12-08-03 17:54, ghozzis wrote:
> Hello!
> I do not understand why in German we have a "d" in "Bruder" and a "t"
> in "Vater"! In Latin, it is "FraTer" and "PaTer" and in
> English "BroTHer" and "FaTHer". What happened in German?
> Can someone explain it?
> Thanx
Old English had <bro:þor> (<þ> = "th") as opposed to <fæder> and
<mo:dor>. Even Chaucer still had <brother> vs. <fader> and <moder>. The
latter two became <father> and <mother> partly because of the analogy of
<father>, partly because of a tendency in early Modern English to
confuse /d/ with /ð/ an /r/ (cf. <burden ~ burthen>, <murder ~ murther>.
The different treatment of PIE *t reflects different stress patterns in
pre-Germanic: the 'brother' word was stressed on the first syllable, the
'father' and 'mother' ones on the second. The intervocalic *t became *þ
by so-called Grimm's Law, and then it underwent voicing to *d after an
unstressed syllable. In High German, PGmc. *þ ended up as /d/ and *d
became /t/.
Piotr