Sieversches law

The Sieversche law is a Germanic or Indo-European phonetic law discovered by the German philologist Eduard Sievers , which regulates the distribution of -j- and -ij- as well as -w- and -uw- according to the quantity of the preceding syllable. The law states that the half-vowels -j- and -w- are preceded by a homorgan vowel (i.e. from the same place of formation) after a long syllable . Since Fredrik Otto Lindeman has also published on this phonetic law, the law is also known as Sievers / Lindeman . Similar processes in Vedic prompted Franklin Edgerton to propose extensions to Sievers' law, but these are controversial in scholarship.

Examples

Sievers law occurs after a long-syllable basis: Gothic haírdeis 'shepherd' <germ. * Herđijaz <idg. * Kerdʰjos

Sievers law does not apply to the short-syllable base: Gothic harjis 'Heer' <germ. * Harjaz <idg. * Korjos

In the second case, however, there is an innovation, since germ. * Harjaz in Gothic would have resulted in * haris according to law (Bammesberger 1990: 40).

Lindeman's Law

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The same phenomenon is called Lindeman’s law when it is effective across a word boundary, namely when a monosyllabic word with a consonant and semivowel sequence immediately follows a word with a long final syllable. This meant that in Indo-European each such monosyllabic could form a positional Lindeman variant that could subsequently become independent; for example, * du̯oh ₂ 'two' two-syllable * duu̯oh ₂ , which explains the contrast between ancient Indian duvā , duvāu , Gothic twai , German two , ancient Latin duis 'twice' on the one hand and ancient Indian dvā , dvāu , ancient Greek δύω dýō , Latin duo , Old Church Slavonic dŭva on the other hand.

literature

• Bammesberger, Alfred (1990): The morphology of the ancient Germanic noun. Heidelberg.
• Barrack, Charles M., (1998): Sievers' law in Germanic. New York. (Berkeley insights in linguistics and semiotics, Volume 22.)
• Edgerton, Franklin (1934): Sievers' Law and IE. Weak grade vocalism. Language 10: 235-265.
• Edgerton, Franklin (1943): The Indo-European Semivowels. Language 19: 83-124.
• Krahe, H. & Meid, W. (1969): Germanic Linguistics II: Forms. Berlin. P. 13f.
• Lindeman, Frederik Otto (1965): La loi de Sievers et le début du mot en indo-européen. Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap 20: 38-108.
• Sihler, Andrew (2006): Edgerton's Law: The Phantom Evidence. Heidelberg, ISBN 3-8253-5167-X .