I have preferred to take up in some detail the analysis of our
hesitation in using a locution like "Whom did you see?" and to point to
some of the English drifts, particular and general, that are implied by
this hesitation than to discuss linguistic change in the abstract. What
is true of the particular idiom that we started with is true of
everything else in language. Nothing is perfectly static. Every word,
every grammatical element, every locution, every sound and accent is a
slowly changing configuration, molded by the invisible and impersonal
drift that is the life of language. The evidence is overwhelming that
this drift has a certain consistent direction. Its speed varies
enormously according to circumstances that it is not always easy to
define. We have already seen that Lithuanian is to-day nearer its
Indo-European prototype than was the hypothetical Germanic mother-tongue
five hundred or a thousand years before Christ. German has moved more
slowly than English; in some respects it stands roughly midway between
English and Anglo-Saxon, in others it has of course diverged from the
Anglo-Saxon line. When I pointed out in the preceding chapter that
dialects formed because a language broken up into local segments could
not move along the same drift in all of these segments, I meant of
course that it could not move along identically the same drift. The
general drift of a language has its depths. At the surface the current
is relatively fast. In certain features dialects drift apart rapidly. By
that very fact these features betray themselves as less fundamental to
the genius of the language than the more slowly modifiable features in
which the dialects keep together long after they have grown to be
mutually alien forms of speech. But this is not all. The momentum of the
more fundamental, the pre-dialectic, drift is often such that languages
long disconnected will pass through the same or strikingly similar
phases. In many such cases it is perfectly clear that there could have
been no dialectic interinfluencing.
These parallelisms in drift may operate in the phonetic as well as in
the morphological sphere, or they may affect both at the same time. Here
is an interesting example. The English type of plural represented by
_foot_: _feet_, _mouse_: _mice_ is strictly parallel to the German
_Fuss_: _Füsse_, _Maus_: _Mäuse_. One would be inclined to surmise that
these dialectic forms go back to old Germanic or West-Germanic
alternations of the same type. But the documentary evidence shows
conclusively that there could have been no plurals of this type in
primitive Germanic. There is no trace of such vocalic mutation
("umlaut") in Gothic, our most archaic Germanic language. More
significant still is the fact that it does not appear in our oldest Old
High German texts and begins to develop only at the very end of the Old
High German period (circa 1000 A.D.). In the Middle High German period
the mutation was carried through in all dialects. The typical Old High
German forms are singular _fuoss_, plural _fuossi_;[145] singular _mus_,
plural _musi_. The corresponding Middle High German forms are _fuoss_,
_füesse_; _mus_, _müse_. Modern German _Fuss_: _Füsse_, _Maus_: _Mäuse_
are the regular developments of these medieval forms. Turning to
Anglo-Saxon, we find that our modern English forms correspond to _fot_,
_fet_; _mus_, _mys_.[146] These forms are already in use in the earliest
English monuments that we possess, dating from the eighth century, and
thus antedate the Middle High German forms by three hundred years or
more. In other words, on this particular point it took German at least
three hundred years to catch up with a phonetic-morphological drift[147]
that had long been under way in English. The mere fact that the affected
vowels of related words (Old High German _uo_, Anglo-Saxon _o_) are not
always the same shows that the affection took place at different periods
in German and English.[148] There was evidently some general tendency or
group of tendencies at work in early Germanic, long before English and
German had developed as such, that eventually drove both of these
dialects along closely parallel paths.
[Footnote 145: I have changed the Old and Middle High German orthography
slightly in order to bring it into accord with modern usage. These
purely orthographical changes are immaterial. The _u_ of _mus_ is a long
vowel, very nearly like the _oo_ of English _moose_.]
[Footnote 146: The vowels of these four words are long; _o_ as in
_rode_, _e_ like _a_ of _fade_, _u_ like _oo_ of _brood_, _y_ like
German _ü_.]
[Footnote 147: Or rather stage in a drift.]
[Footnote 148: Anglo-Saxon _fet_ is "unrounded" from an older _föt_,
which is phonetically related to _fot_ precisely as is _mys_ (i.e.,
_müs_) to _mus_. Middle High German _ue_ (Modern German _u_) did not
develop from an "umlauted" prototype of Old High German _uo_ and
Anglo-Saxon _o_, but was based directly on the dialectic _uo_. The
unaffected prototype was long _o_. Had this been affected in the
earliest Germanic or West-Germanic period, we should have had a
pre-German alternation _fot_: _föti_; this older _ö_ could not well have
resulted in _ue_. Fortunately we do not need inferential evidence in
this case, yet inferential comparative methods, if handled with care,
may be exceedingly useful. They are indeed indispensable to the
historian of language.]
