scholarly journals The submerged genitive in Old Prussian

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 309-330
Author(s):  
Daniel Petit
Keyword(s):  
Old High German ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Syntactic Pattern

This paper is devoted to the Old Prussian phrase ʃwaiāʃmu ʃupʃei buttan ‘to his own house’ (Enchiridion, III 876). Far from being simply the result of a syntactic error, the genitive ʃupʃei ‘of oneself’ can be recognized as the reflex of an archaic syntactic pattern, the “submerged genitive”, which has left numerous traces in Baltic and other Indo-European languages (Slavic, Greek, Latin, Old High German).

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.

Reconstructing passive and voice in Proto-Indo-European

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonid Kulikov ◽  
Nikolaos Lavidas
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Derivational Morphology ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Testing Ground ◽  
Syntactic Pattern ◽  
Fundamental Distinction

This article examines various aspects of the reconstruction of the passive in Proto-Indo-European (PIE), foremost on the basis of evidence from the Indo-Aryan (Early Vedic) and Greek branches. In Proto-Indo-European the fundamental distinction within the verbal system is between the active and middle, while specialized markers of the passive are lacking and the passive syntactic pattern is encoded with middle inflection. Apart from the suffix *-i̯(e/o)- (for which we cannot reconstruct a passive function in the proto-language) and several nominal derivatives, we do not find sufficient evidence for specialized passive morphology. The role of the middle (and stative) in the expression of the passive in ancient IE languages raises important theoretical questions and is a testing ground for the methods of syntactic reconstruction. We will examine the contrast between non-specialized and specialized markers of the passive in Early Vedic and Greek. Most Indo-European languages have abandoned the use of middle forms in passive patterns, while Greek is quite conservative and regularly uses middle forms as passives. In contrast, Indo-Aryan has chosen a different, anti-syncretic, strategy of encoding detransitivizing derivational morphology, though with the middle inflection consistently preserved in passive ya-presents. These two branches, Indo-Aryan and Greek, arguably instantiate two basic types of development: a syncretic type found in many Western branches, including Greek, and an anti-syncretic type attested in some Eastern branches, in particular in Indo-Aryan.

Word order patterns in the Old High German right periphery and their Indo-European origins

Diachronica ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Sapp
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Parametric Change

I investigate deviations from the OV order in the OHG texts Isidor and Tatian. Abstracting away from cases of verb-second, post-verbal constituents tend to be heavy or focused. OHG thus has a head-final VP with extraposition of NPs and PPs. Likewise, verbal complexes with the order finite before non-finite are derived by Verb (Projection) Raising. Ancient Indo-European languages are also underlyingly OV with evidence for extraposition. This suggests that OHG inherited the head-final VP, extraposition and even V(P)R from Proto-Indo-European. Because extraposition and V(P)R are at the periphery of grammar, the resulting surface orders have not resulted in parametric change to the VP from Proto-Indo-European to present-day German.

scholarly journals O kilku możliwych śladach duale tantum w językach indoeuropejskich

LingVaria ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (26) ◽  
pp. 47-58
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Dead Body ◽  
Body Frame ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
Two Component ◽  
Lexical Data ◽  
Germanic Languages

On Some Possible Traces of Duale Tantum in Indo-European LanguagesThe paper is devoted to three selected Indo-European nouns that can be considered as dualia tantum. On the basis of lexical data preserved in historical Indo-European languages, I have reconstructed three probable archetypes:(1) IE. *ḱelī- (< PIE. *ḱel-ih1) f. duale tantum ‘two-component body of a human or animal’ is precisely attested in Avestan sairi f. du. tant. ‘two solid components of the human and animal body, i.e. the skin together with meat and bones; body, dead body, corpse’. The primitive dual form seems to appear in Old Indic (Vedic) śárīram n. ‘body, body frame, solid parts of the body, pl. bones’, also ‘a dead body’ (a derivative noun created by means of the suffix -ra- < IE. *-lo-), cf. also Pali sarīra- n. ‘body’, Prakrit sarira- n. ‘id.’; West Pahari sarīr, Old Gujarati saïra, sayara n. ‘body’.(2) IE. *agu̯ sī- f. sg. ‘axe’ (< PIE. *h2egu̯ s-ih1 f. du. tant. ‘double axe, two-edged battle-axe’) can be seen not only in the Germanic languages (e.g. Gothic aqisi f. ‘axe’, Old High German acchus ‘id.’, English axe ‘id.’), but also in some Greek-Latin derivatives (see Greek ἀξῑ́νη f. ‘double axe, twoedged battle-axe’, Modern Greek αξίνα f. ‘hoe, mattock, pickaxe’, Latin ascia f. ‘axe, trowel’). The original meaning ‘double axe, two-edged item’ is firmly confirmed by the Greek data.(3) IE. *oldhī- f. sg. ‘a kind of boat’ (< PIE. *h3eldh-ih1 f. du. tant. ‘a primitive boat built from two troughs’ ← *h3eldh- f. ‘trough’) is reflected in Tocharian AB olyi ‘boat’, Lithuanian eldijà f. ‘a canoe, a boat hollowed out from one trunk’, dial. aldijà f. ‘id.’, Old Church Slavic ladija f. ‘πλοῖον, σκάφη / navis, navicula’, also alъdija ‘id.’, Old Czech lodí f. ‘ship, boat’, Polish łódź f. ‘boat’ and so on. The basic noun *h3eldh- ‘trough’ is securely attested in the Germanic languages, cf. Norwegian alde f. ‘wooden trough’, Danish olde ‘id.’ (< Proto-Germanic *aldōn- f.).

