Some Prominent Linguistic Characteristics of Brother Hermann's Leben der Gräfin Iolande von Vianden

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-81
Author(s):  
Richard H. Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Loan Words ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Strong Verbs

An examination of the verb forms in Brother Hermann's Middle High German verse epic, Leben der Gräfin Iolande von Vianden (c. 1283 in the neighborhood of Luxembourg), is undertaken in the categories of loan words, athematic verb forms, class shifting in strong verbs, the ge-perfective prefix, and apocopation and addition of final n. The last category is developed to situate Iolande, which consists of approximately 5,963 lines of rhymed couplets, in the context of Old High German and Middle High German historical development.

scholarly journals Deutsche Teil- und Regrammatikalisierung

2018 ◽  
pp. 31-47
Author(s):  
John Ole Askedal
Keyword(s):  
Initial Position ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
History Of ◽  
Syntactic Status ◽  
The Way

The present paper deals with some putative cases of so-called ‘halted’ or ‘arrested grammaticalization’ in the history of German. The following phenomena are discussed: Old High German perfect auxiliaries; the modals ‘shall’, ‘will’ and the transformative copula werden as sources of future auxiliaries in Old, Middle and New High German; some shortened verb forms in Middle High German; the Old High German etc. pronoun of identity der selbo used as a demonstrative or personal pronoun; the inflection of determiners, quantifiers and adjectives in New High German; Old High German thô, dô and Middle High German ez as syntactic ‘place-holders’ in sentence-initial position; the syntactic status of the German so-called ‘ethical dative’; and the demise of Old High German -lîhho, Middle High German -lîche as an adverb-forming suffix. It is claimed that certain general language-specific, ‘characterological’ patterns influence the way in which the grammaticalization developments in question are halted or, sometimes, given another direction by way of regrammaticalization.

scholarly journals Leveling or reanalysis? An explanation of Middle High German paradigm merger

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 173
Author(s):  
Junyu Ruan
Keyword(s):  
Computational Model ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Phonological Features ◽  
Different Parts ◽  
Strong Verbs

Strong verbs in Middle High German (MHG) have two past indicative stems in the verb inflectional paradigm, which merged into one in Modern High German (NHG). This change is mostly assumed as paradigmatic leveling in previous studies. However, the NHG past indicative stems are inherited from different cells in the MHG paradigm across different inflectional classes, or even innovatively created by combining different parts of the MHG past indicative stems. This paper attempts to identify the base of leveling using a computational model called Minimal Generalization Learner, proposed in Albright (2002b). The results can account for the extraordinary patterns of merger found in German to some extent, but they are not perfect and even pose new problems. As a counter-proposal, I argue that the merger that appears to be paradigmatic leveling might be triggered by reanalysis of phonological features as morphological exponents.

Dutch 2nd Singular Prosodic Weakening: Two Rejoinders

2007 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-748 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim Zonneveld
Keyword(s):  
Prosodic Phrasing ◽  
Incorrect Prediction ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Present Tense ◽  
Strong Verbs

This article examines the arguments for, and rejects, the proposal by Ackema and Neeleman (2003) that the behavior of the Dutch 2nd person singular pronoun jij in inverted structures should be explained as morphosyntactic allomorphy, conditioned by “initial” prosodic phrasing prior to Spell-Out. First, by neutralizing (under inversion) the distinction between 2sg. and 1sg. present tense verb forms, the proposal makes an incorrect prediction for a well-known class of “strong” verbs. Second, “initial” prosody does not appear to condition the process. Benmamoun and Lorimer's (2006) “overapplication” data for this phenomenon are shown to result from an incorrect interpretation of “d-weakening” verbs.

scholarly journals Diachronic complexification and isolation

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Raffaela Baechler
Keyword(s):  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Dense Network ◽  
Standard Variety ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Isolated Communities ◽  
Nominal Inflection ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Morphological System ◽  
Over Time

Abstract One may hear that over time languages tend to simplify their grammar and notably their morphological system. This intuition, probably based on linguists’ knowledge of the rich inflectional systems of older Indo-European languages, has been challenged, particularly by sociolinguistic typologists (e.g. Trudgill 2011; Braunmuller 1984, 2003; Nichols 1992). They hypothesise that languages spoken by small and isolated communities with a dense network may complexify their grammar (Trudgill 2011: 146-147). The present article investigates the nominal inflection systems of 14 varieties of German in order to survey whether there is any such diachronic tendency towards simplification and whether instances of complexification can be observed, too. The varieties under analysis include present-day Standard German, Old High German and Middle High German (two older stages of German) and eleven present-day non-standard varieties which make part of the Alemannic dialect group. First, it will be shown that there is a diachronic tendency towards simplification if we consider the total complexity of nominal inflection. Second, however, we can identify instances of diachronic complexification too if we take a closer look at single categories. Interestingly, diachronic complexification appears only in the non-standard varieties, not so in the standard variety. This may support the hypothesis that isolated varieties are more complex than non-isolated ones.

