1 ______Germanic as a Family

1.1 Introduction

Germanic (Gmc.) is a member of a larger language family known as Indo-European. Other western descendants from Indo-European include Greek, Latin, and Celtic. Because of their common ancestry, the Germanic languages (Gothic, German, English, the Scandinavian languages, etc.) share many linguistic properties and structures. Early references to the Germanic tribes are made by the Romans, with whom the Germanic peoples had daily contact. Germanic mercenaries in the Roman army were numerous along the Rhine, where the Romans had established two provinces, Germānia īnferior ‘Lower Germania’ and Germānia superior ‘Upper Germania’. The Roman cities of Colōnia Agrippīna ‘the colony of (named after) Agrippa’ (Cologne / Köln) and Augusta Trēverōrum ‘imperial (city) of the Treveri’ (Trèves / Trier) were along major trade routes. Apart from the lower Rhine area (to Trier and Cologne), there was contact in Holland, Gaul, and Britain. Most of the early loans into pre-OE resulted from direct contact with the Romans west of the Rhine estuary, after the Anglo-Saxons had penetrated as far west as Flanders and Normandy (Green 1998: 216f.). Daily staples and their preparation were taken over from the Romans. Wine was a very early loan (L vīnum), as shown by loss of the final syllable everywhere in Germanic, e.g. Gothic wein, ON vín, etc. (Gmc. *wīnan HGE 467). Moreover, the Romans referred to the predilection of the Germānī for wine (Caesar, De bello gallico 2.15, 4.2; Tacitus, Germania 23). The very early date for the export of Roman wares (Green 1998: 204–11) is confirmed linguistically. Since Latin v [w] had become [v] already in c1, the w of OHG wîn, OE wīn, etc., points to a date of borrowing prior to the first century (Miller 2012: 22f., 55). All over Europe Latin was the language of government, commerce, and culture. Caesar (De bello gallico 4.2) and Tacitus (Germania 5) report that Germānī (‘Germanic 2 Germanic as a Family peoples’) on the frontier used Roman coins to buy wine and other items from Roman merchants. Deep into Germanic territory archaeologists have found Roman coins, silver and bronze vessels, wine sets, glass, brooches, ornaments, weapons, statuettes, and many other items (Green 1998: 220). Germanic is customarily divided into East and Northwest, the latter into West and North Germanic (cf. Kuhn 1955). This is complicated by the supposed emigration of the Goths1 from Scandinavia and the linguistic features Gothic shares with North Germanic. There are about 250 early Germanic inscriptions, mostly from Scandinavia, in the older runic script [c1-6] (Antonsen 1975, 1989, 2002). Some early inscriptions are closer to Proto-Germanic, while the later ones are more Nordic (Nielsen 2002b). Only some ten per cent of the old runic texts have more than two identifiable words.

I. The Germanic family

1.2 Gothic

According to tradition, in the middle of the second century the Goths moved south from Scandza (Pliny’s Scandia), and split around the Black Sea. The Ostrogoths occupied the area north of the Black Sea and in the Crimea. Visigoths occupied the area west of the Black Sea and north of the Danube, in the Roman province of Dacia. Wulfila [c.310–383] was charged in 325 with christianizing the Goths. In 341, he was made bishop of the Visigoths and in 348 led his followers across the Danube. In 369 (traditional date) he translated the Bible into the language of his own people, the Moesogoths, that is, the Goths of Moesia. As to surviving documents, Gothic (Goth.) is attested in (portions of) the Bible translation ascribed to Wulfila ‘Little Wolf’ [c.369], part of a later commentary, several land sale and debt settlement deeds from Italy, and a few other fragments. There is also

1 More correctly, Classical Gutōnēs, Gotī; cf. Götaland (ON Gautland) in south Sweden whose inhabitants called themselves *Gautōz ‘Gauts’ (ON Gautar, OE Gēatas, Sw. Götar), the island Gotland (older Gutland); Pietroassa ring Gutani ‘of Goths’ (but see §6.1). Germanic as a Family 3 a variety of Gothic that survived in the Crimea into the eighteenth century, from which roughly a hundred entries were recorded but handed down in poor shape.