How did such strikingly individual alternations as _fot_: _fet_,
_fuoss_: _füesse_ develop? We have now reached what is probably the
most central problem in linguistic history, gradual phonetic change.
"Phonetic laws" make up a large and fundamental share of the
subject-matter of linguistics. Their influence reaches far beyond the
proper sphere of phonetics and invades that of morphology, as we shall
see. A drift that begins as a slight phonetic readjustment or
unsettlement may in the course of millennia bring about the most
profound structural changes. The mere fact, for instance, that there is
a growing tendency to throw the stress automatically on the first
syllable of a word may eventually change the fundamental type of the
language, reducing its final syllables to zero and driving it to the use
of more and more analytical or symbolic[149] methods. The English
phonetic laws involved in the rise of the words _foot_, _feet_, _mouse_
and _mice_ from their early West-Germanic prototypes _fot_, _foti_,
_mus_, _musi_[150] may be briefly summarized as follows:
[Footnote 149: See page 133.]
[Transcriber's note: Footnote 149 refers to the paragraph beginning on
line 4081.]
[Footnote 150: Primitive Germanic _fot(s)_, _fotiz_, _mus_, _musiz_;
Indo-European _pods_, _podes_, _mus_, _muses_. The vowels of the first
syllables are all long.]
1. In _foti_ "feet" the long _o_ was colored by the following _i_ to
long _ö_, that is, _o_ kept its lip-rounded quality and its middle
height of tongue position but anticipated the front tongue position of
the _i_; _ö_ is the resulting compromise. This assimilatory change was
regular, i.e., every accented long _o_ followed by an _i_ in the
following syllable automatically developed to long _ö_; hence _tothi_
"teeth" became _töthi_, _fodian_ "to feed" became _födian_. At first
there is no doubt the alternation between _o_ and _ö_ was not felt as
intrinsically significant. It could only have been an unconscious
mechanical adjustment such as may be observed in the speech of many
to-day who modify the "oo" sound of words like _you_ and _few_ in the
direction of German _ü_ without, however, actually departing far enough
from the "oo" vowel to prevent their acceptance of _who_ and _you_ as
satisfactory rhyming words. Later on the quality of the _ö_ vowel must
have departed widely enough from that of _o_ to enable _ö_ to rise in
consciousness[151] as a neatly distinct vowel. As soon as this happened,
the expression of plurality in _föti_, _töthi_, and analogous words
became symbolic and fusional, not merely fusional.
[Footnote 151: Or in that unconscious sound patterning which is ever on
the point of becoming conscious. See page 57.]
[Transcriber's note: Footnote 151 refers to the paragraph beginning on
line 1797.]
2. In _musi_ "mice" the long _u_ was colored by the following _i_ to
long _ü_. This change also was regular; _lusi_ "lice" became _lüsi_,
_kui_ "cows" became _küi_ (later simplified to _kü_; still preserved as
_ki-_ in _kine_), _fulian_ "to make foul" became _fülian_ (still
preserved as _-file_ in _defile_). The psychology of this phonetic law
is entirely analogous to that of 1.
3. The old drift toward reducing final syllables, a rhythmic consequence
of the strong Germanic stress on the first syllable, now manifested
itself. The final _-i_, originally an important functional element, had
long lost a great share of its value, transferred as that was to the
symbolic vowel change (_o_: _ö_). It had little power of resistance,
therefore, to the drift. It became dulled to a colorless _-e_; _föti_
became _föte_.
4. The weak _-e_ finally disappeared. Probably the forms _föte_ and
_föt_ long coexisted as prosodic variants according to the rhythmic
requirements of the sentence, very much as _Füsse_ and _Füss'_ now
coexist in German.
5. The _ö_ of _föt_ became "unrounded" to long _e_ (our present _a_ of
_fade_). The alternation of _fot_: _foti_, transitionally _fot_: _föti_,
_föte_, _föt_, now appears as _fot_: _fet_. Analogously, _töth_ appears
as _teth_, _födian_ as _fedian_, later _fedan_. The new long _e_-vowel
"fell together" with the older _e_-vowel already existent (e.g., _her_
"here," _he_ "he"). Henceforward the two are merged and their later
history is in common. Thus our present _he_ has the same vowel as
_feet_, _teeth_, and _feed_. In other words, the old sound pattern _o_,
_e_, after an interim of _o_, _ö_, _e_, reappeared as _o_, _e_, except
that now the _e_ had greater "weight" than before.
6. _Fot_: _fet_, _mus_: _müs_ (written _mys_) are the typical forms of
Anglo-Saxon literature. At the very end of the Anglo-Saxon period, say
about 1050 to 1100 A.D., the _ü_, whether long or short, became
unrounded to _i_. _Mys_ was then pronounced _mis_ with long _i_ (rhyming
with present _niece_). The change is analogous to 5, but takes place
several centuries later.
