Editing Proto-Germanic language (section)

====Solutions====
[[Phylogenetic tree|Phylogeny]] as applied to [[historical linguistics]] involves the evolutionary descent of languages. The phylogeny problem is the question of what specific tree, in the [[tree model]] of language evolution, best explains the paths of descent of all the members of a language family from a common language, or proto-language (at the root of the tree) to the attested languages (at the leaves of the tree). The [[Germanic languages]] form a tree with Proto-Germanic at its root that is a branch of the Indo-European tree, which in turn has [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] at its root. Borrowing of lexical items from contact languages makes the relative position of the Germanic branch within Indo-European less clear than the positions of the other branches of Indo-European. In the course of the development of historical linguistics, various solutions have been proposed, none certain and all debatable.

In the evolutionary history of a language family, philologists consider a genetic "tree model" appropriate only if communities do not remain in effective contact as their languages diverge. Early Indo-European had limited contact between distinct lineages, and, uniquely, the Germanic subfamily exhibited a less treelike behaviour, as some of its characteristics were acquired from neighbours early in its evolution rather than from its direct ancestors. The internal diversification of West Germanic developed in an especially non-treelike manner.<ref> {{cite journal |last1=Nakhleh |first1=Luay |author-link1=Luay Nakhleh |last2=Ringe |first2=Don |author-link2=Donald Ringe |last3=Warnow |first3=Tandy |author-link3=Tandy Warnow |title=Perfect Phylogenetic Networks: A New Methodology for Reconstructing the Evolutionary History of Natural Languages |url=http://www.cs.rice.edu/~nakhleh/Papers/NRWlanguage.pdf |journal=Language — Journal of the Linguistic Society of America |date=June 2005 |volume=81 |issue=2 |pages=382–420 |doi=10.1353/lan.2005.0078 |s2cid=162958 |access-date=2016-10-13 |quote=The Germanic subfamily especially seemed to exhibit non-treelike behavior, evidently acquiring some of its characteristics from its neighbors rather than (only) from its direct ancestors. ... The internal diversification of West Germanic is known to have been radically non-treelike .... }} </ref>

Proto-Germanic is generally agreed to have begun about 500&nbsp;BC.{{sfn|Ringe|2006|p=67}} Its hypothetical ancestor between the end of Proto-Indo-European and 500&nbsp;BC is termed [[Germanic parent language|Pre-Proto-Germanic]]. Whether it is to be included under a wider meaning of Proto-Germanic is a matter of usage.

[[Winfred P. Lehmann]] regarded [[Jacob Grimm]]'s "First Germanic Sound Shift", or Grimm's law, and [[Verner's law]],{{refn|group=note|Described in this and the linked articles, but see Kleinman.{{full citation needed|date=January 2021}}}} (which pertained mainly to consonants and were considered for many decades to have generated Proto-Germanic) as pre-Proto-Germanic and held that the "upper boundary" (that is, the earlier boundary) was the fixing of the accent, or stress, on the root syllable of a word, typically on the first syllable.<ref>{{cite journal |first=W. P. |last=Lehmann |author-link=Winfred P. Lehmann |title=A Definition of Proto-Germanic: A Study in the Chronological Delimitation of Languages |journal=[[Language (journal)|Language]] |volume=37 |number=1 |date=January–March 1961 |pages=67–74 |doi=10.2307/411250 |jstor=411250 }}</ref> Proto-Indo-European had featured a moveable [[pitch-accent]] consisting of "an alternation of high and low tones"<ref>{{cite journal |first=William H. |last=Bennett |title=The Stress Patterns of Gothic |journal=[[PMLA (journal)|PMLA]] |volume=85 |number=3 |date=May 1970 |pages= 463–472 |doi=10.2307/1261448 |jstor=1261448 |s2cid=163783497 }}</ref> as well as stress of position determined by a set of rules based on the lengths of a word's syllables.

The fixation of the stress led to sound changes in unstressed syllables. For Lehmann, the "lower boundary" was the dropping of final {{lang|gem-x-proto|-a|proto=no}} or {{lang|gem-x-proto|-e|proto=no}} in unstressed syllables; for example, post-PIE {{lang|gem-x-proto|*wóyd-e}} > [[Gothic language|Gothic]] {{lang|got|wait}}, 'knows'.  [[Elmer H. Antonsen]] agreed with Lehmann about the upper boundary<ref>{{cite journal |first=Elmer H. |last=Antonsen |title=On Defining Stages in Prehistoric German |journal=Language |volume=41 |number=1 |date= January–March 1965 |pages=19–36 |doi=10.2307/411849 |jstor=411849 }}</ref> but later found [[runes|runic evidence]] that the {{lang|gem-x-proto|-a|proto=no}} was not dropped: {{lang|gem-x-proto|ékwakraz ... wraita|proto=no}}, 'I, Wakraz, … wrote (this)'. He says: "We must therefore search for a new lower boundary for Proto-Germanic."<ref>{{cite book |first=Elmer H. |last=Antonsen |title=Runes and Germanic Linguistics |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |year=2002 |pages=26–30 |isbn=3-11-017462-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gvSi3JVNRFQC }} That presentation also summarizes Lehmann's view.</ref>

Antonsen's own scheme divides Proto-Germanic into an early stage and a late stage. The early stage includes the stress fixation and resulting "spontaneous vowel-shifts" while the late stage is defined by ten complex rules governing changes of both vowels and consonants.{{sfn|Antonsen|2002|p=28 table 9}}

[[File:Germanic dialects ca. AD 1.png|270px|thumb|A proposed distribution of five primary Proto-Germanic dialect groups in Europe around the turn of the Common Era (CE):
{{legend|#009fe3|[[North Germanic languages|North Germanic]] (→[[Proto-Norse]] by 300&nbsp;CE)}}
{{legend|#ff6e69|[[North Sea Germanic]] (Ingvaeonic)}}
{{legend|#f7b859|[[Weser–Rhine Germanic]] (Istvaeonic)}}
{{legend|#ffff59|[[Elbe Germanic]] (Irminonic)}}
{{legend|#009640|[[East Germanic languages|East Germanic]] (→[[Gothic language|Gothic]] by 300&nbsp;CE)}}]]
By 250&nbsp;BC Proto-Germanic had branched into five groups of Germanic: two each in the West and the North and one in the East.<ref name=EB/>{{page needed|date=October 2020}}