Germanic a-mutation explained
pronounced as /notice/A-mutation is a metaphonic process supposed to have taken place in late Proto-Germanic (c. 200).
General description
In a-mutation, a short high vowel (pronounced as /
/ or pronounced as /
/) was lowered when the following syllable contained a non-high vowel (pronounced as /
/, pronounced as //oː// or pronounced as //æː//).
[1] Thus, since the change was produced by other vowels besides */a/, the term
a-mutation is something of a
misnomer. It has also been called "
a-umlaut", "
a/
o-umlaut", "velar umlaut" and, formerly, "Brechung."
[2] (This last was
Grimm's term, but nowadays German
Brechung, and its English equivalents
breaking and
fracture, are generally restricted in use to other unrelated sound-changes which later affected individual Germanic languages.)
[3]
- Germanic languages: *hurną > Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: horn "horn"
- Germanic languages: *wiraz > Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: wer "man"
The high vowel was not lowered, however, if pronounced as /
/ intervened between it and the following non-high vowel. An intervening
nasal consonant followed by a consonant of any kind also blocked the process (and raised original pronounced as /
/ to pronounced as /
/).
[4]
- Germanic languages: *gulþą > Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: gold "gold"
- Germanic languages: *gulþijaną > Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: gyldan "to gild" (with later i-mutation of u to y).
- Germanic languages: *hundaz > Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: hund "dog" (German German: Hund)
- Germanic languages: *swemmaną > *swimmaną > Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: swimman "to swim"
a-mutation seems to have preceded the raising of unstressed final pronounced as /
/ to pronounced as /
/ in the dialects ancestral to Old English and Old Norse, hence in Old English the phenomenon is subject to many exceptions and apparent inconsistencies which are usually attributed to a mixture of paradigmatic leveling and phonetic context.
Dialectal variation
a-mutation is more evident in some Germanic languages than others. It is widely found in Old High German, less so in other West Germanic languages and Old Norse.[5] a-mutation is less extensive in Old East Norse (the precursor of Danish and Swedish) than Old West Norse (spoken in Norway and its colonies).[6] There is no trace of it at all in Gothic, where the distinction between the short high and mid vowels had become allophonic (Proto-Germanic pronounced as //e// and pronounced as //i// merged).[7] Old Gutnish, at the eastern end of the territory where Old Norse evolved, resembles Gothic in this respect. But there is some suggestion that a-mutation may have been preserved in Crimean Gothic.[8]
- Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: fugol, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: fugel : Old High German German, Old High (ca.750-1050);: fogal "bird"
- Old Gutnish Uncoded languages: hult "copse, wood" : Old English, Old Icelandic English, Old (ca.450-1100);: holt
Variation is found within dialects too with doublets such as Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: spora : English, Old (ca.450-1100);: spura "spur", English, Old (ca.450-1100);: spornan : English, Old (ca.450-1100);: spurnan "to spurn", English, Old (ca.450-1100);: cnocian : English, Old (ca.450-1100);: cnucian "to knock"; Old Icelandic Norse, Old: fogl : Norse, Old: fugl "bird", Norse, Old: goð : Norse, Old: guð "god", Norse, Old: goll : Norse, Old: gull "gold."
i > e
According to Campbell, a-mutation of i is limited in Old English to just three words: English, Old (ca.450-1100);: nest "nest," English, Old (ca.450-1100);: spec "bacon," and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: wer "man."[9] [10] More plentiful instances of pronounced as /
/ > pronounced as /
/ have been cited in other West Germanic languages,
[9] with Old High German showing the greatest number of examples, including doublets such as German, Old High (ca.750-1050);:
skif : German, Old High (ca.750-1050);:
skef "ship".
