High German Period Research Articles

Structural features of comparative subordinate clauses in the language of the Middle High German period

The paper focuses on structural peculiarities of adverbial clauses of comparison, real comparison in particular, in Middle High German. Conjunctions of comparison are researched in the mentioned period from the point of view of their functions. The changes within the system of conjunctions through different historical periods are also studied. The article also deals withstructural variability which was a marker of Middle High German syntax.

Stabreimende Wortpaare in den früheren Werken Hartmanns von Aue: Erec, Klage, Minnesang

AbstractBuilding upon recent phraseological studies on Old High and Middle High German texts, the alliterating word pairs in the early works of Hartmann von Aue are catalogued and analyzed philologically, thus contributing to an emerging complete listing of the paired rhetorical expressions through the Early Middle High German period. The first extant courtly Arthurian romance, Hartmann'sErec,a shorter piece of his known asDiu Klage,and a handful of poems he composed are by all indications from the last decade of the twelfth century, despite later manuscript transmission. Each pair is listed, described in the context in which it appears, and compared with any extant pairs from earlier German works. What emerge are insights into the evolution of these expressions, in some cases through centuries. On the one hand, Hartmann employs alliterating expressions that date to the Old High German period, while on the other hand apparently creating new ones. As in findings in earlier texts, pairs recorded on multiple occasions are likely to have been used by other authors. Typical for medieval German texts – when compared to similar modern expressions – is the insight that there is a fair amount of variation concerning the sequence of the alliterating elements and/or the inclusion of morpho-syntactic modifiers such as pronouns, possessives, adjectives, or adverbs. Modern translations of Hartmann's works into German and English show just how varied these phrases can appear in translation. When known, later examples of the alliterating word-pairs are cited, albeit for obvious reasons only in an incomplete fashion. The long-term project is designed to continue to chart the emergence of the early German alliterating word-pairs chronologically.

Deutsch/Romanisch - Lateinisch/Deutsch: Neue Thesen zu den Pariser Gesprächen und zu den Kasseler Glossen

Literary history projects the clear image that the beginnings of German literature lie in the 8th and 9th century, the Old High German period, when German literature first flourished with texts like the Hildebrandslied or Otfrids Evangelienbuch. The Old High German period is presented as a compact formation, precisely defined in time and space, of high literary value and ‘national’ coinage. The following paper attempts, in a preliminary manner, to question this notion by arguing that it is high time to free Old High German literature from the pathos of 19th century research. Its topic is language contact between German on the one hand and Latin / Romance on the other, albeit not in terms of high culture, but of language acquisition. It therefore deals with literature in the etymological sense of ‘written with letters’: the so-called ‘Old High German’ or ‘Parisian Conversations’ and the ‘Kasseler Glosses’ or ‘Conversations’.

Quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the diphthongs in Middle High German

The article deals with the transition from the Old High German diphthongs into Middle High German, there are established causes and trends of vowel combinations and the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of diphthongs of this period. There was held a statistic analysis of diphthongs which was based on the material of texts of Middle High period and there was established the frequency of the use of diphthongs as a percentage. Middle High German period is a transitional period in the history of the language.This phase covers the monuments of XII-XIII centuries and represents variety of dialects, which are characterized by diversity in the implementation of phonemes. However, the socio-historical and cultural-historical changes were the spur for the formation of common language. Therefore, on the basis of the functioning of the written fixation of sounds in the literature is presented the rather monotonous sound system, in particular diphthongs.The most important phonetic change in this period is the process of confluence of phonemes, which had led to a reduction in the future. The process of separating of phonemes led to the appearance of new phonemes - umlauts. The process of monoftongization and diphthongization has given the opportunity to analyse the transition of phonemes and diphthongs of Old High German into Middle High German . The study of the functioning of diphthongs which was based on material of texts from Middle High period prompted to determine the number and frequency of implementation of diphthongs in three positions of a word as a percentage.

