Re: Grimm and Verner

--- In cybalist@..., "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> > >For the other positions (word final, third-syllable), we can
> imagine
> > >that Proto-Germanic perhaps utilized a rising tone to mark word
> > >boundaries (as is the case in e.g. Bambara) [i.e. contours:
> > >*\ma:\te:r/, *\pa/te:r/]
> >
> > I was just making it up as I went along, but having checked now, I
> > find that the Scandinavian tonal system *is* indeed Bambara-style.
> > Monosyllables generally have Swedish acute and Danish stød (hús,
> > hu?s), while polysyllables tend to show Swedish grave and no stød

in

> > Danish (k`öpá, købe), consistent with a high tone to mark the end

of

> > the word. Presumably, the tonal distinction between (static/
> > proterodynamic) \mo:\thar/ and (hysterodynamic) \fa/thar/ was
> > cancelled by Verner's law (\mo:\þar/, \fa\ðar/), producing a

single

> > polysyllabic type, which survives as Swedish \mo(de)r/, \fa(de)r/,
> > Danish mor, far (no stød); as opposed to the monosyllabic type,
> > \hu:s/, where Swe. has substituted simple acute (rising) tone, and
> > Danish expresses the final rise (which has no second syllable to

go

> > to) as a glottal stop.
> >
> >
> > =======================
> > Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> > mcv@...
>
> An alternative explanation: if originally tones were as now in the
> Copenhagen and Sjaelland accents, with stressed syllables having a
> low tone and the following one(s) having a high tone, the high tone
> marking the word you are talking about would be the last vestiges

of

> the (relatively) high tone of the following syllable, which was

later

> elided.
> I remember from when I was drafted in Holbaek, NW Sjaelland the
> dialect had <på?å> with the last syllable on a high note for

Standard

> Danish <på?> "on". You heard that even from people from Hedehusene,

8

> km from Roskilde in the direction of Copenhagen.
>
> Torsten

I checked with Skyum-Nielsen: Dialekter og Dialektforskning, 1951.
Most Danish dialects have <e:> > <i&>, with stød <e?> > <i?&> (eg.
<bi?&n> "leg, bone", standard Danish <be?n>). As I hear it, the two
vowels have different, level tones, low-high on Sjælland, high-low in
Jutland (but that's an oversimplification, I wouldn't know possible
exceptions). Thus we can see what the *purpose* of the glottal stop
is here: to keep the tones of the two syllables level and separate.
If there were no glottal stop, the tone would slide from one tone to
the next and we would have (eg on Sjaelland) a rising tone. But that
is exactly what Swedish has (tone I) where Danish has stød. So
perhaps the original "word separation marker" is not the rising tone,
but the "intended" glottal stop of dubious ontology between words,
and the rising/low-high/high-low tone, the result of the lost Proto-
Germanic last syllable.

Torsten