Germanic Parent Language - Phonological Boundaries

Phonological Boundaries

In his work entitled The Vocalism of the Germanic Parent Language, Frans Van Coetsem lays out a broad set of phonological characteristics which he considers to be representative of the various stages encompassed by the Germanic Parent Language:

• Pre-Proto-Germanic: Mora reduction.
• Early Proto-Germanic: (1) ā/ă, ō/ŏ mergers; (2) dissolution of the syllabic liquids and nasals; (3) the initiation of fricativization or the First Consonant Shift (also known as Grimm's Law or Erste Lautverschiebung)
• Late Proto-Germanic: (1) accent modification in two stages: (a) intensification in dominance followed by Verner's law; (b) fixation on the first syllable: umlaut- and accent-conditioned raising and lowering changes; reduction in non-accented position; (3) /s/ → /z/

Koivulehto (2002) further defines Pre-Germanic as " language stage that followed the depalatalization of IE palatals (e.g. IE ḱ > PreGmc k) but preceded the Gmc sound shift "Lautverschiebung", "Grimm’s Law", (e.g. k > PGmc χ)." Other rules thought to have affected the Pre-Germanic stage include Cowgill’s Law, which describes the process of laryngeal loss known to have occurred in most post-PIE (i.e. IE) dialects, and Osthoff's law, which describes rules for the shortening of long vowels, known to have applied in western dialects such as Greek, Latin, and Celtic, but not in Tocharian or Indo-Iranian. Ringe (2006) suggests that it is likely that Osthoff’s Law also applied to Germanic, and that the loss of laryngeals such as h₂ must have preceded the application of Grimm’s Law.