Chapter 16

These parallelisms in drift may operate in the phonetic as well as in the morphological sphere, or they may affect both at the same time. Here is an interesting example. The English type of plural represented by _foot_: _feet_, _mouse_: _mice_ is strictly parallel to the German _Fuss_: _Füsse_, _Maus_: _Mäuse_. One would be inclined to surmise that these dialectic forms go back to old Germanic or West-Germanic alternations of the same type. But the documentary evidence shows conclusively that there could have been no plurals of this type in primitive Germanic. There is no trace of such vocalic mutation ("umlaut") in Gothic, our most archaic Germanic language. More significant still is the fact that it does not appear in our oldest Old High German texts and begins to develop only at the very end of the Old High German period (circa 1000 A.D.). In the Middle High German period the mutation was carried through in all dialects. The typical Old High German forms are singular _fuoss_, plural _fuossi_;[145] singular _mus_, plural _musi_. The corresponding Middle High German forms are _fuoss_, _füesse_; _mus_, _müse_. Modern German _Fuss_: _Füsse_, _Maus_: _Mäuse_ are the regular developments of these medieval forms. Turning to Anglo-Saxon, we find that our modern English forms correspond to _fot_, _fet_; _mus_, _mys_.[146] These forms are already in use in the earliest English monuments that we possess, dating from the eighth century, and thus antedate the Middle High German forms by three hundred years or more. In other words, on this particular point it took German at least three hundred years to catch up with a phonetic-morphological drift[147] that had long been under way in English. The mere fact that the affected vowels of related words (Old High German _uo_, Anglo-Saxon _o_) are not always the same shows that the affection took place at different periods in German and English.[148] There was evidently some general tendency or group of tendencies at work in early Germanic, long before English and German had developed as such, that eventually drove both of these dialects along closely parallel paths.

[Footnote 145: I have changed the Old and Middle High German orthography slightly in order to bring it into accord with modern usage. These purely orthographical changes are immaterial. The _u_ of _mus_ is a long vowel, very nearly like the _oo_ of English _moose_.]

[Footnote 146: The vowels of these four words are long; _o_ as in _rode_, _e_ like _a_ of _fade_, _u_ like _oo_ of _brood_, _y_ like German _ü_.]

[Footnote 147: Or rather stage in a drift.]

[Footnote 148: Anglo-Saxon _fet_ is "unrounded" from an older _föt_, which is phonetically related to _fot_ precisely as is _mys_ (i.e., _müs_) to _mus_. Middle High German _ue_ (Modern German _u_) did not develop from an "umlauted" prototype of Old High German _uo_ and Anglo-Saxon _o_, but was based directly on the dialectic _uo_. The unaffected prototype was long _o_. Had this been affected in the earliest Germanic or West-Germanic period, we should have had a pre-German alternation _fot_: _föti_; this older _ö_ could not well have resulted in _ue_. Fortunately we do not need inferential evidence in this case, yet inferential comparative methods, if handled with care, may be exceedingly useful. They are indeed indispensable to the historian of language.]

How did such strikingly individual alternations as _fot_: _fet_, _fuoss_: _füesse_ develop? We have now reached what is probably the most central problem in linguistic history, gradual phonetic change. "Phonetic laws" make up a large and fundamental share of the subject-matter of linguistics. Their influence reaches far beyond the proper sphere of phonetics and invades that of morphology, as we shall see. A drift that begins as a slight phonetic readjustment or unsettlement may in the course of millennia bring about the most profound structural changes. The mere fact, for instance, that there is a growing tendency to throw the stress automatically on the first syllable of a word may eventually change the fundamental type of the language, reducing its final syllables to zero and driving it to the use of more and more analytical or symbolic[149] methods. The English phonetic laws involved in the rise of the words _foot_, _feet_, _mouse_ and _mice_ from their early West-Germanic prototypes _fot_, _foti_, _mus_, _musi_[150] may be briefly summarized as follows:

[Footnote 149: See page 133.]

[Transcriber's note: Footnote 149 refers to the paragraph beginning on line 4081.]

[Footnote 150: Primitive Germanic _fot(s)_, _fotiz_, _mus_, _musiz_; Indo-European _pods_, _podes_, _mus_, _muses_. The vowels of the first syllables are all long.]