1.3 North Germanic

The main representative of North Germanic is Old Norse (ON) and its derivative Old Icelandic (OIce). Since Iceland was settled from Norway [c.874], there are few archaic differences between Icelandic and Norwegian.2 The most extensive literary texts are from Iceland, e.g. Skaldic poetry and Edda poems from the Viking age [c9]. Some sagas date to c10, but the earliest manuscripts from Norway and Iceland date to c.1150 (1250 in Denmark and Sweden). The only earlier manuscripts [c.1117] are legal texts. For details see Haugen (1976: 185–90), Vikør (2002), and other contributions to Bandle et al. (2002). Following is the Scandinavian family tree (Torp 2002: 19):

Ancient Nordic

West Nordic East Nordic

Icelandic5 Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish

Old Nordic is the term applied to the totality of Medieval North Germanic. Technically, Old Norse is Old West Nordic. North Germanic survives in the modern Scandinavian languages: Icelandic (Ice.) and Faroese (Far.) in the west, Danish (Dan.), Swedish (Sw.), and (originally West Norse) Norwegian (Norw.) in the east.3 Vikings also secured Normandy in 911 and infused

2 Since most of the manuscripts are from Iceland, some scholars prefer Old Icelandic. We will refer to non-specific or reconstructed Old West Scandinavian as Old Norse, in contrast to attested forms in Old Icelandic, sometimes given in parentheses after a designation Old Norse.

3 At the time of the Viking conquests, there were few linguistic differences between East and West Norse / Nordic. Suffice it to mention here that when differences existed, they support the (extralinguistic) evidence that northeast England was settled primarily by Danes and northwest by Norwegians. 4 Germanic as a Family their adopted dialect of Norman (cf. OIce Norðmenn ‘Norsemen’) French with North Germanic elements. One of the best-known recent borrowings from Icelandic is geyser (Ice. Geysir ‘gusher’ [*ǵheu- ‘pour’], the name of a hot spring, an old word but not mentioned by early writers). While Vīking/Wīcing [EGloss 598+] was used in Old English mostly in the sense of ‘pirate’ (Fell 1986), viking does not reappear until 1807 in the Icelandic form vikingr, first fully anglicized by Longfellow in 1840 (Fell 1987).

1.4 West Germanic

West Germanic comprises lowland (Ingvaeonic) and highland dialects, with consonant distinctions since c1 BCE (Vennemann 1994). 1. The continental group. The highland area is represented by Old High German (OHG) with copious texts in many different dialects [c.750–1050]. The Ludwigslied [882] is in Rhine Franconian (Brosman 1999: 11) from the Weser-Rhine branch (Istvaeonic). From Elbe German (Herminonic), there are religious texts [c8/9] in Alemannic and Bavarian, and Notker from St. Gall [c10/11]. The traditional Hildebrandslied [c8] is in upper German mixed with Old Saxon (OS). Ingvaeonic includes Old Saxon, Old Low Franconian, Dutch (Du.), Old Frisian (OFris), whose oldest records are legal documents [802+; mss. c13–17] (Markey 1981: 16–45), and Old English. 2. Old English (OE), less correctly Anglo-Saxon, is known primarily from literature [c.700–1100]. There are also some sixty-five runic inscriptions (none in West Saxon: Fisiak 1990: 109ff.), the oldest of which [c.400] is on a deer’s ankle bone from Caistor-by-Norwich (Page 1999: 18f.): raihan (or raæhan §5.2) ‘roe(-deer)(’s)’ > OE rā(ha) ROE. There are also 158 inscriptions of diverse dates, mostly from the north. Old English was traditionally divided into three main dialects: (West) Saxon, Kentish (texts c.800–1000), and Anglian, itself subdivided into Northumbrian (texts since c10) and Mercian, with scanty texts since c.750. This political abstraction has little relevance to the bulk of the texts with ‘mixed’ dialect features (Ångström 1937: 23ff.; Hogg 1992: 4ff.; Kitson 1995). Kitson concludes (p. 100) that (i) territories of Anglo-Saxon Germanic as a Family 5 expansion were settled by peoples from other areas, (ii) the southeast had more in common with Anglian than with West Saxon, and (iii) Thames Valley Saxon was the most innovative dialect. 3. Middle English (ME) [c.1100–1450] is arbitrarily said to start with the Norman conquest [1066], but it is difficult to make fine linguistic decisions as to when Old English ends and Middle English begins (see Malone 1930; Fisiak 1994; Lutz 2002). Lass (2000) reviews the problem of periodization and concludes that, on the basis of ten diagnostics, Middle English probably was a real entity, and the earliest text that qualifies for Middle English status is the Peterborough Chronicle [c.1080–1154]. Another very early text in Middle English is the 183-line prose homily Sermo in Festis Sanctae Mariae Virginis [c.1108–15] (Magoun 1937). Modern English (MnE) conventionally begins c.1500.

