1

1. A Brief History of Germanic Tribes and Languages.

The history of Germanic group begins with the appearance of Proto-Germanic language.
Proto-Germanic is the language ancestor of the parent-language of the Germanic group. It is
supposed to have split from related Indo-European tongues sometimes between the 15 th and
10th century BC.
PG is entirely pre-historical language: it was never recorded in written form. In the 19 th century it
was reconstructed by methods of comparative linguistics from written evidence in descendant
languages.
It is believed that at the earliest stages of history PG was fundamentally one language, though
dialectally colored. In its later stages dialectal differences grow, so that towards the beginning of
our era Germanic appears divided into dialectal groups and tribal dialects. Dialectal
differentiation increased with the migration and geographical expansion of the Teutons caused
by overpopulation and etc.
The first mention of Germanic tribes was made by Pitheas, a Greek historian and geographer. In
the 1st century B.C. In commentaries on the Gallic war Julius Caesar described some militant
Germanic tribes and Tacitus.
Towards the beginning of our era the common period of Germanic history came to an end. The
Teutons had extended over a larger territory and the PG language broke into parts- East
Germanic, North Germanic and West Germanic languages.
East Germanic
The East Germanic subgroup was formed by the tribes who returned from Scandinavia at the
beginning of our era. The most numerous and powerful of them were Goths. The Gothic
language now dead, has been preserved in written records of the 4th-6th centuries The Goths
were the first of the Teutons to become Christians. In the 4 th century Ulfilas, a West Gothic
bishop, made a translation of the Gospels from Greek into Gothic. It is written on red parchment
with silver and golden letters and it is known as the SILVER CODEX. It is one of the earliest texts
in the languages of the Germanic group. In 16th century in the Crimea last manuscripts were
found in Gothic.
The other East Germanic languages, all of which are now dead, have left no written traces. Some
of their tribal names have survived in place-names, which reveal the directions of their
migrations: Bornholm and Burgunday go back to the East Germanic tribe of Burgundians;
Andalusia from Vandals; Lombardy form Langobards.
North Germanic
The tribes of Teutons that stayed on Scandinavian peninsula, are the ancestors of the
current Scandinavian people, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroesian
people. Foresaid tribes were speaking in Old Norse/Old Scandinavian and that was the
Proto language of North Germanic languages (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic,
Faroese). It has come down to us in runic inscriptions dated from the 3rd to the 9th
 cc. Runic inscriptions were carved on objects made of hard materials in an original
Germanic alphabet knows as the runic alphabet or the runes. The runes were used by
North and West Germanic tribes.

1. Old High German Consonant Shift.

The first or Germanic Sound-Shifting took place at a very early date; the second or High
German sound-shifting, on the other hand, was not completed until as late as the 6th century.
This second process is very important and while studying Modern German, we must consider
it in more detail. Taking English as typical of a Germanic language unaffected by the High
Germanic sound-shifting, the following examples will show the changes which the mutes
have undergone in passing into High German. We must carefully distinguish three possible
positions of the mute when it occurs at the beginning of a word initially, in the middle-
medially, at the end-finally.
Dentals 1
T ----Z ց Tide –zeit Ten-zohn
Tale-zahl Tongue- zunge

SS better-besser
Water-wasser
To mate- messen

R, tr, s, sr heart-herz Set-setzen

Lot-los Hot-heisz

Th –D thick-dick Thorn-dorn
Brother-broder South-sud(en)
Hearth-herd

D-T day-tag deaf-taub

wade-waten tide-zeit

Labials
p-pf path-pfad pepper-pfeffer
paw-pfote pillar-pfeiler

p-f, ff, pf pipe-pfeife help-helfen

soap-seife step-stufe
(b) f (v) – f(v) finger-finger Full-voll
Folk-volk Fowl-vogel(birf)

Gutturals
k-k can-kann
knot-knoten
clothe-kleiden
k-ch make-machen book-buch
week-woche bleak-bleich
h-h(ch) heart-herz horn-horn
beech-buche
g-g guest-gast gift-gabe

Exceptions
T usually remains unchanged in the following consonantal groups:
Tr: true-treu Ft: often-oft
Trust-trauen soft-sanft
Cht: sight-gesicht st: stone-stein
Might-macht master-meister
D remains unchanged when preceded by N, and also in a few words when preceded by L or R
Nd, ld, rd: wind-wind round-rund
Bold-bald murder-mord
P remains unchanged when preceded by S, in foreign origin words:
Sp: spin-spinnen
Wasp-wespe
B, when preceded by M, is assimilated:
Mb-mm: lamb-lamm
Timber-zimmer
Climb-klimmen

2
1. Word Accentuation in IE and PG.

It's known that in ancient IE to the separation of Germanic, there existed two ways of word
accentuation: musical pitch and force stress. The position of the stress was free and movable,
which means that it could fall on any syllable of the word—a root-morpheme, an affix or an
ending — and could be shifted both in form-building and word-building.
 Both these properties of the word accent were changed in PG. Force stress (also called
dynamic and breath stress) became the only type of stress used. In Early PG word stress was
still as movable as in ancient IE but in Late PG its position in the word was stabilised. The
stress was now fixed on the first syllable. which was usually the root of the word and
sometimes the prefix; the other syllables suffixes and endings — were unstressed. The stress
could no longer move either in form-building or word-building.
These features of word accent were inherited by the Gerrnanic languages, and despite later
alterations are observable today. In Mod E there is a sharp contrast between accented and
unaccented syllables due to the force of the stress. The main accent commonly falls on the
root-morpheme, and is never shifted in building grammatical forms.
The heavy fixed word stress inherited from PG has played an important role in the
development of the Germanic languages, and especially in phonetic and morphological
changes. Due to the difference in the force of articulation the stressed and unstressed syllables
underwent widely different changes: accented syllables were pronounced with great
distinctness and precision, while unaccented becarne less distinct and were phonetically
weakened. The differences between the sounds in stressed position were preserved and
emphasised, whereas the contrests between the unaccented sounds were weakened and lost.
Since the stress was fixed on the root, the weakening and loss of sounds roainly affected the
suffixes and grammatical endings. Many endings merged with the suffixes, were weakened
and dropped. Cf., e.g., the reconstructed PG word 'fish', with its descendants in Old Germanic
languages:

PG *tiskaz, Gt fisks. O Icel fiskr, OE fisc.

