West Germanic gemination
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West Germanic gemination was a sound change that took place in all
West Germanic languages The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germanic ...
around the 3rd or 4th century AD. It affected consonants directly followed by , which were generally lengthened or geminated in that position. Because of
Sievers' law Sievers's law in Indo-European linguistics accounts for the pronunciation of a consonant cluster with a glide ( or ) before a vowel as it was affected by the phonetics of the preceding syllable. Specifically it refers to the alternation between ...
, only consonants immediately after a short vowel were affected by the process.


Overview

When followed by , consonants were lengthened (doubled). The consonant , whether original or from earlier through rhotacization, was generally not affected; it occasionally shows gemination in
Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
, but inconsistently and this may be an analogical change. In contrast, the second element of the diphthongs ''iu'' and ''au'' was still underlyingly the consonant at this time, and therefore was lengthened as well. In Proto-Germanic, only appeared at the beginning of a syllable, primarily as the onset of a variety of suffixes and endings. It alternated with its syllabic counterpart in accordance with a phonological rule known as
Sievers' law Sievers's law in Indo-European linguistics accounts for the pronunciation of a consonant cluster with a glide ( or ) before a vowel as it was affected by the phonetics of the preceding syllable. Specifically it refers to the alternation between ...
. This law states that consonantal appeared after a "light" syllable: one that contained a short vowel followed by at most one consonant. The syllabic allomorph appeared after "heavy" syllables, which included syllables containing a long vowel, a diphthong, or ending in more than one consonant. As the gemination itself required the consonant to be directly followed by , it therefore affected only light syllables; heavy syllables were not changed. Compare, for example, the Germanic verbs ''*fūlijaną'' "to defile" and ''*fuljaną'' "to fill, to make full", which appear in Old English as ''fȳlan'' and ''fyllan'' respectively, and in Old High German as ''fūlen'' and ''fullen''; the first verb shows no gemination, while the second does. In the early history of most individual Germanic languages, syllabic was generally lost, while consonantal was retained. Earlier consonantal is also lost, however, after a consonant that underwent gemination. Thus, remains only after (Old English ''werian'' < Proto-Germanic ''*warjaną''), while appears in all other cases, even those where Proto-Germanic had (such as ''*fuljaną'' above). It therefore appears that Sievers' law was still productive at this stage, and adapted to the new syllable length by changing the suffix from its consonantal to its syllabic variety.


Gemination triggered by /l/, /r/

West Germanic gemination also operated inconsistently on consonants followed by /l/ or /r/, e.g. Old English ''æppel'' "apple" < Proto-Germanic *aplaz. In some cases this led to doublets, e.g. West Saxon Old English ''tēar'' "tear (of the eyes)" < *tæher < Proto-Germanic *tahraz (without gemination) vs.
Northumbrian Old English Northumbrian was a dialect of Old English spoken in the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria. Together with Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon, it forms one of the sub-categories of Old English devised and employed by modern scholars. The dialect w ...
''tæhher'' "tear (of the eyes)" (with gemination).


Parallel changes in Old Norse

Similar changes occurred in the history of
Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
, although with a more limited scope. The change applied only to the combinations and , which were lengthened to and . Other consonants were not affected. Contrary to the changes in West Germanic, the remained nonsyllabic after the change, and was therefore retained rather than lost like syllabic was in other Old Norse words.


Effects

This change particularly affected the
infinitive Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
s of the
first conjugation First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number 1 (number), one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, D ...
of weak verbs, which ended in *-(i)janą. It also affect the short-stemmed ja(n)- and jō(n)-stem nouns and adjectives. By historical times (c. 800-900 AD), all of the
West Germanic languages The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germanic ...
except
Old Saxon Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It i ...
had lost medial syllabic , but not before any that it may have developed from had triggered
i-Mutation I-mutation (also known as umlaut, front mutation, i-umlaut, i/j-mutation or i/j-umlaut) is a type of sound change in which a back vowel is fronted or a front vowel is raised if the following syllable contains , or (a voiced palatal approxi ...
. It also triggered palatalization of velar consonants in
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
and
Old Frisian Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Friesl ...
: and were geminated into palatal/postalveolar and , which then developed into
geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. ...
s // and //, spelled and in
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
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