The History of the Third Nasal Phoneme of Modern German

PMLA ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 340-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert Penzl
Keyword(s):  
Middle High German ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Old High German ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early New High German ◽  
Phonemic Status

The distributional environment of the nasal phoneme /ŋ/, compared to those of /n/ /m/, is restricted in Modem German but reflects its origin from an allophone (variant) of /n/ before velar consonants. The phoneme developed first in medial position through the loss of /g/ in the cluster /ng/; in final position the frequent replacement of /g/ by its fortis counterpart /k/ largely prevented this loss. Late Old High German n-spellings (e.g., sinen), particularly in the 11th-century Physiologus, are the first evidence for the /ŋ/-phoneme, which generally continues, however, to be written ng (singeri). Middle High German assonances made medial/ŋŋ/ likely, which is still found in some Swiss dialects. Descriptive statements by Early New High German grammarians clearly reveal the phonemic status of /ŋ/.

scholarly journals Deutsche Teil- und Regrammatikalisierung

2018 ◽  
pp. 31-47
Author(s):  
John Ole Askedal
Keyword(s):  
Initial Position ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
History Of ◽  
Syntactic Status ◽  
The Way

The present paper deals with some putative cases of so-called ‘halted’ or ‘arrested grammaticalization’ in the history of German. The following phenomena are discussed: Old High German perfect auxiliaries; the modals ‘shall’, ‘will’ and the transformative copula werden as sources of future auxiliaries in Old, Middle and New High German; some shortened verb forms in Middle High German; the Old High German etc. pronoun of identity der selbo used as a demonstrative or personal pronoun; the inflection of determiners, quantifiers and adjectives in New High German; Old High German thô, dô and Middle High German ez as syntactic ‘place-holders’ in sentence-initial position; the syntactic status of the German so-called ‘ethical dative’; and the demise of Old High German -lîhho, Middle High German -lîche as an adverb-forming suffix. It is claimed that certain general language-specific, ‘characterological’ patterns influence the way in which the grammaticalization developments in question are halted or, sometimes, given another direction by way of regrammaticalization.

Referential null subjects in German

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helmut Weiß ◽  
Anna Volodina
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Research Topic ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Central Research ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Generative Syntax ◽  
Early New High German

Null subjects (NSs) have been a central research topic in generative syntax ever since the 1980s. This chapter considers the situation of German NSs both from a dialectological and from a diachronic perspective and attempts to reconstruct a direct line concerning the licensing conditions of pro-drop from Old High German (OHG) through Middle High German (MHG) and Early New High German (ENHG) to current dialects of New High German (NHG). Particularly, we will argue that German changed from a consistent, yet asymmetric pro-drop language to a partial, but symmetric one. In order to demonstrate that this development took place and the steps involved, we survey the existing empirical evidence and introduce new data.

Three diachronic sources for the development of -erei-based synthetic compounds in German

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-370
Author(s):  
Martina Werner
Keyword(s):  
Low Frequency ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Book Reading ◽  
German Language ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Synthetic Compounds ◽  
Free Spirit ◽  
History Of ◽  
Different Sources

This article investigates the historical development of synthetic compounds with the suffix -erei, such as German Buchleserei ‘book reading’. Synthetic compounding has been attested in older language stages of German, as in Old High German kirihwihî ‘church consecration’ or Middle High German bluotspîunge ‘blood spitting’. In the history of the German language, synthetic compounds are the last step in the development of a nominalizing suffix. Suffixes attach first to simplex bases (such as German Leserei ‘reading’), and only afterwards can they form synthetic compounds with a compound base (such as Bücherleserei ‘reading of books’). The development of verbal synthetic compounding results from three different sources: a) a suffixal pattern based on compound nominals (such as exocentric Freigeist ‘free spirit’ becomes Freigeisterei ‘free spiritedness’), where the pattern develops the ability to nominalize VPs (such as Nichtstuerei ‘doing nothing’); b) root compounds which develop the ability to take a deverbal head suffixed by -erei (such as Venus–Nascherey ‘Venusian nibbling’); and c) low-frequency - erei-compounds which originate from inherited idiomatic compound verbs (such as Ehebrecherei ‘adultery’, lit. ‘marriage-breakery’ > ehebrechen (V) ‘to commit adultery’, lit. ‘to marriage-break’). The paper delineates the three developments for different word formation types which lead to the morphological distribution of present-day German.

scholarly journals Testing the suffixoidization of German -mann '-man'

Linguistica ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 273-283
Author(s):  
Douglas Lightfoot
Keyword(s):  
Historical Data ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Early New High German ◽  
Indefinite Pronoun ◽  
High Degree

Throughout its history in Old High German (OHG), Middle High German, Early New High German, and Modern German (ModG), the word Mann "man" has exhibited a high degree of productivity and linguistic flexibility. It has ranged morphosyntactically from a full noun (OHG man "man"), compounded noun (OHG werolt.man "human, mortal"), affixoid (ModG Sports.mann "athlete"), indefinite pronoun (ModG man "one"), to something approaching zero (undergoing demorphologization in the OHG compound gom.man "husband, man"). The affixoid notion and its usefulness in morphology have been controversial in the literature (e.g., Schmidt 1987). Relatively recently, Stevens (2005) proposed criteria for the category affixoid, and a number of standard German grammatical and etymological references (e.g., Duden 1995) have been utilizing this term. This study involves examining modern usage of the form -mann as found in the online Spiegel newsmagazine's database, as well as the collection of historical data primarily on the forms of German -mann from the robust Titus database in Frankfurt. Stevens' (2005) criteria are evaluated and used to measure the validity of German -mann's membership in the category of suffixoid.

Diachrone Perspektiven im Historischen deutschen Valenzwörterbuch

Glottotheory ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Albrecht Greule
Keyword(s):  
Cross Sections ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Semantic Field ◽  
History Of ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractThe Historic German Valency Dictionary should not be only a synchronic description of the valency of a selection of Old High German, Middle High German and Early Hew High German verbs, but also illustrate the history of valency (diachronic) of these verbs within a semantic field. This paper gives an overview of the previous research undertaken in the field of the history of valency. Based on a case study, it develops a method to illustrate the history of valency by the comparison of synchronic historic cross-sections.

Toward a salvageable Tillich: The implications of his late confession of provinicialism

2004 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Dourley
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Paul Tillich ◽  
Final Position ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of

In occasional addresses late in his life Paul Tillich confesses to a lingering provincialism in his theology during the same period in which he was completing the third volume of his systematic theology where many of these same provincialisms appear. The article identifies such provincialisms in his ecclesiology, missiology, christology, history of religion and eschatology. The article then argues that his final position, embodied in his understanding of the Religion of the Concrete Spirit, endorses a universal sacramentalism in interplay with mystical and prophetic elements that would appreciate all religions but deny any an absolute claim while able to compensate religious needs specific to each cultural moment. The revisioning of humanity's religious propensity as supporting a mutually relative relation among religions remains valuable in an historical period when the human future may be threatened by competing unqualified religious claims and their secular equivalents.

The Abbey of St. Gall

2020 ◽  
pp. 804-812
Author(s):  
Anna A. Grotans
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Lake Constance ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
German Studies ◽  
Music School ◽  
History Of

This chapter surveys the history of the Abbey of St. Gall, on the shores of Lake Constance, from its founding in the seventh century by Gallus to its cultural highpoints from the Carolingian period through the eleventh century. The library’s great treasures, including manuscripts of the fourth or fifth century, the famous Irish books, important Middle High German texts, are mentioned, and the as is the dispersal of St. Gall books at various periods. The ninth- and tenth-century St. Gall school is discussed, as are the Old High German studies of the monks, the music school, and some of the abbeys important writers (Notker, Ekkehard, Walahfrid).

On the habitual verb pflegen in German. Its use, origin, and development

Linguistics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Łukasz Jędrzejowski
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Matrix Subject ◽  
Subject Raising

Abstract In this article, I examine the distributional properties, emergence conditions, and development of the habitual verbal head pflegen ‘use(d) to’ in the history of German. Synchronically, I argue that Present-day German possesses subject to subject raising verbs and that they can all be brought down to a common denominator: They allow promotion of the embedded subject into the matrix subject position (= A-movement). However, at the same time I argue that German subject to subject raising verbs differ and that their heterogeneity follows from their semantics. What all this boils down to is that German subject to subject raising verbs do not form a uniform class, neither semantically nor syntactically. As for pflegen, I account for its syntactic peculiarities referring to its functional status, i.e., the status of being a habitual head. Diachronically, I show that pflegen grammaticalized into an AspHAB-head in the transition from Old High German (750–1050) to Middle High German (1050–1350) and that this grammaticalization process restricted the way it behaves in Present-day German.

A Universe of Societies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Didier Debaise
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Relations ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Temporal And Spatial

Which kind of relation exists between a stone, a cloud, a dog, and a human? Is nature made of distinct domains and layers or does it form a vast unity from which all beings emerge? Refusing at once a reductionist, physicalist approach as well as a vitalistic one, Whitehead affirms that « everything is a society » This chapter consequently questions the status of different domains which together compose nature by employing the concept of society. The first part traces the history of this notion notably with reference to the two thinkers fundamental to Whitehead: Leibniz and Locke; the second part defines the temporal and spatial relations of societies; and the third explores the differences between physical, biological, and psychical forms of existence as well as their respective ways of relating to environments. The chapter thus tackles the status of nature and its domains.

The Origins of Gritty Realism on British Television: Euston Films and Special Branch

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Sexton
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Discourse ◽  
Technological Changes ◽  
Television Drama ◽  
The Third ◽  
Fourth Series ◽  
History Of

Euston Films was the first film subsidiary of a British television company that sought to film entirely on location. To understand how the ‘televisual imagination’ changed and developed in relationship to the parent institution's (Thames Television) economic and strategic needs after the transatlantic success of its predecessor, ABC Television, it is necessary to consider how the use of film in television drama was regarded by those working at Euston Films. The sources of realism and development of generic verisimilitude found in the British adventure series of the early 1970s were not confined to television, and these very diverse sources both outside and inside television are well worth exploring. Thames Television, which was formed in 1968, did not adopt the slickly produced adventure series style of ABC's The Avengers, for example. Instead, Thames emphasised its other ABC inheritance – naturalistic drama in the form of the studio-based Armchair Theatre – and was to give the adventure series a strong London lowlife flavour. Its film subsidiary, Euston Films, would produce ‘gritty’ programmes such as the third and fourth series of Special Branch. Amid the continuities and tensions between ABC and Thames, it is possible to discern how economic and technological changes were used as a cultural discourse of value that marks the production of Special Branch as a key transformative moment in the history of British television.

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