whereas non-nasal*ā appeared as frontedǣ. Hence:
Proto-Germanic allowed any single consonant to occur in one of three positions: initial, medial and final. However, clusters could only consist of two consonants unless followed by a suffix, and only certain clusters were possible in certain positions.
It allowed the following clusters in initial and medial position:
It allowed the following clusters in medial position only:
It allowed continuant + obstruent clusters in medial and final position only:
Thes + voiceless plosive clusters (sp,st,sk) could appear in any position in a word.
Due to the emergence of a word-initial stress accent, vowels in unstressed syllables were gradually reduced over time, beginning at the very end of the Proto-Germanic period and continuing into the history of the various dialects. Already in Proto-Germanic, word-final/e/ and/ɑ/ had been lost, and/e/ had merged with/i/ in unstressed syllables. Vowels in third syllables were also generally lost before dialect diversification began, such as final-i of some present tense verb endings, and in-maz and-miz of the dative plural ending and first person plural present of verbs.
Word-final short nasal vowels were however preserved longer, as is reflected inProto-Norse which still preserved word-final-ą (horna on theGallehus horns), while the dative plural appears as-mz (gestumz on theStentoften Runestone). Somewhat greater reduction is found inGothic, which lost all final-syllable short vowels exceptu.Old High German andOld English initially preserved unstressedi andu, but later lost them in long-stemmed words and then Old High German lost them in many short-stemmed ones as well, by analogy.
Old English shows indirect evidence that word-final-ą was preserved into the separate history of the language. This can be seen in the infinitive ending-an (<*aną) and the strong past participle ending-en (<*-anaz). Since the early Old English fronting of/ɑ/ to/æ/ did not occur in nasalized vowels or before back vowels, this created a vowel alternation because the nasality of the back vowelą in the infinitive ending prevented the fronting of the preceding vowel:*-aną >*-an, but*-anaz >*-ænæ >*-en. Therefore, theAnglo-Frisian brightening must necessarily have occurred very early in the history of the Anglo-Frisian languages, before the loss of final-ą.
The outcome of final vowels and combinations in the various daughters is shown in the table below:
| Ending(s) | PG | Gothic | NorthGm | WestGm | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PNGm | ON | PWGm | OHG | OE | |||
| a-stem masculine accusative singular | *ą | — | *a | — | *a? | — | — |
| i-stem masculine accusative singular | *į | *i? | |||||
| u-stem accusative singular | *ų | *u? | |||||
| a-stem masculine nominative singular | *az | s | *az | r | |||
| i-stem nominative singular | *iz | *iz | *i | i/— | e/— | ||
| u-stem nominative singular | *uz | us | *uz | *u | u/— | ||
| 1st person singular present of verbs | *ō | a | *o > u | — | *o > u | ||
| ō-stem adjective accusative singular | *ǭ | *ō | a | *ā | a | e | |
| ō-stem accusative plural | *ōz | ōs | *ōz | ar | |||
| 3rd person singular past of weak verbs | *ē | a | *e > i | i | *a | ||
| a-stem dative singular | *ai | *ē | *ē | e | |||
| short ja-stem neuter nominative singular | *ją | i | *ja | — | *i > ī | i | |
| short ja-stem masculine nominative singular | *jaz | is > jis | *jaz | r | |||
| i-stem nominative plural | *īz | eis (=īs) | *īz | ir | *ī | ||
| long ja-stem masculine nominative singular | *ijaz | *ijaz | |||||
| long ja-stem neuter nominative singular | *iją | i | *ija | i | |||
| 3rd person singular past subjunctive | *ī | *ī | |||||
| adverb suffix | *ô | ō | *ō | a | *ō | o | a |
| genitive plural | ǫ̂ | ||||||
| ō-stem nominative plural | *ôz | ōs | *ōz | ar | |||
| u-stem genitive singular | auz | aus (=ɔ̄s) | |||||
| adverb suffix | *ê | ē | *ā | a | *ā | a | e |
Some Proto-Germanic endings have merged in all of the literary languages but are still distinct in runicProto-Norse, e.g.*-īz vs.-ijaz (þrijōz dohtrīz 'three daughters' in theTune stone vs. the nameHoltijaz in theGallehus horns).
Reconstructions are tentative and multiple versions with varying degrees of difference exist. All reconstructed forms are marked with an asterisk (*).