Germanic

2019 ◽  
pp. 237-250
Author(s):  
Brian Murdoch
Keyword(s):  
German Text ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
European Languages

There are only limited and indirect reflections of Jewish apocrypha and pseudepigrapha in Old and Middle High German, Anglo-Saxon, and Middle English. The story of Judith was well-known, as were extrabiblical tales associated with Joseph, but the best attested pseudepigraphic material is that linked with (Christian versions of) the legends of Adam and Eve after the Fall, of which there are very many examples in Middle English and Middle High German, as well as in other European languages. Elements of the Enoch-apocrypha are reflected in one Old High German text, and the figures of Jannes and Jambre appear in one text in Anglo-Saxon.

Latvian agent nouns: their meaning, grammar, and use

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 79-131
Author(s):  
Nicole Nau
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Morphological Process ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Concept Building ◽  
Referential Function ◽  
Colloquial Style ◽  
Verbal Arguments

This article explores semantic and grammatical properties of Latvian agent nouns that are derived from verbs by the suffix -ēj- (for primary verbs) or -tāj- (for secondary verbs). These formations show several peculiarities that distinguish them from agent nouns in other European languages and from similar Latvian nouns formed by other means. They are specialized in meaning, highly regular and transparent. They show verbal features such as aspectuality and combinability with adverbs, and they may inherit verbal arguments. The productivity of the formation is almost unlimited, and many ad hoc formations are found in colloquial style, for example in social media. In discourse, agent nouns often have a referential function, either as the only function or in combination with a concept-building function. The focus of the article is on less institutionalized tokens which show the potential of this morphological process that challenges traditional views about the functions of derivation or its delimitation.

Modern Greek V V dvandva compounds: A linguistic innovation in the history of the Indo-European languages

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Ralli
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Compound Formation ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Late Medieval Period ◽  
European Languages ◽  
History Of ◽  
Internal Change ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
Asian Languages

This paper deals with [V V] dvandva compounds, which are frequently used in East and Southeast Asian languages but also in Greek and its dialects: Greek is in this respect uncommon among Indo-European languages. It examines the appearance of this type of compounding in Greek by tracing its development in the late Medieval period, and detects a high rate of productivity in most Modern Greek dialects. It argues that the emergence of the [V V] dvandva pattern is not due to areal pressure or to a language-contact situation, but it is induced by a language internal change. It associates this change with the rise of productivity of compounding in general, and the expansion of verbal compounds in particular. It also suggests that the change contributes to making the compound-formation patterns of the language more uniform and systematic. Claims and proposals are illustrated with data from Standard Modern Greek and its dialects. It is shown that dialectal evidence is crucial for the study of the rise and productivity of [V V] dvandva compounds, since changes are not usually portrayed in the standard language.

Phonetic iconicity in the evaluative morphology of a sample of Indo-European, Niger-Congo and Austronesian languages

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renáta Gregová ◽  
Lívia Körtvélyessy ◽  
Július Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Sound Symbolism ◽  
Three Dimensional Model ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Phonetic Symbolism ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Core Vocabulary

Universals Archive (Universal #1926) indicates a universal tendency for sound symbolism in reference to the expression of diminutives and augmentatives. The research ( Štekauer et al. 2009 ) carried out on European languages has not proved the tendency at all. Therefore, our research was extended to cover three language families – Indo-European, Niger-Congo and Austronesian. A three-step analysis examining different aspects of phonetic symbolism was carried out on a core vocabulary of 35 lexical items. A research sample was selected out of 60 languages. The evaluative markers were analyzed according to both phonetic classification of vowels and consonants and Ultan's and Niewenhuis' conclusions on the dominance of palatal and post-alveolar consonants in diminutive markers. Finally, the data obtained in our sample languages was evaluated by means of a three-dimensional model illustrating the place of articulation of the individual segments.

The Arabic Origins of English and Indo-European “Definite Articles”: A Radical Linguistic Theory Approach

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Zaidan Ali Jassem
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Method ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
General Level ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
Tree Model ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
European Languages ◽  
The Family ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Definite Articles

This paper traces the Arabic origins or cognates of the “definite articles” in English and Indo-European languages from a radical linguistic (or lexical root) theory perspective. The data comprises the definite articles in English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Latin, Greek, Macedonian, Russian, Polish, Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Persian, and Arabic. The results clearly indicate that five different types of such articles emerged in the data, all of which have true Arabic cognates with the same or similar forms and meanings, whose differences are due to natural and plausible causes and different routes of linguistic change, especially lexical, semantic, or morphological shift. Therefore, the results support the adequacy of the radical linguistic theory according to which, unlike the Family Tree Model or Comparative Method, Arabic, English, German, French, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit not only belong to the same language family, renamed Eurabian or Urban family, but also are dialects of the same language, with Arabic being their origin all because only it shares the whole cognates with them all and because it has a huge phonetic, morphological, grammatical, and lexical variety. They also manifest fundamental flaws and grave drawbacks which plague English and Indo-European lexicography for ignoring Arabic as an ultimate ancestor and progenitor not only in the treatment of the topic at hand but in all others in general. On a more general level, they also show that there is a radical language from which all human languages stemmed and which has been preserved almost intact in Arabic, thus being the most conservative and productive language

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