Cover not available

In:Germanic Interrelations: Studies in memory of Hans Frede Nielsen
Edited by Stephen Laker, Carla Falluomini, Steffen Krogh, Robert Nedoma and Michael Schulte
[NOWELE Supplement Series 34] 2025
► pp. 157–172

Get fulltext
PDF logo with download linkDownload Chapter PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Chapter EPUB

Old English breaking

A parallel to Lachmann’s Law

 | St. Petersburg State University
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 6 May 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/nss.34.10kle
Abstract
The division of the Old English diphthongs, represented in spelling as ea and eo, into ‘short’ and ‘long’ ones, reflects their origin rather than any real difference in length/quantity. The long ones stem from Gmc *au, *iu, the short ones from the æ and e before l, r, χ as a result of breaking. Synchronically, both types are biphonemic combinations; /V̆V̆/ before /l, r, χ/ suggests the latter’s inability to form — in combination with /C/ in the rime and a short vowel as the nucleus — a syllable long by position equal prosodically to /V̆(C)V̆/. Likewise, the lengthening of the short root vowel in perfect participles in -tus, lĕgo — lēctus (Lachmann’s Law), may have been a compensation of the ‘consonantal deficiency’ of /k/ in this position, cf. Latin rēctē — Umbrian rehte. The results of compensation were concordant with the principles of the /(C)V̅-/ = /(C)V̆C-C/ = /(C)V̆CV̆-/ equality, which was typical of the organization of a speech chain both in Latin and Old English.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Early phonological approaches
  • 3.Alternative views
  • 4.Segmentation procedures
  • 5.Vowels and vowel combinations: Prosodic equality
  • 6.Breaking diphthongs: Evolution and regional variation
    • 6.1Scribal practices and their interpretation
    • 6.2Manifestation of length/quantity
  • 7.‘Diphthongs’: Prosody and meter
  • 8.The mechanism of breaking: Phonetics — phonology — prosody
  • 9.Dialectal /VVRC/ ~ /VCC/ ~ /VCV/ variation
  • 10.Parallels: Lachmann’s Law
  • 11.In conclusion: Phonology/prosody/typology and linguistic geography
  • Notes
  • References
References (41)
References
Árnason, Kristján. 2003. The representation of vowel shortness: Icelandic once more. Jazyk i rečevaja dejatel’nost’ / Language and Language Behavior (The Linguistic Society of St. Petersburg). Vol. 6. 27–46.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauer, G. 1956. The problem of short diphthongs in Old English. Anglia 74. 427–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Benediktsson, H. 1968. Nordic vowel quantity. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. 11(1). 32–65. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Buck, C. D. 1904. A grammar of Oscan and Umbrian. With a collection of inscriptions and a glossary. Boston: The Athenæum Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bugge, S. & E. Sievers. 1891. Vocal Verkürzung im Altnordischen. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 15. 291–411.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bülbring, K. D. 1902. Altenglisches Elemenarbuch. I. Teil: Lautlehre. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Campbell, A. 1959. Old English grammar. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
D’Alquen, R. 1974. Gothic AI and AU. (Janua Lingarum. Series Practica, 151). The Hague/Paris: Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Daunt, M. 1939. Old English sound changes reconsidered in relation to scribal tradition and practice. Transactions of the Philological Society 38. 108–137. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1953. Some notes on Old English phonology. Transactions of the Philological Society 52. 48–54.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dobbie, E. v. K. 1937. The manuscripts of Cædmon’s Hymn and Bede’s Death Song. With a critical text of The Epistola Cuthberti de obitu Bedæ. New York: Columbia University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fourquet, J. 1959. La système des éléments vocaliques longs en vieil-anglais. Mélanges de linguistique et de philologie. Fernand Mossé in memoriam. Paris: Didier. 148–160.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hogg, R. M. 1992. The Cambridge history of the English language. Vol. I. The Beginnings to 1066. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Howell, R. B. 1991. Old English breaking and its Germanic analogues. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kleiner, Yu. 1999. Syllables, morae and boundaries. Interdisciplinary Journal for Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis 4 (1). 1–17.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koch, C. F. 1870. Die ags. Brechung. Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 2. 