Begemann's Law

Begemann's Law is a sound change characteristic of the Hercynian languages, named after the fictional linguist Winfried Begemann.

Begemann's Law affected the Proto-Hesperic aspirated and voiced stops, while the neutral stops remained unchanged.

• Aspirated stops become voiceless fricatives everywhere except in clusters. In clusters, they become voiceless stops, merging with the neutral stops.
• Voiced stops become voiced fricatives everywhere except in clusters. In clusters, they remain voiced stops.

This change, especially the fact that the neutral stops remained unaffected, suggests that the Proto-Hesperic aspirated stops formed a class with the voiced stops at the exclusion of the neutral stops. There are two suggested explanations for this:

• The Proto-Hesperic voiced stops actually were breathy-voiced. Under this assumption, the change affected stops with the feature [+breath], resulting in breath loss in some positions and spirantization in others.
• The Proto-Hesperic neutral stops were phonologically marked some way, such as being ejectives.

The Alpianic languages, which share a number of sound changes with Hercynian, did not undergo this change.