NOWELE. North-Western European Language Evolution - Volume 74, Issue 1, 2021

The present paper focuses on the interaction of factors that conditioned analogical developments in Old English nominal paradigms. They include especially the absolute and relative frequency of occurrence, the salience of inflectional exponents, the formal inflectional overlap across paradigms, functional factors, semantics and syllable structure (stem weight). They could work in two opposite directions, namely towards retaining the etymological inflections or they could facilitate the adoption of analogical endings. The significance of individual factors for the reorganisation of nominal paradigms is investigated by employing a statistical analysis (multivariate logistic regression) which allows us to rank them. The analysis demonstrates that the attested inflectional patterns can largely be explained by an interaction of three factors, namely salience and frequency, which can be linked to the cognitive aspects of storage and retrieval of linguistic information, and the overlap of inflectional forms across paradigms, which is a manifestation of analogical pressure in the paradigms.

This paper deals with two runic inscriptions that are highly relevant to language history. 1. The runic sequences on the three Weser rune bones, which date to the first half of the 5th century, are not entirely clear. However, West Germanic (Pre-Old Saxon) linguistic features such as gemination by j (kunni ‘kin, clan’) and loss of -a < *-az (hari ‘army’) are obvious. By far the most interesting linguistic form is the preterite dede ‘did’ that reflects PGmc. *-dai (cf. PNorse talgi-dai ‘carved’ on the Nøvling fibula) as opposed to PGmc. *-dǣ(d) (PNorse -da, OHG -ta etc.). Apparently, we are dealing with two distinct endings, *-dai deriving from an PIE middle in *-(t)ói̯. 2. The legend ska2nomodu (a2 = ᚪ) on a solidus of unknown provenance (ca. 600) renders the dithematic anthroponym Skānɔmōdə̣ (or *Skānɵmōdə̣), presumably the name of the moneyer. It seems that medial o stands for [ɔ] or [ɵ], an allophonic variant of the linking element /a/ before a labial consonant; parallels can be found in Old Germanic naming. Two linguistic features, viz. ā < WGmc. *au and the nominative ending -ə̣ < WGmc. -a < PGmc. *-az, indicate that the language of the inscription is Pre-Old Frisian.

This paper was first read at a runic event held in Eichstätt in 2012 and was subsequently, in a revised and extended form, presented at the symposium on the Early History of the North-Sea Germanic Languages that took place in Odense on 13 March 2018. The paper is highly relevant to the theme of the Odense conference as well as to this special issue of NOWELE in that it deals with the runes and the language of the Undley bracteate, a stray runic find from the late fifth century discovered at Undley in Suffolk in the south-east of England. My presentation will focus on the vocalism of the Undley legend. But the linguistic perspective will be widened considerably, and I shall discuss and criticize in detail some of the major proposals for reading and interpreting this inscription within a North-Sea Germanic and Pre-Old English context.

There are very few place-names with initial Ch- [tʃ-] in Scotland, Northern England and much of the East Midlands. Names that do exist are almost exclusively late formations and usually consist of French rather than Old English place-name elements. This article investigates the reasons why assibilation is either present or absent from specific areas and why. The results lead to a reassessment of several points, including: (1) the phonetic and phonological development of the voiceless velar in Early English in particular environments; (2) the extent to which external influence counteracted palatalization and assibilation in some areas; (3) the disparities between the place-name and dialectal evidence.

Lenition, or postvocalic weakening of obstruents, occurred in several languages in North Sea Germanic. Although the main centers of Germanic lenition lie outside this region, in High German and Danish, systemic lenition took place in Low German, North Frisian, and Dutch. Lenition in northern Low German is completely independent of lenition in High German, but the area does, however, border on Danish, which has the most far reaching of the Germanic lenitions. Lenition in mainland North Frisian is also in an area adjacent to Danish, but it displays a modified and rather unique form. In Dutch, there are only two small isolated areas with systemic lenition, one in Groningish and one in East Flemish. In general, lenition is attributed to the establishment of complementary length and the correlation of syllable cut in accented syllables. There are several convincing arguments to support this claim. Lenition is considered a Germanic trend, which is present only in its nascent form in other areas of West Germanic.

In this paper I investigate the early language contact between North Frisian and Danish. Since we have no direct evidence for this language contact apart from the layer of medieval Danish interferences in Modern North Frisian, the question arises, whether it is possible to say anything about the specific type of language contact that has taken place in the Middle Ages on the basis of the modern language data and with the help of language contact theory. Taking the lead of van Coetsem’s language contact theory, I discuss two phenomena in the (morpho)syntax of Modern North Frisian, the placement of directional particles and the inventory of verbal particles, and argue that they point to a language contact situation in which a considerable number of Danish-speakers shifted to North Frisian.