1. In _foti_ "feet" the long _o_ was colored by the following _i_ to long _ö_, that is, _o_ kept its lip-rounded quality and its middle height of tongue position but anticipated the front tongue position of the _i_; _ö_ is the resulting compromise. This assimilatory change was regular, i.e., every accented long _o_ followed by an _i_ in the following syllable automatically developed to long _ö_; hence _tothi_ "teeth" became _töthi_, _fodian_ "to feed" became _födian_. At first there is no doubt the alternation between _o_ and _ö_ was not felt as intrinsically significant. It could only have been an unconscious mechanical adjustment such as may be observed in the speech of many to-day who modify the "oo" sound of words like _you_ and _few_ in the direction of German _ü_ without, however, actually departing far enough from the "oo" vowel to prevent their acceptance of _who_ and _you_ as satisfactory rhyming words. Later on the quality of the _ö_ vowel must have departed widely enough from that of _o_ to enable _ö_ to rise in consciousness[151] as a neatly distinct vowel. As soon as this happened, the expression of plurality in _föti_, _töthi_, and analogous words became symbolic and fusional, not merely fusional.

[Footnote 151: Or in that unconscious sound patterning which is ever on the point of becoming conscious. See page 57.]

[Transcriber's note: Footnote 151 refers to the paragraph beginning on line 1797.]

2. In _musi_ "mice" the long _u_ was colored by the following _i_ to long _ü_. This change also was regular; _lusi_ "lice" became _lüsi_, _kui_ "cows" became _küi_ (later simplified to _kü_; still preserved as _ki-_ in _kine_), _fulian_ "to make foul" became _fülian_ (still preserved as _-file_ in _defile_). The psychology of this phonetic law is entirely analogous to that of 1.

3. The old drift toward reducing final syllables, a rhythmic consequence of the strong Germanic stress on the first syllable, now manifested itself. The final _-i_, originally an important functional element, had long lost a great share of its value, transferred as that was to the symbolic vowel change (_o_: _ö_). It had little power of resistance, therefore, to the drift. It became dulled to a colorless _-e_; _föti_ became _föte_.

4. The weak _-e_ finally disappeared. Probably the forms _föte_ and _föt_ long coexisted as prosodic variants according to the rhythmic requirements of the sentence, very much as _Füsse_ and _Füss'_ now coexist in German.

5. The _ö_ of _föt_ became "unrounded" to long _e_ (our present _a_ of _fade_). The alternation of _fot_: _foti_, transitionally _fot_: _föti_, _föte_, _föt_, now appears as _fot_: _fet_. Analogously, _töth_ appears as _teth_, _födian_ as _fedian_, later _fedan_. The new long _e_-vowel "fell together" with the older _e_-vowel already existent (e.g., _her_ "here," _he_ "he"). Henceforward the two are merged and their later history is in common. Thus our present _he_ has the same vowel as _feet_, _teeth_, and _feed_. In other words, the old sound pattern _o_, _e_, after an interim of _o_, _ö_, _e_, reappeared as _o_, _e_, except that now the _e_ had greater "weight" than before.

6. _Fot_: _fet_, _mus_: _müs_ (written _mys_) are the typical forms of Anglo-Saxon literature. At the very end of the Anglo-Saxon period, say about 1050 to 1100 A.D., the _ü_, whether long or short, became unrounded to _i_. _Mys_ was then pronounced _mis_ with long _i_ (rhyming with present _niece_). The change is analogous to 5, but takes place several centuries later.

7. In Chaucer's day (circa 1350-1400 A.D.) the forms were still _fot_: _fet_ (written _foot_, _feet_) and _mus_: _mis_ (written very variably, but _mous_, _myse_ are typical). About 1500 all the long _i_-vowels, whether original (as in _write_, _ride_, _wine_) or unrounded from Anglo-Saxon _ü_ (as in _hide_, _bride_, _mice_, _defile_), became diphthongized to _ei_ (i.e., _e_ of _met_ + short _i_). Shakespeare pronounced _mice_ as _meis_ (almost the same as the present Cockney pronunciation of _mace_).

