Umlautmarked

Umlautmarked is a linguistic term used to describe forms in which a word’s stem vowel has undergone umlaut in the course of inflection or historical development. A form is described as umlautmarked if the vowel change is visible in that form and contrasts with a non-umlauted base form. The term is used to distinguish forms that show morphologically conditioned vowel alternations from those that do not.

Mechanism: Umlaut is a process by which a vowel becomes fronted or rounded due to the influence of a following vowel or semivowel in a suffix (for example, i or e). In many Germanic languages, certain inflectional paradigms trigger umlaut in the stem, resulting in an umlauted vowel in the inflected forms. The phenomenon has historical origins, but its present-day manifestations may be regular or irregular, depending on the language and word.

Examples: German nouns and adjectives show umlaut in inflected forms. Mann (man) → Männer (men) is a classic example; Vater (father) → Väter; Haus (house) → Häuser in the plural; alt (old) → älter in the comparative. These instances illustrate how a stem vowel shifts in related forms to signal grammatical information such as number or comparison.

Significance: Umlautmarked forms are a diagnostic feature in historical and descriptive Germanic grammar, reflecting historical phonology and ongoing morphophonemic patterns. The term is mainly used in linguistic typology and Germanic studies; it helps describe irregular vowel alternations and their role in morphology.

See also: Umlaut, Ablaut, Vowel harmony, Germanic languages.