1.5 Characteristics of the Germanic family

Following is a short list of innovations that characterize the Germanic languages and set them apart as a family from their Indo-European ancestor language as well as from their sister languages Latin, Greek, etc. (Meillet 1949; Harbert 2007: 6f.):

1. The fixing of the accent on the root or first syllable of the word. 2. A sound shift known as Grimm’s Law (e.g. PIE *p, t, k > PGmc. *f, þ, χ/h). 3. The grammaticalization of one type of verbal noun as infinitives and several verbal adjectives as participles. 4. Retention of the PIE temporal opposition between past and non-past, with subsequent development of periphrastic formations to express passive voice in the past, a perfective system, and futurity (limitedly in Gothic: Coleman 1996). 5. Creation of a class of so-called weak verbs (originally denominals and other formations with no past tense forms) with a dental preterit (-ed type). 6. Extension of the Indo-European apophonic system (vowel gradation / ablaut) to signal tense contrasts in the so-called strong verbs (type sing – sang – sung), some of which were inherited from Indo-European. 6 Germanic as a Family

7. Reduction of the late Indo-European mood system by conflation of the subjunctive and optative into a single non-indicative mood. 8. Gradual elimination of the Indo-European mediopassive inflections (vestigial everywhere but Gothic) in favor of periphrastic passives. 9. Innovation of so-called strong vs. weak adjectives. 10. Grammaticalization of demonstratives as definite articles (possibly post-Gothic). 11. Reduction of the Indo-European case system to four core cases: nominative (subject), genitive (possessor; NP satellite), dative (indirect object), accusative (default direct object), with residual survival of the instrumental and ablative. 12. Extension of the Indo-European n-stems to a productive class of weak nouns. 13. Development of relative pronouns built on demonstratives and (secondarily) interrogative pronouns. 14. Innovation of a class of preterit-presents, i.e. past tense forms with a non-past meaning, like wait ‘know(s)’ and the modal auxiliaries (may, can, etc.). 15. Introduction of verb-second (V-2) word order, rare in Gothic and more rigid / grammaticalized in some Germanic languages than others.

Some of the differences between Gothic and the rest of Germanic are due to the fact that Gothic is attested earlier and is therefore more archaic in many respects. But there are also genuine dialectal splits that cannot be predicated on age alone. Some of these differences are outlined at the end of this chapter.

1.6 Syllable and word form

Words consist of feet, which are optimally trochaic, like táble. Feet consist of syllables (ta.ble), which consist of segments arranged according to sonority.4

4 Segments are individual sounds which can be represented in several ways. Language-particular spellings appear in italics, e.g. poof, for which the distinctive (contrastive, phonemic) segments are p, u, and f, represented in slashes: /puf/. More phonetic detail is implied by braces, viz. [phuf], with predictable initial aspiration indicated. In Ancient Greek, aspirated stops were phonemic, i.e. distinguished words; cf. póros ‘ford’ vs. phóros /phoros/ ‘tribute’. Germanic as a Family 7

Sonority involves the ability of segments to bear tone and occur as syllable nuclei. Vowels with a high first formant frequency, i.e. low vowels, are the most sonorous. Those of lower frequency are less sonorous, high vowels being the lowest in sonority of the vowels. Next come consonantal segments that are most vowel-like (glides, liquids, and nasals), and so on. The sonority hierarchy (SH) thus involves the arrangement of segments in the syllable outward from a nucleus of higher sonority to an onset and / or coda of preferentially lower sonority. The SH has had a long history, documented in Miller (1994) and Blevins (2004: 159ff.). This section reviews some of the predictions of the SH for the form of basic words. Evidence from language play (Miller 2013: §5.5), change (Miller 2010: i. 184–8), experimental data (Kapatsinski 2009), and neurolinguistic research (Buckingham and Christman 2006; 2008) supports a hierarchical structure in which the nucleus and coda constitute an inner constituent, called the RIME / RHYME from its metrical function, as distinct from the onset. Optimally, a syllable consists of a nucleus with an onset but no coda (Prince and Smolensky 2004 [1993]: 105, 111). The onset (which is absent in some languages) and coda (if present) may or may not be complex (Hansson 2008), as in the elaborated illustration in (1).

(1) Syllable structure SYLLABLE

rime/rhyme

onset nucleus coda

obst Nas Liq Gl V Gl Liq Nas Obst stop cont m n l r w y y w r l n m cont stop (kpt) (s) (s) (tpk)

8 Germanic as a Family

V (vowel) must be subdivided into low vowels, mid vowels, and high vowels, i.e. from highest to lower sonority (see Blevins 2004: 159; Kiparsky 2008: 49ff.). Additionally, some phonologists add trills to stops or fricatives, and / or include flaps with glides or between laterals and glides. As shown in (2) and (3), the SH (or whatever underlies it) has consequences for core word formation. The reason for emphasizing basic words is that affixation and reduction processes in some languages can create output exceptions to the SH, which are then subject to repair in change. Since the most frequent crosslinguistic violation of the SH is /s/, possible words in English include strup, splim, stalms, and blarks in addition to the word forms predicted by the SH in (2) and (3).