7. In Chaucer's day (circa 1350-1400 A.D.) the forms were still
_fot_: _fet_ (written _foot_, _feet_) and _mus_: _mis_ (written very
variably, but _mous_, _myse_ are typical). About 1500 all the long
_i_-vowels, whether original (as in _write_, _ride_, _wine_) or
unrounded from Anglo-Saxon _ü_ (as in _hide_, _bride_, _mice_,
_defile_), became diphthongized to _ei_ (i.e., _e_ of _met_ + short
_i_). Shakespeare pronounced _mice_ as _meis_ (almost the same as the
present Cockney pronunciation of _mace_).
8. About the same time the long _u_-vowels were diphthongized to _ou_
(i.e., _o_ of present Scotch _not_ + _u_ of _full_). The Chaucerian
_mus_: _mis_ now appears as the Shakespearean _mous_: _meis_. This
change may have manifested itself somewhat later than 7; all English
dialects have diphthongized old Germanic long _i_,[152] but the long
undiphthongized _u_ is still preserved in Lowland Scotch, in which
_house_ and _mouse_ rhyme with our _loose_. 7 and 8 are analogous
developments, as were 5 and 6; 8 apparently lags behind 7 as 6,
centuries earlier, lagged behind 7.
[Footnote 152: As have most Dutch and German dialects.]
9. Some time before 1550 the long _e_ of _fet_ (written _feet_) took the
position that had been vacated by the old long _i_, now diphthongized
(see 7), i.e., _e_ took the higher tongue position of _i_. Our (and
Shakespeare's) "long _e_" is, then, phonetically the same as the old
long _i_. _Feet_ now rhymed with the old _write_ and the present _beat_.
10. About the same time the long _o_ of _fot_ (written _foot_) took the
position that had been vacated by the old long _u_, now diphthongized
(see 8), i.e., _o_ took the higher tongue position of _u_. Our (and
Shakespeare's) "long _oo_" is phonetically the same as the old long _u_.
_Foot_ now rhymed with the old _out_ and the present _boot_. To
summarize 7 to 10, Shakespeare pronounced _meis_, _mous_, _fit_, _fut_,
of which _meis_ and _mous_ would affect our ears as a rather "mincing"
rendering of our present _mice_ and _mouse_, _fit_ would sound
practically identical with (but probably a bit more "drawled" than) our
present _feet_, while _foot_, rhyming with _boot_, would now be set down
as "broad Scotch."
11. Gradually the first vowel of the diphthong in _mice_ (see 7) was
retracted and lowered in position. The resulting diphthong now varies in
different English dialects, but _ai_ (i.e., _a_ of _father_, but
shorter, + short _i_) may be taken as a fairly accurate rendering of its
average quality.[153] What we now call the "long _i_" (of words like
_ride, bite, mice_) is, of course, an _ai_-diphthong. _Mice_ is now
pronounced _mais_.
[Footnote 153: At least in America.]
12. Analogously to 11, the first vowel of the diphthong in _mouse_ (see
8) was unrounded and lowered in position. The resulting diphthong may be
phonetically rendered _au_, though it too varies considerably according
to dialect. _Mouse_, then, is now pronounced _maus_.
13. The vowel of _foot_ (see 10) became "open" in quality and shorter in
quantity, i.e., it fell together with the old short _u_-vowel of words
like _full_, _wolf_, _wool_. This change has taken place in a number of
words with an originally long _u_ (Chaucerian long close _o_), such as
_forsook_, _hook_, _book_, _look_, _rook_, _shook_, all of which
formerly had the vowel of _boot_. The older vowel, however, is still
preserved in most words of this class, such as _fool_, _moon_, _spool_,
_stoop_. It is highly significant of the nature of the slow spread of a
"phonetic law" that there is local vacillation at present in several
words. One hears _roof_, _soot_, and _hoop_, for instance, both with the
"long" vowel of _boot_ and the "short" of _foot_. It is impossible now,
in other words, to state in a definitive manner what is the "phonetic
law" that regulated the change of the older _foot_ (rhyming with _boot_)
to the present _foot_. We know that there is a strong drift towards the
short, open vowel of _foot_, but whether or not all the old "long _oo_"
words will eventually be affected we cannot presume to say. If they all,
or practically all, are taken by the drift, phonetic law 13 will be as
"regular," as sweeping, as most of the twelve that have preceded it. If
not, it may eventually be possible, if past experience is a safe guide,
to show that the modified words form a natural phonetic group, that is,
that the "law" will have operated under certain definable limiting
conditions, e.g., that all words ending in a voiceless consonant (such
as _p_, _t_, _k_, _f_) were affected (e.g., _hoof_, _foot_, _look_,
_roof_), but that all words ending in the _oo_-vowel or in a voiced
consonant remained unaffected (e.g., _do_, _food_, _move_, _fool_).