Diachronic Perspectives on the Phraseology of Premodern German

From the Old High German period (ca. 750–1050) through the Middle High German period (ca. 1050–1350) the dialects spoken and written in German-speaking Europe exhibit both the initial recording of phraseological units (phrasemes) and evidence of their development in time and space. By examining the earliest glossographical evidence through the verse and prose monuments of the Middle Ages, the present contribution to historical phraseology seeks to explore OHG and MHG phraseological inventories and further to suggest possible avenues of inquiry where evidence is unavailable or fragmentary. The suitability of poetic syntax and poetic texts as sources for phraseological study, taboo as a motivator for phraseological diversity, and the dynamic nature of diachronic change are highlighted through wide-ranging examples, as phrasemes are diachronically unstable not only with regard to specific units but also entire categories. Suggestions for approaching phraseological questions in a large corpus of medieval texts appear in the conclusions.

Inversions afterundas a V1 Pattern in Middle High German: Information- and Discourse-Structural Aspects

In the following paper, we claim that the so-calledInversionen nach undare instances of V1 clauses. Although these constructions are attested from Old High German to the 19th century, we focus on the Middle High German period. Our arguments are based upon information- and discourse-structural properties. These clauses share typical properties of V1 clauses, namely, the absence of a topic-comment division, their relevance for textual cohesion, the accessibility status of the subject, the lexical semantics of their predicate, and their expressivity.*

Zwischen Transparenz und Lexikalisierung: Das Wortbildungsmuster X-ung(e) im MittelhochdeutschenFür wertvolle Hinweise zu einer ersten Fassung dieses Artikels danke ich Damaris Nübling und Ulrike Demske. Für hilfreiche Diskussionen über einige der hier vertretenen Thesen danke ich Philipp Dorok. Verbleibende Unzulänglichkeiten liegen natürlich in meiner Verantwortung.

Abstract While the development of German -ung-nominalization (e. g. Landung ›landing‹, Bildung ›education‹, Heizung ›heating installation‹, Bedienung ›service; waiter/waitress‹) from Early New High German to New High German is fairly well-studied, the Middle High German (MHG) period has been neglected so far. This paper aims at filling this gap with a corpus-based study of MHG -ung-nominals. The data are derived from the document archive of the new MHG dictionary, containing about 7 million word forms from 207 texts. From these data, a corpus of 2355 -ung-nominals in their respective contexts has been assembled and analyzed. The corpus provides evidence for the hypothesis that the MHG -ung-nominals adopt the semantic content of their respective base verbs altogether more comprehensively than their NHG equivalents. However, the tendency towards lexicalization (and, thereby, loss of transparency and decrease of ›verb-proximity‹) is already visible. Therefore I argue that the development of ung-nominals from rather peripheral to more prototypical nouns by means of lexicalization started as early as in the MHG period.

Die Grammatikalisierung des sein-Perfekts. – Eine korpuslinguistische Untersuchung zur Hilfsverbselektion der Bewegungsverben im Deutschen

In German, unlike in English or Swedish, there are two different perfect auxiliaries: the more frequently used haben and the auxiliary sein. The latter only occurs with a restricted group of verbs. Against the traditional view, it has recently been argued that both periphrases do not form a homogenous category, i. e. there was no grammaticalisation of sein + second participle at all. According to this view the periphrases do not only differ formally but also functionally. In contrast, this article claims that the periphrasis consisting of sein + second participle has been grammaticalised in German. Although the construction had a resultative function in the Old High German period, it nowadays also refers to past situations which can be relevant to the point of speech. Therefore, its function is equivalent to the haben perfect. The reanalysis of sein + second participle is reflected by the distribution of the auxiliaries which is not strictly conditioned by aktionsart anymore. Though a corpus-based investigation of verbs of movement shows there are still restrictions for the periphrasis with sein: It is not permitted in prototypically transitive sentences. Whereas agentivity of the subject doesn't influence the auxiliary choice, sentences with prototypical objects prohibit the perfect with sein. Those objects are usually individuated or referential. Hence, they can underlie a change of state or position. Obviously, sein perfect has broken the actional restrictions, but there are still limitations concerning the argument structure. This shows that the sein periphrasis is only weakly grammaticalized.

