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The Phonemic Split of Germanic k in Old English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Herbert Penzl
Herbert Penzl*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Abstract

[Two allophones of Germanic k became separate phonemes after the i-umlaut had changed the distribution of palatal vowels in Proto-Old-English. Not the phonetic development of palatal [k'], but the distributional change involving velar [k] caused the completion of the phonemic split.]

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 23 , Issue 1-Part1: January-March , March 1947, pp. 34 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © 1947 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 See Lang. 20.84 ff.

Abbreviations: AB = Anglia Beiblatt; Bülbring = K. D. Bülbring, Altenglisches Elementarbuch (Heidelberg, 1902); Bülbring II = K. D. Bülbring, Was lässt sich aus dem gebrauch der buchstaben k und c im Matthäus-Evangelium des Rushworth-Manuscripts folgern?, Anglia Beiblatt 9.289–300 (1899); Dieter = F. Dieter, Laut- und Formenlehre der altgermanischen Dialekte (Leipzig, 1898); Jordan = Richard Jordan, Handbuch der mittelenglischen Grammatik2 (Heidelberg, 1934); Kluge = F. Kluge, Geschichte der englischen Sprache, Paul's Grundriss2 1.926–1151 (Strassburg, 1900 sqq.); Ley = Hermann Ley, Der Lautwert des altenglischen c (Diss. Marburg 1914); Luick = K. Luick, Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache (Leipzig, 1914 sqq.); Sievers = E. Sievers, Angelsächsische Grammatik3 (1898); Viëtor = W. Viëtor, Die northumbrischen Runensteine (Marburg, 1895); Wyld = H. C. Wyld, Contributions to the history of the guttural sounds in English, Transactions of the Philological Society 1899.129–260.

2 Cf. G. Hempl in Anglia 22.382; Bülbring, AB 9.102 ff.; Ley 64; A. Pogatscher, Zur Lautlehre der griechischen, lateinischen, und romanischen Lehnwörter im Altenglischen 185 f. (Strassburg, 1888). As to the alliteration of ʒ see fn. 18.

3 Cf. Wyld 138–41; Kluge 990 (§65b); Bülbring II.

4 Viëtor §33, Anm. 1; also §73, where he states that the cēn-rune ‘offenbar den gutturalen Laut mitbezeichnet’; Bülbring, AB 9.77 f.

5 Out of the original a-rune were created signs for /æ/ (the æsk-rune), for /a/ (the āc-rune), and for /o/ (the ōs-rune). This happened after the allophones of original /a/ had developed into separate distinctive sound units (phonemes). The original symbol for /o/ became the symbol for the umlauted sound /ö/, later of /e/. A runic sign for /ü/ was formed by combining the characters for /u/ and /i/. Cf. Helmut Arntz, Handbuch der Runenkunde 146 ff. (1935); O. von Friesen, Runorna 55 ff. (1933).

6 Friesen 58; Th. v. Grienberger, Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 15.22 (1899).

7 See Viëtor; A. B. Webster in G. Baldwin Brown, Arts in Early England 5.21,2 5.264 ff.; Zupitza–Schipper, Alt- und mittelenglisches Übungsbuch6 3 ff. (1902).

8 Sievers §206.3b; Bülbring §499, Anm. 4.

9 See Kluge 993 f. (§66); Sievers §76.2; V. Rehm, Die Palatalisierung der Gruppe sc im Altenglischen (Heidelberg, 1901). Luick, §254, thinks of genuine diphthongs but assumes a ‘flüchtige erste Komponente’; cf. also §691.

10 Anglia 1.518 ff.

11 Anglia 5, Anzeiger 83.

12 §57.

13 Rehm 53; E. Prokosch, A Comparative Germanic Grammar 77, §148 (Baltimore, 1939).

14 Kluge, 990 (§65b), suggests in a footnote ‘eine eingehende Geschichte des e als Palatalzeichen’. This remark inspired V. Rehm's study. Ley, 39 ff., assumes the Palatalzeichen to indicate the assibilation of c—[kx] or [kj].

15 §75 f. and Anm. 5; Dieter §57; Luick §§171 ff., 263, 279; Bülbring §315.

16 See Luick §667, Anm. 2 and 4; Kluge 993 (§65g); Sievers §§196.3, 416, Anm. 15b; G. Hempl, Anglia 22.376 f.

17 Anglia 13.314.

18 But see Kluge 1000 (§68); R. Loewe, Germanische Sprachwissenschaft 73 (1933); Luick §§633,696 and Anm. 1; Prokosch 76 f. Alliteration offers no evidence for such specific sound-values as Prokosch's [g] for ʒ before velar vowels, Luick's [gj] for ʒ before palatal vowels.