Whatever the upshot, we may be reasonably certain that when the
"phonetic law" has run its course, the distribution of "long" and
"short" vowels in the old _oo_-words will not seem quite as erratic as
at the present transitional moment.[154] We learn, incidentally, the
fundamental fact that phonetic laws do not work with spontaneous
automatism, that they are simply a formula for a consummated drift that
sets in at a psychologically exposed point and gradually worms its way
through a gamut of phonetically analogous forms.
[Footnote 154: It is possible that other than purely phonetic factors
are also at work in the history of these vowels.]
It will be instructive to set down a table of form sequences, a kind of
gross history of the words _foot_, _feet_, _mouse_, _mice_ for the last
1500 years:[155]
[Footnote 155: The orthography is roughly phonetic. Pronounce all
accented vowels long except where otherwise indicated, unaccented vowels
short; give continental values to vowels, not present English ones.]
I. _fot_: _foti_; _mus_: _musi_ (West Germanic)
II. _fot_: _föti_; _mus_: _müsi_
III. _fot_: _föte_; _mus_: _müse_
IV. _fot_: _föt_; _mus_: _müs_
V. _fot_: _fet_; _mus_: _müs_ (Anglo-Saxon)
VI. _fot_: _fet_; _mus_: _mis_(Chaucer)
VII. _fot_: _fet_; _mous_: _meis_
VIII. _fut_ (rhymes with _boot_): _fit_; _mous_: _meis_ (Shakespeare)
IX. _fut_: _fit_; _maus_: _mais_
X. _fut_ (rhymes with _put_): _fit_; _maus_: _mais_ (English of 1900)
It will not be necessary to list the phonetic laws that
gradually differentiated the modern German equivalents
of the original West Germanic forms from their
English cognates. The following table gives a rough
idea of the form sequences in German:[156]
[Footnote 156: After I. the numbers are not meant to correspond
chronologically to those of the English table. The orthography is again
roughly phonetic.]
I. _fot_: _foti_; _mus_: _musi_ (West Germanic)
II. _foss_:[157] _fossi_; _mus_: _musi_
III. _fuoss_: _fuossi_; _mus_: _musi_ (Old High German)
IV. _fuoss_: _füessi_; _mus_: _müsi_
V. _fuoss_: _füesse_; _mus_: _müse_ (Middle High German)
VI. _fuoss_: _füesse_; _mus_: _müze_[158]
VII. _fuos_: _füese_; _mus_: _müze_
VIII. _fuos_: _füese_; _mous_: _möüze_
IX. _fus_: _füse_; _mous_: _möüze_ (Luther)
X. _fus_: _füse_; _maus_: _moize_ (German of 1900)
[Footnote 157: I use _ss_ to indicate a peculiar long, voiceless
_s_-sound that was etymologically and phonetically distinct from the old
Germanic _s_. It always goes back to an old _t_. In the old sources it
is generally written as a variant of _z_, though it is not to be
confused with the modern German _z_ (= _ts_). It was probably a dental
(lisped) _s_.]
[Footnote 158: _Z_ is to be understood as French or English _z_, not in
its German use. Strictly speaking, this "z" (intervocalic _-s-_) was not
voiced but was a soft voiceless sound, a sibilant intermediate between
our _s_ and _z_. In modern North German it has become voiced to _z_. It
is important not to confound this _s_--_z_ with the voiceless
intervocalic _s_ that soon arose from the older lisped _ss_. In Modern
German (aside from certain dialects), old _s_ and _ss_ are not now
differentiated when final (_Maus_ and _Fuss_ have identical sibilants),
but can still be distinguished as voiced and voiceless _s_ between
vowels (_Mäuse_ and _Füsse_).]
We cannot even begin to ferret out and discuss all the psychological
problems that are concealed behind these bland tables. Their general
parallelism is obvious. Indeed we might say that to-day the English and
German forms resemble each other more than does either set the West
Germanic prototypes from which each is independently derived. Each table
illustrates the tendency to reduction of unaccented syllables, the
vocalic modification of the radical element under the influence of the
following vowel, the rise in tongue position of the long middle vowels
(English _o_ to _u_, _e_ to _i_; German _o_ to _uo_ to _u_, _üe_ to
_ü_), the diphthongizing of the old high vowels (English _i_ to _ei_ to
_ai_; English and German _u_ to _ou_ to _au_; German _ü_ to _öü_ to
_oi_). These dialectic parallels cannot be accidental. They are rooted
in a common, pre-dialectic drift.
Phonetic changes are "regular." All but one (English table, X.), and
that as yet uncompleted, of the particular phonetic laws represented in
our tables affect all examples of the sound in question or, if the
phonetic change is conditional, all examples of the same sound that are
analogously circumstanced.[159] An example of the first type of change
is the passage in English of all old long _i_-vowels to diphthongal _ai_
via _ei_. The passage could hardly have been sudden or automatic, but it
was rapid enough to prevent an irregularity of development due to cross
drifts. The second type of change is illustrated in the development of
Anglo-Saxon long _o_ to long _e_, via _ö_, under the influence of a
following _i_. In the first case we may say that _au_ mechanically
replaced long _u_, in the second that the old long _o_ "split" into two
sounds--long _o_, eventually _u_, and long _e_, eventually _i_. The
former type of change did no violence to the old phonetic pattern, the
formal distribution of sounds into groups; the latter type rearranged
the pattern somewhat. If neither of the two sounds into which an old one
"splits" is a new sound, it means that there has been a phonetic
leveling, that two groups of words, each with a distinct sound or sound
combination, have fallen together into one group. This kind of leveling
is quite frequent in the history of language. In English, for instance,
we have seen that all the old long _ü_-vowels, after they had become
unrounded, were indistinguishable from the mass of long _i_-vowels. This
meant that the long _i_-vowel became a more heavily weighted point of
the phonetic pattern than before. It is curious to observe how often
languages have striven to drive originally distinct sounds into certain
favorite positions, regardless of resulting confusions.[160] In Modern
Greek, for instance, the vowel _i_ is the historical resultant of no
less than ten etymologically distinct vowels (long and short) and
diphthongs of the classical speech of Athens. There is, then, good
evidence to show that there are general phonetic drifts toward
particular sounds.
[Footnote 159: In practice phonetic laws have their exceptions, but more
intensive study almost invariably shows that these exceptions are more
apparent than real. They are generally due to the disturbing influence
of morphological groupings or to special psychological reasons which
inhibit the normal progress of the phonetic drift. It is remarkable with
how few exceptions one need operate in linguistic history, aside from
"analogical leveling" (morphological replacement).]
[Footnote 160: These confusions are more theoretical than real, however.
A language has countless methods of avoiding practical ambiguities.]
More often the phonetic drift is of a more general character. It is not
so much a movement toward a particular set of sounds as toward
particular types of articulation. The vowels tend to become higher or
lower, the diphthongs tend to coalesce into monophthongs, the voiceless
consonants tend to become voiced, stops tend to become spirants. As a
matter of fact, practically all the phonetic laws enumerated in the two
tables are but specific instances of such far-reaching phonetic drifts.
The raising of English long _o_ to _u_ and of long _e_ to _i_, for
instance, was part of a general tendency to raise the position of the
long vowels, just as the change of _t_ to _ss_ in Old High German was
part of a general tendency to make voiceless spirants of the old
voiceless stopped consonants. A single sound change, even if there is no
phonetic leveling, generally threatens to upset the old phonetic pattern
because it brings about a disharmony in the grouping of sounds. To
reëstablish the old pattern without going back on the drift the only
possible method is to have the other sounds of the series shift in
analogous fashion. If, for some reason or other, _p_ becomes shifted to
its voiced correspondent _b_, the old series _p_, _t_, _k_ appears in
the unsymmetrical form _b_, _t_, _k_. Such a series is, in phonetic
effect, not the equivalent of the old series, however it may answer to
it in etymology. The general phonetic pattern is impaired to that
extent. But if _t_ and _k_ are also shifted to their voiced
correspondents _d_ and _g_, the old series is reëstablished in a new
form: _b_, _d_, _g_. The pattern as such is preserved, or restored.
_Provided that_ the new series _b_, _d_, _g_ does not become confused
with an old series _b_, _d_, _g_ of distinct historical antecedents. If
there is no such older series, the creation of a _b_, _d_, _g_ series
causes no difficulties. If there is, the old patterning of sounds can be
kept intact only by shifting the old _b_, _d_, _g_ sounds in some way.
They may become aspirated to _bh_, _dh_, _gh_ or spirantized or
nasalized or they may develop any other peculiarity that keeps them
intact as a series and serves to differentiate them from other series.
And this sort of shifting about without loss of pattern, or with a
minimum loss of it, is probably the most important tendency in the
history of speech sounds. Phonetic leveling and "splitting" counteract
it to some extent but, on the whole, it remains the central unconscious
regulator of the course and speed of sound changes.
The desire to hold on to a pattern, the tendency to "correct" a
disturbance by an elaborate chain of supplementary changes, often spread
over centuries or even millennia--these psychic undercurrents of
language are exceedingly difficult to understand in terms of individual
psychology, though there can be no denial of their historical reality.
