3. Characteristics of Germanic languages.

The Germanic group of languages has its own individual characteris­tics. They are:

• the development of a weak verb conjugation along with the strong conjugation;

• the twofold declension of the adjective (as strong and weak);

• a fixed stress accent; and

• a regular shifting of consonants.

Let us consider each of the items in brief.

First. English verbs are of two classes: the weak and the strong. The weak class comprises the majority of verbs and is therefore called "regular". A verb of this class forms its past tense and past participle by adding -ed, -d, or -t to the present or infinitive stem. The strong class includes verbs which form their tenses by an internal change of the vowel (e.g. drink, drank, drunk). This vowel gradation is also known as ablaut ['aeblaut].

Second. Though Modern English does not distinguish between the weak and the strong forms of the adjective, in Old English (OE) as well as in Modern High German this twofold declension of the adjective is but a norm. When a demonstrative or a possessive pronoun, or the definite article preceded the adjective, or when the adjective was used substantively (i.e. as a noun), it was declined in one way called "weak". Otherwise, it was de­clined in another way called "strong". Compare the OE forms:

Wise menn (MnE wise men):: Pas wisan menn (MnE these wise men)

Third. Formerly, in IE languages the stress was free and was used to express grammatical forms (like in Modern Russian: pyки -pyки, глазa –znaзa, ноги - ноги, etc). But in the Germanic languages even in most archaic times the stress was always on the first syllable, generally the root syllable. The fixation of the stress on the root syllable was of great importance for the development of the grammatical system of Germanic languages in general, and of English in particular- the singling out of the root of the word and the weakening of unstressed affixes led to the gradual leveling of unstressed endings and, finally, to their loss in English, which in its turn, contributed to the appearance of numerous prepositional phrases and analytical forms.

In Modem English (MnE) we can generally recognize native words, as distinguished from those borrowed from some non-Germanic languages, by observing the srtressed syllable when affixes are added in forming new words. Compare, for instance, MnE 'friend, friendly, friendship, friendliness, un’friendly with 'pure, puri'fy, purifi’cation and 'cinema, cinema’tography, cinemato’graphic The native word fiiend keeps the accent on the root syllable, but pure (borrowed from Latin) and cinema (borrowed from Greek) shift the stress as affixes are added.

The fourth distinctive feature of the Germanic languages is the almost regular shifting of consonants, according to a certain pattern that particular IE consonants underwent in these languages.

In 1822 the famous German linguist Jacob Grimm formulated an explanation of the correspondences between certain consonants in the Germanic languages and those found in other IE languages of non- Germanic group. His law is subdivided into three acts.

The first act of Grimm's Law has it that IE consonants p, t, k (=voiceless stop) correspond accordingly to the labial f, the dental O and the velar h in Germanic languages, e.g.:

p - f: Lat. pater E. father

Russ. полный E. full

nять five

neскарь fish

t - 0: Russ. тpu E. three

ты thou

k – h: Lat noctem Germ. Nacht ("night")

cordis E. heart

According to the second act of Grimm's law the original IE voiced con­sonants b, d, g correspond to the voiceless ones p, t, k in the Germanic languages:

b - p: Russ. 6onomo E. pool

слабеть sleep

d – t: Russ. dea E. two

еда eat

дерево tree

g - k: Russ. иго E. yoke

Lat. ego OE ic [ik] ("I")

By the third act of Grimm's law, the ancient IE aspirated voiced stops bh, dh, gh correspond to Germanic unaspirated stops b, d, g:

bh-b: Sanskrit bhratar E. brother

dh-d: Sanskrit dha E. do

rudhira red

vidhdva widow

gh - g: IE ghostis E. guest