(2) English monosyllabic words and the SH OBST NAS LIQ GL V GL LIQ NAS OBST stop cont. cont. stop knight OE: k n i χ t MnE: n a y t brand b r æ n d trash t (š) r æ š irons a y r n z

(3) Word structure: [ayrnz] is a possible monosyllabic English word, but there can be no *[arynz], *[arnyz], *[ayrzn], etc.; burn is well-formed, *bunr, *nbik, *taml, are not.

The implication of (3) is that an ideal monosyllabic word in Germanic fits the SH, given the provision that /s/ can begin or end a syllable or word. Exceptions are discussed below. Polysyllabic words, then, have sequences of syllables that obey the SH. Complex onsets as predicted by the SH are found in all of Germanic. A few examples appear in (4).

Germanic as a Family 9

(4) a) str-: Goth. striks ‘stroke’, OE strīcan STRIKE, OHG strīhhan ‘strike’, OIce striúka ‘stroke’ b) gl-: Goth. glitmunjan ‘glisten, gleam’, OIce glitra, ME gliteren GLITTER, MHG glitzern ‘glitter’ c) dr-: Goth. drigkan, OE drincan DRINK, OIce drekka, OHG trinkan ‘drink’ d) dw-: Goth. dwalmon ‘rave’, OE dwolma ‘confusion’, E dwalm ‘swoon’, OHG twalm ‘stupefaction’ e) fl-: Goth. flods, OE flōd FLOOD, OIce flóð, OHG fluot ‘flood’ f) hl-: Goth. hlaifs ‘bread’, OE hlāf LOAF, OIce hleifr ‘loaf’, OHG leip ‘bread, loaf’ g) hn-: Goth. hneipan* ‘droop’, OIce hnípa ‘id.’; for the rest of old Germanic, cf. ‘neck’: OE hnecca, OIce hnakki, OHG hnac(c)h h) kn-: Goth. kniu, OE cnēo(w) KNEE, OIce kné, OHG chniu, kneo ‘knee’ i) þw-: Goth. þwairhs ‘cross, angry’, OE þwerh ‘crooked, cross, perverse’, OHG dwerh ‘id.’, OIce þwert ‘across, athwart’

Permutations not licensed by the SH, e.g. *lg-, *rt-, *lf-, etc., are unattested as onsets. In a syllabifying environment, not adjacent to a vowel, the most sonorous segment in a string syllabifies. Words like irons [ayrnz] with heavy coda can resyllabify. The SH predicts that of the liquid and nasal, both of which are in an environment to syllabify, the liquid will syllabify first, hence disyllabic [ayrnz̥ ]. While each of the Germanic languages differs slightly, they all obey the Sonority Hierarchy in core word structure. The major exception involves one of the types in (3) above. As a result of final-syllable reduction, several early Germanic languages allowed monosyllabics with a consonant-resonant sequence, e.g. Gmc. *akraz > Goth. akrs, OIce akr ‘field’.5 While there is no way to know how many syllables Goth. akrs contained, OIce akr was certainly monosyllabic, but probably with /r/ devoiced, and

5 For /l/, cf. Goth. þwahl ‘washing’, fugls ‘bird’, swumfsl ‘(swimming) pool’. Early final nasals in a syllabifying environment required an anaptyctic vowel; cf. Goth. witum ‘we know’ from earlier *witm (< PIE *wid-mé §§3.10, 4.10). Contrast Goth. bagms ‘tree’, kelikn ‘(watch) tower, loft’, liugn ‘lie’, razn ‘house’, rign ‘rain’. 10 Germanic as a Family therefore of lower sonority. Old English observed a different strategy to repair the SH violation. The /r/ was syllabified and / or acquired an anaptyptic vowel: pre-OE *akr > *[akr]̥ > OE æcer ‘field’ ACRE. Another strategy to repair SH violations is metathesis, e.g. OE setl > seld ‘seat’, botl > bold ‘dwelling’. This was typical of West Mercian (Hogg 1992: 255f.). Counter- trends, such as OE brid > bird etc. beside be(o)rht > briht BRIGHT etc., are often cited as evidence against the SH but wrongly: the discrepancy is due to various regional types of /r/ (Gąsiorowski 2006), which, by that fact alone, occupy different places on the SH. One constraint obeyed by all of the Germanic languages is that onset consonants must occupy different places of articulation. This excludes initial *dl, *tl, *dn, *tn, *bw, *fw (Harbert 2007: 69). Gothic has exceptions like þliuhan ‘flee’ (OHG fliohan, OE flēon FLEE), þlahsjan ‘frighten’, etc., but labiality is preserved in old *-o- grade forms: Goth. flodus ‘flood’, faiflokun ‘bewailed’, etc. (Woodhouse 2000b). Affricates like Germ. pf [pf] do not violate the constraint which applies only to clusters (Harbert, p. 71). An alleged problem for the SH is the presence of initial wr-, wl- in early Germanic (Harbert 2007: 68), as in (5).

