High German consonant shift


In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum. The shift is used to distinguish High German from other continental West Germanic languages, namely Low Franconian and Low German, which experienced no shift. The shift resulted in the affrication or spirantization of the West Germanic voiceless stop consonants,, and, depending on position in a word. A related change, the devoicing of the voiced stopped consonants, and, was less widespread, and only the devoicing of is found in most dialects.
There is no consensus on when the High German consonant shift occurred; it probably began between the 3rd and 5th centuries and was complete before the first written examples in Old High German, the earliest recorded stage of High German, were produced in the 8th century. There is also no consensus on where or how the shift proceeded.
The degree of shift varies within High German. Dialects that experienced the most shift are referred to as Upper German, whereas those that only experienced some are referred to as Central German. Different dialects within Upper and Central German also received different levels of shift. West Central German, for example, exhibits what is known as the Rhenish fan, a gradual reduction of which consonants are shifted, as one moves north.

General description

In most accounts, the High German consonant shift consists of two related changes:
  1. the Proto-West Germanic voiceless stop consonants,, and spirantize to,,, or else affricate to,,, depending on their position in the word. No shift takes place after a fricative or in the combination ;
  2. the pre-Old High German voiced stop consonants,, and devoice to the voiceless stop consonants,, and .
All High German dialects have experienced at least part of the shift of voiceless stops to fricatives/affricates. The shift of voiceless stops to fricatives/affricates has traditionally been used to distinguish different German dialects: Upper German dialects experienced the greatest degree of shift, whereas Central German dialects only experienced a partial shift. Only southern dialects experience the shift of voiced to voiceless stops: the shift of to is found in Upper German and in some Central German dialects, while the shift of to and to is only found consistently in Bavarian.
Modern standard German is based mostly on East Central German dialects and thus features many but not all of the shifted forms. In particular, of the Medienverschiebung consonants, only the shift of to is found in almost all instances in the modern standard. The shift results in characteristic differences between modern standard German and other Germanic languages, such as:
Excluding loanwords from Low German and foreign borrowings, Modern Standard German has retained unshifted only after a fricative or in the combination .
Another change, the shift of /þ/ to, is sometimes seen as related to the High German consonant shift. However, it also comes to encompass the other continental West Germanic languages. The relation of this change to the second consonant shift, as well as that of another change, that of initial to, is disputed. Braune and Reiffenstein discount a connection entirely.

Detailed description

Shifts from voiceless stops

The result of the shift of the voiceless stops depends on their position in the word. The degree to which the stops are shifted also shows considerable variation between Upper German and Central German dialects. In particular, the shift of and in initial position is subject to dialectal variation.
  • shifts
  • shifts
  • shifts
remained unshifted in all dialects when following the fricative consonants,, and . In addition, remained unshifted in the combination .

Shifts from voiced consonants

In the so-called Medienverschiebung, the voiced consonsants devoice to. Like the shift to the voiceless stops, the shift to the voiced stops varies by dialect and to some degree by position in the word. In those Upper German dialects that shifted all three stops, there was likely no longer any distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants.
  • > :
  • > :
  • > :
The effects of the Medienverschiebung are most visible in the shift of to ; this is the change with the widest spread and the only one that was not partially reversed in the Old High German period. On the other hand, while early Bavarian and Alemannic both show a shift of to, by the 9th century in Alemannic reverts to writing and except for the geminated stops and, and in the 10th century, Bavarian also begins to write and more often. By the Middle High German period, Bavarian consistently writes for single only in word-initial position - the state preserved in modern southern Bavarian dialects.

Table of changes

Chronology

There is no agreement about the time period in which the High German consonantal shift took place. Its completion is usually dated to just before the earliest attestations of Old High German. The change affects geminate consonants in a different manner than simple consonants, indicating that West Germanic gemination predated it; the gemination is usually dated to the 5th century CE. Additionally, Latin loanwords adopted into the language prior to the 6th century display the shift, whereas those adopted from the 8th century onward do not. The relative chronology of the different changes remains poorly understood. It is usually argued to have begun with, then moved to, then to.

Geographical distribution

Although the boundaries of the dialects have shifted since the Old High German period, the degree to which dialects underwent the High German consonant shift continues to form the basis for differentiating the different modern German dialects, and, in particular, for the division between Central German dialects, which have fewer shifted consonants, and Upper German dialects, which have more. The gradually increasing application of the shift from north to south is most extensive in the west. Here, the isoglosses defined by the occurrence of individual shifts are spread out in a fan-like manner, forming the Rheinischer Fächer.
The northern border for the occurrence of the shift of to in all positions and the shift of and to and in intervocalic and root-final position is the Benrath line that separates the High German dialects to the south from the Low Saxon and Low Franconian dialects to the north. Further north, the consonant shift is only found with the adverb auch 'also' and a handful of pronouns that have final shifted to in the South Low Franconian dialect area, whose northern border is the Uerdingen line.
The shift of to after consonants sets off Moselle Franconian dialects from Ripuarian dialects, which retain unshifted. The shift of to in wat, dat > was, das etc. characterizes Rhine Franconian. The shift of root-initial and historically geminated to marks the transition from the West Central German to the Upper German dialects. East Central German is separated from West Central German through having shifted initial p ; only far southern East Central German dialects retain initial, whereas other East Central German dialects have simplified it to initial. The shift of root-initial and historically geminated to occurs in the southern part of the Upper German dialect area.