Northwest Germanic Research Articles

Early epigraphic evidence for Germanic weak class-III verbs

Abstract The names Lubainis and Vanaenia recorded in inscriptions from Namur have long been proposed to preserve evidence that supports the reconstruction of the stem of the Germanic weak class-III verbs as originally featuring a diphthong *-ai-. Cognates of the Gothic weak class-III verb weihan ›to consecrate‹ have similarly been widely held to be preserved in two inscriptions rescued over a century ago from the Danish votive bogs. The attested forms wiju and wija suggest the development of a first-person singular present indicative ending -jǣ, much as would be expected of a weak class-III verb in Northwest Germanic. Gothic weihan ›to consecrate‹ is a factitive, however, and wiju and wija appear to have developed in a manner contrary to that assumed in recent accounts of the morphological origin of the weak class-III verbs.

The Burgundian language and its phylogeny

Abstract The Burgundian language is one of several smaller early Germanic languages that are scarcely attested and often under-researched. Moreover, it is commonly classified as an ‘East Germanic’ language, forming a Germanic subgroup alongside Northwest Germanic. This paper investigates Burgundian in detail in order to establish the most complete phonology and morphology that is currently possible with the current data base. Furthermore, we examine the linguistic relationships of Burgundian with other Germanic languages, with a focus on Gothic in particular. Our findings suggest that Burgundian does not form a coherent subgroup together with Gothic but that the data imply a common post-Proto-Germanic dialect continuum of which Burgundian, Gothic, and most likely Vandalic were a part.

Kantasaamesta eteläkantasaameen

This article examines which loaning features indicate that the predecessor of South Saami – Southern Proto-Saami – drifted off from common Late Proto-Saami at an early date. We also suggest that this drift refers to linguistic immigration to central Scandinavia where South Saami is spoken today. Loanword ev­idence provided are those from Northwest Germanic and Proto-Scandinavian found in South Saami that either have irregular sound substitutes compared to other Saami languages (e.g. South Saami word-me­dial -r- in snaejrie ‘slice (of bread, cheese)’ cf. Inari Saami -tt- in snáittu ‘splint’; South Saami initial h- in haame ‘antlerless reindeer doe’ cf. North Saami ápmil); they are not found in any other Saami language (e.g. saar- in Saaraahka ‘creative old woman (divinity)’) or they have deviating semantic meaning com­pared to other Saami languages (South Saami duvrie ‘bear’; cf. North Saami divri ‘insect’). The number of such loanwords is 53 out of about 170. Even those loanwords, which do not show any kind of irregu­larity when compared to other Saami languages, may have been borrowed into South Saami separately, however they do not contain any of those sounds that started a deviating development after the drift. In absolute chronology, the initial areal and dialectal drift happened in southern Finland around 200 CE. Features presented here are so numerous, though many of them are still quite sporadic, that we find there is sufficient evidence to show the early drift of South Saami. This dating also correlates with the changes seen in archaeological data taken from the South Saami-speaking area. Thus, the changes in archaeolog­ical material most likely are caused by Saami speakers arriving to a new land and their intensively active contacts with the people already inhabiting the area.

Wain, wagon and wayfarer

Abstract The runic inscriptions of the older period contain a series of terms referring to the notion of speed, agility and alertness in a broader sense. Most of these forms that occur on runestones are conveniently explained in terms of bynames and individual names (cf. Brylla 1993). The paper explores the structure of this lexical field which has two major sub-groups: (1) Weapon names designating attack and swift motion, and (2) Personal names and bynames invoking the notions of speed, travel and alertness. Subgroup 1 includes East Germanic material, whereas subgroup 2 seems to be restricted to the Northwest Germanic linguistic territory. The recently discovered Rakkestad runestone from eastern Norway affirms the relevance of this interpretation of personal names and bynames. The paper argues that this linguistic discussion is of socio-cultural importance in an overarching perspective of Early Norse society.

Reduction of unstressed vowels in Proto-Frisian and the Germanic ‘Auslautgesetze’

AbstractThe quantitative reduction and loss of Proto-Germanic vowels during the transition from some form of Common North West Germanic to the attested ‘Old’ languages, such as Old English and Old Frisian, is a complicated process, interfering with morphological restructuring processes. Various reconstructions have been presented, the most extensive one byBoutkan (1995). Scrutiny of the Runic Frisian data, from the period ca. 500–800, shows that especially the apocope of PWGmc *-aand of *-u< PGmc *-ōshould be positioned much later in the relative chronology than envisaged by Boutkan. The order that can be derived from the Runic Frisian data reflects a gradual loss of one mora, running in a cline from the least salient to the most salient vowel, which provides a phonetic rationale for the development. This gradual mora reduction can be dated to the period between ca. 500 and 700. This absolute dating can have implications for phonological processes in which root vowels interact with the quality or quantity of the vowel in the following syllable.

Nullsubjekte im Mittelniederdeutschen

Abstract In spite of growing interest in recent years, the syntax of Middle Low German (MLG) remains an extremely underresearched area. In light of recent research showing early North West Germanic languages to be partial null subject languages (Axel 2005; Walkden 2014; Kinn 2016; Volodina/Weiß 2016), the question arises where MLG is positioned in this respect. The present article presents novel data showing that MLG had referential null subjects (RNS) and can be classified as a partial null subject language. Based on a quantitative and qualitative corpus analysis of their syntactic distribution, we argue that two types of RNS must be distinguished in MLG, null topics in SpecCP and null clitics on C.