Die Freiheit der Mittelfeldabfolge im Deutschen. Ein modernes Phänomen

Modern German is a language with relatively ›free‹ word order, i. e.: the serialization of constituents is dependent not only on syntactic requirements, but determined also by information structural or cognitive factors. As the same is true for Proto-Indoeuropean, it is tempting to assume that German perpetuates the PIE word order freedom. A corpus study of the relative order of accusative and dative object, using several Early New High German texts from the time between 1350 and 1550, stemming from 4 different dialect areas, shows that this assumption is wrong: German underwent a period of strictly syntactically governed constituent order (dative object before accusative object) which began before the Old High German period and lasted into the 16th century. Information structural or cognitive factors do not play a role for serializastion in this period. The relative position of the objects must be separated from the question of ›scrambling‹ in the sense that material is moved to the left of the subject, as we find examples of constituent order dative object before subject early on.

Le trasformazioni sintattiche del Frühneuhochdeutsch valutate da tre grammatici del tempo

The present contribution investigates three grammars dating back to the Early New High German period: Albertus’ Teutsch Grammatick oder Sprachkunst (1573), Olinger’s Vnderricht der Hoch Teutschen Spraach (1573) and Kromayer’s Deutsche Grammatica / Zum newen Methodo / der Jugend zum besten / zugerichtet (1618).The main purpose of the work is to check the most considerable changes of the Early New High German in the point of view of the three mentioned grammarians. The work opens with a general analysis of the three texts, of their addressees, their purposes and their structure. Afterwards a detailed study of the syntactic changes about name, verb, adverb and preposition is carried out.

Linguistic purism in action: How auxiliary tun was stigmatized in Early New High German. By Nils Langer. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2001. Pp. 312. Hardcover. $97.80

Nils Langer wrote this book with one major aim: to explore whether prescriptive grammarians influenced the formation of standard German. He does this by comparing language use and metalinguistic comments in the Early New High German period and by eliminating other factors, including “… system-internal reasons (as illustrated by an analysis of ENHG language use), sociolinguistic identification (as illustrated by distributional patterns of language use, e.g., with regard to text type)” (4), or random variation. Langer aims to establish that certain constructions disappeared from standard-language use after prescriptive grammarians' objections. He does not claim that grammarians are the major “creators” of standard German, but that we must assume a certain degree of influence for certain constructions, in particular when it comes to excluding features from the standard language. With this aim in mind, he investigates the use of periphrastic tun and to a lesser degree polynegation and double perfect constructions.

Wie die Alten sungen ... Zur Rolle von Frequenz und Allomorphie beim präteritalen Numerusausgleich im Frühneuhochdeutschen

Article Wie die Alten sungen ... Zur Rolle von Frequenz und Allomorphie beim präteritalen Numerusausgleich im Frühneuhochdeutschen was published on January 1, 1998 in the journal Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft (volume 17, issue 2).

Thege- Participle Prefix in Early New High German and the Modern Dialects

During much of the Early New High German period, a small group of verbs with stem-initialg− and k− commonly formed their past participle without the prefixge-.The standard account attributes this development to Upper German syncope. Quantitative data from a large collection of Nuremberg texts strongly suggests that this account is untenable, and a careful examination of the modern dialects shows that it is in fact the nonsyncopating Central German dialects that most strongly resemble the Early New High German situation. This paper proposes an alternative account involving inflectional haplology as the mechanism responsible for the loss of the prefix in theg-lk-verbs. This analysis answers many questions that the standard account raises, as well as explaining some striking patterns that the previous literature does not mention.

Degemination strategies in new high German and Swabian

Word-final geminate (long) consonants in Middle High German went through two distinctly different processes of degemination in New High German (East Central German) and in Swabian (Upper German). In New High German, the loss or shortening of the consonant resulted in a syllable with a short vowel; while in Swabian, the phenomenon resulted in a syllable with a long vowel. After an introduction to dynamic phonology, these strategies are examined and compared in traditional segmental (phonemic), nonlinear (metrical), and dynamic analyses. These analyses reveal that the consonant must have still been geminate at the end of the Middle High German period; that the perception of one strategy (New High German) as being inherently simpler than the other (Swabian) has nothing to do with the changes themselves, but only with the segmental and nonlinear descriptions; and that the entire concept of ‘compensatory lengthening’ is likewise an illusion of segmental and nonlinear description. The implications of dynamics analysis for phonological theory are discussed.

What about the German Umlaut?

