Das regelmäßige schwache Verb im Mooringer Friesisch: Zwei Konjugationsklassen oder phonologisch bedingte Allomorphie?

In this article we investigate the historical development of the regular weak verb in Mooring, the most vital Mainland North Frisian dialect. We show that until the first half of the 20th century Mooring still distinguished between the two weak conjugation classes inherited from Old Frisian and typical for most Frisian dialects: Class I without and class II with a theme vowel -e- in the endings of the 2nd and 3rd Person Singular Present, the Past and the Past Participle. From the end of the 19th century onward, a process of deletion of schwa after sonorants gradually caused the fusion of class II weak verbs with a stem-final vowel or sonorant with class I weak verbs. After World War II this process came to its (near) completion and the former morphological division of the weak verbs in two conjugation classes was given up in favour of a phonological distribution of the endings on the basis of the stem-final segment: Endings with e appear after obstruents, endings without e after vowels and sonorants. Although modern grammars in principle recognized this new phonological conditioning of the weak conjugation, they failed to see that there remained a number of exceptions,viz. former class I weak verbs with a stem-final obstruent still taking an eless ending. That one is dealing with exceptions here is clearly shown, however, by the fact that these verbs gradually adapt to the phonological conditioning and assume endings with e in modern Mooring.

Old English and the Germanic languages

First, an account of two main features that set all the Germanic languages off against the rest of the Indo-European family (Grimm’s Law, and the creation of a system of strong and weak verbs) gives readers a chance to see how linguists group languages together on the basis of shared innovations. The chapter then turns to Old English in particular, discussing first how Old English, with its greater number of grammatical endings, is still a bit more like its sister languages Greek and Latin than is its modern descendant, before considering the individual words of a verse of the Old English Bible to see in detail what causes it to look so different to the contemporary anglophone. Finally, it works through six lines of Beowulf, not only as a continued illustration of what makes Old English different but also to show how it exploits features like compound nouns and alliterative verse for poetic effect.

Virtual Length and the Two I's of Qaraqosh Neo-Aramaic

This paper examines the differences in form between weak-final (III-j) verbs and strong verbs in the Neo-Aramaic dialect of Qaraqosh (Khan 2002). The analysis, conducted in the autosegmental theory of Strict CV (Lowenstamm 1996, Scheer 2004), derives these differences from the interaction of the common template with the weak radical of weak verbs. In addition, it accounts for two surprising facts about this lan-guage: (i) the distribution of the vowel [I], which only contrasts with other relevant vowels in the final unstressed position; and (ii) the marking, unique among Semitic languages, of a gender distinction in the imperative only on weak verbs. The analysis suggests that both these facts follow from the assumption that [I] is a phonologically short /i/, while a phonologically long /i/ is realized with the quality [i]. It thus argues for non-surface-true ‘virtual’ length.

Formalizing inflection

This chapter addresses the differences between derivational and inflectional morphology and how they are to be reflected in the Relational Morphology formalism. The formalization of inflectional features is illustrated in turn by English regular verbs, English irregular verbs, German weak verbs, and German strong verbs and past participles. Each case makes essential use of relational links among sister (or second-order) schemas. The analysis also offers a flexible description of inflectional classes. The chapter then discusses what verbal forms in a paradigm have to be stored in memory and how these are used to construct non-stored forms. The formalism for inflectional classes is applied to the “Same Verb Problem”: homophones with the same inflectional paradigm, for instance go/went away, go/went crazy, go/went for broke. This treatment is then extended to the polysemy of morphosyntactic tense.

The apophonic chain and the form of weak and strong verbs in Palestinian Arabic

This paper explores the logic behind the various morpho-phonological subdivisions in the verbal system of Palestinian Arabic. It argues for the importance in the understanding of Palestinian Arabic of the apophonic chain proposed for Classical Arabic in Guerssel and Lowenstamm (1993). In Palestinian, it is first argued, the Measure 1 perfective template includes a hard-wired association of its two vocalic positions; the main differences in vocalization between the Palestinian and Classic varieties follow from this fact. The account is then extended to include three large subclasses of weak verbs. Following the analysis of Classical Arabic in Chekayri and Scheer (1996), it is argued that such verbs involve a null element ø, whose realization is determined by the apophonic chain. The second part of the paper provides an account of the entire inflectional paradigms of each of the verbs discussed, a task that was not fully undertaken in previous work. The mechanism of apophony is shown to be at work in this domain, too. An interesting case is discussed of an apparent shift in inflectional paradigm in some forms of the biradical verb. This shift is again shown to follow from the general mechanisms used in the analysis.