[11]
The mutation is rare in Old Norse, e.g. Norse, Old: verr "man", Norse, Old: heðan "hence", Norse, Old: neðan "from below" in contrast to Norse, Old: niðr "down(wards)" and perhaps Norse, Old: jafn "even." Instances where a-mutation has failed to occur in Old Norse can mostly be explained as analogical forms,[12] although a palatal stop pronounced as //ɡ// or pronounced as //k// immediately preceding the pronounced as //i// in a short-root syllable has a tendency to block or reverse the process.[13]
u > o
While Proto-Germanic inherited both of the phonemes pronounced as /
/ and pronounced as /
/ from
Proto-Indo-European, all instances of pronounced as /
/ in the later languages arose from
a-mutation of pronounced as /
/, since Proto-Indo-European pronounced as /
/ had already become Proto-Germanic pronounced as /
/.
a-mutation of pronounced as //u// is much more common than that of pronounced as //i// but also subject to many exceptions.
[14] In some dialects, the change may be blocked in
labial contexts.
[15] Specifically, a tendency has been observed for the mutation not to occur next to initial or medial pronounced as /
/ or pronounced as /
/ in association with pronounced as /
/.
[16] Other exceptions, in particular where there is disagreement between dialects, may be due to the word having once been a
u-stem.
[16] Most dialects of late
Old Dutch underwent a merger of pronounced as //u// and pronounced as //o//, so that in Middle and Modern Dutch only pronounced as //o// appears, eliminating all traces of a-mutation of pronounced as /
/.
The effects of a-mutation are perhaps most noticeable in certain verb types, e.g. strong verbs of classes 2, 3 and 4, where o in the past participle alternates with u in the preterite plural. For example, Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: flogen "flown" < English, Old (ca.450-1100);: *fluganaz alternated with English, Old (ca.450-1100);: flugon "they flew" < English, Old (ca.450-1100);: *flugun. Otherwise, where pronounced as /
/ and pronounced as /
/ would originally have alternated
morphologically, the old Germanic languages had almost always generalised one vowel or the other throughout the paradigm, although there does occur in Old Swedish (especially in the laws of
Östergötland) traces of regular alternation between pronounced as //o// and pronounced as //u// in line with
a-mutation, e.g. Swedish:
kona (
subj.) : Swedish:
kunu (
obj.) "woman".
[17] As can be seen from the examples above,
a-mutation is also found in
lexical alternations.
The diphthong pronounced as /
/
In the West Germanic variety that gave rise to Old English, a-mutation did not affect the second element of the diphthong pronounced as /
/ (for which the earliest Old English texts have
eu): English, Old (ca.450-1100);:
treulesnis "faithlessness", English, Old (ca.450-1100);:
steup- "step-" (Epinal Glossary 726, 1070); but in other branches of West Germanic pronounced as /
/ eventually became pronounced as /
/ unless followed by pronounced as /
/, e.g.
Old Saxon breost "breast" vs.
treuwa "fidelity."
[14] In most variants of Old Norse, pronounced as /
/ > pronounced as //jɒu// > pronounced as //ju:// or pronounced as //jo://, without regard to
a-mutation, e.g. Old Icelandic Norse, Old:
djúpr.
Effects of a single nasal consonant
Old English derives from a type of Germanic in which single pronounced as /
/ had the same effect on preceding pronounced as /
/ and pronounced as /
/ as a nasal stop followed by another consonant.
[18] The effect occurs in other West Germanic languages, though more erratically, and sometimes in Old Norse.
- Old Norse Norse, Old: nema, Old High German German, Old High (ca.750-1050);: neman : Old Frisian nima, nema, Old Saxon niman, neman : Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: niman "to take"
- Old High German German, Old High (ca.750-1050);: gi-noman, Old Frisian nomen : Old Norse Norse, Old: numinn, Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: numen, Old Saxon numan "taken" (past participle)
- Old High German German, Old High (ca.750-1050);: gomo "man", Old Frisian gomo : Old Norse Norse, Old: gumi, Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: guma, Old Saxon gumo
a-mutation was also sometimes blocked before single pronounced as /
/, again with much variation among languages.