What is the primary cause of the unsettling of a phonetic pattern and
what is the cumulative force that selects these or those particular
variations of the individual on which to float the pattern readjustments
we hardly know. Many linguistic students have made the fatal error of
thinking of sound change as a quasi-physiological instead of as a
strictly psychological phenomenon, or they have tried to dispose of the
problem by bandying such catchwords as "the tendency to increased ease
of articulation" or "the cumulative result of faulty perception" (on the
part of children, say, in learning to speak). These easy explanations
will not do. "Ease of articulation" may enter in as a factor, but it is
a rather subjective concept at best. Indians find hopelessly difficult
sounds and sound combinations that are simple to us; one language
encourages a phonetic drift that another does everything to fight.
"Faulty perception" does not explain that impressive drift in speech
sounds which I have insisted upon. It is much better to admit that we do
not yet understand the primary cause or causes of the slow drift in
phonetics, though we can frequently point to contributing factors. It is
likely that we shall not advance seriously until we study the
intuitional bases of speech. How can we understand the nature of the
drift that frays and reforms phonetic patterns when we have never
thought of studying sound patterning as such and the "weights" and
psychic relations of the single elements (the individual sounds) in
these patterns?
Every linguist knows that phonetic change is frequently followed by
morphological rearrangements, but he is apt to assume that morphology
exercises little or no influence on the course of phonetic history. I am
inclined to believe that our present tendency to isolate phonetics and
grammar as mutually irrelevant linguistic provinces is unfortunate.
There are likely to be fundamental relations between them and their
respective histories that we do not yet fully grasp. After all, if
speech sounds exist merely because they are the symbolic carriers of
significant concepts and groupings of concepts, why may not a strong
drift or a permanent feature in the conceptual sphere exercise a
furthering or retarding influence on the phonetic drift? I believe that
such influences may be demonstrated and that they deserve far more
careful study than they have received.
This brings us back to our unanswered question: How is it that both
English and German developed the curious alternation of unmodified vowel
in the singular (_foot_, _Fuss_) and modified vowel in the plural
(_feet_, _Füsse_)? Was the pre-Anglo-Saxon alternation of _fot_ and
_föti_ an absolutely mechanical matter, without other than incidental
morphological interest? It is always so represented, and, indeed, all
the external facts support such a view. The change from _o_ to _ö_,
later _e_, is by no means peculiar to the plural. It is found also in
the dative singular (_fet_), for it too goes back to an older _foti_.
Moreover, _fet_ of the plural applies only to the nominative and
accusative; the genitive has _fota_, the dative _fotum_. Only centuries
later was the alternation of _o_ and _e_ reinterpreted as a means of
distinguishing number; _o_ was generalized for the singular, _e_ for the
plural. Only when this reassortment of forms took place[161] was the
modern symbolic value of the _foot_: _feet_ alternation clearly
established. Again, we must not forget that _o_ was modified to _ö (e)_
in all manner of other grammatical and derivative formations. Thus, a
pre-Anglo-Saxon _hohan_ (later _hon_) "to hang" corresponded to a
_höhith_, _hehith_ (later _hehth_) "hangs"; to _dom_ "doom," _blod_
"blood," and _fod_ "food" corresponded the verbal derivatives _dömian_
(later _deman_) "to deem," _blödian_ (later _bledan_) "to bleed," and
_födian_ (later _fedan_) "to feed." All this seems to point to the
purely mechanical nature of the modification of _o_ to _ö_ to _e_. So
many unrelated functions were ultimately served by the vocalic change
that we cannot believe that it was motivated by any one of them.
[Footnote 161: A type of adjustment generally referred to as "analogical
leveling."]
The German facts are entirely analogous. Only later in the history of
the language was the vocalic alternation made significant for number.
And yet consider the following facts. The change of _foti_ to _föti_
antedated that of _föti_ to _föte_, _föt_. This may be looked upon as a
"lucky accident," for if _foti_ had become _fote_, _fot_ before the _-i_
had had the chance to exert a retroactive influence on the _o_, there
would have been no difference between the singular and the plural. This
would have been anomalous in Anglo-Saxon for a masculine noun. But was
the sequence of phonetic changes an "accident"? Consider two further
facts. All the Germanic languages were familiar with vocalic change as
possessed of functional significance. Alternations like _sing_, _sang_,
_sung_ (Anglo-Saxon _singan_, _sang_, _sungen_) were ingrained in the
linguistic consciousness. Further, the tendency toward the weakening of
final syllables was very strong even then and had been manifesting
itself in one way and another for centuries. I believe that these
further facts help us to understand the actual sequence of phonetic
changes. We may go so far as to say that the _o_ (and _u_) could afford
to stay the change to _ö_ (and _ü_) until the destructive drift had
advanced to the point where failure to modify the vowel would soon
result in morphological embarrassment. At a certain moment the _-i_
ending of the plural (and analogous endings with _i_ in other
formations) was felt to be too weak to quite bear its functional burden.