2. North Germanic Group of Languages (A Brief Historical Survey)

The tribes of Teutons that stayed on Scandinavian peninsula, are the ancestors of the current
Scandinavian people, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroesian people. Foresaid tribes were
speaking in Old Norse/Old Scandinavian and that was the Proto language of North Germanic languages
(Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese). It has come down to us in runic inscriptions dated
from the 3rd to the 9th cc. Runic inscriptions were carved on objects made of hard materials in an
original Germanic alphabet knows as the runic alphabet or the runes. The runes were used by North and
West Germanic tribes.

From 8-9th cc the era of Viking had started, during this period, foresaid tribes started migrations to
the neighboring Lands, Greenland, Iceland, Ferou. But Greenland became covered with ice and because
of that people couldn’t stay there anymore, so they appeared on the Iceland, as a result two new
languages, Icelandic and Faroese, were given birth. .
 For centuries Denmark was dominant country out of the three countries, it dominated not only
Scandinavian peninsula, but also British Ilse, Norway and Sweden. The territory of England divided into
two parts, one part was controlled by west Saxon kingdom, and other part was controlled by Denmark,
and that part was called Danlo. Sweden gained its independence in 16th century, and Norway, it
remained under the control of Denmark till 19th century. This political situation somehow, influenced
the development of the Norwegian language. They were two types of Norwegian, one was bokmal, or
bookish language which was actually variant of Danish. And the second type was landsmal, this dialect of
Norwegian was closer to Norwegian roots. The earliest written records in Old Danish, Old Norwegian
and Old Swedish date from the 13th c. 19th century scholars tried to somehow reconstructed and
vitalize the Norwegian language, containing these two dialects and created new variant of Norwegian,
which is known as New Norwegian or New Norse. As for Swedish, it spoken in Sweden and Finland. In
Finland Swedish is second official language. The second half of the 8th c and the whole 9th century this
was the period Viking Age and at this time Scandinavian tribes started their campaign. They started
migrations and according to some archeological data they are first Europeans that reached the
continent of America. One of the languages that emerged as the result of this migration was Icelandic.
And current Icelandic contains numerous archaisms and its linguistic peculiarity are very important
source for the reconstruction of Old Norwegian. The reason why Icelandic contains so many archaisms is
that linguistic features are very close to Old Norse, because Iceland is isolated from Scandinavian
peninsula and continent. So, these archaic forms had remained. All these are presented in two main
scripts – in Elder Edda – a collection of heroic songs of the 12th century, Younger Edda (prose) and the
Old Icelandic sagas.

Faroese which is spoken by small community, but it still is national language for people who live on the
islands. This language was emerged in Viking Age. For many cc all writing was done in Danish, until the
18th cc, this is the time when the first Faroese records were made.

1. Gemination in West and North Germanic Languages.

Some changes were shared across major dialects but carried out to markedly differing degrees
or at different times. For example, in West Germanic all consonants (except r) preceded by a short vowel
and followed by j were geminated (doubled), but in North Germanic only velars (k.g) were affected:
compare PG satjanan ‘set’, Gothic satjan, Old Norse setja but Old English settan.

PG lagjanan ‘lay’, Gothic lagjan, but Old North leggja,Old Saxon leggian.

Gemination - თანხმოვანთა გაორმაგება - doubling of consonants.

Gemination is characterized for West/North G. In West Germanic languages consonants are

doubled in the following condition, expect r:
 Short vowel + consonant + semi vowel j.

Ful + j an __ fyllian fill.

But in NG languages gemination takes place only in velar consonants k and g.

PG: lagjanan

ON: leggia.

2. Grimm’s Law.

Grimm’s law was consisted of three acts:

Act 1.

PIE voiceless plosives/stops (ყრუ ხშული/მსკდომი) in PG was reflected as voiceless fricative

(ფრიკატივი/ნაპრალოვანი/სპირანტი).

P  f – padre-father; pedestrian – foot.

T  th – tres-three

K  x – cordial – heart – herz

Centum – hundred;

There were some exceptions:

1. in the adjacence of s the consonants were not shifted:

Piscis-fiskaz – p  f; k was not shifted to x because it was in the adjacence of s.

2. A sequence of two voiceless stops: if we had a sequence of two voiceless stops, only one
of them was shifted.

Octo (8)-acht – c x and t was not shifted

There were some other exceptions, Grimm could not explain. But these exceptions were
explained by Carl Verner.

Act 2

After PIE voiceless plosives shifted to voiceless fricatives, the place of voiceless plosives was
empty in IE languages, so, one more shift took place.

PIE voiced plosives/stops in PG shifted to voiceless plosives.

bp labial – lip, abel – apple,

 dt dentist – tooth, decem – ten, dwo – two.

gk gene – kin, genu – knee, agriculture – acre.

Act 3

After PIE voiced stops shifted to voiceless plosives, the place of voiced plosives was empty in IE
languages, so, PIE aspirated (ფშვინვიერი) voiced plosives in PG reflected as voiced plosives/ voiced
fricatives.

bhu – be; bhrata – brother

dha – do; rudhira – red

gha – go.

1. Classification of Indo-European Languages

The Indo-European Languages form the language family or family of families of which English is
a member. It constitutes the most extensively spoken group of languages in the world. The view
that similarities among certain languages of Europe and Asia resulted from a common origin had
attracted scholars for several centuries before the British scholar Sir William Jones suggested in
1786 that Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek shared features derived from ‘some common source which,
perhaps, no longer exists’. He guessed that the Germanic and even the Celtic languages had the
same source. His postulated ‘common source’ is now called Proto-IndoEuropean (PIE) or simply
Indo-European (IE).

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is considered to have vanished soon after 2000 BC without leaving
written records. Their assumed homeland is a place where words shared by IE languages would
have had a use. The era of IE is usually dated from c.3000 BC until shortly after 2000 BC. The
forms of PIE words are known only indirectly from their reflection in the earliest written records
in IE languages.

The Indo-European language families. PIE gave rise to several ‘families’, related by common
descent from one or other early offshoot. These are often classified as satem or centum languages.
It was once thought that the centum group (including Latin and English) was western, and the
satem group (including Sanskrit) was eastern, but Tocharian, deciphered in the 20th century, is
the easternmost IE language, and it is a centum languages. Three IE families are no longer
represented among living languages: Venetic in Italy, Tocharian in Central Asia, and Anatolian in
 what is now eastern Turkey. Not all members of the surviving families, moreover, are still living:
Latin and Old English are dead languages.