8. About the same time the long _u_-vowels were diphthongized to _ou_ (i.e., _o_ of present Scotch _not_ + _u_ of _full_). The Chaucerian _mus_: _mis_ now appears as the Shakespearean _mous_: _meis_. This change may have manifested itself somewhat later than 7; all English dialects have diphthongized old Germanic long _i_,[152] but the long undiphthongized _u_ is still preserved in Lowland Scotch, in which _house_ and _mouse_ rhyme with our _loose_. 7 and 8 are analogous developments, as were 5 and 6; 8 apparently lags behind 7 as 6, centuries earlier, lagged behind 7.

[Footnote 152: As have most Dutch and German dialects.]

9. Some time before 1550 the long _e_ of _fet_ (written _feet_) took the position that had been vacated by the old long _i_, now diphthongized (see 7), i.e., _e_ took the higher tongue position of _i_. Our (and Shakespeare's) "long _e_" is, then, phonetically the same as the old long _i_. _Feet_ now rhymed with the old _write_ and the present _beat_.

10. About the same time the long _o_ of _fot_ (written _foot_) took the position that had been vacated by the old long _u_, now diphthongized (see 8), i.e., _o_ took the higher tongue position of _u_. Our (and Shakespeare's) "long _oo_" is phonetically the same as the old long _u_. _Foot_ now rhymed with the old _out_ and the present _boot_. To summarize 7 to 10, Shakespeare pronounced _meis_, _mous_, _fit_, _fut_, of which _meis_ and _mous_ would affect our ears as a rather "mincing" rendering of our present _mice_ and _mouse_, _fit_ would sound practically identical with (but probably a bit more "drawled" than) our present _feet_, while _foot_, rhyming with _boot_, would now be set down as "broad Scotch."

11. Gradually the first vowel of the diphthong in _mice_ (see 7) was retracted and lowered in position. The resulting diphthong now varies in different English dialects, but _ai_ (i.e., _a_ of _father_, but shorter, + short _i_) may be taken as a fairly accurate rendering of its average quality.[153] What we now call the "long _i_" (of words like _ride, bite, mice_) is, of course, an _ai_-diphthong. _Mice_ is now pronounced _mais_.

[Footnote 153: At least in America.]

12. Analogously to 11, the first vowel of the diphthong in _mouse_ (see 8) was unrounded and lowered in position. The resulting diphthong may be phonetically rendered _au_, though it too varies considerably according to dialect. _Mouse_, then, is now pronounced _maus_.

13. The vowel of _foot_ (see 10) became "open" in quality and shorter in quantity, i.e., it fell together with the old short _u_-vowel of words like _full_, _wolf_, _wool_. This change has taken place in a number of words with an originally long _u_ (Chaucerian long close _o_), such as _forsook_, _hook_, _book_, _look_, _rook_, _shook_, all of which formerly had the vowel of _boot_. The older vowel, however, is still preserved in most words of this class, such as _fool_, _moon_, _spool_, _stoop_. It is highly significant of the nature of the slow spread of a "phonetic law" that there is local vacillation at present in several words. One hears _roof_, _soot_, and _hoop_, for instance, both with the "long" vowel of _boot_ and the "short" of _foot_. It is impossible now, in other words, to state in a definitive manner what is the "phonetic law" that regulated the change of the older _foot_ (rhyming with _boot_) to the present _foot_. We know that there is a strong drift towards the short, open vowel of _foot_, but whether or not all the old "long _oo_" words will eventually be affected we cannot presume to say. If they all, or practically all, are taken by the drift, phonetic law 13 will be as "regular," as sweeping, as most of the twelve that have preceded it. If not, it may eventually be possible, if past experience is a safe guide, to show that the modified words form a natural phonetic group, that is, that the "law" will have operated under certain definable limiting conditions, e.g., that all words ending in a voiceless consonant (such as _p_, _t_, _k_, _f_) were affected (e.g., _hoof_, _foot_, _look_, _roof_), but that all words ending in the _oo_-vowel or in a voiced consonant remained unaffected (e.g., _do_, _food_, _move_, _fool_). Whatever the upshot, we may be reasonably certain that when the "phonetic law" has run its course, the distribution of "long" and "short" vowels in the old _oo_-words will not seem quite as erratic as at the present transitional moment.[154] We learn, incidentally, the fundamental fact that phonetic laws do not work with spontaneous automatism, that they are simply a formula for a consummated drift that sets in at a psychologically exposed point and gradually worms its way through a gamut of phonetically analogous forms.