(5) a) wr-: Goth. wrikan ‘persecute’, OE wrecan WREAK, OIce reka ‘drive, pursue’, OHG rechan / rehhan ‘press; punish; avenge’ b) wl-: Goth. wlits ‘face; appearance; form’, OS wliti ‘sheen; form’, OE wlite ‘beauty, splendor’, OIce litr ‘color; countenance’

Since all of the older Indo-European languages have wr- (and not *rw-) onsets, this a problem for phonological theory involving the features of /w/, /r/, and /l/ (Miller 1994: 22ff.). Suffice it to say that /w/ behaves more like an obstruent both before /l/, /r/, and in forms like Goth. snaiws ‘snow’, lew ‘opportunism’ (Sturtevant 1940). Nevertheless, the onset sequences were unstable. In most Germanic languages the change of /w/ to /v/ solved the problem, and in many instances the cluster was simplified in the older language, as in the Old Icelandic forms in (5). In English, which alone kept /w/, those sequences disappeared. A word like wrong has a labialized (lip-rounded) /r/, viz. /rwɔŋ/. All Old English words with wl- in the OED online are obsolete or extinct. Germanic as a Family 11

II. Inflectional categories 1: nominal formations

1.7 Form classes

The main inflectional categories in Germanic were nouns (along with adjectives and demonstratives) and verbs, both of which existed in many form classes. Nouns were inflected for gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), number (singular, plural, dual [ignored here]), and case: nominative, vocative (mostly Gothic), accusative, genitive, dative, and residual instrumental. Additionally, the forms differed by stem type. Most common were -i- stems (Runic -gastiz ‘guest’), -u- (Goth. sunus ‘son’), -n- (Goth. tuggo, tuggon- ‘tongue’), -nd- (Goth. nasjands ‘savior’), -r- (Goth. broþar ‘brother’), consonant stems (Goth. baurgs ‘castle, citadel’), and the two largest classes: thematic (-a-) stems (Goth. dags ‘day’), and feminine -ō- stems (Goth. giba ‘gift’). Following are sample paradigms representing the two largest classes in four of the main old Germanic languages.

1.8 Thematic (-a-) stems: ‘day’ (MASC)

Gothic OE OIce OHG SG NOM dags dæʒ dagr tag VOC dag (= NOM) (= NOM) (= NOM) ACC dag dæʒ dag tag GEN dagis dæʒes dags tages DAT daga dæʒe dege tage INST dæʒe tagu

PL NOM dagos dagas dagar taga ACC dagans dagas dag a taga GEN dage daga daga tago DAT dagam dagum dǫgum tagum

Since not all of the forms are actually attested, especially in Gothic, the paradigms are idealized from other words, as in all other paradigms throughout this work. 12 Germanic as a Family

1.9 Feminine -ō- stems: ‘gift’ (FEM)

Gothic OE OIce OHG SG NOM giba ʒiefu skǫr ‘edge’ geba ACC giba ʒiefe skǫr geba GEN gibos ʒiefe skarar geba DAT gibai ʒiefe skǫr gebu

PL NOM gibos ʒiefa, -e skarar gebā ACC gibos ʒiefa, -e skarar gebā GEN gibo ʒiefa, -ena skara gebōno DAT gibom ʒiefum skǫrum gebōm

1.10 The strong adjective

Germanic adjectives were inflected for strong and weak forms in several stem classes in all genders, numbers (dual ignored), and cases. The weak adjective is an -n- stem used primarily in appositional constructions in older Germanic. Strong forms prevailed in most attributive and predicative structures. In the productive -a- stem class many forms resemble the nouns in §1.8 and §1.9, but most of the forms are pronominal (§1.11). Following is the Gothic strong paradigm of -a- stem ‘blind’:

MASC NEUTER FEM SG NOM blinds blind blindata blinda ACC blindana blind blindata blinda GEN blindis blindis blindaizos DAT blindamma blindamma blindai

PL NOM blindai blinda blindos ACC blindans blinda blindos GEN blindaize blindaize blindaizo DAT blindaim blindaim blindaim

Germanic as a Family 13

1.11 The demonstrative

Like the adjective, demonstratives in Germanic were inflected for all three genders, singular, dual (ignored here), and plural. The main demonstrative was *sa, *sō, *þat(a), OE sē, sēo, þæt ‘this, that, the’. Following is the paradigm of Goth. sa, so, þata ‘this, that; the; he, she, it’.

