NOWELE. North-Western European Language Evolution - Current Issue

Abstract

The paper investigates the grammatical means of encoding futurity and modality in Old West Frisian. The analysis, conducted on the archaic text of the Older Skelta Riucht (SkR^a), as attested in Codex Unia (U-SkR^a), aims at characterising the category of future along the dimensions of temporality and modality. The focus of the study remains specifically on the grammatical marker skela. The study investigates its semantics, typical functions that it served, as well as the linguistic contexts in which it was used. The analysis reveals that skela primarily carries its original modal meanings of obligation, but it occasionally explicitly refers to future events in contexts in which typically the simple present tense forms (futurate presents) appear. In a range of such contexts, characteristic traces of the incipient grammaticalization process can be captured.

Abstract

This paper advances a recent line of inquiry investigating how loan verbs are assigned argument structure in the replica language and whether lexical copying may effect changes in argument structure. It delineates how Middle English busken ‘prepare’ (< Old Norse reflexivised búa-sk) is assigned argument structure in the replica language both by copying from the model language and by assignment from near-synonyms in the replica language as a mixed copy. A comparative qualitative corpus study of the structural integration of busken and the diachronic development of its native near-synonyms in Old and Middle English shows how cognacy of linguistic units and structures, and mutual intelligibility between the languages in contact influence the lexical and, more importantly, structural outcomes of contact.

Abstract

The inscription sioag or gaois on the spearhead from Mos is usually understood as Gothic *Gaujis ‘the barker’. There are linguistic difficulties with that interpretation. One can also doubt whether ‘the barker’ really is a suitable name for a weapon. The author suggests that sioag/gaois is an anagram of agiso, corresponding to Old High German agiso ‘fear, terror’. The Gothic counterpart would be *agisa. Thus, there is reason to consider if the language of the inscription is Burgundian, Herulic or West Germanic. There are very few examples of anagrams in older runic inscriptions: lau, lua and aul for alu and Rahswia for haswiaR ‘the grey-haired’. The reason for obscuring *Agisō ‘the terrifying one’ through an anagram could be magical.

This article reviews Nerthusv5. Interface of textual, lexicographical and secondary sources of Old English