It is often asserted that the Germanic languages have a highly reduced system of inflections as compared withGreek,Latin, orSanskrit. Although this is true to some extent, it is probably due more to the late time of attestation of Germanic than to any inherent "simplicity" of the Germanic languages. As an example, there are less than 500 years between the Gothic Gospels of 360 and theOld High GermanTatian of 830, yet Old High German, despite being the most archaic of the West Germanic languages, is missing a large number of archaic features present in Gothic, including dual and passive markings on verbs, reduplication in Class VII strong verb past tenses, the vocative case, and second-position (Wackernagel's Law) clitics. Many more archaic features may have been lost between the Proto-Germanic of 200 BC or so and the attested Gothic language. Furthermore,Proto-Romance andMiddle Indic of the fourth century AD—contemporaneous with Gothic—were significantly simpler thanLatin andSanskrit, respectively, and overall probably no more archaic than Gothic. In addition, some parts of the inflectional systems ofGreek,Latin, andSanskrit were innovations that were not present in Proto-Indo-European.
Proto-Germanic had six cases, three genders, three numbers, three moods (indicative, subjunctive (PIE optative), imperative), and two voices (active and passive (PIE middle)). This is quite similar to the state of Latin, Greek, andMiddle Indic ofc. AD 200.
Nouns and adjectives were declined in (at least) six cases: vocative, nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, genitive. The locative case had merged into the dative case, and the ablative may have merged with either the genitive, dative or instrumental cases. However, sparse remnants of the earlier locative and ablative cases are visible in a few pronominal and adverbial forms. Pronouns were declined similarly, although without a separate vocative form. The instrumental and vocative can be reconstructed only in the singular; the instrumental survives only in the West Germanic languages, and the vocative only in Gothic.
Verbs and pronouns had three numbers: singular,dual, andplural. Although the pronominal dual survived into all the oldest languages, the verbal dual survived only into Gothic, and the (presumed) nominal and adjectival dual forms were lost before the oldest records. As in theItalic languages, it may have been lost before Proto-Germanic became a different branch at all.
Several sound changes occurred in the history of Proto-Germanic that were triggered only in some environments but not in others. Some of these were grammaticalised while others were still triggered by phonetic rules and were partially allophonic orsurface filters.
Probably the most far-reaching alternation was between [*f, *þ, *s, *h, *hw] and [*b, *d, *z, *g, *gw], the voiceless and voiced fricatives, known asgrammatischer Wechsel and triggered by the earlier operation of Verner's law. It was found in various environments:
Another form of alternation was triggered by the Germanic spirant law, which continued to operate into the separate history of the individual daughter languages. It is found in environments with suffixal -t, including:
An alternation not triggered by sound change wasSievers' law, which caused alternation of suffixal -j- and -ij- depending on the length of the preceding part of the morpheme. If preceded within the same morpheme by only a short vowel followed by a single consonant, -j- appeared. In all other cases, such as when preceded by a long vowel or diphthong, by two or more consonants, or by more than one syllable, -ij- appeared. The distinction between morphemes and words is important here, as the alternant -j- appeared also in words that contained a distinct suffix that in turn contained -j- in its second syllable. A notable example was the verb suffix *-atjaną, which retained -j- despite being preceded by two syllables in a fully formed word.
Related to the above was the alternation between -j- and -i-, and likewise between -ij- and -ī-. This was caused by the earlier loss of -j- before -i-, and appeared whenever an ending was attached to a verb or noun with an -(i)j- suffix (which were numerous). Similar, but much more rare, was an alternation between -aV- and -aiC- from the loss of -j- between two vowels, which appeared in the present subjunctive of verbs: *-aų < *-ajų in the first person, *-ai- in the others. A combination of these two effects created an alternation between -ā- and -ai- found in class 3 weak verbs, with -ā- < -aja- < -əja- and -ai- < -əi- < -əji-.