The ongoing IE language families are:

The satem languages (

1)Indo-Iranian, including modern Persian and such Indic languages as Bengali, Gujarati, and
Hindi. (

2) Thraco-Phrygian, perhaps represented by modern Armenian.

(3) Illiryan, perhaps represented by modern Albanian.

1(4) Balto-Slavonic, including modern Bulgarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Russian,
Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Serbo-Croat etc.

The centum languages :

(1) Celtic, including modern Breton, Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh.

(2) Germanic, including English, Danish, German, Swedish. Norwegian etc. (

3) Hellenic , including modern Greek. (

4) Italic including Latin and its Romance descendents, such as French, Provencal, Catalan and
Romanian.

The Germanic family stems from an unrecorded offshoot of IE known as Primitive Germanic.
The Germanic languages fall into three groups: (1) East Germanic represented by Gothic which
ceased to be spoken in the 16 c. (2) North Germanic, represented by the Scandinavian languages.
(3) West Germanic represented by modern German, Yiddish, Dutch, Frisian, Afrikaans, and
English.

2. Rhotacism.

Process when “S” shifts to Z and then R is known as “Rhotacism”. Characterized for WG and NG, not for
EG. In EG s is retained or changes into z.

In East Germanic languages s is retained or changes into z:

Piscis.

In Gothic is fisks.

Germanic – fizkaz.
But in NG s changes into r and it is called rhotacism. And in Scandinavian language we have “fiskr”.

In English the example of rhotacism is “was” and “were”.

1. East Germanic Group of Languages (A Brief Historical Survey).

The East Germanic subgroup was formed by the tribes who returned from Scandinavia at the beginning
of our era. The most numerous and powerful of them were the Goths. Later the western Goths were
absorbed by the native population, the Celts. As for the eastern Goths, they merged other tribes and set
up a kingdom in Northern Italy. The Gothic language has been preserved in written records of the 4 th-
6th century. We should mention that the Goths were the first of the Teutons to become Christians. In
the 4 th century, a west Gothic bishop made a translation of the gospels (

) from Greek into Gothic. It is a manuscript known as the SILVER CODEX and it is preserved in Sweden.
The SILVER CODEX is one of the earliest texts in the languages of the Germanic group. The other East
Germanic languages, all of which are now dead, have left no written traces ( ). Some of their tribal
names have survived in place names. For instance, Lombardy got its name from the Langobards, who
made part of the population of the Ostrogothic kingdom in North Italy

2. Vowel Changes in Proto-Germanic as Compared to Indo-European.

Beginning with PG , vowels had tendency to change; they underwent different kinds of alteration:
qualitative (o)>(a) and quantitative(i:>i) or vice versa, dependent, when sound may change under the
influence of neighboring sounds or in a certain type of syllables and independent change which
affects certain sounds in

all positions.

from an early date the treatment of vowels was determined by the nature of word stress. In accented
syllables the opposition between vowels were carefully maintained, while in unaccented positions
the original contrasts between vowels were

weakened or lost.

the distinction of short and long vowels were neutralised so that by the age of writing the long
vowels in unstressed syllables had been shortened. As for originally short vowels they reduced to a
neutral sound losing their qualitative distinctionsand dropping in unstressed final syllables.

strict differentiation of long and short vowels is commonly regarded as an important characteristics of
the Germanic group. While long vowels generally tended to become closer and to diphtongize, short
vowels on the contrary changed into
more open sounds.

IE short (o) changed in Germanic into more open vowel (a) thus merged with IE (a)

Ex. Noch- ночь turned into Nacht

IE long (a:) was merged with (o: )as in мама-mother

in late PG and in separate Germanic languages vowels had a tendency to positional assimilative
changes. the pronunciation of vowel was modified under the influence of following or the preceding
consonant. sometimes a vowel was approximated more

closely to following vowel.

the resulting sounds were phonetically conditioned allophones which could eventually coincide with
another phoneme or develop into a new phoneme. Germanic mutations accured in late PG before its
disintegration or a short time after. Namely before the nasal (n) and before (i) or (j) in the next
syllable the short (e) (i) and (u) remained or became close. while in the absence of these conditions
the more open allophones were used such as (e) and (o).

Sunus- son ventus- wind

After all changes the vowel system contained the following: sh.

v. l. v. i:, i, e, e:, a, a:, o, o:, u u:,

in addition to these monophtongs PG had a set of diphtongs as well: EI, AI, EU, AU, and also IU.

1. The Noun in Old Germanic Languages.

The morphology of nouns in Germanic languages is based on the principle characteristic of Indo-
European languages: The PG noun consisted of 3 elements: root (lex. Meaning) root suffix (sem. Gr.
division) and germ. ending (flexion). However, fixation stress on the first syllable led to a weakening of
the last PG syllables and a violation of the structure.
Only in Gothic do we find the root suffix in plural number of Dat. and Ak.
Dat. pl. wulf-am (suffix a) gast-im (suffix i) Acc. pl. wulf- a-ns gast-i-ns .
The semantics of the base suffix is missing, the only group where it is revealed is the noun with the suffix
r : laT . pater,  rus.дочь-дочери.
Stems of nouns in Germanic languages:
• with a suffix substituting the vowels: -a, -o :, -i, -u.
• Stems on n and other consonants: -s.-r, nd.
• Nouns consisting of root morphemes, some of them had their variants in Gothic: a-ja, wa; o-jo, wo; n-
in, -an; etc. 
Nouns with a vowel-based suffix had a strong declension, while n-root nouns had a weak one. Like Indo-
European in OG  there were three genders: male, female and neutral. The separate gender is associated
with certain stem suffixes: Indo-European nouns with o-sufiqsis (German: a-sup) were masculine and
neutral-gender; o stem nouns only feminine; i- of all genders, u- for masculine and feminie, while n- for
all three genders.
 r- as well as nouns substituting the root morpheme: Belonged to the masculine and feminie gender. 
Presumably Indo-European 8 cases went down to 6  in Proto Germanic, although in the old Germanic
languages we actually find 4 cases.

მხ.             მრ.
Nom. dagaz dagoz
Gen. dagas dago
Dat. dagai dagamiz
Acc.daga

2. Ablaut in PIE and PG.

The strong verbs in OG languages are usually divided into 7 classes. Classes from 1 to 6 use vowel
gradation which goes back to the IE ablaut-series (qualitative – e-o –zero; quantitative: e-e:/o-o:)
modified in different phonetic conditions in accordance with PG sound changes. Class 7 includes
reduplicating verbs which originally built their past forms by means of repeating the root-morpheme.