147–158Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krupatkin, Y. B. 1970. From Germanic to English and Frisian. Us Wurk 19(3). 49–71.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuhn, S. M. & R. Quirk. 1968. Essays on the English language medieval and modern. Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liberman, A. 1998. Toward a theory of West Germanic breakings. International Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis 3(1). 63–119.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2007. Palatalized and velarized consonants in English against their Germanic background, with special reference to i-umlaut. In C. M. Cain & G. Russom (eds.), Managing chaos: Strategies for identifying change in English, 5–36. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Luick, K. 1964. Historische Grammatik der Englischen Sprache. Mit dem nach den hinterlassenen aufzeichnungen ausgearbeiteten zweiten kapitel herausgegeben von Dr. Friedrich Wild und Dr. Herbert Koziol. Volume One, in two parts. Oxford; Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meillet, A. 1894. De quelques difficultés de la théorie des gutturales indo-européennes. Mémoires de la Société de linguistique de Paris, 8. 277–304.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Minkova, D. 2014. A Historical phonology of English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mossé, F. 1945. Manuel de l’Anglais du moyen âge. I. Vieil-anglais (Grammaire, texts, notes, glossaire). Paris: Aubie.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nielsen, H. F. 1984. A note on the origin of Old English breaking and back mutation. Amsterdamer Beiträge zur Älteren Germanistik 22. 73–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Otkupščikov, Yu. V. 1984. Zakon Laxmana v svete indojevropejskix dannyx. (Gipotezy i fakty) [Lachmann’s Law in the light of Indo-European data. (Hypotheses and facts)]. Voprosy jasykoznanija 2. 83–90.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reszkiewicz, A. 1953. The phonemic interpretation of Old English Digraphs. Biuletyn Polskiego Towarzystwa Językoznawczego 12. 179–187.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Samuels, M. L. 1952. The study of Old English phonology. Transactions of the Philological Society 51(1). 15–47.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sievers, E. 1893. Altgermanische Metrik. Halle: Niemeyer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1901. Grundzüge der Phonetik zur Einführung in das Studium der Lautlehre der indogermanischen Sprachen. Fünfte verbesserte Auflage. Leipzig: Druck und Verlag von Breitkoff & Härtel.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sievers, E. & K. Brunner. 1951. Altenglische Grammatik. Nach der Angelsächsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers neubearbeitet von Karl Brunner. Zweite, revidierte Auflage der Neubearbeitung. Halle (Saale): Niemeyer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smirnickij, A. I. 1946. Voprosy fonologii v istorii anglijskogo jazyka [Phonological problems in the history of English]. Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta 2. 81–89.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, A. H. 1933. Three Northumbrian poems. Cædmon’s Hymn, Bede’s Death Song and The Leiden Riddle. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steblin-Kamenskij, M. I. 1957. Scandinavian breaking from a phonemic point of view. Studia Linguistica 11(2). 84–91. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stockwell, R. P. & C. W. Barritt. 1951. Some Old English graphemic-phonemic correspondences — ae, ea, and a. Studies in linguistics, Occasional papers 4. Washington, DC.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Suzuki, S. 1996. The metrical organization of Beowulf. Prototype and isomorphism. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trnka, B. 1936. Fonologický vývoj germanskégo vokalísmu [Phonological evolution of Germanic vocalism]. Časopis pro moderní filologii. 22 (2). 155–159.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tronskij, I. M. 1960. Istoričeskaja grammatika latinskogo jazyka. [Historical grammar of the Latin language]. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo literatury na inostrannyx jazykax.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trubetzkoy, N. S. 1939. Grundzüge der Phonologie. (= Travaux du cercle linguistique de Prague 7). Prague: Cercle linguistique de Prague et Ministère de l’instruction, publ. de la République Tchéco-Slovaque.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1969. Principles of phonology. Translated by Christiane A. M. Baltaxe. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zinder, L. R. 1979. Obščaja fonetika [General Phonetics]. Moscow: Vysšaja škola.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue