INNER MUTUAL SEMANTIC AND MORPHOLOGICAL CORRELATION OF THE GERMANIC PRETERITE-PRESENT VERBS

Abstract

Being the remarkable feature of all Germanic languages, the preterite-present group of verbs played a significant role in forming morphological units of analytical type. The process of analytisation caused the introduction of some verb forms, which appeared as a result of gradual grammaticalisation when a preterite-present verb fused with a verbal form (participle or infinitive) creating a new morphological category of finite verb (future tense, oblique mood). During the process of their development, transformation and coexistence, the preterite-present verbs were separated into a stable morpho-semantic group which generated the field of modality and made some verbs follow the same way of development and transformation. As a result, a new morpho-semantic sub-group of analogous verbs was formed when the group of preterite-present verbs received its stability and potentiality in the Germanic verb corpus. The inductive force of the preterite-present verbs was so powerful that even an individual verb was involved into the process of grammaticalisation following the patterns of analogous and preterite present verbs, too. The verbs of preterite-present group, analogous subgroup and the individual verb functioned and coexisted within the East, West and North (Scandinavian) Germanic languages. As a result of that historical coexistence all these verbs got not only the common features in morphological and semantic aspects, they simultaneously gained a set of individual features differing semantically. Only after a detailed comparison of morphological and semantic individual features of related (according to the Proto-Germanic nature of origin) verbs, is it possible to explain their specific involvement into the process of grammaticalisation or their further disappearance from usage on the edge of Old and Middle or Middle and New periods of language transformation and development. Remarks on the paradigm of preterite-present verbs help to reveal the specifics of the verb functions and trace the way of the analytical form creation in some separate Germanic languages. Paradigmatic rows demonstrate either close or distant relations between the Germanic languages in their geographical groups or even intergroup relations. These relations are really essential for further investigation. Only the East Germanic group with its main representative of the Gothic language disappeared without leaving any close relatives in the Middle and New Germanic periods. The Scandinavian languages where the reflection of Old Norse. The West Germanic languages had a really entangled way of development. Old High German and Old Saxon were reflected in the German language. Anglo-Saxon, Old Saxon and Old Frisian were reflected in the English language. Old Frisian and Old Saxon were reflected in the Dutch and Frisian languages. Inner mutual semantic and morphological correlations of the Germanic preterite-present verbs help to indicate leading verbs which were involved into the process of the Germanic language analytisation.