1. Lecture 1/4 17 Jan. 2017 Stefan Dollinger
The History of English
Lecture 1/4
17 Jan. 2017
Stefan Dollinger

2. Today’s topics Introduction to the course
Pre-history of the English language (Chapter 2)
Indo-European, Germanic and the Comparative Method
Grimm’s Law, Verner’s Law
i-mutation (i-umlaut)
The life of the Indo-Europeans
Principles of Sound change (Section 1.2)

3. Introduction k! c u @ 2 @ enigma ;-) Diachronic perspective:
change over time
Synchronic perspective:
snapshot of a given time

4. Beowulf ms. (c AD)
Chaucer ms. (c AD)

5. Shakespeare’s First Folio edition, 1623
CONTE - Corpus of Early Ontario English ( )
[340]
July the
I hav Sone Siles Record in the y-1777 til the yer 1784 and Solger and Sarjent in Col. Bulers Rangers and he Behaving as a good Solger During that time
from yor humle S
[sign B. Pawling]

6. The discovery of Indo-European
James Parsons (1767) (Singh 2005: 42)
Sir William Jones (1786)
The idea of a family tree
Charles Darwin 1837
(published 1858)

7. William Jones on language families 1786
The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick [= Germanic] and the Celtick, though blended with a different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family (Jones, qtd. in Cannon 1990: 245)

8. The spread of Indo-European languages
Source: Wikipedia, s.v. “Indo-European langauges”

9. The Indo-European Family Tree (Singh 2005: 51)
1st Consonant Shift

10. terminology mother, daughter & sister language & “Ursprache”
“Urheimat” of the Indo-Europeans
cognate (see below)
Sound law (19th century idea: the “exceptionlessness” of sound laws)

11. Grimm’s Law (or: 1st Consonant Shift): consonantal differences between Germanic and Proto Indo-European
Through systematic comparison of cognates, regular relations between sounds can be established: Grimm’s Law:
PIE *p, *t, *k
>
Gmc. *f, *θ, *x (> h)
PIE *b, *d, *g
Gmc. *p, *t, *k
PIE *bh, *dh, *gh
Gmc. *b, *d, *g

12. PIE */p/, */t/, */k/ > Gmc. */f/, */θ/, */x > /h/
Latin
Gothic (400 AD) (Germanic)
Old English (Germanic)
High German (High West Gmc.)
piscis
‘fish’
fisks
fisc
Fisch
tres
‘three’
þreis
þreo
þrei > drei
(later: þ > d)
lux (luc-)
‘light’
liuhaþ
leoht
Licht
Proto Indo European …
Balto-Slavic
Germanic
Italic
Latin

13. A little practice: Grimm’s Law
PIE
Germanic language
* porkos ‘pig’
OE * ___ earh
* ___ erd--
Sw. hjärta
* pek-- ‘to pluck hair, comb’
Gmc. * ___ e ___ tan ‘fight’
* yugo--
Eng. yoke
* medhu--
OE me___u
* ___rāter--
Ger. Bruder

14. Features of Germanic languages
Germanic innovation: Past tense is marked with “dental suffix”: t/d. PIE and older languages: mark tense with a vowel change: vowel gradation “ablaut”. Traaces of ablaut today:
Eng. to swim – swam – swum: ablaut (“strong” verbs)
Ger. schwimmen – schwamm – geschwommen: ablaut
Sw. simma – simmade – summan: the d is the dental suffix and the Germanic innovation (“weak verbs”)
Sw. hjälpa – hjälpte
Ger. helfen – half (with ablaut; the older pattern)
Eng. to help – helped: dental suffix
Ger. Spielen – spielte: dental suffix
Sw. spela – spelade: dental suffix
Engl to play – played: dental suffix

15. 2) Two declension patterns for adjectives
2) Two declension patterns for adjectives. Have strong and weak declensions. The declension is called “weak” if a determiner precedes the adjective. den röda bilen “weak” röd_ bil “strong” das rote Auto “weak rotes Auto “strong” the red car red car lost in English since.