MASC NEUTER FEM SG NOM sa þata so ACC þana þata þo GEN þis þis þizos DAT þamma þamma þizai INST þe

PL NOM þai þo þos ACC þans þo þos GEN þize þize þizo DAT þaim þaim þaim

1.12 The personal pronoun

Personal pronouns in all of Germanic were inflected for singular, plural, and dual (ignored here). Following are the first and second person pronouns (‘I/we’, ‘thou/ye’).

Gothic OE OIce OHG SG NOM ik ic ek ih ACC mik mē, mec mik mih GEN meina mīn mín mīn DAT mis mē mér mir

PL NOM weis wē vér wir ACC uns(is) ūs(ic) oss unsih GEN unsara ūser, ūre vár unsēr DAT uns(is) ūs oss uns

14 Germanic as a Family

Gothic OE OIce OHG SG NOM þu þū þú dū, du ACC þuk þē, þec þik dih GEN þeina þīn þín dīn DAT þus þē þér dir

PL NOM jus ʒē ér ir ACC izwis ē/īow(ic) yðr iuwih GEN izwara ē/īower yð(u)ar iuwēr DAT izwis ē/īow yðr iu

III. Inflectional categories 2: the verb

1.13 Form classes

Verbs in Germanic were inflected for person (first, second, third), number (singular, plural, and dual), tense (nonpast, past / preterit), voice (inherited mediopassive confined to Gothic), and mood: indicative and subjunctive (e.g. Harbert 2007: 278ff.) or optative (traditional and this work), with separate present and preterit paradigms. Verbs followed two main classes, thematic and athematic. There was also a class of preterit-presents, or verbs with a preterit form and present tense meaning. Germanic verbs were classified as strong or weak. The strong verbs (ablauting type sing, sang, sung) had seven form classes. The weak verbs (those with dental preterit, Eng. -ed) had four (or five) form classes determined by their stem formation. Following are the four main Gothic types: 1 (-j-) nasjan (3SG nasjiþ) ‘save’, 2 (-ō-) salbon (3SG salboþ) ‘anoint’, 3 (-ai-) haban (3SG habaiþ) ‘have, hold’, 4 (-nō-) fullnan (1SG PRET fullnoda) ‘be(come) full / filled’. To these is sometimes added 5 (-C-) þagkjan ‘ponder’ based on the preterit, e.g. 1SG þāhta.

1.14 Strong verb classes

Strong verbs are cited by four principal parts (the forms from which all other forms can be predicted): present infinitive, past 1SG, past 1PL, and the past (passive) participle. Germanic as a Family 15

Class 1 Goth. steigan staig stigum stigans ‘ascend’ OE stīgan stāg stigon stigen OIce stíga steig stigum stiginn OHG stīgan steig stigum gi-stigan

Class 2 Goth. -biudan -bauþ -budum -budans ‘command’ OE bēodan bēad budon boden ‘proclaim’ OIce bjóða bauð buðum boðinn ‘offer’ OHG biotan bōt butum gi-botan ‘offer’

Class 3 Goth. bindan band bundum bundans ‘bind’ OE bindan band bundon bunden OIce binda batt bundum bundinn OHG bintan bant buntum gi-buntan

Class 4 Goth. bairan bar berum baurans ‘bear’ OE beran bær bǣron boren OIce bera bar bárum borinn OHG beran bar bārum gi-boran

Class 5 Goth. giban gab gebum gibans ‘give’ OE ʒiefan ʒeaf ʒēafon ʒiefen OIce gefa gaf gáfum gefinn OHG geban gab gābum gi-geban

Class 6 Goth. faran for forum farans ‘travel’ OE faran fōr fōron faren OIce fara fór fórum farinn OHG faran fuor fuorum gi-faran

Class 7 Goth. letan lai-lot lai-lotum letans ‘let’ OE lǣtan lēt lēton lǣten OIce láta lét létum látinn OHG lāʒ(ʒ)an liaʒ liaʒum gi-lāʒan

16 Germanic as a Family

1.15 The thematic verb

The thematic verb in Germanic was a form class with a stem vowel (between the root and the endings) characterized by an alternation between -a- and -e- (-i-). Following is the conjugation of ‘bear, bring, carry’ in the four main languages.

Gothic OE OIce OHG SG 1 baira b(e)oru ber biru 2 bairis bires berr biris 3 bairiþ bir(i/e)ð berr birit

PL 1 bairam beraþ berum berumēs 2 bairiþ beraþ bereþ beret 3 bairand beraþ bera berant

1.16 The athematic verb

The athematic verb was characterized by a different set of endings attached directly to the root. Following is the paradigm of ‘be’, perhaps the most important athematic verb in Germanic.

