Early 'Umlaut' Phenomena in the Germanic Languages

Bibliographic Data

ID11114560
AuthorsFausto Cercignani (corresponding author)
Year1980
Volume56
Issue1
Pages126
Publication date1980-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0097-8507 • E-ISSN: 1535-0665
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/412645
OpenAlexW2326369076
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited15

Not only the evidence of Gothic, but also that of North and West Germanic, speaks against the postulation of Proto-Germanic ‘umlaut’ allophones (§1). Furthermore, since even the results of the ‘earlier umlaut’ phenomena affecting */i e u/ in the various dialects point to the rise of allophonic variations in partly different environments, all the pre-literary vowel modifications produced by both vocalic and consonantal influences should be ascribed to the prehistory of the individual Germanic languages (§§2–3). The scarcity of forms with /e/ by a -umlaut of */i/ is explained through the assumption that the assimilation exerted by *[-a] on */i/ was widely resisted in order to avoid a merger of */i/ with */e/ (§2)

German · Germanic languages · Linguistics · Computer Science · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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