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The Prehistoric Germanic Short Syllabics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

W. F. Twaddell
W. F. Twaddell*
Affiliation:
Brown University
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Extract

Our reconstruction of a proto-language is theoretical and partial; but the language itself was necessarily real and whole. As a real language, it shared with all real languages the characteristic of non-uniformity. Some of its speakers spoke differently from others; they spoke differently from their linguistic predecessors and successors. And at any time, in any dialect, the phonemes of a real language display variations in different phonetic environments. In short, the language which our reconstructions adumbrate had linguistic change; it had isoglosses; and it had allophones.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 24 , Issue 2-Part1: April-June , June 1948 , pp. 139 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © 1948 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 The sound changes discussed in this study are described in the handbooks, in detail and with examples. Reference can be made to Kluge, Urgermanisch3 106 ff., 120 ff.; Hirt, Handbuch des Urgermanischen 1.30 ff.; Prokosch, A comparative Germanic grammar 93 ff., 100 ff., 112 ff. Historical surveys of the important investigations can be found in Streitberg–Michels–Jellinek, Germanisch 1.357 ff. (= Die Erforschung der idg. Sprachen II), and in L. E. van Wijk's De klinkers der oergermaanse stamsyllaben in hun onderling verband (Utrecht proefschrift, 1936). H. M. Hoenigswald, Sound change and linguistic structure, Lang. 22.138 ff. (1946), gives a comprehensive theoretical survey of the relations between phonetic changes and the restructuring of allophones and phonemes.

2 A comparative Germanic grammar 109. Cf. A. Meillet, Caractères généraux des langues germaniques3 61 (Paris, 1926): ‘Tout se passe donc à peu de chose près comme s'il y avait en germanique commun une voyelle unique, qui deviendrait i ou e suivant les cas.‘

3 Cf. W. G. Moulton, The phonemes of Gothic, Lang. 24. 76 ff. (1948).

4 For example Otto Bremer's powerful article, Die germanische Brechung, IF 26.148 ff.

5 MLN 33.321 ff. (1918).

6 MLN 20.65 ff. (1905). Also Segimer, JEGP 6.279 ff. (1907).

7 Twaddell, A note on OHG umlaut, Monatshefte für deutschen Unterricht 30.177 ff. (1938).