I-mutation was the most important source of vowel alternation, and continued well into the history of the individual daughter languages (although it was either absent or not apparent in Gothic). In Proto-Germanic, only -e- was affected, which was raised by -i- or -j- in the following syllable. Examples are numerous:
The system of nominal declensions was largely inherited from PIE. Primary nominal declensions were the stems in /a/, /ō/, /n/, /i/, and /u/. The first three were particularly important and served as the basis of adjectival declension; there was a tendency for nouns of all other classes to be drawn into them. The first two had variants in /ja/ and /wa/, and /jō/ and /wō/, respectively; originally, these were declined exactly like other nouns of the respective class, but later sound changes tended to distinguish these variants as their own subclasses. The /n/ nouns had various subclasses, including /ōn/ (masculine and feminine), /an/ (neuter), and /īn/ (feminine, mostly abstract nouns). There was also a smaller class of root nouns (ending in various consonants), nouns of relationship (ending in /er/), and neuter nouns in /z/ (this class was greatly expanded inGerman). Present participles, and a few nouns, ended in /nd/. The neuter nouns of all classes differed from the masculines and feminines in their nominative and accusative endings, which were alike.
| Case | Nouns in-a- | Nouns in-i- | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | *wulfaz | *wulfōz, -ōs | *gastiz | *gastīz |
| Vocative | *wulf | *gasti | ||
| Accusative | *wulfą | *wulfanz | *gastį | *gastinz |
| Genitive | *wulfas, -is | *wulfǫ̂ | *gastīz | *gastijǫ̂ |
| Dative | *wulfai | *wulfamaz | *gastī | *gastimaz |
| Instrumental | *wulfō | *wulfamiz | *gastimiz | |
Adjectives agree with the noun they qualify in case, number, and gender. Adjectives evolved into strong and weak declensions, originally with indefinite and definite meaning, respectively. As a result of its definite meaning, the weak form came to be used in the daughter languages in conjunction with demonstratives and definite articles. The termsstrong andweak are based on the later development of these declensions in languages such asGerman andOld English, where the strong declensions have more distinct endings. In the proto-language, as inGothic, such terms have no relevance. The strong declension was based on a combination of the nominal /a/ and /ō/ stems with the PIE pronominal endings; the weak declension was based on the nominal /n/ declension.
| Case | Strong Declension | Weak Declension | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |||||||||
| Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |
| Nominative | *blindaz | *blinda-tō | *blindō | *blindai | *blindō | *blindôz | *blindô | *blindô | *blindǭ | *blindaniz | *blindōnō | *blindōniz |
| Accusative | *blindanǭ | *blindanz | *blindanų | *blindōnų | *blindanunz | *blindōnunz | ||||||
| Genitive | *blindas, -is | *blindaizōz | *blindaizǫ̂ | *blindiniz | *blindōniz | *blindanǫ̂ | *blindōnǫ̂ | |||||
| Dative | *blindammai | *blindaizōi | *blindaimaz | *blindini | *blindōni | *blindammaz | *blindōmaz | |||||
| Instrumental | *blindanō | *blindaizō | *blindaimiz | *blindinē | *blindōnē | *blindammiz | *blindōmiz | |||||
Proto-Germanic originally had two demonstratives (proximal*hi-/*hei-/*he- 'this',[70] distal*sa/*sō/*þat 'that') which could serve as both adjectives and pronouns. The proximal was already obsolescent in Gothic (e.g. Goth acc.hina, dat.himma, neut.hita) and appears entirely absent in North Germanic. In the West Germanic languages, it evolved into a third-person pronoun, displacing the inherited*iz in the northern languages while being ousted itself in the southern languages, such as Old High German. This is the basis of the distinction between Englishhim/her (withh- from the original proximal demonstrative) and Germanihm/ihr (lackingh-).[citation needed]
Ultimately, only the distal survived in the function of demonstrative. In most languages, it developed a second role asdefinite article, and underlies both the English determinersthe andthat. In the North-West Germanic languages (but not in Gothic), a new proximal demonstrative ('this' as opposed to 'that') evolved by appending-si to the distal demonstrative (e.g. Runic Norse nom.sg.sa-si, gen.þes-si, dat.þeim-si), with complex subsequent developments in the various daughter languages. The new demonstrative underlies the English determinersthis,these andthose. (Originally,these,those were dialectal variants of the masculine plural ofthis.)
| Case | Singular | Plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |
| Nominative | *sa | *þat | *sō | *þai | *þō | *þôz |
| Accusative | *þanǭ | *þǭ | *þanz | |||
| Genitive | *þas | *þaizōz | *þaizǫ̂ | |||
| Dative | *þammai | *þaizōi | *þaimaz | |||
| Instrumental | *þana? | *þaizō | *þaimiz | |||
Proto-Germanic had only two tenses (past and present), compared to 5–7 inGreek,Latin,Proto-Slavic andSanskrit. Some of this difference is due todeflexion, featured by a loss of tenses present in Proto-Indo-European. For example,Donald Ringe assumes for Proto-Germanic an early loss of the PIE imperfect aspect (something that also occurred in most other branches), followed by merging of the aspectual categories present-aorist and the mood categories indicative-subjunctive. (This assumption allows him to account for cases where Proto-Germanic has present indicative verb forms that look like PIE aorist subjunctives.)
