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From Indo-European to Continental West Germanic The World Gets Larger The Sanscrit language, whatever by its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists .… Sir William Jones -- Presidential Discourse at the February 2, 1786 meeting of the Asiatic Society Proto-Indo-European Large language family extending from Iceland to Chinese Turkestan PIE Family includes Latin, Greek, Celtic, Sanskrit & Hittite Reconstructed animal names suggest PIE peoples inhabited a temperate, forested region of Eurasia Germanic Tribes Many of them: Goths (Ostro- & Visi-), Teutons, Vandals, Franks, Frisians, Swabians, Langobards, etc. Spoke many dialects descended from a common ancestor: Proto-Germanic What separates Proto-Germanic from PIE? Germanic Features Fixing of the accent on the root or first syllable of a word Grimm’s Law & Verner’s Law (Wright OHG Primer pp. 27-32) [ṛ] , [ḷ], [ṃ] & [ṇ] > [ur], [ul], [um], [un] Ablaut (“Strong” verbs) Dental preterites (“Weak” verbs) Germanic Features Reduction of the PIE case system to four cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative (with residual instrumental and ablative forms) Development of relative pronouns based upon demonstratives Innovation of a class of preterit-presents, i.e. past tense forms with non-past meaning, i.e. Goth. wait ‘know(s)’ and the modal auxiliaries (may, can, etc.) “Strong” vs. “Weak” adjectives Simplified subjunctive, evolution of V2 word order Sound Change Grimm’s Law (The First Germanic Consonant Shift / Die erste germanische Lautverschiebung / de eerste germaanse klankverschuiving) Verner’s Law - a natural process that can lead to phonological split: exercise [ks] stress before C example [gz] stress after C Accent Shift Case Marking Case - Germanic nouns and adjectives inflected based upon gender, number & case Gender = Masculine, Feminine & Neuter Number = Singular & Plural Case = Nominative, Genitive, Accusative & Dative (which also absorbs PIE Instrumental, Locative & some functions of the Ablative) Case Marking Case Nominative = Subjective Genitive = Possessive Accusative = Direct Object Dative = Indirect Object Prepositions often dictate the use of a certain case Case Marking Most case marking has been lost in English, although forms like who/whom, she/her, he/him, they/their etc. show remnants of old case system Modern English & Dutch use word order to show these relationships “The man bites the dog” vs. “The dog bites the man” “De man bijt de hond” vs. “De hond bijt de man” Case Marking Modern German still uses case marking, which allow for more freedom in word order: Der Mann beißt den Hund = Den Hund beißt der Mann — man (nom.) bites dog (acc) Ich gab der alten Frau einen neuen Kühlschrank I (nom) gave the old woman (dat) a new fridge (acc) Since everything is case marked, either of the following are also perfectly grammatical: Der alten Frau gab ich einen neuen Kühlschrank Einen neuen Kühlschrank gab ich der alten Frau Modern Case Marking Modern German marks case by changing the form of the direct or indirect article to indicate the case, gender & number of nouns: Definite Article - “the” Indefinite Article - “a/an” M F N PL M F N PL N der die das die N ein eine ein eine A den die das die A einen eine ein eine G des der des der G eines einer eines einer D dem der dem den D einem einer einem einen Modern Case Marking Correspondingly, adjectives are declined to also agree in gender, case & number: “Strong” Declension “Weak” Declension M F N PL M F N PL N -er -e -es -e N -e -e -e -en A -en -e -es -e A -en -e -e -en G -en -en -en -en G -en -en -en -en D -en -en -en -en D -en -en -en -en Modern Case Marking This leads many students of modern German to wail in frustration with such differences as: das kalte Bier vs. ein kaltes Bier (nom. sg. “weak” vs. “strong” inflection) - Von einem guten, kalten Bier kann man nur träumen (“Of a good, cold beer can one only dream”) Modern Case Marking Modern Dutch has pretty much ditched the whole system, although it had an idiosyncratic way of keeping it partially alive Nouns have one of two “genders” - common (old Masc. & Fem.) and neuter - de vs. het alternate as the definite article, the indefinite article is just een Common nouns take an -e for an adjective ending, neuter nouns take nothing: een oude man = “an old man” een oud bier = “an old beer” Germanic Noun Declension Germanic originally didn’t use