Among topics chronically neglected in our elementary grammars and classrooms is the significance of the German umlaut. There is hardly a textbook which deems this nicety worth even a cursory treatment, and our students consider the two dots mere fly specksand sometimes not even that. And yet even a superficial treatment of the subject should prove interesting and enlightening to most students, for it gives them an insight into the workshop of the German language (as well as of English!). It helps them to develop a feeling for the language, especially in the field of word formation. And it lends their efforts the fine touch and the finality without which all things in life remain crude and formless. Practically all occurrences of the umlauted or mutated vowels in modern German result from the presence-in an earlier stage of the language--of an i-vowel in the following syllable. The mutation of these back vowels (a, o, u) was effected physiologically by the anticipation of the adjacent high, front, rounded vowel, resulting in a new series of sonants, two of which were strongly labialized (ii, ii). The placing of the two superscribed dots to indicate umlaut derives from the manuscript tradition of writing an e above the letters a, o, u. The first of these vowels to undergo this phonetic modification was a; the change to e took place during the Old High German period. Orthographically, this change was usually recorded as e, although later spelling reforms, prompted by historical considerations, frequently replaced e with ii. Once the physiological basis of mutation is understood and appreciated, the students will take greater care in paying attention to this change, which, after all, is just as important (and the very same thing) as the English change from foot to feet (Old English fot fet), mouse to mice (Old English mus mys). To this very day, the presence of an umlauted vowel in English and German is frequently the feature which distinguishes certain verbs from their corresponding nouns or adjectives: filth foul, food feed, brood breed, tale tell, etc. There are about fourteen instances where we have a clear-cut result of umlaut in German:

History of the Middle Bavarian Vocalism

There is a period in the history of the German language of which we know relatively little, although it is much better documented than the Old High German period, where every phonetic detail has been intensively studied by several generations of scholars. I refer to the stage after the phonologizations of the umlaut variants were completed and before Luther and his precursors and contemporaries demanded a unified Schriftdialekt, the major feature of which was to be a uniform vocalism. As Fourquet1 has pointed out, this period was one marked by a large number of changes. To the traditional historical phoneticians these changes were 'spontaneous'; that is to say, since they were phonetically unconditioned they were also inexplicable. Fourquet further suggests that this period may be the period needed, the period particularly favorable to testing and sharpening the methods of structural diachronic phonemics with the help of the descriptions that modern dialectology has put at our disposal. The following is an attempt at a structural history of the vocalism of Middle Bavarian during this period and up to the present time. Since the term Middle Bavarian covers a huge dialect area with many geographical variations, I must add here that the specific 'target dialect' of this study is that of the Salzachgau. It is spoken in a region about 80 km. east-southeast of Munich and 40 km. north-northwest of Salzburg. This area was under Austrian rule until the Treaty of Frankfurt in 1810, and has since belonged to Bavaria. Our starting point will be a stage somewhat earlier than that of the 'Classical Middle High German' of the major documents; but with the specifically Bavarian exception that the reflex of OHG iu has remained a diphthong (unless followed by i, j in the next syllable) and therefore separate from the umlaut of OHG 2.2 We then have this vocalic inventory:

Notes on the Language of J. G. Schottel

In his collection of essays Von Luther bis Lessing,1 F. Kluge discusses at some length W. Scherer's proposition, that Luther marks but a transition period in the history of the German language, while the Modern High German period proper does not begin till the middle of the seventeenth century. I cannot find in Scherer's Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur anything so definite as to warrant Kluge's assertion that for Scherer “Schottel marks the beginning of the Modern High German period.”2 In the chronological tables, the Modern High German period begins with the Peace of Westphalia, and after various works by Spee, Gryphius, Lauremberg, Logan, Angelus Silesius and Scriver, Schottel's Ausführliche Arbeit von der deutschen Hauptsprache is mentioned, but it does not appear from this or from anything in the text of the volume, that Scherer intended to give Schottel anything like as prominent a place in this period as he had given Luther in the one immediately preceding. That the efforts of Schottel and other grammarians and purists of the seventeenth century contributed much to the wealth as well as the purity and regularity of the modem German language, there can be no doubt. It needs to be determined what Schottel's own share in this work was, what contributions he made to the vocabulary, what reforms he suggested, what position he took with reference to the reforms suggested by others, how far he understood the spirit of the language and the tendencies of its development. The present paper is intended as a step in this direction.