Article published In:
NOWELEVol. 72:1 (2019) ► pp.11–41
Conditional sentences in the Old East Frisian Brokmonna
Bref
This paper offers a descriptive account of conditional sentences
in the Brokmonna Bref (Brookmen’s Charter), an
Old East Frisian regional law text of the thirteenth century. The text shows
peculiarities of compositional design, particularly the systematised employment
of verb-initial conditional sentences, attested to a lesser degree in other East
Frisian texts, and which a comparative perspective reveals as sporadic outside
Old Frisian. The descriptive approach provides a suitable opportunity to
revisit, from the syntactic side, questions of phraseological inheritance in the
language of Old Frisian law. In presenting data, this research takes initial
steps towards further study of Old Frisian syntax and its relationship to West
Germanic structures.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Methodological considerations and definitions
- 3.V1 constructions
- 4.
Hwersa constructions
- 5.
Hwasa constructions
- 6.
Ief constructions
- 7.Verb ellipsis
- 8.
Alsa constructions
- 9.Occasional constructions
- 10.Apodosis
- 11.Conclusions
- Notes
-
References
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