In OG languages strong verbs had 4 base forms: Infinitive (with the ending an), Preterite sg (with no
ending), Preterite pl.( with the ending um for Gothic, on for OE), Participle II (with the ending ans for
Gothic, en for OE). The grades e-o of the qualitative ablaut reflected in Germanic as e/i-a were used in
the first and second stems of Classes 1-5; were contrasted to zero grade or loss of the gradation vowel in
the third stem of classes 1-3, and the prolonged grade of the quantitative ablaut (e-e:) e: in classes 4 and
5. In the verbs of Class 6 the original IE gradation was purely quantitative (o-o:); but in PG it was
transformed into a quantitative- series (a-o:).

Class 1 the root of the verb contained (i) so the name of this class is i-class.

In. I: reisan

Pr.sg a rais

pr.pl i risum

Part2 i rizans

Class 2 is called u-class because the verb root containd u

Inf -iu- kiusan

Pr.sg. -au-kaus

Pr.pl-u-kusum

Part. II- kusans choose

3;4;5; have no roots

Class III. the verb roots caontain nasal or nasal+plosive, l+plosive, h, g,

r+consonant

Inf. -i-birdan

Pr.sg- a-band

Pr.pl, u- bundum

Part. 2-u-bundas

IV.

The root in class 4 contains a sonorant, it combines the qualitative and

quantitative types of ablaut.

Inf. -i- qiman

Pr. Sg- a- qam

Pr. Pl-e:- qe:mum

Part. II-u- qumans

V.

The root in class 5 verbs contains a noise consonant, it combines the qualitative

and quantitative types of ablaut.

Inf. -i- itan

Pr.sg-a-at

Pr.pl- e:- e:tum

Part. II-i-itans

VI.
In class 6 the modified version of the IE quantitative ablaut (o-o:) is typical (a-o:

Inf. -a- faran

Pr. Sg-o:- fo:r

Pr pl- o:- fo:rum

Part.II- a- farans

VII.

Cintains reduplicating verbs. Some verbs in class 7 have a different type of

ablaut

Inf. -haitan

Pr.sg.-haibait

Pr.pl- haibaitum

Part. II- haitans

1. . West Germanic Group of Languages (A Brief Historical Survey)

During “great migrations” of 4-5th cc. the West Germans included several tribes. The
Franconians (Franks) occupied the lower basin of the Rhine.

Current west Germanic languages are the following: English, German, Netherlandish (which
has two dialects: Dutch, spoken in Holand, modern language of the Netherlands, earliest
records date back to 12th c. and Flemish, spoken in Belgium, the language of Flanders. The
earliest texts in Low Franconian date from the 10th c.), Frisian, Yiddish (language of the
Jews, emerged on the basis of high German. It was exported from Germany to many other
countries: Poland, the Baltic states, Russia and America) and Afrikaans, (its history starts in
17th century. Dutch language was brought to South Africa by colonists from Southern
Holand and their dialects in Africa eventually grew into a separate West Germanic language,
Afrikaans). Dutch colonialists, who settled in southern part of Africa, on the basis of their
language, which was mixed with English and native languages, merged Afrikaans. As for the
tribes, that gave birth to these current west Germanic languages, the most numerous tribes
were Franks. Since they distributed in different parts there are several types of Franks: High,
Middle, Low. Besides them there were Saxon, Angles, Jutes, Swabians, Alemanians.
Alemanians and Swabians emerged high Germanic and current German and Yiddish are
originated from it.

The high German intermixed with neighbouring tongues, especially Middle and High
Franconian and eventually developed into the literary German language. To this day German
is remarkable for great dialectal diversity of speech.

Low Frankians emerged Netherlandish/ic, it has two variants, Dutch and Flemish. The
franks living on the territory of current France, formed the empire which became powerful.
But it was not economically and ethnically uniform. As the mixture of Romanize celts some
Germanic tribes merged current French. In the 5th century some Germanic tribes, mainly
Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes migrated in the islands of Britain. And this tribes gave
birth to new languages, which is known as English. The first English written records have
come down from the 7th c., which is the earliest date in the history of writing in the West
Germanic subgroup.

The Frisians and the Saxons did not take part in the invasion of Britain and stayed on the
continent. Frisian territory, that was extended over the entire coast of the North Sea, was
reduced by the pressure of the Low German tribes. They influenced their dialects and it has
survived as a local dialect in Friesland (Netherlands) and Ostfriesland (the Federal Republic
of Germany.) It has both an oral and written for, the earliest records belongs to 13th c.

2. Palatal Mutation (i/j-umlaut) in Old Germanic Languages.

Palatal mutation is the evidence in North and West Germanic languages.

The most important series of vowel mutations, shared in varying degrees by all OE
languages, is known as “I or j umlaut” or “palatal mutation”. Palatal mutation is the fronting
and raising of vowels through the influence of [i] or [j] in the immediately following syllable.
The formation of plural form of the words foot, mouse are the result of I umlaut.

Since the sound [i] and [j] were common in suffixes and ending, palatal mutation was of very
frequent occurrence. Practically all Early OE monothongs, as well as diphthongs except the
closest front [e] and [i] were palatalized in these phonetic conditions.
Due to the reduction of final syllables the conditions which caused palatal mutation, that is
[i] or [j], had disappeared in the most words by the age of writing. These sounds were
weakend to [e] or were lost.

The labialized front vowel [y] and [y:] arose through palatal mutation from [u] and [u:],
respectively, and turned into new phonemes, when the conditions that caused them had
disappeared. For example mus and mys. The diphthongs [ie. Ie:] were largely due to palatal
mutation and became phonemic in the same way, though soon they were confused with [y,
y:]. Other mutated vowels fell together with the exciting phonemes, e.g. [oe] from [o]
merged with [e, ae], which arose though palatal mutation, merged with [ae:] from splitting.

Palatal mutation led to the growth of new vowel interchanges and to the increased varability
of the root-morphemes: owning to palatal mutation many related words and grammatical
forms acquired new root-vowel interchanges. For example dje-mot-meeting. A verb derived
from the noun-stem with the help of the suffix –j- sandjan-send. Likewise we find variants of
morphemes with an interchanges of root-vowels in the grammatical forms mus-mys, mouse-
mice, since the plural was originally formed by adding iz.