Old Norse as anNPLanguage: With Observations on the Common Norse and Northwest Germanic Runic Inscriptions

AbstractThe differences between languages with definite determiners and those without definite determiners have been the object of much research. Recently, Bošković has uncovered a number of one‐ and two‐way syntactic generalizations which serve to set these two typological groups apart. He accounts for the contrasts observed by proposing that languages with definite determiners (‘DP’ languages) have aDPlayer, while determiner‐less languages (‘NP’ languages) lack thisDPprojection altogether. Since the Old Germanic languages did not have fully grammaticalized definite articles, a reasonable hypothesis to explore might be that they wereNPlanguages in Bošković's sense. In this paper we explore this hypothesis, focusing mainly on Old Norse; where possible we also discuss Old Norse's historical predecessors Common Norse and Northwest Germanic (both of which are attested exclusively in runic inscriptions). The specificNPproperties considered in this paper are (A) the absence of a fully grammaticalized definite article, (B) syntactic discontinuities and free word order, (C) the absence of double adnominal genitives with transitive deverbal nouns, (D) the absence of clitic doubling and (E) the presence of radical argument drop. The paper's approach is guided by basic generative assumptions, but its focus is descriptive rather than theoretical.

Faroese and its Relevance to the Germanic

In Germanic, the Proto-Indo-European accusative of the feminine demonstrative, i.e. *, emerges in two different forms: Gothic versus Old Norse and Old English . Since PIE * regularly gives *ō in Germanic, it is usually assumed that the reflex developed out of * through an unstressed stage. But this view was recently questioned by Peter Schrijver. He argued that the merger of *ā and *ō was forestalled in North West Germanic by a tautosyllabic nasal, and that therefore must be regular. This solution seems to be contradicted by Faroese, however, where the demonstrative form is . This may continue an Old Norse variant with a short vowel, and thus seems to indicate that PNWGm. indeed developed out of * through an unstressed form, viz. *.

A Historical Typology of the English Obstruent System

Various changes to the Common Germanic obstruent system, especially the Northwest Germanic realignment, the Partial Shift, degemination, and the reintroduction of final voice, characterize the development of the English obstruent system and that of its closest relatives in Modern Germanic. Of these, the pre-historic changes will be treated more in depth than the historical changes. The specifically English implementation of these changes will be compared to those in the other languages belonging to the ‘common type’. This type is relatively archaic rather than innovative within the Germanic group, not having undergone a full-fledged Second Consonant Shift or large-scale lenition. English is exceptional only in a few regards. Using the methods of dialect typology, it is found that the modern Germanic dialects with the obstruent systems closest to that of English are those of the majority of Low German, northeastern Dutch, and perhaps West Frisian.

From Reduplication to Ablaut: The Class VII Strong Verbs of Northwest Germanic

§ 1 . One of the most notorious problems in Germanic comparative grammar is that of the creation in Northwest Germanic of the ablauting strong verbs of from earlier reduplicating verbs like those found in Gothic (cf. OHG heizan, pret, hiaz(un) < hez(un), ptcp. -heizan 'call, command', OE hatan, het(on), haten, ON heita, het(u), heitinn vs. Go. haitan, haihait(un), haitans). Almost every aspect of this topic is to some degree controversial even the assumption, implicit in our title, that ablaut developed from reduplication. Yet there has been progress. Germanistik and Indogermanistik are cumulative fields, and the countless studies devoted to class VII since the Neogrammarian period have clarified, if not yet solved, the problem. Many ideas considered important fifty or a hundred years ago, such as the view that the Northwest Germanic forms were never reduplicated, have been virtually discarded, giving way to newer proposals, such as the various elaborations of the infix approach currently under discussion (cf. below). To employ a gastronomical metaphor, our explanatory kitchen is by now exceedingly well-stocked, if not overstocked, with the potential ingredients for a solution. The task is to find a recipe for combining them into a palatable whole.

From Reduplication to Ablaut: The Class VII Strong Verbs of Northwest Germanic

From Reduplication to Ablaut: The Class VII Strong Verbs of Northwest Germanic

Notes on the Etymologies of English big and Gothic ga-

During the Northwest Germanic period, *ɣaβiɣs ‘rich’ (Go. gabigs / gabeigs ‘rich’ &lt; giban ‘to give’) and related forms (Go. gabigjan ‘to make rich’, gabignan ‘to be rich’) were reanalyzed as consisting of the prefix *ɣa- + root. This reanalysis was triggered by the prevailing Germanic stress pattern (indicated where necessary by a raised tick '), since *ɣaβiɣs was stressed on the first syllable of the root (thus *'ɣaβiɣs). while nominal and adjectival compounds that consisted of *ɣa- + root ('ga-qumps ‘assembly’, 'ga-fulgins ‘hidden’, 'ga-hails ‘hale’) were stressed on the prefix. Thus, an extrapolated root form *ɣiγ- &gt; *biγ- was created that then existed parallel to *γaβiγs in Northwest Germanic. The newly created form *biγs survived and developed into ME big(ge) ‘strong, sturdy’ (&gt; Eng. big), while OE gifig, ON g˛fugr ‘noble’, and related forms in Old High German and Gothic are reflexes of *ɣaβiɣs.

Non-Reduplication in Northwest Germanic

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