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Chapter 1. Grimm’s Law and Verner’s Law

Towards a unified phonetic account
  • Gjertrud F. Stenbrenden
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English Historical Linguistics
This chapter is in the book English Historical Linguistics

Abstract

This paper gives a unified account of Grimm’s and Verner’s Laws in light of findings from experimental phonetics. The Germanic stress shift and stress placement shift are separate phenomena, and I argue that Iverson & Salmons’ (2003) shift in ‘articulatory setting’ corresponds to the former, and that the shift in how prosodic emphasis was expressed, from high pitch to dynamic stress, set Grimm’s Law in motion, because a phonetic correlate of dynamic stress is higher subglottal pressure. Increased subglottal pressure induced aspiration, affrication and spirantisation in Proto-Indo-European (PIE) voiceless stops and devoicing in voiced stops. The voiced aspirates became fricatives, which were allophones of voiced stops; these fricative allophones later fell together with the main plosive allophones to produce Germanic voiced stops.

Abstract

This paper gives a unified account of Grimm’s and Verner’s Laws in light of findings from experimental phonetics. The Germanic stress shift and stress placement shift are separate phenomena, and I argue that Iverson & Salmons’ (2003) shift in ‘articulatory setting’ corresponds to the former, and that the shift in how prosodic emphasis was expressed, from high pitch to dynamic stress, set Grimm’s Law in motion, because a phonetic correlate of dynamic stress is higher subglottal pressure. Increased subglottal pressure induced aspiration, affrication and spirantisation in Proto-Indo-European (PIE) voiceless stops and devoicing in voiced stops. The voiced aspirates became fricatives, which were allophones of voiced stops; these fricative allophones later fell together with the main plosive allophones to produce Germanic voiced stops.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I. Phonology and morphology
  6. Chapter 1. Grimm’s Law and Verner’s Law 15
  7. Chapter 2. The foot in the history of English 41
  8. Chapter 3. Ambiguity resolution and the evolution of homophones in English 61
  9. Chapter 4. The threshold of productivity and the ‘irregularization’ of verbs in Early Modern English 91
  10. Part II. Syntax
  11. Chapter 5. The reanalysis of VO in the history of English 115
  12. Chapter 6. The role of (the avoidance of) centre embedding in the change from OV to VO in English 137
  13. Chapter 7. Syntactic changes in verbal clauses and noun phrases from 1500 onwards 163
  14. Chapter 8. Prepositions in Early Modern English argument structure and beyond 201
  15. Chapter 9. Should with non-past reference 225
  16. Chapter 10. Shifting responsibility in passing information 245
  17. Part III. Semantics and pragmatics
  18. Chapter 11. Theatrical practices and grammatical standardization in eighteenth-century Britain 263
  19. Chapter 12. Towards a companionate marriage in Late Modern England? 287
  20. Chapter 13. On the development of OE swā to ModE so and related changes in an atypical group of demonstratives 309
  21. Index 345
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.358.01ste

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I. Phonology and morphology
  6. Chapter 1. Grimm’s Law and Verner’s Law 15
  7. Chapter 2. The foot in the history of English 41
  8. Chapter 3. Ambiguity resolution and the evolution of homophones in English 61
  9. Chapter 4. The threshold of productivity and the ‘irregularization’ of verbs in Early Modern English 91
  10. Part II. Syntax
  11. Chapter 5. The reanalysis of VO in the history of English 115
  12. Chapter 6. The role of (the avoidance of) centre embedding in the change from OV to VO in English 137
  13. Chapter 7. Syntactic changes in verbal clauses and noun phrases from 1500 onwards 163
  14. Chapter 8. Prepositions in Early Modern English argument structure and beyond 201
  15. Chapter 9. Should with non-past reference 225
  16. Chapter 10. Shifting responsibility in passing information 245
  17. Part III. Semantics and pragmatics
  18. Chapter 11. Theatrical practices and grammatical standardization in eighteenth-century Britain 263
  19. Chapter 12. Towards a companionate marriage in Late Modern England? 287
  20. Chapter 13. On the development of OE swā to ModE so and related changes in an atypical group of demonstratives 309
  21. Index 345
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