1. The Adjective in Old Germanic Languages.

The adjective declension in Germanic differes from the declension of the Noun in the
following characteristics: In contrast to the noun, a single adjective can be declensioned
with both strong (vowel-suffixed) and weak declension. The type of declension is determined
by the syntactic function and context of the adjective: if the adjective is the only delimiter, it
has a strong declension; If it's preceded by another adverb (indicative pronoun) then it will
have a weak declension. However, there was a certain group of adjectives that declensioned
with only one type of declension,

e.g.

• Only strong declension had the following Gothic adjectives;

alls (each) fulls (half) etc.

• weak declension had: ibna (similar) ainaha (only).

Adjectives in all Germanic languages have degrees of comparison. Some compound
adjectives, like nouns, are grouped by the root suffix type. This is due to the fact that in the
early stages of Indo-European development adjectives and nouns were not differentiated,
they merged into one category and had a similar paradigm. Only later differentiation of
nouns and adjectives took place. Part of the adjectives formed their paradigm by joining the
demonstrative pronoun, (strong declension) while the part as a noun with n base (weak).

As opposed to the noun, the adjective had 5 cases including the instrumental.

Case Weak declension Adjective Strong declension Adjective

Singular Noun root M. N. F. Noun root M. N. F

Nom. Guma -a; -o; -o; dags+

++ -s - -a

Acc. Guman blind -an; -o; -on; dag blind -ana; -; -a

Gen. Gumins -ins; -ons; dagis -is; -aizos

Dat. Gumin -in; -on; daga -amma ai

Plural

Nom.gumans -ans ; - ona; - ons

Acc. gumans blind -ans; -ona; -ons

Gen. gumane -ane; -ono

Dat. Gumam -am; -om;

Plural
Dagos -ai; -a; -os

Dagans blind -ans; -a; -os

Dage -aize; aizo

Dagam aim

The suffixes producing adjective degrees in PG were: comparative; Iza / oza

Superlative; Ista / osta

Iza / ista was used with adjectives with different roots. Irregular Adjectives:

• gods batiza batists / good

• ubils wair siza / bad

• mikils maiza maists / much

• leitils minniza minnists / a little

2. . Verner’s Law.

In the late 19th c. Danish scholar, Carl Verner discovered another important series of
consonant changes in PG. These series are known as Verner’s Law. Verner’s Law contradict
Grimm’s Law.

If a voiceless plosive is between two vowels and vowel in the preceding syllable is
unstressed, then the voiceless plosive becomes voiced.

P  f  v or b

T  th (voiceless)  th (voiced) or d

K  x  gh/ g

SZR

9
1. Word Stress in PIE and PG.
It's known that in ancient IE 8 to the separation of Germanic, there existed two ways
of word accentuation: musical pitch and force stress. The position of the stress was
free and movable, which means that it could fall on any syllable of the word—a root-
morpheme, an affix or an ending — and could be shifted both in form-building and
word-building.
Both these properties of the word accent were changed in PG. Force stress (also called
dynamic and breath stress) became the only type of stress used. In Early PG word
stress was still as movable as in ancient IE but in Late PG its position in the word was
stabilised. The stress was now fixed on the first syllable. which was usually the root of
the word and sometimes the prefix; the other syllables suffixes and endings — were
unstressed. The stress could no longer move either in form-building or word-
building.
These features of word accent were inherited by the Gerrnanic languages, and despite
later alterations are observable today. In Mod E there is a sharp contrast between
accented and unaccented syllables due to the force of the stress. The main accent
commonly falls on the root-morpheme, and is never shifted in building grammatical
forms.
The heavy fixed word stress inherited from PG has played an important role in the
development of the Germanic languages, and especially in phonetic and
morphological changes. Due to the difference in the force of articulation the stressed
and unstressed syllables underwent widely different changes: accented syllables were
pronounced with great distinctness and precision, while unaccented becarne less
distinct and were phonetically weakened. The differences between the sounds in
stressed position were preserved and emphasised, whereas the contrests between the
unaccented sounds were weakened and lost. Since the stress was fixed on the root, the
weakening and loss of sounds roainly affected the suffixes and grammatical endings.
Many endings merged with the suffixes, were weakened and dropped. Cf., e.g., the
reconstructed PG word 'fish', with its descendants in Old Germanic languages:

PG *tiskaz, Gt fisks. O Icel fiskr, OE fisc.

2. . Vocabulary of Old Germanic Languages.

 We know that the Germanic languages had a large proportion of words, which have no
parallels in other groups of the IE family. The most ancient etymological layer in the
Germanic vocabulary is made up of words shared by most IE languages. They refer to a
number of semantic spheres; natural phenomena, plants and animals, terms of kinship,
verbs denoting basic activities of man; in addition to roots, the

Those are instances of transition from compound words into derived words; they show
the development of new suffixes-from root-morphemes—at the time when many old
derivational stem-suffixes had lost their productivity and ceased to be distinguished in
the word structure. The new suffixes made up for the loss of stem-suffixes. Both
etymology layers of the vocabulary—the IE and the Germanic layer-are native words. A
large number of words must have been borrowed from Latin prior to the migration of
West Germanic tribes to Britain.

he full extent of the OE vocabulary is not known to present day scholars. There is no
doubt that many words have not been recorded in the extant texts at all. Despite the gaps
in the accessible data, philological studies have given us a complete outline of the OE
vocabulary as regards its etymology, word structure, word-building and stylistic
differentiation. Etymological survey of the English Vocabulary Word etymology throws
light on the history of the speaking community and on its contacts with other peoples.
Native Words Native OE words can be subdivided into number of etymological layers
coming from different historical periods. The three main layers in the native OE words
are; a) common IE words, b) common Germanic words, c) specifically OE words. Words
belonging to the common IE layer constitute the oldest part of the OE vocabulary. They
were inherited by PG and passed into the Germanic languages of various subgroups,
including English. Among these words we find names of some natural phenomena,

10

1. Old Germanic Alphabets (Runic, Gothic).

……….……………………Gothic alphabet…………………………………

Gothic was originally written with a Runic alphabet about which little is known. One theory
of the origins of Runes is that they were invented by the Goths, but this is impossible to
prove as very few inscriptions of writing in Gothic runes survive.
The Gothic alphabet was invented around middle the 4th century AD by Bishop Wulfila
(311-383 AD), the religious leader of the Visigoths, to provide his people with a written
language and a means of reading his translation of the Bible. It is based on the Greek
alphabet, with some extra letters from the Latin and Runic alphabets.