16. 3) PIE’s “free” stress system (word stress could shift depending on the word’s function), was abolished. Stress was fixed on the first syllable. Greek still has that “free system:
Greek
Old English
singular
Nom. patér
Gen. patrós
Dat. patrí
Acc. patéra
Voc. Páter …
fæder
fæderes

17. 4) The “First Consonant Shift” (or Grimm’s Law): shared by all Germanic languages. Their main distinguishing feature. (note: the “Second Consonant Shift” occurred in West Germanic: sets the High West Germanic dialects (“German”) apart from the Low West Germanic ones (English, Frisian, Dutch…)

18. Comparative Reconstruction: dating
Nostratic superfamily: PIE is one branch of Nostratic (controversial): c – BC Proto-Indo-European: dispersed from the “homeland”: c – 1000 BC Common Germanic (Germanic peoples living in one area, probably southern Sweden): c – 200 BC pre-Old English (Anglo-Saxon tribes still on continent) 200 BC – 449 AD

19. The concept of “cognates”
Of prime importance in comparative reconstruction
Cognates are words in different languages that are go back to a common ancestor, e.g.
(1) Ger. Mann, Eng. man, Sw. mannen
What about:
(2) Engl. jeans, Fr. jean, Sw. jeans, Ger. Jean(s)?
(1) are cognates, (2) are borrowings (loan words)

20. Really? Is this so easy? Think break
(1) Ger. Mann, Eng. man, Sw. mannen
(2) Engl. jeans, Fr. jean, Sw. jeans, Ger. Jean(s)?
(1) are cognates, (2) are borrowings (loan words).
How can you tell the one from the other?
Think break
Limit yourself to “core vocabulary”
knowledge of the language-external history is needed (and some trial and error).

21. Method of comparative reconstruction
rule out borrowed words
establish sound correspondences of cogates (words presumed to share a common ancestor): word-initially, word-medially, word-finally
Apply majority principle: propose as reconstructed the majority form
Use principle of phonological plausibility to check your reconstruction and undo “ties”

22. Grimm’s Law (or: 1st Consonant Shift): consonantal differences between Germanic and Proto Indo-European
Through systematic comparison of cognates, regular relations between sounds can be established: Grimm’s Law:
Why is it: PIE * māter– (Latin mater) and Eng. mother [ð], rather than the predicted [θ]?
PIE *p, *t, *k
>
Gmc. *f, *θ, *x (> h)
PIE *b, *d, *g
Gmc. *p, *t, *k
PIE *bh, *dh, *gh
Gmc. *b, *d, *g

23. Verner’s Law Applies when the condition is met:
Modifies Grimm’s Law to accommodate for the exception exemplified my mother. Based on PIE’s “floating accent” (accent not set on a given syllable)
PIE voiceless stops appear as voiced fricatives (rather than voiceless fricatives as predicted by Grimm’s Law)
Applies when the condition is met:
If a PIE voiceless stop is in a voiced environment, then it will appear in Germanic as a voiced fricative (later stop) when the PIE stress did not fall on the preceding vowel.

24. expected Gmc. Sound (Grimm’s Law) (Verner’s Law applies)
PIE
expected Gmc. Sound (Grimm’s Law)
Gmc. Sound found
(Verner’s Law applies)
* p
* f
* β > * b
* t
* θ
* ð > * d
* k
* x
* Ɣ > * g
* s
* z > * r
If the PIE stress (accent) was not on the preceding vowel.
So (bold face marks the word stress)
PIE * kaput > Goth. hau___iθ ‘head’
PIE * plotu-- > Engl. floo___ NOT floof
PIE duka-- > OE to___ian ‘tow’ NOT to[x]ian
PIE * sauso– ‘dry’ > Engl. sea___ NOT seas

25. Let’s review
Q: Grimm’s Law delimits, demarcates the following language groups:
A: The Germanic languages from all other PIE langauges
Q: Why do we need Verner’s Law?
A: To account for an exception based on the position of word stress in PIE.

