scholarly journals On the (non-)expletive uses of the preverbal negative ne/en in the history of (Low) German and Dutch

Nordlyd ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-191
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Witzenhausen
Keyword(s):  
Middle High German ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Middle Dutch ◽  
Low German ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
History Of ◽  
Middle Low German

This article presents novel data from Middle High German, Middle Low German and Middle Dutch showing that two phenomena which often have been treated as one, namely the single former negativemarker ne/en appearing in adverbial and complement clauses, have to be treated as distinct phenomena. I argue that only in complement clauses, ne/en is a paratactic negation marker, while in adverbial clausesit functions as an exceptive and adversative discourse marker. In these contexts, I refer to ne/en as post-cyclical Furthermore, I propose a scenario as to how the reanalysis from negation to exceptive markerproceeded.

sagitta volante – philere vligend: A hitherto undiscovered fragment of an interlinear Latin-German Psalms translation at the Schwerin State Library sagitta volante – philere vligend: Ein unbekanntes Fragment einer interlinearen lateinisch-deutschen Psalmenübersetzung in der Landesbibliothek Schwerin

2021 ◽  
Vol 150 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-225
Author(s):  
Anette Löffler
Keyword(s):  
Middle High German ◽  
Low German ◽  
Middle Low German ◽  
State Library

A fragment containing a Latin-German Psalter Text was uncovered at the Schwerin State Library while examining a recovered binder's waste. These Psalms emerge from the Septuagint tradition. The fragment dates to the last quarter of the 13 th century. The translated text is composed in Middle Low German and Middle High German. Bei der Erschließung der mittelalterlichen Makulatur wurde in der Landesbibliothek Schwerin ein Fragment mit einer lateinisch-deutschen Psalmenübersetzung gefunden. Die Psalmen orientieren sich an der Überlieferung der Septuaginta. Das Fragment stammt aus dem letzten Viertel des 13. Jahrhunderts. Die Schreibsprache ist mitteldeutsch/niederdeutsch.

Old Frisian skalk: A ‘Servant’ or a ‘Rogue’?

2017 ◽  
Vol 77 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 117-145
Author(s):  
Concetta Giliberto
Keyword(s):  
Viking Age ◽  
Middle Dutch ◽  
Low German ◽  
Semantic Development ◽  
Middle Low German ◽  
Negative Connotation

The Old Frisian wordscalc, scalch, schalcis usually used in the sense of ‘servant, slave’. However, the word evidences a pejoration in meaning, being also attested in the Frisian written tradition in the sense of ‘ill-mannered person, villain, a bad guy’. The investigation of the occurrences ofskalk–along with a comparison of its Germanic cognates–will allow us to draw a picture of the semantic development of this word from medieval times to the Modern stage of the Frisian language. In the author’s opinion, the negative connotation ofskalkas an offensive epithet is the final result of a range of different causes, whose origin should be searched both in Frisian-Scandinavian contacts during the Viking Age and in the influence exerted by neighbouring Middle Low German and Middle Dutch.

scholarly journals On case loss and svarabhakti vowels: the sociolinguistic typology and geolinguistics of simplification in North Germanic

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Tam T. Blaxter ◽  
Peter Trudgill
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Dialect Contact ◽  
Low German ◽  
History Of ◽  
Middle Low German

AbstractWork in sociolinguistic typology and creole studies has established the theory that intensive language contact involving second language acquisition by adults tends to lead to grammatical simplification. This theory is built on many anecdotal case studies, including developments in the history of Continental North Germanic associated with contact with Middle Low German. In this paper, we assess the theory by examining two changes in the history of Norwegian: the loss of coda /Cr/ clusters and the loss of prepositional genitives. If the theory is correct, these changes should have been innovated in centers of contact with Middle Low German. We find that both changes in fact spread into southeastern Norwegian from Swedish. Since contact with Low German also took place in Sweden and Denmark, this is consistent with the theory. It opens questions for future research about the role of dialect contact in simplificatory change in North Germanic.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Howard Jones ◽  
Martin H. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Low German ◽  
Middle Low German ◽  
Object Of Study

This chapter explains the organization of the book and defines the object of study. Different pathways are recommended depending on readers’ prior knowledge of Middle High German and their linguistic, literary, or historical interests. The Introduction makes a distinction between Middle High German writings in general and Classical Middle High German, i.e. the normalized language in which many great works of the period are edited (reflecting nineteenth-century practices) and read today. Middle High German is situated within the Germanic language family and contrasted with Middle Low German, and its main dialect areas are described. The Introduction explains why the period 1050–1350, which is traditionally used to define Middle High German, has been adopted in this volume, and gives an account of the chronological subdivisions of the period. The methodological approach of the remaining chapters of the book is set out and recommendations are made for further reading.