scholarly journals THE ORDER OF STUDY OF VOWEL SOUNDS IN INTRODUCTORY AND PHONETIC COURSES IN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE (ON THE MATERIAL OF STATISTICAL AND DIACHRONIC STUDIES)

2018 ◽  
pp. 183-188
Author(s):  
Igor Peresada
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
German Language ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Single Root ◽  
German Word ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Statistical Frequency

Most ancient vowels in the period of the birth of the German language are revealed. The phonetic structure of a single-root German word in the Old High German and Middle High German periods of the development of the German language is described. The statistical frequency of using vowels in the above periods has been determined. Key words: vowels and consonants, Old High German and Middle High German periods, frequency of use

Referential null subjects in German

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helmut Weiß ◽  
Anna Volodina
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Research Topic ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Central Research ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Generative Syntax ◽  
Early New High German

Null subjects (NSs) have been a central research topic in generative syntax ever since the 1980s. This chapter considers the situation of German NSs both from a dialectological and from a diachronic perspective and attempts to reconstruct a direct line concerning the licensing conditions of pro-drop from Old High German (OHG) through Middle High German (MHG) and Early New High German (ENHG) to current dialects of New High German (NHG). Particularly, we will argue that German changed from a consistent, yet asymmetric pro-drop language to a partial, but symmetric one. In order to demonstrate that this development took place and the steps involved, we survey the existing empirical evidence and introduce new data.

Three diachronic sources for the development of -erei-based synthetic compounds in German

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-370
Author(s):  
Martina Werner
Keyword(s):  
Low Frequency ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Book Reading ◽  
German Language ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Synthetic Compounds ◽  
Free Spirit ◽  
History Of ◽  
Different Sources

This article investigates the historical development of synthetic compounds with the suffix -erei, such as German Buchleserei ‘book reading’. Synthetic compounding has been attested in older language stages of German, as in Old High German kirihwihî ‘church consecration’ or Middle High German bluotspîunge ‘blood spitting’. In the history of the German language, synthetic compounds are the last step in the development of a nominalizing suffix. Suffixes attach first to simplex bases (such as German Leserei ‘reading’), and only afterwards can they form synthetic compounds with a compound base (such as Bücherleserei ‘reading of books’). The development of verbal synthetic compounding results from three different sources: a) a suffixal pattern based on compound nominals (such as exocentric Freigeist ‘free spirit’ becomes Freigeisterei ‘free spiritedness’), where the pattern develops the ability to nominalize VPs (such as Nichtstuerei ‘doing nothing’); b) root compounds which develop the ability to take a deverbal head suffixed by -erei (such as Venus–Nascherey ‘Venusian nibbling’); and c) low-frequency - erei-compounds which originate from inherited idiomatic compound verbs (such as Ehebrecherei ‘adultery’, lit. ‘marriage-breakery’ > ehebrechen (V) ‘to commit adultery’, lit. ‘to marriage-break’). The paper delineates the three developments for different word formation types which lead to the morphological distribution of present-day German.

Phonetics and phonology of soft ‘g’ in Turkish

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Özlem Ünal-Logacev ◽  
Marzena Żygis ◽  
Susanne Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Acoustic Properties ◽  
Phonological Processes ◽  
Loan Words ◽  
Complementary Distribution ◽  
Word Position

The present study aims to approach soft ‘g’, a highly disputable sound in Turkish phonetics and phonology, from a multidimensional perspective by (i) analysing its historical development, (ii) investigating its distribution in a dictionary of Modern Turkish, and (iii) studying its acoustic realization. In the Ottoman script soft ‘g’ was represented with two letters: <غ>, pronounced [ɣ], was used in the context of preceding back vowels Vback_(Vback, C); <گ>, pronounced [j], was used in the context of preceding front vowels Vfront_(Vfront, C). In 1928, due to a reform in orthography, these two vocalic contexts were obscured by replacing both <غ> and <گ> with <ğ>. Our investigation of the distribution of /ğ/ in the native vocabulary of Modern Turkish reveals that /ğ/ is in complementary distribution with /ɡ/: /ğ/ appears word-finally and word-medially (i.e. syllable-finally Vğ.C and intervocalically V.ğV), while /ɡ/ is found word-initially and word-medially (i.e. syllable-initially when following a consonant C.ğV). However, in loan words which are well assimilated into Turkish by means of phono-morphological rules the complementary distribution is not attested. Moreover, the behavior of soft ‘g’ in phonological processes strongly suggests that the sound is part of the phonemic inventory of Turkish. Finally, the results of our two acoustic experiments show that /ğ/ is phonetically manifested in the lengthening of the preceding vowel (/Vğ/ → [Vː]) independently of the surrounding vowel environment, word position, and participant age. In addition, the results indicate that speakers of Modern Turkish do not realize acoustic properties of a velar gesture.

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