26. Uniformitarian Hypothesis (Weinberg, Labov and Herzog 1968)
Principles of language change that are operative in the present are also applicable to earlier stages of language development where the data is often limited (and vice versa).

27. Who were the Indo-Europeans?
Assumed that a people existed because of linguistic reconstruction
Singh (2005: 53): “how were scholars to know what to look for, given that the existence of the people was assumed rather than definitely proven?”
The proto-lexicon as indicator: “linguistic paleography”: terms of flaura and fauna, animals and community life as indicators
Plough, grain, yoke was known to them; yet they were a nomadic rather than agricultural society; they kept oxen, sheep, pigs (swine), goats
Snow and ice (yes), olive tree and wine (no)
Bear, wolf, beaver
Ash, elm, birch and beech trees
They knew the wheel (other than other European/Asian groups)
Southern Russia (Schrader 1890, Childe 1926, Gimbutas 1970  “Kurgans”), northern Germany (Kossina 1902, based on pottery evidence), Northern Europe (based on salmon) or Turkey, Anatolia (Renfrew 1987)

28. Two conflicting theories
Gimbutas (1970)
Renfrew (1987)
Where?
Steppe of Southern Russia
Anatolia (Turkey)
When?
5th millennium BC
7th millennium BC (move to Greece)
Who?
The Kurgans
First farmers in Europe
Society
Pastoral nomadic
agricultural
Spread
Invasion, aggressive in three waves (5th-3rd m. BC)
Successive, spreading agriculture
Strong
Suit
A neighbour in the region: distant relationship of PIE with Proto-Ugric
Explains language isolates: Etruscan, Bassque – those group who adopted agriculture did not (need to) assimilate
Problems
Who can hunterer-gatherers produce the population surplus to run aggressive, sustainable campaigns across Europe?
Dating: the horse (important in PIE culture) is attested late (3rd m. rather than 6th m. BC)
Joint problems
Is the linguistic record complete? Eye, eyebrow, NOT eyelid?
Semantic change: is a PIE beech tree the same as our beech trees? E.g. Old Church Slavonic pivo ‘drink’ > Slovenian ‘beer’; PIE cognate *medhu for OE mead ‘alcoholic drink’, Gk. methu ‘wine’, Sanskrit madhu ‘liquor’
Is the archeological record complete? E.g. pertaining to horses?

29. i-umlaut (i-mutation)
Accounts for irregular plurals such as these:
Sw. fot – fötter
Ger. Fuß – Füße
Engl. foot – feet (also mouse – mice, goose – geese, …)
These are the result of i-umlaut, a sound change (a regressive assimilation) that fronts the affected vowel
But not just plurals are the result of i-umlaut…

30. Foot – feet?
A conditioned sound change in pre-Old English (before 700 AD): i-mutation
* fot – * fotiz
Phonetic assimilation of plural form
* fot – * fetiz
Loss of plural morpheme: -iz suffix dropped
So far goes the phenomenon of i-umlaut.
fot /foːt/ – fet /feːt/
But there are later sound changes: the English Great Vowel Shift (c – 1650)
/eː/ > /iː/, /oː/ > /uː/
/fu:t/ -- /fi:t/

31. Also a result of i-mutation
doom – to deem
Angel – English
Tale – tell
old – elder
full – fill
sit – set
tooth – teeth ….

32. Internal Periodization: English
Old English full inflections 449 AD – 1066 AD Middle English reduced infl – 1476 AD (1500AD) Early Modern English ‘no inflection’ 1500 – 1700 AD Modern English 1700 – present or Late Modern English 1700 – 1900 AD 20th-century English Present-Day English