Notes on the Etymologies of English big and Gothic ga-

During the Northwest Germanic period, *ɣaβiɣs ‘rich’ (Go. gabigs / gabeigs ‘rich’ < giban ‘to give’) and related forms (Go. gabigjan ‘to make rich’, gabignan ‘to be rich’) were reanalyzed as consisting of the prefix *ɣa- + root. This reanalysis was triggered by the prevailing Germanic stress pattern (indicated where necessary by a raised tick '), since *ɣaβiɣs was stressed on the first syllable of the root (thus *'ɣaβiɣs). while nominal and adjectival compounds that consisted of *ɣa- + root ('ga-qumps ‘assembly’, 'ga-fulgins ‘hidden’, 'ga-hails ‘hale’) were stressed on the prefix. Thus, an extrapolated root form *ɣiγ- > *biγ- was created that then existed parallel to *γaβiγs in Northwest Germanic. The newly created form *biγs survived and developed into ME big(ge) ‘strong, sturdy’ (> Eng. big), while OE gifig, ON g˛fugr ‘noble’, and related forms in Old High German and Gothic are reflexes of *ɣaβiɣs.

Urgermanisch *þe-na-z ‘Gefolgsmann’

Proto-Germanic *þe-na-z (Old English, Old Saxon, Old High German, Old Norse) is traditionally understood as ‘child, follower, servant’, connected with Greek teknon ‘child’, both from *tek- ‘to beget’.This is unfounded; the meaning ‘child’ is unattested, the traditional etymology highly improbable. Proto-Germanic *þe-na-z is from *tek- ‘to stretch out one's hand, touch, receive’, designating basically ‘follower, retainer’, thus a technical term of Germanic Gefolgschaftswesen. Pertinent textual passages, the theory of Germanic heathen baptism, and the rites whereby a warrior is accepted into a lord's retinue are crucial for the analysis.

The Derivational Suffixes and Suffixoids of Old Saxon: A Panchronic Approach to a Linguistic Category

A survey of the literature on Old Saxon derivational suffixes and suffixoids does not yield a neat and clear-cut picture of forms. The reason is that some researchers take a diachronic view of the data, while others take a synchronic view. In this article I recommend a panchronic view of the data in hopes of clarifying the situation. As part of the discussion I argue that affixoids are a good example of grammaticalization. I thus also discuss and—as far as research on German is concerned—aim to resurrect the notion of AFFIXOID as a linguistic category. If successful, the results of this paper may be applied to other languages.

Formulaic Binomials, Morphosymbolism, and Behaghel's Law: The Grammatical Status of Expressive Iconicity

This paper considers the linguistic status of West Germanic alliterative, formulaic, syntactically tight pairs. These hendiadys binomials are phonetically interwoven, phrasally autonomous units. Echoic reduplication, including hendiadys, is a common way for language to generate iconic forms. Building on recent work on sound-symbolic expressives, iconicity, and the significance of poetic features (compression, phrasal symmetry) for language, this study argues that alliterative binomials are fundamentally affective, with proverb-like sentential characteristics, deriving idiomatic force from their iconically self-signaling structural properties. Like Stabreim, phonetically reinforced and with reciprocally highlighted components, they define a cohesive utterance (saying, phrase, metrical line). In this they share phrase-level contour properties with Behaghel's Law, which shapes the linguistic structure of day-to-day poetics, particularly in fixed idioms. The inquiry examines phrasal syntax, phrase-level iconicity and expressive symbolism, and the poetics of folk-discourse genres, reflecting language's structure.*

Etymological Opacity, Hybridization, and the Afrikaans Brace Negation

One of the enduring cruxes in Afrikaans historical linguistics has been the origin of the so-called “double” or more properly “brace” negation, specifically with respect to the negative particle nie in sentence-final position. Though bipartite negation is well represented in the Germanic languages, the Afrikaans pattern stands alone. The brace negation is an innovation that came about through the reanalysis of a discourse-dependent (pragmatically conditioned) structure in metropolitan Dutch. The agents of the change were Khoikhoi and enslaved peoples at the Cape in the context of wholesale language shift and basilectalization under the pressure of a socioeconomic order based on caste. Given the intensive mixing between mesolectal and basilectal varieties as part of a shared repertoire, the innovation was accepted by rural, lower-class Europeans living in closest proximity to indigenes and slaves, with stylistic and social variation.