Used to write:

Gothic, an extinct East Germanic language that was spoken in parts of the Crimea until the
17th century.

The Goths were divided into two main tribes: the Ostrogothi or Greutungi (dune-dwellers)
and the Visigothi or Tervingi (steppe-dwellers). Related tribes included the Burgundians and
the Vandals.

…………………………..….Runic Alphabet…………………………….

The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write
various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized
purposes thereafter. The Scandinavian variants are also known as futhark (or fuþark, derived
from their first six letters of the alphabet: F, U, Þ, A, R, and K); the Anglo-Saxon variant is
futhorc (due to sound changes undergone in Old English by the same six letters). Runology is
the study of the runic alphabets, runic inscriptions, runestones, and their history. Runology
forms a specialized branch of Germanic linguistics.

The three best-known runic alphabets are the Elder Futhark (around 150–800), the Anglo-
Saxon Futhorc (400–1100), and the Younger Futhark (800–1100). The Younger Futhark is
further divided into the long-branch runes (also called Danish, although they were also used
in Norway and Sweden), short-branch or Rök runes (also called Swedish-Norwegian,
although they were also used in Denmark), and the stavesyle or Hälsinge runes (staveless
runes). The Younger Futhark developed further into the Marcomannic runes, the Medieval
runes (1100–1500), and the Dalecarlian runes (around 1500–1800).

2. Strong Verbs in Old Germanic Languages.

The arrangements of the strong verbs in seven classes reflect the earlier distinction. In verbs
of the first five classes, the present tense forms are continuations of active inflection in
accordance with their active/animate meanings, e.g. Class I Go. steigan 'climb', Class II
kiusan 'choose', Class III hilpan 'help', Class IV niman 'take, accept', Class V lisan 'read'; the
preterite is based at least in part on the perfect of Proto-Indo-European, which indicated
state as the result of completed action.

11

1. Word Structure in Indo-European and Late Proto Germanic.

SIMPLIFICATION OF WORD STRUCTURE IN LATE PG

According to the Sassounian dichotomies, language consists of different levels, phonetic-

phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, and all these levels should not be considered
in isolation, but these levels are interdependent and interconnected. That means, that any
change of one of the levels, changes the rest of the levels. E.g., in PIE and in rest of the Indo-
European languages, as well as in PG the morphological structure of the word consisted of
three parts: root + stem-suffix + grammatical ending (inflection). Root and stem-suffix
together formed the base of words, and inflection was added on this form. In reconstructed
PG the word: dagaz – dag-a-z

Dag – root,

a – stem-suffix

z – Nominative marker.

Fisk-a-z

Sand-j-an -- send.

In Late PG the old stem-suffixes lost their derivational force and merged with other
components of the word, usually with the endings. The word was simplified: the three-
morpheme structure was transformed into a two-morpheme structure.

In old PG the word “fisks” is presented by three parts

Fisk-a-z __ root + stem-suffix + inflection

but in Gothic language this word is presented by two elements:

fisk-s __ root + inflect.

In old North (ON) it consists of: fisk-r __ root + Marker.

But in old English (OE) we have just “fisc”

Nom – fisc

Dat – fisc-e

Gen – fisc-es

Acc – fisc

The forms of the Nom and Gen were firm, today we have fish and fish-es in modern English
(ME). Nominative case is the case of subject and Accusative was the case of direct object.
And the marker of the case was supposed to distinguish these cases. As they had the same
forms and it was impossible to find out which case was that, so the word order became fixed
in ME. This process was fastened by the invasion of Vikings, as they occupied the North part
of England. They neglected the endings of the words, because for them the communication
was easier in that way.

The simplification of the word structure and the loss of stem-suffixes as distinct
components was facilitated, or perhaps, caused by the heavy Germanic word stress fixed on
the root.

2. . Weak Verbs and Minor Groups of Verbs in Old Germanic Languages.

Weak verbs fell into three classes depending on the syllable following the root. Gothic also
had a fourth class.

The four classes of weak verbs are distinguished by their suffixes, and also by their meaning.

The four classes of weak verbs are distinguished by their suffixes, and also by their meaning.

Class 1 has a -ja- suffix based on PIE -éye/o- with -a- from PIE -o- in the root, as in PGmc lagjan 'lay' in
contrast with PGmc ligan 'lie'; as in this verb they have causative or factitive meaning. While many in this
class are based on verbal roots, others are based on nominals, such as hailjan 'heal'.

Class 2 has a suffix based on -ō- from PIE -ā- as in salbōn 'anoint' and are chiefly denominatives; cf. OHG
salfs 'a salve'.
Class 3 has an -ái- suffix, as illustrated by the Go. preterite habáida (cf. the infinitive haban) and OHG
habēta, though not in the other dialects, as in OE hæfde 'had'.

Class 4 has a -nō- suffix based on PIE -nā-, as in Go. waknōda, with a shortened form in ON vaknaþe
'wakened'; the vowel was also weakened in the present, as in Go. wakna, ON vakna 'I waken'. Verbs of
the class have inchoative or middle meaning.

Minor groups of verbs

Suppletive verbs

A small number of Germanic verbs show the phenomenon of suppletion, they are made up from more
than one stem. In English, there are two of these: to be and to go. The copula has its forms from four IE
roots. The English verb to go was always suppletive, having the past tense ēode in Old

English. In the 15th century, however, this was replaced by a new irregular past tense went. In fact went
is originally the past tense of the verb to wend . today wend has the regular past tense wended. In most
other modern Germanic languages the verb "go" takes its preterite from the PG verb *ganganą "to
walk" (e.g. German gehen, ging; Dutch gaan, ging; Swedish gå,

gick).

Preterite-presents

The so-called preterite-present verbs are a small group of anomalous verbs in the GL in which the
present tense shows the form of the strong preterite. The preterite of the preterite-present verbs is
weak. As an example, take the third-person forms of modern German

• können "to be able to". Kann "can, is able to" (present tense) displays the vowel change and lack of a
personal ending that would otherwise mark a strong preterite.

The preterite-present verbs are derived from the PIE perfect. The PIE perfect usually developed into a
Germanic past tense; in the case of the preterite-presents, however, it evolved into a present-tense
verb. Hence, the preterite presents have a present-tense meaning on the one hand and a form that
resembles that of a preterite or pasttense verb on the other.