Gothic OE OIce OHG SG 1 im eom, am em (bim) 2 is eart est (bist) 3 ist is es ist

PL 1 sijum sind(on) erum (birum) 2 sijuþ sind(on) eruð (birut) 3 sind sind(on) eru sint

West Germanic had an alternate paradigm with a different aspectual meaning. For instance, the split between Old English habitual bēo / bīo, bist, bið and actual eom, eart, is, was transferred from Celtic (§4.13). Germanic as a Family 17

1.17 The Germanic preterit

In light of the many different verb classes of strong and weak verbs, the paradigm of both can be illustrated by a member of any class. For the strong verb, class 4 bear is selected.

Gothic OE OIce OHG SG 1 bar bær bar bar 2 bart bære bart bari 3 bar bær bar bar

PL 1 berum bǣron bárum bārum 2 beruþ bǣron báruð bārut 3 berun bǣron báru bārun

The weak preterit can be exemplified by Goth. taujan ‘do, make’, runic *tawjan ‘make’, OIce kǫll- ‘call’, OE, OHG nerian ‘save’.

Gothic Runic OE OIce OHG SG 1 tawida tawido nerede kǫlloða nerita 2 tawides neredes(t) kǫlloðer neritōs 3 tawida tawide nerede kǫlloðe nerita

PL 1 tawidedum neredon kǫlloðum neritum 2 tawideduþ neredon kǫlloðuð neritut 3 tawidedun neredon kǫlloðu neritun

1.18 The preterit-present class

A preterit-present has preterit forms (§1.17) but a present tense meaning. A few important preterit-presents are (Goth.) wait ‘I know’, þarf ‘I need’, ga-dars ‘I dare’, kann ‘I know how’ (cf. Eng. can), skal ‘I owe’ (cf. Eng. shall), mag ‘I can’ (cf. Eng. may), aih ‘I possess’ (Mossé 1956: 141–3). Following is the paradigm of witan ‘know’. 18 Germanic as a Family

Gothic OE OIce OHG SG 1 wait wāt veit weiʒ 2 waist wāst veiz-t weist 3 wait wāt veit weiʒ

PL 1 witum witon vit-um wiʒʒum 2 wituþ witon vit-uð wiʒʒut 3 witun witon vit-u wiʒʒun

IV. Regional isoglosses

1.19 North Sea Germanic isoglosses

This section summarizes some of the interrelationships among the Ingvaeonic dialects in the northwest corner of Germania to the exclusion of North Germanic and Continental West Germanic.6 Devoicing of final continuants, shared with Nordic, is excluded here.

1.19.1. Loss of nasal consonant with compensatory lengthening in the clusters mf, ns, nþ. In Old English, Old Frisian, and Old Saxon, the loss of nasal consonants (only nχ in Germanic) with compensatory lengthening was generalized to the clusters ns, mf, nþ, but in Old Norse there was only a generalization to ns, (mf and nþ underwent the opposite assimilation), as shown by the following contrast with Old High German which keeps all of these clusters.

OE OFris OS OIce OHG GLOSS gōs gōs gās gás gans ‘goose’ ūs ūs ūs oss uns ‘us’ fīf fīf fīf fim(m) finf ‘five’ sīð sīth sīð sinn sind ‘time; journey’ ‘journey’ ‘trip’ ‘way’ ‘time’ ‘direction, way’

6 Discussion of these topics can be found in Adamus (1962), van Coetsem and Kufner (1972), Kufner (1972), Marold and Zimmermann (1995), Nielsen (1989, 1995, 2002a, b), Scardigli (2002b). Germanic as a Family 19

1.19.2. PRES PL -aþ/ð [from 3PL *-anþ > *-āþ > -aþ] and PRET PL -on OE OF OS OHG GLOSS PRES bindað bindath bindað binten bintet bintant ‘bind’ (1–3PL) PRET bundon bundon bundun buntum buntut buntun ‘bound’ (1–3PL)

1.19.3. Loss of final -z/-r on monosyllabic pronouns in contrast to Old Norse and Old High German OE OF OS OIce OHG GLOSS hwā (h)wā hwē/hwie OSw. hvā(r)7 (h)wer ‘who’ (NOM SG) wē wī we/wī vér wir ‘we’ (NOM PL) mē mī me/mī mér mir ‘me’ (DAT SG)

1.19.4. Uniform ACC/DAT SG of 1/2 person pronouns8 OE OF OS OIce OHG GLOSS mē mī me/mī mér ≠ mik mir ≠ mih ‘me’ (DAT, ACC) þē thī thī þér ≠ þik dir ≠ dih ‘you’ (DAT, ACC)

1.19.5. Third person masculine pronoun with h-9

OE OF OS OHG Goth. GLOSS hē hē/hī hē/hī er is ‘he’

7 Since hvā(r) is evidently a blend of *hvā and hverr, it proves nothing about retention of final *r.

8 This is a late innovation because Old English has residual ACC mec, þec, and OS residual mik, thik ‘me, you’.

9 The h- forms go back to IE *ƙe/*ƙo, which means they are a retention rather than an innovation, as are Goth. is, OIce er < *(e)i- (cf. Lat. is ‘this, that; he’). Note also the Gothic neuter hita ‘now’, OIce hitt ‘that’, OE hit ‘it’. These point to different selections from the Indo-European deictic markers that were fixed on a dialect-specific basis in Germanic and the other Indo-European languages. 20 Germanic as a Family

1.20 Germanic dialectal isoglosses: commentary

This section discusses the interconnections among the Germanic dialects which are summarized in the diagram at the end of the chapter. The features are geographically distributed and have very porous boundaries.

