THE HIGH GERMAN CONSONANT SHIFT

Abstract

by Frederik Kortlandt -Leiden 1.Elsewhere (1985, 1988, 1991) I have put forward a new theory on the Proto-Germanic consonant shifts.In the following I intend to show how the High German consonant shift fits into the picture.The relevant dialect material has recently become more easily accessible through Goblirsch's lucid and well-informed treatise (1994), to which the reader may be referred for further details.2. It may be useful to recapitulate the reconstructions which I have proposed for the successive stages of development from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic.For the argumentation I refer to the articles mentioned above.(1) Proto-Indo-European:plain fortesp:, /:, k:, k":, aspirated lenesp', t', k', k", glottalic lenes p', t',k',k°'.At this stage, all plosives were usually voiceless, äs they are in modern Icelandic and the southern dialects of eastern Armenian.This is in agreement with the absence of a voiced counterpart to the PIE fricative *i.Initial *p'-now lost its glottalic feature and merged with its fortis counterpart */?:-, e.g.Vedic pibati 'drinks', Old Irish ibid (but Latin bibit with restored reduplication).We may also assume dissimilation of C'...C' to C:...C' and assimilation of C:...C"and C'...C: to C'...C' in roots at this stage.(2) Dialectal Indo-European: plain voiceless/?, t, k, k°, plain voiced b, d, g, g °, glottalic voiced 'b, 'd, 'g, 'g °.Apart from the development of the palatovelars, this is the System which can be reconstructed for Proto-Balto-Slavic, where the glottalic feature merged with the reflex of the PIE.laryngeals into a glottal stop, e.g.Latvian ρςds 'footstep' < *pe'd-, nudgs 'naked' < *no'g-, cf.OE föt, nacod.This is the starting-point for the Germanic developments.(3) Verner's law: non-initial voiceless obstruents became voiced unless they were immediately preceded by the stress.As a result, the suffix of the participle in *-to-practically merged with the formative element of the weak preterite *-de-.Verner's law did not change the System of obstruents but limited the distribution of the voiceless plosives and yielded a voiced variant *z of the phoneme *s.

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