12

1. . Umlaut in Germanic Languages

2. Runic Alphabet and Inscriptions in Old Germanic Languages

The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to
write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for
specialized purposes thereafter. The Scandinavian variants are also known as futhark
(or fuþark, derived from their first six letters of the alphabet: F, U, Þ, A, R, and K); the
Anglo-Saxon variant is futhorc (due to sound changes undergone in Old English by
the same six letters). Runology is the study of the runic alphabets, runic inscriptions,
runestones, and their history. Runology forms a specialized branch of Germanic
linguistics.
The three best-known runic alphabets are the Elder Futhark (around 150–800), the
Anglo-Saxon Futhorc (400–1100), and the Younger Futhark (800–1100). The Younger
Futhark is further divided into the long-branch runes (also called Danish, although
they were also used in Norway and Sweden), short-branch or Rök runes (also called
Swedish-Norwegian, although they were also used in Denmark), and the stavesyle or
Hälsinge runes (staveless runes). The Younger Futhark developed further into the
Marcomannic runes, the Medieval runes (1100–1500), and the Dalecarlian runes
(around 1500–1800).

13
1. Living and Dead Germanic Languages

The East Germanic subgroup was formed by the tribes who returned from
Scandinavia at the beginning of our era. The most numerous and powerful of them
were Goths. The Gothic language now dead, has been preserved in written records of
the 4th-6th centuries The Goths were the first of the Teutons to become Christians.
In the 4th century Ulfilas, a West Gothic bishop, made a translation of the Gospels
from Greek into Gothic. It is written on red parchment with silver and golden letters
and it is known as the SILVER CODEX. It is one of the earliest texts in the languages
of the Germanic group. In 16th century in the Crimea last manuscripts were found in
Gothic.

The other East Germanic languages, all of which are now dead, have left no written
traces. Some of their tribal names have survived in place-names, which reveal the
directions of their migrations: Bornholm and Burgunday go back to the East
Germanic tribe of Burgundians; Andalusia from Vandals; Lombardy form Langobards.

The Teutons who stayed in Scandinavia after the departure of the Goths gave rise to
the North Germanic subgroup of languages. The speech of the North Germanic tribes
 showed little dialectal variation until the 9th century and is regarded as a sort of
common North Germanic parent-language called Old Norse or Old Scandinavian.

The Germanic languages fall into three groups:

(1) East Germanic represented by Gothic which ceased to be spoken in the 16 c.

(2) North Germanic, represented by the Scandinavian languages.

(3) West Germanic represented by modern German, Yiddish, Dutch, Frisian,

Afrikaans, and English.

2. Simplification of the Word Structure in Late Proto-Germanic.

Originally, in Early PG the word consisted of three main component parts: the root, the
stem-suffix and the grammatical ending. The stem-suffix was a means of word derivation, the
ending – a marker of the grammatical form. In Late PG the old stemsuffixes lost their
derivational force and merged with other components of the word, usually with the endings.
The word was simplified: the three-morpheme structure was transformed into a two-
morpheme structure. The simplification of the word structure and the loss of stem-suffixes as
distinct components were caused by the heavy Germanic word stress fixed on the root. Most
nouns and adjectives in PG, and also many verbs, had stem-forming suffixes; according to
stem-suffixes they fell into groups, or classes: a-stems, i-stems, o-stems. This grouping
accounts for the formation of different declensions in nouns and adjectives, and for some
differences in the conjugation of verbs.

Groups of nouns with different stem-suffixes made distinct types of declension. The original
grammatical endings were alike for most nouns, e.g. Nom. sg -z, Dat. -i, Асc. -m. When these
endings fused with different stem-suffixes, each group of nouns acquired a different set of
endings. The division of nouns into declensions resting on the stem-suffixes is not peculiar to
Germanic alone; it is also found in other IE languages.

The Germanic languages preserved the old classification of nouns with great accuracy, added
other distinctive features to the noun paradigms and, as a result, had a complicated system of
noun declensions in the early periods of history.

14
 1. Vowel Gradation

The strong verbs in OG languages are usually divided into 7 classes. Classes from 1 to 6 use
vowel gradation which goes back to the IE ablaut-series (qualitative – e-o –zero; quantitative:
e-e:/o-o:) modified in different phonetic conditions in accordance with PG sound changes.
Class 7 includes reduplicating verbs which originally built their past forms by means of
repeating the root-morpheme.

In OG languages strong verbs had 4 base forms: Infinitive (with the ending an), Preterite sg
(with no ending), Preterite pl.( with the ending um for Gothic, on for OE), Participle II (with
the ending ans for Gothic, en for OE). The grades e-o of the qualitative ablaut reflected in
Germanic as e/i-a were used in the first and second stems of Classes 1-5; were contrasted to
zero grade or loss of the gradation vowel in the third stem of classes 1-3, and the prolonged
grade of the quantitative ablaut (e-e:) e: in classes 4 and 5. In the verbs of Class 6 the original
IE gradation was purely quantitative (o-o:); but in PG it was transformed into a quantitative-
series (a-o:).

2. Great Consonant Shift.

High Germanic consonant shift……………………

The first or Germanic Sound-Shifting took place at a very early date; the second or High
German sound-shifting, on the other hand, was not completed until as late as the 6th century.

This second process is very important and while studying Modern German, we must consider
it in more detail. Taking English as typical of a Germanic language unaffected by the High
Germanic sound-shifting, the following examples will show the changes which the mutes
have undergone in passing into High German. We must carefully distinguish three possible
positions of the mute when it occurs at the beginning of a word initially, in the middle-
medially, at the end-finally.