The unconscious Anglo-Saxon mind, if I may be allowed a somewhat summary
way of putting the complex facts, was glad of the opportunity afforded
by certain individual variations, until then automatically canceled out,
to have some share of the burden thrown on them. These particular
variations won through because they so beautifully allowed the general
phonetic drift to take its course without unsettling the morphological
contours of the language. And the presence of symbolic variation
(_sing_, _sang_, _sung_) acted as an attracting force on the rise of a
new variation of similar character. All these factors were equally true
of the German vocalic shift. Owing to the fact that the destructive
phonetic drift was proceeding at a slower rate in German than in
English, the preservative change of _uo_ to _üe_ (_u_ to _ü_) did not
need to set in until 300 years or more after the analogous English
change. Nor did it. And this is to my mind a highly significant fact.
Phonetic changes may sometimes be unconsciously encouraged in order to
keep intact the psychological spaces between words and word forms. The
general drift seizes upon those individual sound variations that help to
preserve the morphological balance or to lead to the new balance that
the language is striving for.
I would suggest, then, that phonetic change is compacted of at least
three basic strands: (1) A general drift in one direction, concerning
the nature of which we know almost nothing but which may be suspected to
be of prevailingly dynamic character (tendencies, e.g., to greater or
less stress, greater or less voicing of elements); (2) A readjusting
tendency which aims to preserve or restore the fundamental phonetic
pattern of the language; (3) A preservative tendency which sets in when
a too serious morphological unsettlement is threatened by the main
drift. I do not imagine for a moment that it is always possible to
separate these strands or that this purely schematic statement does
justice to the complex forces that guide the phonetic drift. The
phonetic pattern of a language is not invariable, but it changes far
less readily than the sounds that compose it. Every phonetic element
that it possesses may change radically and yet the pattern remain
unaffected. It would be absurd to claim that our present English pattern
is identical with the old Indo-European one, yet it is impressive to
note that even at this late day the English series of initial
consonants:
_p_ _t_ _k_
_b_ _d_ _g_
_f_ _th_ _h_
corresponds point for point to the Sanskrit series:
_b_ _d_ _g_
_bh_ _dh_ _gh_
_p_ _t_ _k_
The relation between phonetic pattern and individual sound is roughly
parallel to that which obtains between the morphologic type of a
language and one of its specific morphological features. Both phonetic
pattern and fundamental type are exceedingly conservative, all
superficial appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. Which is more
so we cannot say. I suspect that they hang together in a way that we
cannot at present quite understand.
If all the phonetic changes brought about by the phonetic drift were
allowed to stand, it is probable that most languages would present such
irregularities of morphological contour as to lose touch with their
formal ground-plan. Sound changes work mechanically. Hence they are
likely to affect a whole morphological group here--this does not
matter--, only part of a morphological group there--and this may be
disturbing. Thus, the old Anglo-Saxon paradigm:
Sing. Plur.
N. Ac. _fot_ _fet_ (older _foti_)
G. _fotes_ _fota_
D. _fet_ (older _foti_) _fotum_
could not long stand unmodified. The _o_--_e_ alternation was welcome in
so far as it roughly distinguished the singular from the plural. The
dative singular _fet_, however, though justified historically, was soon
felt to be an intrusive feature. The analogy of simpler and more
numerously represented paradigms created the form _fote_ (compare, e.g.,
_fisc_ "fish," dative singular _fisce_). _Fet_ as a dative becomes
obsolete. The singular now had _o_ throughout. But this very fact made
the genitive and dative _o_-forms of the plural seem out of place. The
nominative and accusative _fet_ was naturally far more frequently in use
than were the corresponding forms of the genitive and dative. These, in
the end, could not but follow the analogy of _fet_. At the very
beginning of the Middle English period, therefore, we find that the old
paradigm has yielded to a more regular one:
Sing. Plur.
N. Ac. *_fot_ *_fet_
G. *_fotes_ _fete_
D. _fote_ _feten_
The starred forms are the old nucleus around which the new paradigm is
built. The unstarred forms are not genealogical kin of their formal
prototypes. They are analogical replacements.
