A Linguistics Workbook, 4th Edition

Name

Section

7.2 Indo-European to English 2

Question

The reconstructed Indo-European (IE) words given in 1-8 are the ancestors of

words in Modem English. Both the pronunciation and the meaning have changed.

Your task is to determine what the descendant English word is and to describe

how the meaning has changed. (Note: Each IE word 1-8 is preceded by *. In the

context of historical linguistics, * denotes a reconstructed form, not an

ungrammatical form.)

The first step in each case is to apply Grirnm's Law, where possible. (For a

discussion of Grimm's Law, see Linguistics, pp. 324-327 .)

Grimm's Law

a. b+p

d+t

g+k

b. p+f

t-4

k+x (-+h)

c. bh -+ b (v)

dh -, d

gh -, g

For example, applied to IE *sub, meaning "juice," Grimm's Law will yield sap,

which you can identify as an English word whose meaning has narrowed to mean

"juice of a tree."

The consonant changes will apply consistently in words 1-8 (although Modem

English will often have v in place of bh). The vowels, however, undergo much

more complicated changes. To determine the descendant English word in each case,

replace the IE vowel with different vowels (e.g., a, e, i, o, U) until you find an

English word that has a meaning related to the meaning of the IE word. For ai

U X

example, the IE word *ghrern meant "angry." Applying Grim's Law yields 9 Q

gr-vowel-m. Substituting different vowels yields gram, grem, grim, grom, grum. The F

E

English word grim is a likely descendant because it still carries the negative - C 0

emotional sense found in the IE word.