However, many of the tenses of the other languages (e.g.future,future perfect,pluperfect, Latinimperfect) are not cognate with each other and represent separate innovations in each language. For example, the Greek future uses a-s- ending, apparently derived from adesiderative construction that in PIE was part of the system ofderivational morphology (not the inflectional system); theSanskrit future uses a-sy- ending, from a different desiderative verb construction and often with a different ablaut grade from Greek; while the Latin future uses endings derived either from the PIE subjunctive or from the PIE verb */bʱuː/ 'to be'. Similarly, the Latin imperfect and pluperfect stem fromItalic innovations and are not cognate with the corresponding Greek or Sanskrit forms; and while the Greek and Sanskrit pluperfect tenses appear cognate, there are no parallels in any other Indo-European languages, leading to the conclusion that this tense is either a shared Greek–Sanskrit innovation or separate, coincidental developments in the two languages. In this respect, Proto-Germanic can be said to be characterized by the failure to innovate new synthetic tenses as much as the loss of existing tenses. Later Germanic languages did innovate new tenses, derived throughperiphrastic constructions, withModern English likely possessing the most elaborated tense system ("Yes, the house will still be being built a month from now"). On the other hand, even the past tense was later lost (or widely lost) in most High German dialects as well as inAfrikaans.
Verbs in Proto-Germanic were divided into two main groups, called "strong" and "weak", according to the way the past tense is formed. Strong verbs useablaut (i.e. a different vowel in the stem) and/orreduplication (derived primarily from theProto-Indo-Europeanperfect), while weak verbs use a dental suffix (now generally held to be a reflex of the reduplicated imperfect of PIE*dʰeH₁- originally 'put', in Germanic 'do'). Strong verbs were divided into seven main classes while weak verbs were divided into five main classes (although no attested language has more than four classes of weak verbs). Strong verbs generally have no suffix in the present tense, although some have a-j- suffix that is a direct continuation of the PIE-y- suffix, and a few have an-n- suffix or infix that continues the-n- infix of PIE. Almost all weak verbs have a present-tense suffix, which varies from class to class. An additional small, but very important, group of verbs formed their present tense from the PIE perfect (and their past tense like weak verbs); for this reason, they are known aspreterite-present verbs. All three of the previously mentioned groups of verbs—strong, weak and preterite-present—are derived from PIE thematic verbs; an additional very small group derives from PIE athematic verbs, and one verb*wiljaną 'to want' forms its present indicative from the PIEoptative mood.
Proto-Germanic verbs have threemoods:indicative,subjunctive andimperative. The subjunctive mood derives from the PIEoptative mood. Indicative and subjunctive moods are fully conjugated throughout the present and past, while the imperative mood existed only in the present tense and lacked first-person forms. Proto-Germanic verbs have two voices, active and passive, the latter deriving from the PIEmediopassive voice. The Proto-Germanic passive existed only in the present tense (an inherited feature, as the PIE perfect had no mediopassive). On the evidence of Gothic—the only Germanic language with a reflex of the Proto-Germanic passive—the passive voice had a significantly reduced inflectional system, with a single form used for all persons of the dual and plural. Note that althoughOld Norse (like modernFaroese andIcelandic) has an inflected mediopassive, it is not inherited from Proto-Germanic, but is an innovation formed by attaching thereflexive pronoun to the active voice.
