Holtzmann's law is a
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
sound law originally noted by
Adolf Holtzmann in 1838. The sound law describes the development of Proto-Germanic sequences of intervocalic geminate glides *-ww- and *-jj- in East and North Germanic, i.e. Gothic and Old Norse respectively. It is mainly known by its traditional German name (). A similar sound law which has affected modern
Faroese, called in Faroese itself, is also known as "Faroese " in English.
Description and occurrences
The law involves the
gemination
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
, or doubling, of
PIE semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are ''y ...
s (glides) ' and ' in strong
prosodic
In linguistics, prosody () is the study of elements of speech, including intonation (linguistics), intonation, stress (linguistics), stress, Rhythm (linguistics), rhythm and loudness, that occur simultaneously with individual phonetic segments: v ...
positions into
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
' and ', which had two outcomes:
* hardening into
occlusive
In phonetics, an occlusive, sometimes known as a stop, is a consonant sound produced by occluding (i.e. blocking) airflow in the vocal tract, but not necessarily in the nasal tract. The duration of the block is the ''occlusion'' of the consonan ...
onsets:
** '/' in
North Germanic;
** '/' in
East Germanic
* vocalization of the first semivowel, its addition to a
diphthong
A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...
, and division of the diphthong and remaining semivowel into two separate segments in
West Germanic
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 Germ ...
.
The process is brought about by the fact that vowels (or semivowels) in the syllable margin are invariably transformed into consonantal articulations.
The conditions of the sound change were long debated, since there was a seemingly random distribution of affected and unaffected words. At first, dependence on word accent was assumed, parallel to
Verner's Law. One solution, first proposed by Smith (1941), postulates dependency on the presence of a PIE
laryngeal, which when lost, triggered lengthening as if the semivowels were vowels, and forced them into the syllable margin.
According to Lehmann (1955), the lengthening occurs in the contexts of PIE ', ', ', ' (where ''V'' is any short vowel, and ''H'' is any laryngeal).
For example, PIE *' → early Proto-Germanic *''trewwjaz'' 'trustworthy, faithful' →:
* *''triwwjaz'': Old Norse ''tryggr'', Gothic ''triggws''
* *''triuwjaz'': Old English ''trēowe'', Old High German gi''triuwi''.
One instance where a laryngeal was never present is PIE *''h₂ōwyóm'' 'egg', but after the loss of ', the ' shifted into the syllable margin, giving:
* with hardening:
** *: Crimean Gothic (pl.) (* (sg.) < *)
** *: Old Norse ''egg''
* with diphthongization:
** *: German ''Ei'', Old English
Alternative views
Some linguists (e.g.
Joseph Voyles) hold that Holtzmann's Law represents two separate and independent sound changes, one applying to
Gothic and another to
Old Norse
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...
, rather than being a common innovation. This is supported by
James W. Marchand's observation that a
Runic
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see '' futhark'' vs ''runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were primarily used to represent a sound value (a ...
inscription (''niuwila'' on the Naesbjaerg bracteate of the 5th century) and an early loan into
Finnic (*''kuva'' 'picture', cf. Gothic ''skuggwa'' 'mirror', Old High German ''skūwo'' 'look') do not exhibit this change. If true, this would prevent Holtzmann's law from being used as an example of early
Gotho-Nordic unity, in which context it is often cited. Voyles's explanations of the changes do not involve
laryngeal theory
The laryngeal theory is a theory in historical linguistics positing that the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language included a number of laryngeal consonants that are not linguistic reconstruction, reconstructable by direct application of the com ...
.
Similar developments in later Nordic languages
Faroese shows a similar development, where some Old Norse long vowels developed into diphthongs, which then hardened into stops, e.g. Old Norse ''þrír'' → Faroese ''tríggir'', ON ''róa'' → Far. ''rógva''. This phenomenon is commonly called "Faroese Verschärfung" or by the Faroese term ''skerping'' ("sharpening"), which, however, also refers to
the fronting of vowels that subsequently takes place in these contexts. Another similar change occurs in a number of
Jutlandic dialects of
Danish, where high vowels carrying the ''
stød'' prosody develop diphthongal glides which are then "hardened" into stops or fricatives, a phenomenon commonly called "klusilspring" ("stop shifting") or "klusilparasit" ("stop parasite").
See also
*
Northwest Germanic
*
Grimm's law
Grimm's law, also known as the First Germanic Consonant Shift or 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 first millennium BC, first d ...
Notes
References
Further reading
* William M. Austin, ''Germanic Reflexes of Indo-European -Hy- and -Hw-'',
Language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
(1958), 203–211.
* Kuryƚowicz, J. "The Germanic Verschärfung." Language 43, no. 2 (1967): 445–51. doi:10.2307/411544.
* Rowe, Charley, ''The problematic Holtzmann's Law in Germanic'', Indogermanische Forschungen 108, (2003), 258–266.
*L. C. Smith, ''What's all the fuss about 16 words? A new approach to Holtzmann's law'' Göttinger Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 1.
*L. C. Smith, ''Holtzmann's law: getting to the hart of the Germanic verscharfung'', University of Calgary thesis, (1997).
{{Germanic languages
Germanic sound laws