[Footnote 154: It is possible that other than purely phonetic factors are also at work in the history of these vowels.]

It will be instructive to set down a table of form sequences, a kind of gross history of the words _foot_, _feet_, _mouse_, _mice_ for the last 1500 years:[155]

[Footnote 155: The orthography is roughly phonetic. Pronounce all accented vowels long except where otherwise indicated, unaccented vowels short; give continental values to vowels, not present English ones.]

I. _fot_: _foti_; _mus_: _musi_ (West Germanic) II. _fot_: _föti_; _mus_: _müsi_ III. _fot_: _föte_; _mus_: _müse_ IV. _fot_: _föt_; _mus_: _müs_ V. _fot_: _fet_; _mus_: _müs_ (Anglo-Saxon) VI. _fot_: _fet_; _mus_: _mis_(Chaucer) VII. _fot_: _fet_; _mous_: _meis_ VIII. _fut_ (rhymes with _boot_): _fit_; _mous_: _meis_ (Shakespeare) IX. _fut_: _fit_; _maus_: _mais_ X. _fut_ (rhymes with _put_): _fit_; _maus_: _mais_ (English of 1900)

It will not be necessary to list the phonetic laws that gradually differentiated the modern German equivalents of the original West Germanic forms from their English cognates. The following table gives a rough idea of the form sequences in German:[156]

[Footnote 156: After I. the numbers are not meant to correspond chronologically to those of the English table. The orthography is again roughly phonetic.]

I. _fot_: _foti_; _mus_: _musi_ (West Germanic) II. _foss_:[157] _fossi_; _mus_: _musi_ III. _fuoss_: _fuossi_; _mus_: _musi_ (Old High German) IV. _fuoss_: _füessi_; _mus_: _müsi_ V. _fuoss_: _füesse_; _mus_: _müse_ (Middle High German) VI. _fuoss_: _füesse_; _mus_: _müze_[158] VII. _fuos_: _füese_; _mus_: _müze_ VIII. _fuos_: _füese_; _mous_: _möüze_ IX. _fus_: _füse_; _mous_: _möüze_ (Luther) X. _fus_: _füse_; _maus_: _moize_ (German of 1900)

[Footnote 157: I use _ss_ to indicate a peculiar long, voiceless _s_-sound that was etymologically and phonetically distinct from the old Germanic _s_. It always goes back to an old _t_. In the old sources it is generally written as a variant of _z_, though it is not to be confused with the modern German _z_ (= _ts_). It was probably a dental (lisped) _s_.]

[Footnote 158: _Z_ is to be understood as French or English _z_, not in its German use. Strictly speaking, this "z" (intervocalic _-s-_) was not voiced but was a soft voiceless sound, a sibilant intermediate between our _s_ and _z_. In modern North German it has become voiced to _z_. It is important not to confound this _s_--_z_ with the voiceless intervocalic _s_ that soon arose from the older lisped _ss_. In Modern German (aside from certain dialects), old _s_ and _ss_ are not now differentiated when final (_Maus_ and _Fuss_ have identical sibilants), but can still be distinguished as voiced and voiceless _s_ between vowels (_Mäuse_ and _Füsse_).]

We cannot even begin to ferret out and discuss all the psychological problems that are concealed behind these bland tables. Their general parallelism is obvious. Indeed we might say that to-day the English and German forms resemble each other more than does either set the West Germanic prototypes from which each is independently derived. Each table illustrates the tendency to reduction of unaccented syllables, the vocalic modification of the radical element under the influence of the following vowel, the rise in tongue position of the long middle vowels (English _o_ to _u_, _e_ to _i_; German _o_ to _uo_ to _u_, _üe_ to _ü_), the diphthongizing of the old high vowels (English _i_ to _ei_ to _ai_; English and German _u_ to _ou_ to _au_; German _ü_ to _öü_ to _oi_). These dialectic parallels cannot be accidental. They are rooted in a common, pre-dialectic drift.

