The Germanic Dental Preterite - A Morphological and Semantic Examination

The weak dental preterite is one of the defining features of the Germanic verbal system and is an innovation of the Germanic branch of Proto-Indo-European. This paper aims to examine the likelihood of a Proto-Indo-European construction as the origin of the dental preterite and if any of the relation...

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Main Author: Phoenix, Elizabeth
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/73689/
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author Phoenix, Elizabeth
author_facet Phoenix, Elizabeth
author_sort Phoenix, Elizabeth
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description The weak dental preterite is one of the defining features of the Germanic verbal system and is an innovation of the Germanic branch of Proto-Indo-European. This paper aims to examine the likelihood of a Proto-Indo-European construction as the origin of the dental preterite and if any of the relationship between morphology and semantics found in Proto-Indo-European was inherited into the old Germanic languages. This paper follows the periphrastic construction theory and while the reason the imperfective *dhe was utilised remains unclear, this paper will show that as the Germanic languages developed they reached a point where the relationship between form and function became opaque. The weak dental preterite’s function was broadened to be used as a safeguard against further verb system change resulting in the Proto-Indo-European deverbal and denominative verbs no longer being the only weak verbs.
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spelling nottingham-736892023-07-20T10:05:56Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/73689/ The Germanic Dental Preterite - A Morphological and Semantic Examination Phoenix, Elizabeth The weak dental preterite is one of the defining features of the Germanic verbal system and is an innovation of the Germanic branch of Proto-Indo-European. This paper aims to examine the likelihood of a Proto-Indo-European construction as the origin of the dental preterite and if any of the relationship between morphology and semantics found in Proto-Indo-European was inherited into the old Germanic languages. This paper follows the periphrastic construction theory and while the reason the imperfective *dhe was utilised remains unclear, this paper will show that as the Germanic languages developed they reached a point where the relationship between form and function became opaque. The weak dental preterite’s function was broadened to be used as a safeguard against further verb system change resulting in the Proto-Indo-European deverbal and denominative verbs no longer being the only weak verbs. 2023-07-20 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/73689/1/FINAL.pdf Phoenix, Elizabeth (2023) The Germanic Dental Preterite - A Morphological and Semantic Examination. MRes thesis, University of Nottingham. dental preteries weak verbs strong verbs Germanic languages
spellingShingle dental preteries
weak verbs
strong verbs
Germanic languages
Phoenix, Elizabeth
The Germanic Dental Preterite - A Morphological and Semantic Examination
title The Germanic Dental Preterite - A Morphological and Semantic Examination
title_full The Germanic Dental Preterite - A Morphological and Semantic Examination
title_fullStr The Germanic Dental Preterite - A Morphological and Semantic Examination
title_full_unstemmed The Germanic Dental Preterite - A Morphological and Semantic Examination
title_short The Germanic Dental Preterite - A Morphological and Semantic Examination
title_sort germanic dental preterite - a morphological and semantic examination
topic dental preteries
weak verbs
strong verbs
Germanic languages
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/73689/