On the periodisation of early North Germanic

Human natural languages come in two forms: spoken languages and signed languages, which are the visual-gestural languages used mainly by Deaf communities. Modern signed language linguistics only began around 1960. Studies have shown that signed languages share similarities with spoken languages at all levels of linguistic description, but that modality—whether vocal-auditory or visual-gestural—plays a role in some of the differences between spoken and signed languages. For example, signed languages show a more simultaneous organization than spoken languages, and iconicity and the use of space play a more important role. The study of signed languages is therefore an important addition to our knowledge of human language in general. Based on the research already carried out, it seems that different signed languages are structurally more similar to each other than different spoken languages. The striking similarities between signed languages have been attributed to several factors, including the affordances of the visual-gestural modality. However, more recent research has also shown differences between signed languages. Some of these may be due to independent diachronic changes in individual signed languages, others to influences from spoken languages. Indeed, for most signed languages there is an intensive contact with at least one, and sometimes several, spoken languages, which undoubtedly influence the signed languages, especially at the lexical level. However, the influence, whether lexical or grammatical, has been explored to a limited extent. It is particularly interesting to examine the extent to which unrelated signed languages are similar and different, and whether contact with the surrounding spoken languages plays a role in this. Danish Sign Language and Flemish Sign Language are two signed languages that are not related. By contrast, Danish and Dutch both belong to the Germanic language family, Danish as a North Germanic language, Dutch as a West Germanic language. Some of the features shared by the two signed languages can be explained as modality dependent: they both use spatial morphology to express agreement and complex verbs of motion and location, and both use nonmanual features, that is, facial expression, gaze direction, and head movement, to express, for instance, topicalization and clause boundaries. Other shared features may not be explained as modality dependent in any straightforward way; this is the case with their preference for sentence-final repetition of pronouns and verbs. Moreover, the two signed languages share features that distinguish them from most Germanic languages: they lack a clear subject category and prototypical passive constructions, and they do not have V2-organization with the finite verb in the second position of declarative clauses. Much more research, especially research based on large annotated corpora, is needed to clarify the reasons why unrelated signed languages share many grammatical features, and the influences from spoken languages on signed languages.

Behaghel’s claim that verb finality in German dependent clauses (DCs) reflects Latin influence (1892, 1932) has been revived by Chirita (1997, 2003). According to Chirita, DC word order remains variable up to Early New High German, while in Latin, verb-finality is more frequent in DCs than main clauses (MCs); hence, she claims, German verb finality reflects Latin influence. This papers shows that the arguments for Latin influence are problematic and that the Modern German word order difference between MCs and DCs can be explained as the ultimate outcome of developments that started in early North and West Germanic. In the conclusion I briefly discuss similar developments in Western Romance and their implications for European contact linguistics.

Georg-August-Universitat (Gottingen, Germany) has long been at the forefront of bilingual English-German scholarship, owing first to its founding by the British King George II (who was also a member of the German nobility), second to the participation of his English speaking offspring in the ruling life of the university, and third because thereafter it nurtured a robust network of exchange programs with English language universities. Likewise, its tradition of English liberalism, combined with its place at the origins of the German Romantic movement, meant that it was often surprisingly resistant to demands of intellectual submission to the sovereign or the theology faculty. Many scholars traveled there to conduct their work in this climate of relative freedom and respect for individual inquiry. This article focuses on four scholars who conducted research at Georg-August-Universitat—listed, in the order of their arrival: Josiah Royce (1876, as a graduate student), Edmund Husserl (1901–1916, as a professor), William Hocking (1902, as a graduate student), and Winthrop Bell (1911– 1914, as a graduate student). The latter two were graduate students at Harvard under Royce and at Gottingen under Husserl, and they did much to interpret ideas between their teachers and between English and German language phenomenology. Considering the relation of these four philosophers, there are strong reasons to look for a robust relationship between early North American phenomenology and German phenomenology, particularly by way of Harvard philosopher Royce, who began writing on what he called the “New Phenomenology” from 1879, and the Gottingen/Freiburg philosopher Husserl, who began writing on phenomenology from the last years of the 19 th century. While the connection between Roycean and Husserlian phenomenology has been largely overlooked in histories of philosophy, a small but enduring community of scholars has noted striking similarities between Royce’s phenomenology and European phenomenology. Not including Royce’s and Husserl’s own work in this regard, we may date the origin of third-party comparisons of their thought to 1902, with Hocking.

Inscriptional Evidence of Early North Germanic Legal Terminology

Estimates of the extent of Scandinavian settlement in England are examined, and their implications for linguistic history assessed. The cover-term ‘early Scandinavian’ for early North Germanic linguistic inputs in English is introduced and explained. The unusual nature of lexical borrowing from early Scandinavian in English is illustrated by an extended example, the third-person plural personal pronoun they. The periodization of Scandinavian loanwords in English is explained and a selection of loanwords first attested in each period is considered.