- Old Saxon honig, -eg, Old High German German, Old High (ca.750-1050);: hona(n)g : Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: hunig (for older English, Old (ca.450-1100);: -æg), Old Frisian hunig, Old Norse Norse, Old: hunang
Alternative ideas
A number of scholars have questioned the traditional model of Proto-Germanic a-mutation in whole or in part. In particular, the rare a-mutation of pronounced as /
/ to pronounced as /
/ "as a P[roto]-G[ermanic] phenomenon has always been contested."
[19] Lloyd, for example, proposed an alternative explanation for all apparent instances of
a-mutation of pronounced as /
/; he suggested that "the partial overlapping in Germanic of the two phonemes pronounced as //i// (represented in all environments by pronounced as /[i]/) and pronounced as //e// (with the allophones pronounced as /[e]/ and pronounced as /[i]/) led to the occasional development of an
e-allophone of
i by systemic analogy".
[2] Cercignani, on the other hand, argued that "no 'umlaut' phenomena can be assumed for Proto-Germanic", preferring to ascribe these changes to "the prehistory of the individual languages."
[20]
References
- Campbell, A. (1959). Old English Grammar. Oxford University Press. .
- Cercignani, Fausto (1980). "Early 'umlaut' phenomena in the Germanic languages", Language 56:1, pp. 126–136.
- Collitz, Hermann (1918), "Early Germanic vocalism", Modern Language Notes 33:6, pp. 321–333.
- Gordon, E. V. (1957). An Introduction to Old Norse. Second Edition revised by A. R. Taylor. Oxford University Press. .
- Grønvik, Ottar (1983). Die dialektgeographische Stellung des Krimgotischen und die krimgotische cantilena. Oslo, Universitetsforlaget.
- Kock, Axel (1898). "Der a-umlaut und der Wechsel der endvocale a: i(e) in den altnordischen sprachen", Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 23, pp. 484–554.
- Kock, Axel (1890). "Några bidrag till fornnordisk grammatik", Arkiv för nordisk filologi. Ny följd. Andra bandet.
- Kluge (1889). "Vorgeschichte der Altgermanichsen Dialekte", Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, herausgegeben von Herman Paul. Strassburg, Trübner.
- Lloyd L. (1966). "Is there an a-umlaut of i in Germanic?", Language 42:4, pp. 738–745.
- Sturtevant (1956). "The a-umlaut of the radical vowel i in Old Norse monosyllabic stems", Modern Language Notes 71:3, pp. 194–200.
- Wright (1917). Grammar of the Gothic Language. Oxford University Press.
See also
Notes and References
- Gordon 1957, § 32.
- Lloyd (1966), p. 738.
- Collitz (1918), p. 322, footnote 2.
- Campbell 1959, § 116.
- Campbell 1959, § 111 (b).
- Gordon 1957, § 193.
- Wright 1917, §§ 66-72.
- Grønvik (1983).
- Campbell 1959, § 114 (b).
- Cercignani suggested another possibility: English, Old (ca.450-1100);: efen "even" < Proto-Germanic Germanic languages: *ibnaz < Proto-Indo-European Indo-European languages: *iminos (cf. Latin Latin: imago); see Cercignani 1980, p. 127, fn. 7. However, this reconstruction is unlikely; the more common descent is PGmc Germanic languages: *ebnaz, from PIE *Indo-European languages: h₁ébʰ-nos ~ *Indo-European languages: h₁ép-nos (cf. *Indo-European languages: h₁ep-ónos > Gaulish iano, ianu > Welsh Welsh: iawn, Breton Breton: eün, Cornish Cornish: ewn).
- Cercignani 1980, p. 130.
- Sturtevant (1956).
- Kluge (1889), p. 545).
- Campbell 1959, § 115.
- Cercignani 1980, p. 130, and footnote 28.
- Kluge (1889) p. 122-23, and Anmerkung 6.
- Kock (1890), p. 14.
- Campbell 1959, § 117.
- Cercignani (1980), p. 127, and see footnote 9 for further references.
- Cercignani (1980), p. 129.