Old Frisian

Diachronica ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-115
Author(s):  
Laura Catharine Smith
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Old Saxon ◽  
Low German ◽  
Middle Low German ◽  
Germanic Languages

For a century, Old Frisian has largely remained in the shadows of its Germanic sister languages. While dictionaries, concordances, and grammars have been readily and widely available for learning and researching other Germanic languages such as Middle High German, Middle Low German and Middle English, whose timelines roughly correspond to that of Old Frisian, or their earlier counterparts, e.g., Old High German, Old Saxon and Old English, few materials have been available to scholars of Old Frisian. Moreover, as Siebunga (Boutkan & Siebunga 2005: vii) notes, “not even all Old Frisian manuscripts are available as text editions”1 making the production of comprehensive core research materials more difficult. Consequently, what materials there have been, e.g., von Richthofen (1840), Heuser (1903), Holthausen (1925), and Sjölin (1969), have typically not taken into consideration the full range of extant Old Frisian texts, or have focused on specific major dialects, e.g. Boutkan (1996), Buma (1954, 1961). This has left a gap in the materials available providing an opportunity for Old Frisian scholars to make substantial contributions to the field by filling these gaps.

scholarly journals Dlaczego Bałtowie i Słowianie liczyli pokrewieństwo w kolanach, czyli o etymologii słow. kolěno ‘kolano; ród’ i lit. kẽlis ‘kolano; ród’

LingVaria ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 251-264
Author(s):  
Norbert Ostrowski
Keyword(s):  
Knee Joint ◽  
Body Part ◽  
The Body ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Semantic Relationship ◽  
Low German ◽  
Primary Meaning ◽  
Middle Low German

WHY DID BALTS AND SLAVS COUNT KINSHIP IN KNEES, OR THE ETYMOLOGY OF SLAV. kolěno ‘KNEE; TRIBE’ AND LITH. kẽlis ‘KNEE; TRIBE’ OCS. kolěno ‘knee; tribe, generation’ (cf. Polish pokolenie ‘generation’) and Lith. kẽlis ‘knee; joint in a plant; tribe; degree of kinship’ come from old adjectives with possessive suffixes (-ěn- in Slavic and -ija- in Baltic). Their primary meaning was ‘a joint in the body’ (*‘a rotating part of the body’). Both were formed from nouns with the meaning ‘wheel’ (OCS. kolo, kolese ‘wheel’, Old Prussian kelan ‘wheel’, Latvian duceles ‘chaise’; IDE. *kwelh1- ‘to turn, to rotate’). The hypothesis proposed in this paper explains the semantic relationship between Slav. kolěno ‘knee; tribe, generation’ and Proto-Slav. *kel-nŭ- > *čelnŭ- > Slovenian člèn // Serbo-Croatian člȃn ‘joint; ankle, talus’. Assuming that the meaning ‘joint’ was the original one, OCS. kolěno ‘tribe, generation’ and Lith. kẽlis ‘degree in relationship; tribe’ can be interpreted as old terms of customary law in the field of succession. The counting of kinship by enumeration of body parts from the head to the middle fingernail has been preserved in Middle Low German customary law, so-called “Sachsenspiegel”. The hypothesis is supported by numerous parallels: Lith. sąnarys ‘a joint in the body; (OLith.) ‘generation’, Lith. stráipsnis ‘body part; (OLith.) generation’, OPr. streipstan ‘body part; generation’, Middle High German Gelied ‘body part; generation’, and Middle Low German lede ‘a joint in the body; body part; degree of kinship’.

The Holy Rood in the Netherlands and North Germany A comparative study of nine Middle Dutch and two Middle Low German recensions of the legend about the Provenance of the Cross

2010 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-203
Author(s):  
Annelies Roeleveld
Keyword(s):  
Dutch Text ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
The Other ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Middle Dutch ◽  
Low German ◽  
Computer Controlled ◽  
Middle Low German ◽  
The Cross ◽  
North Germany

A comparison was made of all the known recensions and fragments in Middle Dutch (9) and Middle Low German (2) of the medieval legend of the Provenance of the Cross. Variants were written and weighted, and a computer-assisted stemma was produced. The stemma arranges the recensions into a few groups, but only a small number of conclusions can be drawn from it, e.g. that the two Low German texts, not surprisingly, are to be found at a larger distance from their nearest relatives than any of the Middle Dutch recensions. Both were very obviously translated from Middle Dutch, and it was already clear from the differing ways they solve translating problems that one was not copied from the other, nor did they have a close common ancestor; this is corroborated in the stemma. The dialects of the Middle Dutch texts were then determined by means of the computer-controlled method Rem and Wattel developed for the Corpus of 14th century charters and deeds; the results were entered into the stemma. It now turned out that one of the Low German recensions was relatively closely related to a Dutch text with Northern and Eastern traits. Both Low German texts, however, have as their second closest relatives early recensions which localise in Southern Brabant. All the early Middle Dutch recensions do in fact localise in Southern Brabant. The obvious conclusion is that an archetypical text must have been written in Southern Brabant.

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