A Note on the Proto-Indo-European Resonants in Germanic

Abstract

all that distinguishes their environments, we conclude that the words which exhibit such marginal developments were bounded by juncture. Medially there was either no juncture or juncture of a different kind. Not all medial developments from IE voiceless stops were voiceless spirants. If the accent preceded the sound in question, it developed as in marginal position. Since a preceding accent does not by itself explain the development of a voiceless stop (it fails to account for the development initially in the word), and since in the marginal development the effect of juncture seems to have been decisive, we conclude that a post-accentual interior form should also be ascribed to the effect of such a juncture. An initial stressed syllable, then, is assumed to have been bounded by two junctures, an initial unstressed syllable by a preceding juncture and, at most, an interior juncture of less openness; examples: Goth. bahan < */+Pi+xan-/, Goth. fadar < */+fa(-)bAr/. This attempt to explain the facts described in Verner's law has a significant advantage over previous phonetics-centered interpretations. The somewhat arbitrary assignment of priority to either the voiced or the voiceless spirant becomes unnecessary. No temporal order needs to be established, neither form must be derived from the other, and it is without immediate interest whether juncture caused voicing or prevented unvoicing. Whether interior pre-accentual position was marked by weak juncture or by no juncture at all, cannot be decided. The occurrence of interior pre-accentual forms at morpheme boundaries in compounds (OHG me;gi-rahs : sahs) has no weight, in view of German compounds like Breisach (without juncture) vs. Breisgau (with juncture). If internal juncture was combined with preceding accent at the time of the developments described in Verner's law, it seems not impossible to assume such a combination also for the time of the Germanic relocation of accent. The disappearance of internal juncture could then very well lead to a weakening of the syllable boundary, as assumed by Lehmann; the interpretation of umlaut as facilitated by this weakening is very persuasive.