Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law

Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law

In historical linguistics, the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law (also called the Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic nasal spirant law) is a description of a phonological development in some dialects of West Germanic, which is attested in Old English, Old Frisian, and Old Saxon. By this sound change, in the combination vowel + nasal + fricative, the nasal disappeared, with compensatory lengthening of the vowel. ("Spirant" is an older term for "fricative".) The sequences in question are original "-ns-", "-mf-", and "-nþ-".

Compare the first person plural pronoun "us" in various old Germanic languages:
*Old English "ūs"
*Old Frisian "ūs"
*Old Saxon "ūs"
*Old High German "uns"
*Middle Dutch "ons"
*Gothic "uns"

Gothic represents East Germanic, and its correspondence to German and Dutch shows it retains the more conservative form. The /n/ has disappeared in English, Frisian and Old Saxon, with compensatory lengthening of the /u/.

Likewise:
*Germanic "*tanþ-" becomes English "tooth", Old Frisian "tōth" (cf. Low German "Tähn", Dutch "tand", German "Zahn").
*Germanic "*anþara-" becomes English "other", West Frisian "oar", East Frisian "uur", Old Saxon "āthar" (cf. German & Dutch "ander-" [þ→d] ).
*Germanic "*fimf" becomes English "five", West Frisian "fiif", East Frisian "fieuw", Dutch "vijf", Low German "fiev, fief" (cf. German "fünf").
*Germanic "*samft-" becomes English "soft", West Frisian "sêft", Low German "sacht", Dutch "zacht" [ft→xt] (cf. German "sanft").
*Germanic "*gans-" becomes English "goose", West Frisian "goes", Low German "Goos" (cf. Dutch "gans", German "Gans").

Note that Dutch is inconsistent, following the law in some words but not others; this must be understood in terms of the standard language drawing from a variety of dialects, only some of which were affected by the sound change.Fact|date=June 2007 Similarly, certain North German dialects retain Old Saxon forms, with the result that very few words in Modern Standard German have this shift: alongside "sanft" German also has "sacht", both meaning "soft", "gentle".

One consequence of this is that English has very few words ending in "-nth"; those which do exist must be more recent than the productive period of the Anglo-Frisian nasal spirant law:
*"month" - in Old English this was "monaþ" (cf. German "Monat"); the intervening vowel made the law inoperable.
*"tenth" - a neologism in Middle English. Germanic "*tehunþ-" did originally follow the law, producing Old English "tēoþa" (Modern English "tithe"), but the force of analogy to the cardinal number "ten" caused Middle English to recreate the regular ordinal.
*"plinth" - a Greek loan-word in Modern English (Polytonic|πλίνθος).

References

*Markey, Thomas L. "Germanic dialect grouping and the position of Ingvæonic."(Inst. f. Sprachwissenschaft d. Univ. Innsbruck, 1976.) ISBN:3851245296


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать реферат

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Germanic spirant law — In linguistics, the Germanic spirant law or Primärberührung is a specific historical instance of assimilation which occurred at an early stage in the history of the Germanic languages and is regarded by some as being early enough to fall into the …   Wikipedia

  • Ingvaeonic — Ingvaeonic, also known as North Sea Germanic, is a postulated grouping of the West Germanic languages that would fork into Old Frisian, Old English and Old Saxon and according to some the local dialect of West Flanders. It must not be thought of… …   Wikipedia

  • Ingvaeonic languages — Distribution of the primary Germanic groups ca. 1 CE. Ingvaeonic /ˌɪŋviːˈɒnɪk/, also known as North Sea Germanic, is a postulated grouping of the West Germanic languages that comprises Old Frisian, Old English[1] and …   Wikipedia

  • Proto-Germanic language — Proto Germanic Spoken in Northern Europe Extinct evolved into Proto Norse, Gothic, Frankish and Ingvaeonic by the 4th century Language family Indo European …   Wikipedia

  • Old English phonology — This article is part of a series on: Old English Dialects …   Wikipedia

  • Low German — Low Saxon Spoken in Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, United States, Canada Native speakers ≈5 million  (date missing) Language fam …   Wikipedia

  • Old English — For other uses, see Old English (disambiguation). Old English Ænglisc, Anglisc, Englisc Spoken in England (except the extreme southwest and northwest), parts of modern Scotland south east of the Forth, and the eastern fringes of modern Wales …   Wikipedia

  • Old Frisian — Spoken in Netherlands, Germany, Southern Denmark Era 8th to 16th c. Language family Indo European Germanic …   Wikipedia

  • Old Saxon — Spoken in northwest Germany, northeast Netherlands Era developed into Middle Low German in the 12th century Language family Indo European Germanic …   Wikipedia

  • Phonological history of the English language — The phonological history of the English language describes changing phonology of English over time, starting from its roots in proto Germanic to diverse changes in different dialects of modern English.Within each section, changes are in… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”