1.20.1 Nordic-Gothic correspondences

1) Geminate stop Verschärfung: a geminate glide becomes a long palatal stop (§3.11) that is realized differently in Gothic and Scandinavian:

*twajj-ōn > OHG zweiio, but Goth. twaddje, OIce tveggja ‘of two’

2) The feminine participle has the form *-īn- (as opposed to WGmc. *-jō-), as in the following forms meaning ‘giving’:

Goth. OIce OE NOM gibandei gefande/i ʒiefendu GEN gibandeins gefande/i ʒiefendre

3) A productive inchoative in *-na- (PRET *-nō-) exists only in Gothic and Old Norse (§7.4; Ferraresi 2005: 114ff.; Ringe 2006: 176ff., 259f.), e.g. Goth. (ga)waknan = OIce vakna = OE wæcnan WAKEN (intransitive). Old English had only a handful of -n- verbs. Modern English has many more verbs in -en because of the scandinavianization of England (Miller 2010: ii. 108–19). For example, harden [c.1180] is a Norse-derived verb (cf. OIce harðna ‘to harden’) which replaced HARDV < OE heardian ‘id.’. With whiten [a1300], which replaces WHITEV from OE hwītian ‘id.’, cf. OIce hvítna ‘to become white’.

4) In the preterit 2SG indicative, -t is generalized from the preterit-presents (related to the Indo-European perfect §§4.10, 4.14), e.g. Goth. graipt, OIce greipt ‘you gripped, seized’ beside OHG grifi, OE gripe ‘id.’.

Germanic as a Family 21

5) Beside the interrogative pronoun *χwa- (Goth. ƕas, runic h(u)waz (Eggja), OSw. hvā(r) ‘who’), there is also an extended form *χwar-ja-z in Goth. ƕarjis ‘who, which?’ and OIce hverr ‘who?’ (HGE 198). Since this is matched by Lithuanian kurs̃ ‘who’ (relative) < kur ̃ + jìs, it constitutes an innovation along the Baltic perimeter.

1.20.2 Northwest Germanic

1 1) */ē/ > /ā/, e.g. *seh1-tí-s > Gmc. *sēðiz ‘seed’ > Goth. -seþs (manaseþs ‘mankind’), but OS sād, OHG -sāt, OIce sáð, OE sǣd SEED.

2) Strong verb class 7 preterit in */ē/2: Goth. haihait ‘called’, but OS, OE hēt, OIce hét, OHG hiaz ‘was called’.

3) Rhotacism (*/z/ > /r/): Goth. maiza ‘more’, but OIce meiri, OS, OHG mēro, OE māra MORE. Rhotacism also occurred before consonants, e.g. *χuzðan (Goth. huzd ‘treasure’) > OS hord, OHG hort, OE hord ‘id., HOARD’ (HGE 196; cf. §3.6). In North Germanic, rhotacism is indicated with a special letter Y (transcribed R) from about 500 on (§§5.2, 14.7).10

4) Certain roots are used as noun formatives in word formation, e.g. *-skapi (Gothic has only a noun gaskafts ‘creation’): OIce félag-skap-r ‘fellowship’, OE frēond-scipe FRIENDSHIP.

10 Howell (1991) argues that Germanic /r/ was apical. Although Gothic did not participate in rhotacism, Howell mentions that /z/ assimilated to /r/ even there, e.g. /uz-rinnan/ > urrinnan ‘run out, come up’, but not /l/: us-lauseins ‘release, liberation’. This is consistent with the phonetic study of Catford (2001) who argues that for /z/ to be (re)interpreted as /r/ (i.e. for rhotacism to occur), /r/ had to be an approximant or fricative, i.e. not the more usual trill. 22 Germanic as a Family

1.20.3 West Germanic

One of the main innovations in West Germanic is gemination before j /y/:

*setjan- ‘sit’ > OS sittian, OE sitten, OHG sizzen vs. OIce sitja ‘id.’

This only partially extends to Old Norse where *gj > ggj:

Beside Goth. ligja ‘lie’, cf. OIce liggja, OE licʒan, etc. ‘id.’