Lecture 1 First Consonant Shift (Grimm’s Law) ie g aspirated Voiced voiced stops stops bh > b

IE short vowels G short vowels IE long vowels G long vowels
a (Lat. ager поле) > a (Goth. akrs) i (Lat. svīnus) > i (OE svīn)
o (Lat. hostis гість) > a (Goth. gasts) ū (Lat. m ūs) > ū (OE m ūs)
i (Lat. piscis риба) > i (OE fisc) ō (Lat. p ōs) > ō (OE f ōt)
(Lat. vir чоловік) > e (OIcl verr) ā (Lat. m āter) > ō (OE m ōdor)
e (Lat. edere їсти) > e (OE etan) Goth. ē (became front)
(Lat. medius середній) > i (OE midd) ē (complex > æ
u (OInd upa на) > u (OE uppe) development) West G., North.G ā (became back)
( Lat. iugum ярмо) > o (OE eok)
West G. æ/ ē (became front)

Thus, we have the opposition of “short – long” vowels in PG completed.

Ablaut
In the domain of vowels the most important property of the Germanic languages is Ablaut or Gradation. This is a spontaneous vowel variation mostly inside a root which is common to all Indo-European languages. Germanic Ablaut goes back to some regular changes inherent in IE parent language. This vowel variation became a very important grammatical means especially in the verb system where it is employed for making past verb-forms:
Goth.: reisan-rais-risum-risans
OE: rīson-rās-rison-risen
ModE: rise-rose-risen


Stress in Germanic languages
The most important distinguishing feature of the Germanic languages was their word-stress. In Germanic, like in other Indo-European languages, it was free, that is it might fall on any part of a word. Later it has been replaced by a fixed stress falling regularly on the first syllable. The effect of this fixed stress was considerable for English: many important changes have taken place in unstressed syllables. They tended to become weakened and gradually were lost. All this led to crucial simplification in the system of English paradigm