Dentals 1

T ----Z ց Tide –zeit Ten-zohn

Tale-zahl Tongue- zunge

SS better-besser
Water-wasser
 To mate- messen

R, tr, s, sr heart-herz Set-setzen

Lot-los Hot-heisz

Th –D thick-dick Thorn-dorn
Brother-broder South-sud(en)
Hearth-herd

D-T day-tag deaf-taub

wade-waten tide-zeit

Labials
p-pf path-pfad pepper-pfeffer
paw-pfote pillar-pfeiler

p-f, ff, pf pipe-pfeife help-helfen

soap-seife step-stufe

(b) f (v) – f(v) finger-finger Full-voll

Folk-volk Fowl-vogel(birf)

Gutturals
k-k can-kann
knot-knoten
clothe-kleiden
k-ch make-machen book-buch
week-woche bleak-bleich
h-h(ch) heart-herz horn-horn
beech-buche
g-g guest-gast gift-gabe

Exceptions
T usually remains unchanged in the following consonantal groups:
Tr: true-treu Ft: often-oft
Trust-trauen soft-sanft
Cht: sight-gesicht st: stone-stein
Might-macht master-meister
D remains unchanged when preceded by N, and also in a few words when preceded by L or
R
Nd, ld, rd: wind-wind round-rund
Bold-bald murder-mord
P remains unchanged when preceded by S, in foreign origin words:
Sp: spin-spinnen
Wasp-wespe
B, when preceded by M, is assimilated:
Mb-mm: lamb-lamm
Timber-zimmer
Climb-klimmen
.........

The consonants in Germanic look ’shifted’ as compared with the consonants of non-
Germanic languages. The alternations of the consonants took place in PG, and the
resulting sounds were inherited by the languages of the Germanic group.

The changes of consonants in PG were first formulated in terms of Phonetic law by Jacob
Grimm in early 19th century and are often called Grimm’s Law. It is also known as the
First or Proto-Germanic consonant shift.

 By the terms of Grimm’s law voiceless plosives ყრუ ხშული p-t-k developed in PG
into voiceless fricativesnapralpvani ყრი მსკდომები f-th-x for example Latin-pes
/Russian- пена, Latin-tres/Russian-три, Latin-cor/Russian-сердце, Swedish-fot /NE-
foot, Sw-tre/NE-three, German-holz/ NE-holt. Instead of becoming (yru mskdomi)

There are some exceptions in act 1. Voiceless plosives p-t-k which became voiceless f-th-
x sometimes were violated such as p-b, t-d, k-g, or v, th(vcd) y. He could not explain that
exceptions.

 IE voiced plosives b-d-g (mzhxeri xshuli)were shifted to voiceless plosives p-t-k for
example Latin-labare/ Russian-слабый, Latin-edere/Russian-еда, Latin iugum/
Russian- иго, Germanic- schlafen/NE-sleep, Sw-tio/NE-two, Sw-ok/ NE-yoke. (D-t
Decem-desyat-ten, dental-tooth, g-k agriculture-acre, gene-kin)

 IE voiced aspirated plosives bh-dh-gh were reflected either as voiced fricatives or as

pure voiced plosives v/b-d-g. E.g Latin ferre/Russian-беру, Latin –medius/Russian-
делать, Latin-hostis/Russian-гость, Sw-broder/NE-brother, German-rot/NE-red, Sw-
gastNE-guest.
Another important series of consonant changes in PG was discovered in the late 19 th
century by Danish scholar Carl Varner. They are known as Varner’s Law. Varner’s law
explains some correspondence of consonants which seemed to contradict Grimm’s Law
and were for a long time regarded as exceptions. According to the Varner’s Law all the
early PG voiceless fricatives [f-th-x] which arose under Grimm’s Law, and also [s]
inherited from PIE, became voiced between vowels if the preceding vowel was
unstressed; in the absence of these conditions they remained voiceless. The voicing
occurred in early PG at the time when the stress was yet fixed on the root-morpheme.
The process of voicing can be shown as a step in a succession of consonant changes in
prehistorical reconstructed forms.

Varner’s Law accounts for the appearance of voiced fricatives or its later modifications [d]
which ought to be expected under Grimm’s Law. In late PG, the phonetic conditions that
caused in voicing had disappeared: the stress had shifted to the first syllable.

Pater-fader-father

According to Verner’s law voiceless fricatives (f, th,x) became voiced if it was placed
between two vowels and the first vowel was unstressed.

15

1. Qualitative/Quantitative and Dependent/ Independent Vowel Changes in Proto-

Germanic.
Throughout history, beginning with PG, vowels displayed a strong tendency to
change. They underwent different kinds of alternations: qualitative and quantitative,
dependent and independent.
Qualitative changes (raodenobrivi) affect the quality of the sound e.g. [o>a] or [p>f];
quantitative changes make long sounds short or short sounds long e.g. [i>i:].
Dependent changes are restricted to certain positions or phonetic conditions, for
example, a sound may change under the influence of the neighbouring sounds or in a
certain type of syllable. Independent changes also spontaneous or regular- take place
irrespective of phonetic conditions, i. e. they affect a certain sound in all positions.
From an early date the treatment of vowels was determined by the nature of word-
stress. In accented syllable the oppositions between vowels were carefully maintained
and new distinctive features were introduced, so that the number of stressed vowels
 grew.

2. Word Accentuation in PG.

It's known that in ancient IE 8 to the separation of Germanic, there existed two ways of
word accentuation: musical pitch and force stress. The position of the stress was free and
movable, which means that it could fall on any syllable of the word—a root-morpheme,
an affix or an ending — and could be shifted both in form-building and word-building.

Both these properties of the word accent were changed in PG. Force stress (also called
dynamic and breath stress) became the only type of stress used. In Early PG word stress
was still as movable as in ancient IE but in Late PG its position in the word was stabilised.
The stress was now fixed on the first syllable. which was usually the root of the word and
sometimes the prefix; the other syllables suffixes and endings — were unstressed. The
stress could no longer move either in form-building or word-building.

These features of word accent were inherited by the Gerrnanic languages, and despite
later alterations are observable today. In Mod E there is a sharp contrast between
accented and unaccented syllables due to the force of the stress. The main accent
commonly falls on the root-morpheme, and is never shifted in building grammatical
forms.

The heavy fixed word stress inherited from PG has played an important role in the
development of the Germanic languages, and especially in phonetic and morphological
changes. Due to the difference in the force of articulation the stressed and unstressed
syllables underwent widely different changes: accented syllables were pronounced with
great distinctness and precision, while unaccented becarne less distinct and were
phonetically weakened. The differences between the sounds in stressed position were
preserved and emphasised, whereas the contrests between the unaccented sounds were
weakened and lost. Since the stress was fixed on the root, the weakening and loss of
sounds roainly affected the suffixes and grammatical endings. Many endings merged with
the suffixes, were weakened and dropped. Cf., e.g., the reconstructed PG word 'fish', with
its descendants in Old Germanic languages:

PG *tiskaz, Gt fisks. O Icel fiskr, OE fisc.