Phonetic changes are "regular." All but one (English table, X.), and that as yet uncompleted, of the particular phonetic laws represented in our tables affect all examples of the sound in question or, if the phonetic change is conditional, all examples of the same sound that are analogously circumstanced.[159] An example of the first type of change is the passage in English of all old long _i_-vowels to diphthongal _ai_ via _ei_. The passage could hardly have been sudden or automatic, but it was rapid enough to prevent an irregularity of development due to cross drifts. The second type of change is illustrated in the development of Anglo-Saxon long _o_ to long _e_, via _ö_, under the influence of a following _i_. In the first case we may say that _au_ mechanically replaced long _u_, in the second that the old long _o_ "split" into two sounds--long _o_, eventually _u_, and long _e_, eventually _i_. The former type of change did no violence to the old phonetic pattern, the formal distribution of sounds into groups; the latter type rearranged the pattern somewhat. If neither of the two sounds into which an old one "splits" is a new sound, it means that there has been a phonetic leveling, that two groups of words, each with a distinct sound or sound combination, have fallen together into one group. This kind of leveling is quite frequent in the history of language. In English, for instance, we have seen that all the old long _ü_-vowels, after they had become unrounded, were indistinguishable from the mass of long _i_-vowels. This meant that the long _i_-vowel became a more heavily weighted point of the phonetic pattern than before. It is curious to observe how often languages have striven to drive originally distinct sounds into certain favorite positions, regardless of resulting confusions.[160] In Modern Greek, for instance, the vowel _i_ is the historical resultant of no less than ten etymologically distinct vowels (long and short) and diphthongs of the classical speech of Athens. There is, then, good evidence to show that there are general phonetic drifts toward particular sounds.

[Footnote 159: In practice phonetic laws have their exceptions, but more intensive study almost invariably shows that these exceptions are more apparent than real. They are generally due to the disturbing influence of morphological groupings or to special psychological reasons which inhibit the normal progress of the phonetic drift. It is remarkable with how few exceptions one need operate in linguistic history, aside from "analogical leveling" (morphological replacement).]

[Footnote 160: These confusions are more theoretical than real, however. A language has countless methods of avoiding practical ambiguities.]

More often the phonetic drift is of a more general character. It is not so much a movement toward a particular set of sounds as toward particular types of articulation. The vowels tend to become higher or lower, the diphthongs tend to coalesce into monophthongs, the voiceless consonants tend to become voiced, stops tend to become spirants. As a matter of fact, practically all the phonetic laws enumerated in the two tables are but specific instances of such far-reaching phonetic drifts. The raising of English long _o_ to _u_ and of long _e_ to _i_, for instance, was part of a general tendency to raise the position of the long vowels, just as the change of _t_ to _ss_ in Old High German was part of a general tendency to make voiceless spirants of the old voiceless stopped consonants. A single sound change, even if there is no phonetic leveling, generally threatens to upset the old phonetic pattern because it brings about a disharmony in the grouping of sounds. To reëstablish the old pattern without going back on the drift the only possible method is to have the other sounds of the series shift in analogous fashion. If, for some reason or other, _p_ becomes shifted to its voiced correspondent _b_, the old series _p_, _t_, _k_ appears in the unsymmetrical form _b_, _t_, _k_. Such a series is, in phonetic effect, not the equivalent of the old series, however it may answer to it in etymology. The general phonetic pattern is impaired to that extent. But if _t_ and _k_ are also shifted to their voiced correspondents _d_ and _g_, the old series is reëstablished in a new form: _b_, _d_, _g_. The pattern as such is preserved, or restored. _Provided that_ the new series _b_, _d_, _g_ does not become confused with an old series _b_, _d_, _g_ of distinct historical antecedents. If there is no such older series, the creation of a _b_, _d_, _g_ series causes no difficulties. If there is, the old patterning of sounds can be kept intact only by shifting the old _b_, _d_, _g_ sounds in some way. They may become aspirated to _bh_, _dh_, _gh_ or spirantized or nasalized or they may develop any other peculiarity that keeps them intact as a series and serves to differentiate them from other series. And this sort of shifting about without loss of pattern, or with a minimum loss of it, is probably the most important tendency in the history of speech sounds. Phonetic leveling and "splitting" counteract it to some extent but, on the whole, it remains the central unconscious regulator of the course and speed of sound changes.