Covert patterns of definiteness/indefiniteness and aspectuality in Old Icelandic, Gothic, and Old High German

2007 ◽  
pp. 73-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Leiss
Keyword(s):  
Old High German ◽  
Old Icelandic

Old High German -it- in French

Romania ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 95 (380) ◽  
pp. 543-553
Author(s):  
Paul Brosman
Keyword(s):  
Old High German

The prefield after the Old High German period

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Augustin Speyer ◽  
Helmut Weiß
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
The One ◽  
Split Cp

The filling of the prefield in Modern German is determined by information-structural constraints such as scene-setting, contrastiveness, and topichood. While OHG does not yet show competition between these constraints, competition arises from MHG onward. This has to do with the generalization of the V2 constraint (i.e. the one-constituent property of the prefield) for declarative clauses, in which context the information-structural constraints are loosened. The syntactic change whose result eventually was the loss of multiple XP fronting comprised a change of the feature endowment of C because the fronting of expletive thô (roughly in the OHG of the ninth century) led to the reanalysis of XP fronting as a semantically vacuous movement whose only function is to check the EPP feature of C. Data from doubly filled prefields in ENHG and post-initial connectives indicate that an articulated split CP-structure, as proposed within the cartographic approach, is also at play in German.

Verb-initial declaratives in Old High German and in later German

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Petrova
Keyword(s):  
Main Part ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Diachronic Syntax ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
Syntactic Properties

This chapter investigates the syntactic properties and the pragmatic behaviour of verb-initial declarative clauses in the history of German. The focus is on OHG because in this period, verb-initial declaratives represent a frequent, well-known alternative to canonical verb-second main clauses. It is argued that verb-initial declaratives are native in origin, and that they are derivable under a special interpretation of the verb-second rule. The main part of the chapter deals with the pragmatic properties of verb-initial declaratives in OHG, summarizing the various attempts at explaining the distribution of these orders and showing that further research is needed to arrive at a more adequate understanding of their function in the discourse. The chapter closes up with the discussion of the later development of verb-initial declaratives in German, sketching the controversial treatments of this question in the literature on German diachronic syntax.

OV versus VO in Old High German

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Petrova ◽  
Helmut Weiß
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Functional Head ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
The Right

This chapter surveys the word order variation in the right periphery of the clause in OHG. The investigation is based on a corpus including all dependent clauses introduced by the complementizer thaz ‘that’ in the minor OHG documents, a collection of up to forty smaller texts of various genres. The analysis shows that the majority of the data can be explained within a standard OV grammar, assuming additional extraposition of heavy XPs to the right. But apart from these cases, there is evidence supporting the assumption of leftward movement of the verb to an intermediate functional projection vP which is optional with basic OV but obligatory with basic VO. In addition, the chapter presents patterns which evidently involve verb movement to a higher functional head, above vP, and discusses the nature of the landing site of the verb in these cases.

Ein rechtsfreier Raum? Die legale Situation auf den Färöern im Spiegel der ‚Færeyinga saga‘

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-45
Author(s):  
Andreas Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Old Icelandic ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Narrative Literature ◽  
The Law

AbstractThe chapter argues for a more nuanced and empirically based understanding of the discourse on law and socio-cultural norms in Old Icelandic literature on the grounds of a narratological reading of ‘Færeyinga saga’ as a case study. It has often been claimed that Icelandic sources express an ideal of freedom based on communality as guaranteed by the law. By contrast, ‘Færeyinga saga’ represents a cynical discourse on power politics that renders law as an invariable concept obsolete and works solely on the principle that ‘might is right’. This cynicism, however, is presented in a form that leaves the narrative open to interpretation, showing that regardless of its possible dating, narrative literature can serve as a starting point for social discussion. Consequently, the discourse on law in medieval Iceland must be perceived as more polyphonic than has been allowed for by previous unifying readings in scholarship.

The Spelling of Proto-Germanic /f/ in Old High German

Language ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustav Must
Keyword(s):  
Old High German

Bemerkungen zu Gl. 2,703,40 ‹sichinzUGU› und weiteren, auch neugefundenen Glossen in Paris, BnF lat. 9344

2021 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-15
Author(s):  
Roland Schuhmann ◽  
Andreas Nievergelt
Keyword(s):  
Old High German

Abstract In the dictionaries of Old High German an entry snichezzunga f. ‘sob’ is listed. It is shown here that the manuscript reading rather points to sichizunga that has a parallel in OE sicettung f. ‘sigh, sob’ and is a derivation from the root PGmc. *sei̯ke/a- ‘to sigh, sob’. In a supplement, improved readings of five glosses in the manuscript Paris, BnF lat. 9344, are given, as well as an edition of four new glosses and some reflections on a still unexplained marginal entry.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document