User:Ioe bidome/Development of Proto-Germanic

Phonological stages from Proto-Indo-European to end of Proto-Germanic
The following changes are known or presumed to have occurred in the history of Proto-Germanic in the wider sense from the end of Proto-Indo-European up to the point that Proto-Germanic began to break into mutually unintelligible dialects.

Pre-Proto-Germanic (Pre-PGmc)
This stage began with the separation of a distinct speech, perhaps while it was still forming part of the Proto-Indo-European dialect continuum. It contained many innovations that were shared with other Indo-European branches to various degrees, probably through areal contacts, and mutual intelligibility with other dialects would have remained for some time. It was nevertheless on its own path, whether dialect or language.

Early Proto-Germanic
This stage began its evolution as a dialect of Proto-Indo-European that had lost its laryngeals and had five long and six short vowels as well as one or two overlong vowels. The consonant system was still that of PIE minus palatovelars and laryngeals, but the loss of syllabic resonants already made the language markedly different from PIE proper. Mutual intelligibility might have still existed with other descendants of PIE, but it would have been strained, and the period marked the definitive break of Germanic from the other Indo-European languages and the beginning of Germanic proper, containing most of the sound changes that are now held to define this branch distinctively. This stage contained various consonant and vowel shifts, the loss of the contrastive accent inherited from PIE for a uniform accent on the first syllable of the word root, and the beginnings of the reduction of the resulting unstressed syllables.

Late Proto-Germanic
By this stage, Germanic had emerged as a distinctive branch and had undergone many of the sound changes that would make its later descendants recognisable as Germanic languages. It had shifted its consonant inventory from a system that was rich in plosives to one containing primarily fricatives, had lost the PIE mobile pitch accent for a predictable stress accent, and had merged two of its vowels. The stress accent had already begun to cause the erosion of unstressed syllables, which would continue in its descendants. The final stage of the language included the remaining development until the breakup into dialects and, most notably, featured the development of nasal vowels and the start of umlaut, another characteristic Germanic feature.

Grammatical development
The evolution of Proto-Germanic grammar is complex, however, the following changes applied to all grammatical categories:
 * The dual was lost in all forms except for pronouns, and in words for "two" and "both"

Verbs

 * The functions of third person dual forms were taken over by the third person plural forms.
 * Stative perfects are reinterpreted as "resultative" (Preterite-presents, however, continue the old stative meaning.) and as a result of the reinterpretation, it and the aorist indicative came into conflict, which led to the latter being lost.
 * Almost all Proto-Indo-European imperfects were lost.
 * The subjunctive mood merged into the indicative.

Nominals

 * The Ablative and locative cases merged in the dative cases.
 * Ablaut in the roots of nominals was leveled by analogy.

Adjectives

 * Adjectives gained a second declension called "weak" declension which was identical to an- and ōn-stems.