West-Germanic

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The paper deals with two Germanic sound changes which are traditionally believed to postdate the disintegration of the Proto-Germanic parent language. The lengthening in several monosyllables, attested in West Germanic languages, is usually believed to be an innovation of this branch. The so-called Gothic breaking is similarly thought of as belonging exclusively to East Germanic. The paper shows that there is evidence suggesting a Proto-Germanic age for parts of both sound changes, in particular for a lengthening in monosyllabic words ending in PGmc *-r and for a lowering of PGmc *i if followed by *r.
Proto-Germanic possessed at least three pronoun-based place adverbs formed with PGmc *-r, cf. Goth ƕar ‘where’ from ƕa- ‘what’, þar ‘there’ from þa- ‘that’ and hēr ‘here’ from hi- ‘this here’. The vocalism of these adverbs did not match that of the corresponding pronouns in two points. First, the vowels of the adverbs were probably long. Second, the close PGmc * (Goth ē, OHG ia) of ‘here’ did not match PGmc *i in the corresponding pronoun. The paper assumes that the long vowels of the place adverbs emerged by a lengthening of etymologically short vowels in monosyllablic words ending in PGmc *-r. The timbre difference between PGmc * in ‘here’ and PGmc *i in the corresponding pronoun for ‘this here’ is accounted for by a lowering of PGmc *i before *r. Both postulated developments must have been operating already in Proto-Germanic times but the lowering must have chronologically preceded the lengthening. The paper introduces the data supporting the assumptions made and discusses the apparent counterevidence.

The article considers the NATURE of the close relationship of English and Frisian. Using runological and linguistic arguments, it concludes that they shared significant isoglosses in the West Germanic dialect continuum, but did not pass through an exclusive common proto-stage in a stemmatic sense. The position of Old Saxon is also considered.

Recent work on verb clusters within Continental West-Germanic has argued in favor
of restrictive theories of cluster orders that only generate a subset of the logically
possible orders in three-verb clusters, explicitly ruling out the 213 order. In this context
it is remarkable that Swiss German features a verb cluster-like construction with an
unmarked 213 order. I will argue that this construction indeed represents a proper
verb cluster and not an instance of the 3rd Construction, which also allows the 213
order. Based on new diagnostics, viz., stranding of VP3 under topicalization of the
governing VP2, short relative clause extraposition and displaced zu, I will show that
verb clusters and Verb Projection Raising differ from the 3rd Construction with respect
to the structural position of the dependent VP: while the dependent VP is contained
within the projection of the governing verb in the former, it occurs outside of the
projection of the governing verb in the latter. Applying the diagnostics to the Swiss
German 213 construction delivers a clear result: the construction patterns with verb
clusters rather than the 3rd Construction. I conclude from this that theories of verb
clusters and unmarked word order more generally must be able to generate all six
logically possible orders, including the 213 order.

In this paper I will provide a new argument for post-syntactic morphology.
e empirical evidence comes from so-called displaced morphology in German, where the non-finite verb form selected by a given governor does not end up on the immediately dependent verb but rather on the last verb of the verb cluster. The placement of the morphology thus depends on linear notions such as adjacency rather than hierarchical relations (c-command, minimality). I will argue that the exponents for non-finite morphology are inserted into separate functional heads which are linearized clause-finally. At a late stage of the PF-derivation, the exponents are associated with their verbal hosts by means of Local Dislocation (Embick & Noyer 2001). As a consequence, the nonfinite morphology always comes last in the verb cluster. Displacement arises once the order in the verb cluster deviates from the strictly descending 321 order. The placement operation is thus always the same, displacement emerges just a side-effect of (partially) ascending verb cluster orders. Restrictions on displacement follow from the selectional requirements of the vocabulary items.

It is argued that the Old High German hapax legomenon urrea ‘tower’ can be interpreted as continuing Proto–Germanic *uz–jō(n)–, a derivation from PGmc. *uz– ‘out (of)’. This would be of some importance because the form shows the sequence <rre> standing for rrj. urrea would be the second example for the retention of the expected outcome of the development Proto–Germanic *–zj– > (with rhotacism) *–rj– > (with West–Germanic consonant gemination) –rrj– in Old High German.

"Root final consonant variation in West Germanic dialects

Among West Germanic nasal infix verbs, some verbs show an alternation of the root final consonant, e.g. MHG swingan stv. 'to swing' ~ MHG swenken wv. 'to sway' and OE slingan stv. 'to crawl' ~ slincan stv. 'to crawl'. For many scholars, the consonant variation remained unclear (cf. KLUGE/SEEBOLD s.v. schwingen, schwenken) or the root final fluctuation of voiced and voiceless stop was simply ascribed to different root extensions (cf. SEEBOLD 1970: 493).
However, the problem can easily be solved by starting directly from the peculiarities of the West Germanic dialects. It is notable, that there is a main difference between the evidence of the High German dialects (OHG, MHG) and the evidence of languages spoken near the North Sea coast, viz. OE and MDu.
In Upper German (UG) dialects, the variant with voiceless stop is constricted to weak jan-verbs only, while in OE and MDu. both variants exhibit strong verbs. This disparity immediately leads us to the explanation of the phenomenon.
Nominal derivations show that in Upper German the West Germanic consonant gemination by *j operated even after a resonant (cf. SIMMLER 1974: 371); the resulting geminates were devoiced afterwards by the High German consonant shift, e.g. PGmc. *hringjon- 'big ring' > PUG *hringgon- > MHG rinke and PGmc. *wulbjō- 'she-wolf' > PUG *wulbbō- > OHG wulpa, MHG wülpe (cf. PAUL 1880: 133). Thus in the Upper German dialects, the West Germanic consonant gemination by *j also operated on 1st class weak verbs derived from strong verbs containing a resonant. This particular Upper German sound change yielded the odd consonant variation between the Modern German weak verb schwenken < PUG *swenggen < PGmc. *swangwjanan (cf. Goth. -swaggwjan) and its strong derivational basis schwingen < PUG *swingan < PGmc. *swingwanan (cf. Goth. swiggwan). The consonant variation between voiced stop of strong verb and voiceless stop of weak verb became productive to a limited extent as is shown by the pair Modern German schlingern 'to fishtail' and schlenkern 'to dangle' which cannot be explained in any other way.

This explanation of the Upper German evidence does not work for the OE and MDu. phenomenon, however. It is a well known fact that Old English and Middle Dutch did not undergo the High German consonant shift which devoiced the voiced geminates after all. Even more striking is the fact that it is mostly strong verbs (not jan-verbs) which exhibit the variants with voiceless stop. That is why the West Germanic consonant gemination by *j cannot be the explanation for the OE and MDu. verbs with root final consonant variants.
Dealing with strong verbs, one might consider that in the 3rd sg. pret. the originally voiced stop became devoiced due to final obstruent devoicing ("Auslautverhärtung") in these dialects (cf. BRUNNER 1965: 179 and MARKEY 1981: 118). That is, the 3rd sg. pret. OE cranc originally belonged to the strong verb cringan and MDu. 3rd sg. pret. clank is the strong preterite with devoiced auslaut belonging to MDu. clinghen. Within time, a new infinitive and secondary present was formed from the strong preterite OE cranc / MDu. clank with analogically conferred voiceless stop, yielding OE crincan and MDu. clinken (besides older OE cringan and MDu. clinghen).

Analogical formula:
3rd sg. pret. OE scranc : inf. pres. OE scrincan
3rd sg. pret. OE cranc : inf. pres. X
X = OE crincan"