What is the Germanic consonant shift?
What is the Germanic consonant shift?
In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or Second Germanic consonant shift was a phonological development ( sound change) which took place in the southern dialects of the West Germanic in several phases, probably beginning between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, and was almost complete before the …
What caused the high german consonant shift?
The Proto-Germanic voiced dental fricative [ð], which was an allophone of /d/ in certain positions, became a plosive [d] in all positions throughout the West Germanic languages. Thus, it affected High German, Low German, Dutch, Frisian and Old English alike.
When did the first consonant shift take place?
Grimm’s law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC.
What is the consonant shift?
: a set of regular changes in consonant articulation in the history of a language or dialect: a : such a set affecting the Indo-European stops (see stop entry 2 sense 9) and distinguishing the Germanic languages from the other Indo-European languages — compare grimm’s law.
What is the second sound shift?
The Second or High German Consonant Shift is a sound change that took place in around AD 500 and which affected the southern or High German dialects. In these dialects initial, medial, and final West-Germanic */p, t, k/ shifted to fricatives and affricates.
When was the Great Vowel Shift?
14
Why are vowels shifty?
If you’re just joining us, a vowel shift happens when the vowel sounds of a particular accent (or language) move from one part of the vowel space to another. Hence these vowels “shift” from one position to another.
Why is it called the Great Vowel Shift?
The great vowel shift was a water shed event , so much so that it is the reason that why most modern day English speakers would struggle to speak with people from the late 14th & 15th Century. The ‘vowel shift’ relates to the sound of long vowels.
What is the Great Vowel Shift in English language?
The Great Vowel Shift was a massive sound change affecting the long vowels of English during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. Basically, the long vowels shifted upwards; that is, a vowel that used to be pronounced in one place in the mouth would be pronounced in a different place, higher up in the mouth.
Why does English have so many vowels?
Because it’s descended from a language family where historical sound changes have increased the number of vowels: Historical long consonants have turned into short ones, but vowels were still affected (ex: “taper” – “tapper”) creating a split between tense (long) and lax (short) vowels.
What is a vowel merger?
Low back vowels The cot–caught merger is a phonemic merger that occurs in some varieties of English causing the vowel in words like cot, rock, and doll to be pronounced the same as the vowel in the words caught, talk, law, and small.