19 See Viëtor; A. B. Webster, loc.cit. 5.213 f.; Sievers §212, Anm. 2; Bülbring §492 and Anm. 1.

20 Sievers §§74 ff.; see also fn. 15.

21 Hempl, Anglia 22.375 ff.; Bülbring §499, Anm. 4.

22 Sievers §§192.2, 196.3, 216.1, Anm. 2.

23 See Wyld 140; Jordan §178, Anm. 1; Bülbring, AB 9.75; E. Ekwall, AB 32.157 f.; W. Schlemilch, Beiträge zur Sprache und Orthographie spätaltenglischer Sprachdenkmäler der Übergangszeit 48 (1914).

24 Wyld 142; Kluge 990.

25 Jordan §179; Wyld 146.

26 c beside ch with the sound-value [tš] is found in some texts of the early 12th century. c was also used in French loan-words with the sound-value [ts], which became [s] in the 12th century. In the latter part of this century, marks in Old English mss. show that c was ambiguous: a k is written over the c in swylce, stearce, ceas, an h over the c in rica, ceald, wyrcan. See S.J. Crawford, The Worcester Marks and Glosses of the Old English Manuscripts in the Bodleian, Anglia 52.1 ff.

27 After 1135, k is used more frequently in the Peterborough Chronicle. See Wyld 140 f.; Jordan §178, Anm. 1.

28 Jordan §178.

29 Jordan §§192, 194; Kluge 998; Wyld 154 f.

30 N. S. Trubetzkoy, Grundzüge der Phonologie 50 ff. (1939), discusses ‘monophonematische Wertung’ and ‘polyphonematische Wertung’. See also L. Bloom field, Language 120 (1933) and Lang. 11.98, fn. 3 (1935); Bloch and Trager, Lang. 17.229 (1941) and Outline of Linguistic Analysis 49 (1942). Phonetic differences between the cluster [t] plus [š] as in courtship and the cluster [tš] as in child have often been pointed out, e.g. by W. L. Thompson, Le Maître Phonétique 1914.46 ff.; Daniel Jones, id. 1931.64 and Outline of English Phonetics §608 (1932). Cf. also J. S. Kenyon, American Pronunciation8 §207.4 (1940).

31 See Bülbring II.

32 Viëtor §73, Anm. 1. On c in kyniqc see Bülbring, AB 9.74.

33 Jordan §179; Kluge 991 f.

34 Luick says §685.3: ‘Ob auch nach anderen hellen Vokalen, etwa auf kleinerem Gebiet, ähnliches eintreten konnte, ist zweifelhaft.‘ See also Jordan §179, Anm. 2; Kluge 992; E. Ekwall, AB 32.160 ff.

35 Luick §691; Jordan §181; H. Weyhe, Englische Studien 39.161 ff.; Kluge 993 f. (§66); V. Royce West, Der etymologische Ursprung der neuenglischen Lautgruppe [sk] (Heidelberg, 1936).

36 Luick §688; Sievers §240, Anm. 3.

37 Luick §637, Anm. 6. On the leveling of a variation between [sk] and [sk'] in paradigms like that of Old English fisc, see Luick §691.2; Weyhe loc.cit.; Jordan §181.

38 Jordan §179; Luick §689.

39 Wyld 142 f.; A. Ritter, Die Verteilung der ch- und k-formen im Mittelenglischen (Diss. Marburg 1904); O. Gevenich, Die englische Palatalisierung von k zu č im Lichte der englischen Ortsnamen 159 (Halle, 1918). Jordan, §179, Anm. 1, calls the change lautgesetzlich gemeinenglisch'.

40 See Gevenich, op.cit. 15; Jordan §179; Erik Björkman, Scandinavian Loan-Words in Middle English 139 ff. (1900); Luick §§687, 701. On the dialectal variation between forms with /g/ and /dž/, see Jordan §192; Luick §690 and Anm. 1.

41 Anglia 22.376.

42 §177.

43 §685, also §687; Max Förster, Idg. Forschungen, Anz. 12.105 ff.

44 AB 9.102; §493.

45 §206.4; Anglia 13.312 ff.

46 History of English Sounds §§496, 737; An Anglo-Saxon Primer8 3 (1905).

47 136 f. See also Kluge 993 (§65g). Joseph and Elizabeth Wright, An Old English Grammar §309 (1908), call [tš] for Old English ‘an assumption which cannot be proved’.

48 Jordan §§192, 194; Luick §685, on an assumed change from [g'] to [gj] to [dj] to [dž]; Hempl, loc.cit.

49 See Luick §687; Ley 49 ff. (§44).

50 Wyld 149.

51 Ley states (31), ‘die Vermutung läge nicht fern, dass eine richtige Erkenntnis des Wesens des i-Umlauts mit seiner Wirkung und Gegenwirkung auch die hier bestehenden Schwierigkeiten aufhellen würde.‘

52 A Note on Old High German Umlaut, Monatshefte für deutschen Unterricht 30.177–81 (1938).

53 See Luick §§182 ff.; Bülbring §§158 ff.

54 Luick §281; Bülbring §307.