A-mutation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!) This article has been tagged since August 2006.

A-mutation was a metaphonic process that took place at the late Proto-Germanic stage (perhaps around 200 AD), and caused a high vowel to become lowered when a following syllable contained a non-high vowel (not just /a/; hence the term is a misnomer). It did not occur if a /j/ in a consonant cluster nasal followed by another consonant intervened. It operated most consistently on /u/, which was usually lowered to /o/ (a sound that did not previously exist, since /o/ from Proto-Indo-European had become /a/ by an earlier change). Its most noticeable effect was on past participles, where, for example, Old English flogen "flown" < */flugana/ alternated with flugon "they flew" < */flugunþ/. However, it is also visible in a few lexical alternations, for example gold "gold" < */gulda/ vs. gyldan "to gild" < */guldjan/.

U-mutation was a change in Old Norse occurring after i-mutation where a vowel was rounded when a /u/ occurred in the following syllable. For example compare dative plural mǫnnum "to men" with accusative singular mann "man".