articles (or prepositions for the most part), but rather declined nouns. The ending of the nouns marked the gender, case & number. Noun classes existed based upon the stem vowel of the noun (although these often get confusing depending upon whether or not one classifies the noun by its PIE or PGmc stem vowel) Germanic Noun Declension Masc. Gmc. *a-stem (PIE *o-stem) declension Sing. Gothic OE ON OS OHG N dags dæʒ dagr dag tag A dag dæʒ dag dag tag G dagis dæʒes dags dages tages D daga dæʒe dege dage tage Plur. N dagos dagas dagar dagos taga A dagans dagas daga dagos taga G dage daga daga dago tago D dagam dagum dǫgum dagum tagum Germanic Noun Declension Many more noun classes exist (masc. / neut. a- stems, ja-stems, wa-stems, fem. o-stems, jo-stems, i-stems, etc.) See Wright’s OHG Primer pp. 45-55 for exhaustive detail, as well as pp. 55-59 for adjective declensions). Personal, possessive and reflexive pronouns are also declined (Wright’s OHG Primer pp. 64-66) Germanic Verbs Divided into two large groups which then subdivide into smaller groups “Strong” verbs which show Ablaut (i.e. sing - sang - sung) (7 classes) - majority form in Gmc. “Weak” verbs which take a dental preterite (4 classes) - innovation and originally limited in number Note: PGmc system was already breaking down and changing due to various sound changes in the various dialects Strong Verbs (OHG) Class Pattern Inf. Pret. Sg. Pret. Pl. Perf. Gloss 1a -iC stigan steig stigum gistigan climb 1b lihan leh liwum giliwan loan 2a -uC biogan bioug bugum gibogan bend 2b biotan bot butum gibotan offer 3a -r,l,m,nC- bintan bant buntum gibuntan bind 3b sterban starb sturbum gistorban die 4 -r,l,m,n- neman nam namum ginoman take 5 -C- geban gab gabum gigeben give 6 IV w/[a] faran fuor fuorum gifaran ride, travel 7 ** haltan hialt hialtum gihaltan hold lazan liaz liazum gilazan let ** Class VII was originally a reduplication class, but this was lost in all the Germanic languages except Gothic. Gothic Class VII for let : lean, lailot, lailotum, letans Weak Verbs Four classes of weak verbs in Germanic -jan verbs: usually causatives or built either from nouns, adjective or the pret. form of verbs -on verbs: usually demonstratives, i.e. salbe “salve” > salbon “to salve, annoint” -en verbs: usually durative: wonen “to inhabit, occupy”, leben “to live, exist” -non verbs: usually inchoative (indicating starting something, i.e. Got. fullnan “to fill up” - these didn’t make it into WGmc Weak Verbs in OHG Class Inf Pret Perf. Gloss i suochen suohton gisuochit seek ii salbon salbota gesalbot annoint iii haben habeta gihabet have V2 Word Order Modern German and Dutch both still maintain V2 word order in many cases. Relative clauses put all verbs at the very end of the sentence in modern German. Niemand wußte, daß er so spät gekommen war no one knew, that he so late come (perf.) was * Der Mann, mit dem ich gesprochen habe, kommt aus meiner Heimatstadt. the man, with whom I spoken have, come from my home city * many Germanic languages, including modern German and Dutch, still use the verb “to be” with verbs of action - this remains in English in phrases like “Joy to the world, the lord is come” V2 Word Order This process is also found in modern Dutch, although it is less common and limited to certain subordinating conjunctions Ik bleef thuis, omdat ik niet naar de kermis wilde gaan I stayed at home, because I not to the fair wanted to go Mijn vriend heeft mij verteld, dat het een mooie plaats was, en dat we er makkelijk een paar dagen zouden kunnen doorbrengen. My friend had me told, that it a beautiful place was, and that we there easily a few days should be able to spend. The Germanic Family Early Germanic Tribes Scandinavians West Germanic North Sea Germanic (Ingvæons > Frisians, English) Weser-Rhein Group (Istvaeons > Franks) Elbe Group (Irminones > Alamanni, Langobardi, Marcomanni) East Germanic (Goths, Vandals, Burdundians) Continental West Germanic Friesisch = Frisian Niederfränkisch = Low Franconian Altsächsisch = Old Saxon Ostniederdeutsch = Eastern Low German Westfälisch / Ostfälisch = West / East Phallian ----------------------------------------------------- Ripuarisch = Ripuarian Moselfränkisch = Mosel Franconian Rheinfränkisch = Rhein Franconian Ostfränkisch = East Franconian Ostmitteldeutsch = Eastern Middle German Schwäbisch = Swabian Allemannisch = Allemanic Bairisch = Bavarian.
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