| Revision as of 22:14, 29 November 2006 editSmackBot (talk | contribs)3,734,324 editsm Date the maintenance tags using AWB← Previous edit | Revision as of 22:59, 29 November 2006 edit undoFilipeS (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users28,292 editsm →See also: I-mutationNext edit → | ||
| Line 5: | Line 5: | ||
| ==See also== | ==See also== | ||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | * ] | ||
| * ] | * ] | ||
Revision as of 22:59, 29 November 2006
 | This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Germanic a-mutation" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2006) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
A-mutation was a metaphonic process that took place at the late Proto-Germanic stage (perhaps around 200 AD), and caused a high vowel to become lowered when a following syllable contained a non-high vowel (not just /a/; hence the term is a misnomer). It did not occur if a /j/ in a consonant cluster nasal followed by another consonant intervened. It operated most consistently on /u/, which was usually lowered to /o/ (a sound that did not previously exist, since /o/ from Proto-Indo-European had become /a/ by an earlier change). Its most noticeable effect was on past participles, where, for example, Old English flogen "flown" < */flugana/ alternated with flugon "they flew" < */flugunþ/. However, it is also visible in a few lexical alternations, for example gold "gold" < */gulda/ vs. gyldan "to gild" < */guldjan/.
U-mutation was a change in Old Norse occurring after i-mutation where a vowel was rounded when a /u/ occurred in the following syllable. For example compare dative plural mǫnnum "to men" with accusative singular mann "man".
See also
 | This linguistics article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |