A Reclassification of the Old English Strong Verbs

Language ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel R. Levin
Keyword(s):  
2015 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Novo Urraca

This article focuses on Old English derivational paradigms with adjectival bases and assesses their productivity and degree of recursivity. On the theoretical side, the article puts forward the concept of paradigmatic productivity in order to gauge the relative importance of lexical categories as bases of word-formation. On the descriptive side, the analysis identifies the basic adjectives of Old English, gathers their derivatives, assigns a base of derivation to each deadjectival lemma and lists the instances of recursive word-formation. The main conclusions of the research are that the derivational paradigms of adjectives are not as productive as the ones based on strong verbs and that recursive formations result from affixation far more often than from compounding and zero derivation.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pranjal Srivastava

In this paper, we explore the meaning(s) of the on- prefix in Old English its corresponding prefixes in Gothic and Old High German. To do so, we compare and analyze the uncompounded (without prefix) and compounded (with prefix) meanings of strong Verbs listed in the book ’Vergleichendes und etymologisches Wörterbuch der germanischen starken Verben’ (a dictionary of Germanic Verbs and their forms in its daughter languages) and put forward possible meanings of the prefix and their possible sources. We observed three major meaning clusters:1) The prefix denoted a reversal or weakening of the original uncompounded meaning2) The prefix denoted a the action being done in a face-to-face capacity, to either positive or negative effect3) The prefix indicated a relationship between the action done and the doer of the action.These results enable an in-depth study of the prefixes that are derived from the original Proto-Germanic language.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luisa Fidalgo Allo

The aim of this article is to analyse the semantic relations that hold between Old English primitive and derived verbs in terms of troponymy and Aktionsart. The results of this analysis are presented in a semantic map, while emphasis is made on the points of contact between these phenomena. The main conclusion is that semantic maps represent a more flexible and applicable methodology than previous work suggests since they have been used to deal with one language, to explain historical languages and to refer to specific lexical items. Likewise, this analysis shows evidence of an inherent relationship between both phenomena: troponymy and Aktionsart.


2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Novo Urraca ◽  
Laura Pesquera Fernández

Abstract This article addresses the question of Old English alternations with a view to identifying instances of allomorphic variation attributable to the loss of motivation and the subsequent morphologization of alternations. The focus is on the strong verb and its derivatives, in such a way that the alternations in which the strong verb partakes can be predicted on the basis of phonological principles, whereas allomorphic variation with respect to the strong verb base is unpredictable. Out of 304 derivational paradigms based on strong verbs and comprising 4,853 derivatives, 478 instances have been found of phonologically motivated vocalic alternations. The conclusion is reached that the most frequent alternations are those that have /a/ as source and those with /y/ as target, because /a/ is the point of departure of i-mutation and /y/ its point of arrival. Sixteen instances of allomorphic variation have also been found, of which /e/ ~ /eo/, /e/ ~ /ea/ and /i/ ~ /e/ are relatively frequent.


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