Ahd.uoben und as.ōvian

2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-329
Author(s):  
Martina Swart
Keyword(s):  
The West ◽  

AbstractIn this article I examine the origin of the long vowel *ō in the West-Germanic verb *ōbi̯an. The verb is continued in OHG uoben ›to practice‹ and OS ōvian ›to celebrate‹. The current explanations are doubtful. They are: 1.) *ōbi̯a- is derived from the strong feminine *ōbō-. 2.) There is an exclusively Germanic root *ōb-. 3.) *ōbi̯a- is a causative-iterative formation to a lost strong verb PGm *afaną. Five new suggestions are introduced and ordered according to probability. The best solution seems to be the completion of a pattern in analogy to families like *bata- ›good‹, *bōtō- ›making/becoming good/better‹ and *bōt(i)i̯aną ›to make/become good/better‹.

Author(s):  
Andriy Botsman ◽  
Olga Dmytruk

The purpose of this article is to give detailed description to all possible semantic and morphological features of Germanic preterite-present verbs. Some research has dealt with the problem of preterite-present present verbs; however, semantic and morphological functions of these verbs were studied only by singling out verb characteristics, peculiarities, potential possibilities in different Germanic languages without any alignment of the obtained results. There is little information available on preterite-present verbs within the west Germanic and North Germanic (Scandinavian) subgroups. Semantic aspect of these verbs was analysed by some scholars, but it is still unknown how these verbs were formed in other Indo-European languages (Baltic, Slavonic, Romantic). The contradicting point of the available research is how those verbs are reflected in Latin and Greek. In spite of the fact that preterite-present verbs were studied in detail in terms of phonological characteristics, their morphological and semantic peculiarities were not taken into account and compared. Special attention should be given to the functioning and correlation of phonological and morphological peculiarities of those verbs. This paper offers the results of a detailed and consistent analysis of phonological and morphological peculiarities of preterite-present verbs. The paper aims at determining the morphological characteristics of preterite-present verbs, which were formed under the influence of phonological processes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the connection of Germanic preterite-present verbs with possible sources in other Indo-European languages. The authors define a set of characteristics peculiar of preterite-present verbs semantics. The functions of these verbs are analysed in detail. The authors attempt to analyse the nature of these verbs. The attention is paid to the functions of preterite- present verbs not only in the Germanic languages, but in other Indo-European languages, too. The comparative historical method is used here as the main one. The authors see this valid way of investigation as reliable and appropriate for the preterite-present verb analysis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-484
Author(s):  
Adriaan van Doorn

Abstract The language of the Malberg glosses shows phonological developments that allow us to position this language variety within the West-Germanic dialect continuum. In this article the author shows that the language cannot be viewed as Old Dutch, nor as the ancestor of Old Dutch based on the attested phonological developments, notably: the assimilation of certain clusters; the partial merger of Proto-Germanic *g and *h; and the palatalisation of Proto-Germanic *g.


2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER SCHRIJVER

It has generally been assumed that Celtic linguistic influence on Old English is limited to a few marginal loanwords. If a language shift had taken place from Celtic to Old English, however, one would expect to find traces of that in Old English phonology and (morpho)syntax. In this article I argue that (1) the way in which the West Germanic sound system was reshaped in Old English strongly suggests the operation of a hitherto unrecognized substratum; (2) that phonetic substratum is strongly reminiscent of Irish rather than British Celtic; (3) the Old Irish phonetic−phonological system provides a more plausible model for reconstructing the phonetics of pre-Roman Celtic in Britain than the British Celtic system. The conclusion is that there is phonetic continuity between pre-Roman British Celtic and Old English, which suggests the presence of a pre-Anglo-Saxon population shifting to Old English.


1993 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred Wollman

It is a well-known fact that Old English is rich in Latin loan-words. Although the precise number is not yet known, it is a fairly safe assumption that there are at least 600 to 700 loan-words in Old English. This compares with 800 Latin loan-words borrowed in different periods in the Brittonic languages (Welsh, Cornish, Breton), and at least 500 early Latin loan-words common to the West Germanic languages. These rather vague overall numbers do not lend themselves, however, to a serious analysis of Latin influence on the Germanic and Celtic languages, because they include different periods of borrowing which are not really comparable to each other. The basis of these estimates, moreover, is often not stated very clearly. Although the establishment of a complete list of Latin loan-words in the various Germanic languages is a desideratum, it can only be achieved in a later stage of our studies.


2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-369
Author(s):  
Jing Lin

This paper investigates three verbs expressing necessity in the three West Germanic languages: Dutchhoeven, Englishneed, and Germanbrauchen. These three verbs are all categorized as negative polarity items(npis). However, there are differences in their distribution as NPIs, which posit Germanbrauchenbetween Englishneedand Dutchhoeven.By analyzing two factors that may influence acquisition, namely, opacity and input frequency, this paper moreover presents a similar pattern for the acquisition of these NPIs: The Dutch NPIhoevenemerges earlier in child language than its German counterpart, which in turn arises earlier than the English NPIneed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 77 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 410-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Stiles

The paradigms of the third person anaphoric pronoun in West Germanic show a split between Ingvæonic and non-Ingvæonic languages. The Ingvæonic dialects have numerous forms with initialh-, in contrast to non-Ingvæonic, where—corresponding toh-—vocalic ors-onsets are found. This divergence makes it difficult to envisage what the Proto-West Germanic set of forms looked like. The aim is to explore whether it is possible to reconstruct a common West Germanic paradigm from which both types developed. The answer turns out to be ‘yes’, thanks to the crucial evidence of Frisian. The article also rejects the view that Germanic attests the alleged Indo-European pronominal stem *syo-/*tyo-.


2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
THERESA BIBERAUER ◽  
IAN ROBERTS

This article presents a novel ‘Kaynian’ analysis of Old and Middle English (OE and ME) word-order patterns in terms of which the patterns attested at the various stages of OE and ME are analysed as the output of a single grammar which, however, permits restricted types of variation. We propose that the West Germanic-like OE word orders were derived via the application of two types of ‘large XP’ movement – VP raising to SpecvP and vP raising to SpecTP – which are in fact pied-piping operations: in both cases, a DP contained within VP and vP – the object and the subject respectively – constitutes the actual Goal of movement, with the larger structure simply being pied piped along. Orders unlike West Germanic in both OE and ME, and synchronic variation more generally, are shown to be derived from the side-by-side availability in the OE and ME grammar of pied piping and ‘stranding’, and the word-order changes that occurred in ME are analysed as the consequence of a reanalysis of the ever more liberal ‘stranding’-permitting pied-piping grammar as one which specifically targets DPs.


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