Proto-Norse phonology probably did not differ substantially from that of Proto-Germanic. Although the phonetic realisation of several phonemes had probably changed over time (as with any language), the overall system of phonemes and their distribution remained largely unchanged.
Consonants[]
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labial–velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | (ŋ) | (ŋʷ) | |||
| Stop | p b | t d | k ɡ | kʷ ɡʷ | |||
| Fricative | ɸ (β) | θ (ð) | s | z | h (ɣ) | hʷ | |
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Approximant | j | w | |||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
- /n/ assimilated to a following velar consonant. It was [ŋ] before a plain velar, and probably [ŋʷ] before a labial-velar consonant.
- Unlike its Proto-Germanic ancestor /x/, the phoneme /h/ was probably no longer a fricative. It eventually disappeared except word-initially.
- [β], [ð] and [ɣ] were allophones of /b/, /d/ and /ɡ/, and occurred in most word-medial positions. Plosives appeared when the consonants were lengthened (geminated), and also after a nasal consonant. Word-finally, [b], [d] and [ɡ] were devoiced and merged with /p/, /t/, /k/.
- The exact realisation of the phoneme /z/, traditionally written as ʀ in transcriptions of runic Norse (not to be confused with the phonetic symbol /ʀ/), is unclear. While it was a simple alveolar sibilant in Proto-Germanic (as in Gothic), it eventually underwent rhotacization and merged with /r/ towards the end of the runic period. It may have been pronounced as [ʒ] or [ʐ], tending towards a trill in the later period. The sound was still written with its own letter in runic Old East Norse around the end of the millennium.
Vowels[]
The system of vowels differed somewhat more from that of Proto-Germanic than the consonants. Earlier /ɛː/ had been lowered to /ɑː/, and unstressed /ɑi/ and /ɑu/ had developed into /eː/ and /ɔː/. Shortening of word-final vowels had eliminated the Proto-Germanic overlong vowels.
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
- /o/ had developed from /u/ through a-mutation. It also occurred word-finally as a result of the shortening of Proto-Germanic /ɔː/.
- The long nasal vowels /ɑ̃ː/, /ĩː/ and /ũː/ occurred only before /h/. Their presence was noted in the 12th century First Grammatical Treatise, and they survive in modern Elfdalian.
- All other nasal vowels occurred only word-finally, although it is unclear whether they had retained their nasality in Proto-Norse or had already merged with the oral vowels. The vowels /o/ and /ɔ̃/ were contrastive, however, as the former eventually developed into /u/ (triggering u-mutation) while the latter was lowered to /ɑ/.
- The back vowels probably had central or front allophones when /i/ or /j/ followed, as a result of i-mutation:
- /ɑ/ > [æ], /ɑː/ > [æː]
- /u/ > [ʉ], /uː/ > [ʉː] (later /y/, /yː/)
- /ɔː/ > [ɞː] (later [œː] or [øː])
- /o/ did not originally occur before /i/ or /j/, but it was later introduced by analogy (as can be seen on the Gallehus horns). Its allophone was probably [ɵ], later [ø].
- Towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, stressed /e/ underwent breaking, becoming a rising diphthong /jɑ/.
- Also towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, u-mutation began to take effect, which created rounded allophones of unrounded vowels.
Diphthongs[]
At least the following diphthongs were present: /æi/, /ɑu/, /eu/, /iu/.
- /ɑu/ was later rounded to /ɒu/ due to u-mutation.
- /eu/ eventually underwent breaking to become the triphthong /jɒu/. This was preserved in Old Gutnish, but simplified to a long rising /joː/ or /juː/ in other areas.
- As /iu/ occurred exclusively in environments with i-mutation, its realisation was probably fronted [iʉ]. This then developed further into [iy], which then became /yː/.
Accent[]
Old Norse had a stress accent which fell on the first syllable. Several scholars have proposed that Proto-Norse also had a separate pitch accent, which was inherited from Proto-Indo-European and has evolved into the tonal accents of modern Swedish and Norwegian, which in turn have evolved into the stød of modern Danish.[1][2] Another recently advanced theory is that each Proto-Norse long syllable and every other short syllable received stress, marked by pitch, eventually leading to the development of the Swedish and Norwegian tonal accent distinction.[3] Finally, quite a number of linguists have assumed that even the first phonetic rudiments of the distinction did not appear until the Old Norse period.[4][5][6][7]
References[]
- ↑ Kock, Axel, 1901: Die alt- und neuschwedische Akzentuierung. Quellen und Forschungen 87. Strassburg
- ↑ Hamp, Eric P., 1959: Final syllables in Germanic and the Scandinavian accent system. I: Studia Linguistica 13. S.29–48.
- ↑ Riad, Tomas, 1998: The origin of Scandinavian tone accents. I: Diachronica XV(1). S.63–98.
- ↑ Kristoffersen, Gjert, 2004: The development of tonal dialects in the Scandinavian languages. Analysis based on presentation at ESF-workshop 'Typology of Tone and Intonation', Cascais, Portugal 1–3 April 2004..
- ↑ Elstad, Kåre, 1980: Some Remarks on Scandinavian Tonogenesis. I: Nordlyd: Tromsø University Working Papers on Language and Linguistics 3. 61–77.
- ↑ Öhman, Sven, 1967: Word and sentence intonation: a quantitative model. Speech Transmission Laboratory Quarterly Progress and Status Report, KTH, 2–3. 20–54, 1967., 8(2–3):20–54.[1]
- ↑ Bye, Patrick, 2004: Evolutionary typology and Scandinavian pitch accent. Kluwer Academic Publishers.