1.1.3. The Third Consonant Shift

Whereas the Second Consonant shift differentiated the consonant system of High German from the rest of (West) Germanic languages, the Third Consonant shift makes the Danish consonant system from other Scandinavian languages, thus termed as the Danish Consonant shift (12^th cent., is not finished yet).

In Danish postvocalic Common Germanic p, t, k are shifted to voiced posives b, d, g and then to fricatives v, ð, ɣ (e.g. Dan. skib vs Sw. skepp, Icel. skip).

1.1.4. Other consonant changes

There were several other phonetic processes in the system of Germanic consonants, to which belong the following ones:

1. Rhotacism - the conversion of a consonant (z, d, l, or n) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. All living Germanic languages (North and West Germanic subgroups) underwent a change of z to r. Gothic retains s or z, since it did not undergo rhotacism (e.g. Proto-Germanic was,1st/3rd sg *wēzun 1st pl, Goth. was, wēsum vs OE wæs, wǽron, ModE was, were).

2. Gemination – lengthening or doubling of consonant.

3. Holtzmann’s law, which describes the process of doubling of Proto-Indo-European *-y- and *-w- to Proto-Germanic *-jj- and *-ww-, which further "hardened" to -ggj-/-ggv- in Northern and to -ddj-/-ggw- in Eastern dialects, while in West Germanic the group results in a diphthong.

4. Loss of consonants. Nasal sonorants were regularly lost before fricative consonants; in the process the preceding vowel was proably nasalized and lengthened, e.g. OHG fimf – OE fīf (NE five); OGH uns – OE us (NE us). The loss of consonants also took place in unstressed final syllables, e.g. [j] was regularly dropped in suffixes in case various changes in the root occurred.

2.1. Germanic vowel system.

2.1.1 Independent changes.

The vowel system of Proto-Germanic was formed as a result of a series of changes which can be subdivided into 2 main groups – independent and assimilative ones.

Proto-Germanic vowels
	front	central	back
close	[i(ː)]		[u(ː)]
mid	[e(ː)]		[oː]
near-open	[æː]
open		[a]

Proto-Germanic had four short vowels (i, u, e, a), and four or five long vowels (ī, ū, ē, ō and perhaps ǣ). The exact phonetic quality of the vowels is uncertain.

PIE a and o merge into Proto-Germanic a, PIE ā and ō merge into Proto-Germanic ō. At the time of the merge, the vowels probably were [ɒ] and [ɒː] before their timbres differentiated into maybe [ɑ] and [ɔː].

ǣ and ē are also transcribed as ē¹ and ē²; ē² is uncertain as a phoneme, and only reconstructed from a small number of words; it is posited by the comparative method because whereas all provable instances of inherited (PIE) *ē (PGmc. *ē¹) are distributed in Gothic as ē and the other Germanic languages as *ā, all the Germanic languages agree on some occasions of ē (e.g., Got./OE/ON hēr "here" < PGmc. *hē²r). Krahe treats ē² (secondary ē) as identical with ī. It probably continues PIE ei or ēi, and it may have been in the process of transition from a diphthong to a long simple vowel in the Proto-Germanic period. Gothic makes no orthographic and therefore presumably no phonetic distinction between ē¹ and ē². The existence of two Proto-Germanic [eː]-like phonemes is supported by the existence of two e-like Elder Futhark runes, Ehwaz and Eihwaz.

Vowels in unstressed syllables were gradually reduced over time, beginning at the very end of the Proto-Germanic period and continuing into the history of the various dialects. This is reflected to the least extent in Proto-Norse, with steadily greater reduction in Gothic, Old High German, Old English, Modern German and Modern English.