The history of the English language teems with such levelings or
extensions. _Elder_ and _eldest_ were at one time the only possible
comparative and superlative forms of _old_ (compare German _alt_,
_älter_, _der älteste_; the vowel following the _old-_, _alt-_ was
originally an _i_, which modified the quality of the stem vowel). The
general analogy of the vast majority of English adjectives, however, has
caused the replacement of the forms _elder_ and _eldest_ by the forms
with unmodified vowel, _older_ and _oldest_. _Elder_ and _eldest_
survive only as somewhat archaic terms for the older and oldest brother
or sister. This illustrates the tendency for words that are
psychologically disconnected from their etymological or formal group to
preserve traces of phonetic laws that have otherwise left no
recognizable trace or to preserve a vestige of a morphological process
that has long lost its vitality. A careful study of these survivals or
atrophied forms is not without value for the reconstruction of the
earlier history of a language or for suggestive hints as to its remoter
affiliations.
Analogy may not only refashion forms within the confines of a related
cluster of forms (a "paradigm") but may extend its influence far beyond.
Of a number of functionally equivalent elements, for instance, only one
may survive, the rest yielding to its constantly widening influence.
This is what happened with the English _-s_ plural. Originally confined
to a particular class of masculines, though an important class, the _-s_
plural was gradually generalized for all nouns but a mere handful that
still illustrate plural types now all but extinct (_foot_: feet,
_goose_: _geese_, _tooth_: _teeth_, _mouse_: _mice_, _louse_: _lice_;
_ox_: _oxen_; _child_: _children_; _sheep_: _sheep_, _deer_: _deer_).
Thus analogy not only regularizes irregularities that have come in the
wake of phonetic processes but introduces disturbances, generally in
favor of greater simplicity or regularity, in a long established system
of forms. These analogical adjustments are practically always symptoms
of the general morphological drift of the language.
A morphological feature that appears as the incidental consequence of a
phonetic process, like the English plural with modified vowel, may
spread by analogy no less readily than old features that owe their
origin to other than phonetic causes. Once the _e_-vowel of Middle
English _fet_ had become confined to the plural, there was no
theoretical reason why alternations of the type _fot_: _fet_ and
_mus_: _mis_ might not have become established as a productive type of
number distinction in the noun. As a matter of fact, it did not so
become established. The _fot_: _fet_ type of plural secured but a
momentary foothold. It was swept into being by one of the surface drifts
of the language, to be swept aside in the Middle English period by the
more powerful drift toward the use of simple distinctive forms. It was
too late in the day for our language to be seriously interested in such
pretty symbolisms as _foot_: _feet_. What examples of the type arose
legitimately, in other words _via_ purely phonetic processes, were
tolerated for a time, but the type as such never had a serious future.
It was different in German. The whole series of phonetic changes
comprised under the term "umlaut," of which _u_: _ü_ and _au_: _oi_
(written _äu_) are but specific examples, struck the German language at
a time when the general drift to morphological simplification was not so
strong but that the resulting formal types (e.g., _Fuss_: _Füsse_;
_fallen_ "to fall": _fällen_ "to fell"; _Horn_ "horn": _Gehörne_ "group
of horns"; _Haus_ "house": _Häuslein_ "little house") could keep
themselves intact and even extend to forms that did not legitimately
come within their sphere of influence. "Umlaut" is still a very live
symbolic process in German, possibly more alive to-day than in medieval
times. Such analogical plurals as _Baum_ "tree": _Bäume_ (contrast
Middle High German _boum_: _boume_) and derivatives as _lachen_ "to
laugh": _Gelächter_ "laughter" (contrast Middle High German _gelach_)
show that vocalic mutation has won through to the status of a productive
morphologic process. Some of the dialects have even gone further than
standard German, at least in certain respects. In Yiddish,[162] for
instance, "umlaut" plurals have been formed where there are no Middle
High German prototypes or modern literary parallels, e.g., _tog_ "day":
_teg_ "days" (but German _Tag_: _Tage_) on the analogy of _gast_
"guest": _gest_ "guests" (German _Gast_: _Gäste_), _shuch_[163] "shoe":
_shich_ "shoes" (but German _Schuh_: _Schuhe_) on the analogy of _fus_
"foot": _fis_ "feet." It is possible that "umlaut" will run its course
and cease to operate as a live functional process in German, but that
time is still distant. Meanwhile all consciousness of the merely
phonetic nature of "umlaut" vanished centuries ago. It is now a strictly
morphological process, not in the least a mechanical phonetic
adjustment. We have in it a splendid example of how a simple phonetic
law, meaningless in itself, may eventually color or transform large
reaches of the morphology of a language.
[Footnote 162: Isolated from other German dialects in the late fifteenth
and early sixteenth centuries. It is therefore a good test for gauging
the strength of the tendency to "umlaut," particularly as it has
developed a strong drift towards analytic methods.]
[Footnote 163: _Ch_ as in German _Buch_.]