Although most Proto-Germanic strong verbs are formed directly from a verbal root, weak verbs are generally derived from an existing noun, verb or adjective (so-calleddenominal,deverbal anddeadjectival verbs). For example, a significant subclass of Class I weak verbs are (deverbal)causative verbs. These are formed in a way that reflects a direct inheritance from the PIE causative class of verbs. PIE causatives were formed by adding an accented suffix*-éi̯e/éi̯o to theo-grade of a non-derived verb. In Proto-Germanic, causatives are formed by adding a suffix-j/ij- (the reflex of PIE*-éi̯e/éi̯o) to the past-tenseablaut (mostly with the reflex of PIEo-grade) of a strong verb (the reflex of PIE non-derived verbs), withVerner's Law voicing applied (the reflex of the PIE accent on the*-éi̯e/éi̯o suffix). Examples:
As in other Indo-European languages, a verb in Proto-Germanic could have apreverb attached to it, modifying its meaning (cf. e.g.*fra-werþaną 'to perish', derived from*werþaną 'to become'). In Proto-Germanic, the preverb was still aclitic that could be separated from the verb (as also in Gothic, as shown by the behavior of second-position clitics, e.g.diz-uh-þan-sat 'and then he seized', with cliticsuh 'and' andþan 'then' interpolated intodis-sat 'he seized') rather than abound morpheme that is permanently attached to the verb. At least in Gothic, preverbs could also be stacked one on top of the other (similar toSanskrit, different fromLatin), e.g.ga-ga-waírþjan 'to reconcile'.
An example verb:*nemaną 'to take' (class 4 strong verb).
| Indicative | Subjunctive | Imperative | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active | Passive | Active | Passive | Active | ||
| Present | 1st sing | *nemō | *nemôi?*nemai? | *nema-ų | ??? | — |
| 2nd sing | *nimizi | *nemazai | *nemaiz | *nemaizau? | *nem | |
| 3rd sing | *nimidi | *nemadai | *nemai | *nemaidau? | *nemadau | |
| 1st dual | *nemōz (?) | *nemandai | *nemaiw | *nemaindau? | — | |
| 2nd dual | *nemadiz (?) | *nemaidiz (?) | *nemadiz? | |||
| 1st plur | *nemamaz | *nemaim | — | |||
| 2nd plur | *nimid | *nemaid | *nimid | |||
| 3rd plur | *nemandi | *nemain | *nemandau | |||
| Past | 1st sing | *nam | — | *nēmijų (?; or*nēmį̄??) | — | |
| 2nd sing | *namt | *nēmīz | ||||
| 3rd sing | *nam | *nēmī | ||||
| 1st dual | *nēmū (?) | *nēmīw | ||||
| 2nd dual | *nēmudiz (?) | *nēmīdiz (?) | ||||
| 1st plur | *nēmum | *nēmīm | ||||
| 2nd plur | *nēmud | *nēmīd | ||||
| 3rd plur | *nēmun | *nēmīn | ||||
| Infinitive | *nemaną | |||||
| Present Participle | *nemandaz | |||||
| Past Participle | *numanaz | |||||
| First person | Second person | Third person | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Dual | Plural | Singular | Dual | Plural | Singular | Plural | |||||
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | |||||||
| Nominative | *ek *ik1 | *wet *wit1 | *wīz *wiz1 | *þū | *jut | *jūz | *iz | *sī | *it | *īz | *ijōz | *ijō |
| Accusative | *mek *mik1 | *unk | *uns | *þek *þik1 | *inkw | *izwiz | *inǭ | *ijǭ | *inz | |||
| Genitive | *mīnaz | *unkeraz | *unseraz | *þīnaz | *inkweraz | *izweraz | *es | *ezōz | *es | *ezǫ̂ | ||
| Dative | *miz | *unkiz | *unsiz | *þiz | *inkwiz | *izwiz | *immai | *ezōi | *immai | *imaz | ||
| Instrumental | *inō | *ezō | *inō | *imiz | ||||||||
1 – Unstressed variant
August Schleicher wrotea fable in the PIE language he had just reconstructed, which, though it has been updated a few times by others, still bears his name. Below is a rendering of this fable into Proto-Germanic.[citation needed]
The first is a direct phonetic evolution of the PIE text. It does not take into account various idiomatic and grammatical shifts that occurred over the period. For example, the original text uses the imperfect tense, which disappeared in Proto-Germanic. The second version takes these differences into account, and is therefore closer to the language the Germanic people would have actually spoken.
Reconstructed Proto-Germanic, phonetic evolution derived from reconstructed PIE only
Reconstructed Proto-Germanic, with more probable grammar and vocabulary derived from later Germanic languages
English
The Germanic subfamily especially seemed to exhibit non-treelike behavior, evidently acquiring some of its characteristics from its neighbors rather than (only) from its direct ancestors. ... The internal diversification of West Germanic is known to have been radically non-treelike ....
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