Kari Ellen Gade was a founding member of the Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages project, an international collaboration which has the goal of editing the entire corpus of medieval Norse-Icelandic skaldic poetry. This essay looks at her editing decisions in the context of previous scholarship for one such poem, the six-stanza Gamanvísur of Haraldur harðráði (c. 1015–1066), a poem that was first published in 1689 with a Latin translation, and which subsequently attracted the attention of such luminaries as Bishop Thomas Percy and Johann Gottried Herder. The first modern translation, also into Latin and by Sveinbjörn Egilsson, appeared in 1831. Kari Gade edited and translated the poem twice in her career. These translations and the textual choices which lie behind them are discussed in the context of the 1831 Latin translation and the Danish translation published in 1912 by Finnur Jónsson in the first volume of his Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning.

This study examines aspects of clause arrangement in 9th and 10th-century skaldic verse with a particular focus on the dróttkvætt poetry of Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld Óttarsson. Despite the usefulness of Reichardt’s (1928) system for classifying patterns in the arrangement of clauses within half-stanzas, there have been relatively few studies of clause arrangement that compare individual skalds or consider changes in general stylistic tendencies over time. Following the empirical approach outlined in Edwards (1983) and revisited in Sundquist (1998), I argue that clause arrangement data from 121 half-stanzas attributed to Hallfreðr are useful in identifying distinctive characteristics of his style and consider how clause arrangement data shed light on issues of dating 9th- and 10th-century dróttkvætt poetry.

On the basis of manuscript distribution alone it is possible to determine that thirty of the poetic stanzas contained in some manuscripts of Njáls saga are late compositions that were added to the saga after it was first committed to parchment. They appear in a circumscribed set of manuscripts: in some they are written in the margin, whereas in others they replace the prose that they often closely resemble. Aside from these added stanzas, Njáls saga contains a relatively limited amount of poetry, and it is apparent that some reviser undertook to remedy such a seeming defect by supplying stanzas at various dramatic moments in the saga narrative. That these added stanzas genuinely are late compositions is confirmed by various linguistic and formal features pointing to their composition ca. 1300, about twenty years after the saga is thought to have been written down. The purpose of this study is to highlight the formal features of verse construction, including alliteration, rhyme, and meter, that point to this conclusion.

This chapter discusses the question of whether Old Norse skaldic poets used verbal echoes of the works of earlier skalds to enhance the meaning of their compositions. Possible examples from both early and late in the history of skaldic poetry are then subject to analysis to determine the circumstances in which literary imitation in skaldic poetry can be identified and is likely to be deliberate.

The short Icelandic narrative work Bergbúa þáttr contains a 12-stanza poem often given the modern title Hallmundarkviða . This poem appears to describe volcanic phenomena from the point of view of a supernatural being that inhabits a cave in the mountains. It is composed in the dróttkvætt meter, which employs formalized internal rhyme and alliteration, and which no other scholar of our generation has been better able to describe and analyze than the late Kari Ellen Gade. In addition to these formal features, the poem repeats the last line of each stanza, and it contains a large amount of repetitions of phonemes and phoneme groups such as nasal consonants. Many of these features do not fall under the extensive native poetic terminology of Old Norse, but can be demonstrated to have been composed for deliberate poetic effect in this poem.

This paper takes as a starting point the approach of Heslop’s study of Glymdrápa in Viking Mediologies (pp. 143–9), where it is demonstrated that both the diction and phonic system of that poem are directed towards representing the noise of battle. In Bergbúa þáttr the impetus is the apparent evocation of volcanic and/or subterranean phenomena — phenomena probably experienced primarily by medieval Icelanders in the form of the sounds and movement of earthquakes and related activity. This paper will survey the techniques used in the poem to build a sonic environment evocative of its subject-matter, as well as other sensory reference points related to the poem’s subject matter and context.

This paper discusses issues surrounding the syllabification of Old Norse for the purposes of metrics. I compare two competing hypotheses, namely the Coda Maximization approach of Gade (1995a) with the Onset Maximization approach of Kristján Árnason (1991) and other recent scholars. In general, these two approaches differ little in the predictions they offer. Where they do differ, there are often other assumptions that come into play and make a direct comparison difficult. Although the OM approach is usually favored in phonology, I show that the CM approach has certain advantages, including its ability to handle internal rhyme. Furthermore, I also point to work in phonology where CM has been proposed to better account for various phenomena in a number of typologically diverse languages.

This paper explores the diction of the poem Vǫluspá, comparing one of its phrases to a similar phrase widely attested in Old English religious poetry. In particular, the Old Norse phrase há timbroðo ‘built high’, which is used in the poem to describe heathen cultic sites, is examined and compared to uses attested in Old Norse, Old High German, and Old English works. Although rare in Old Norse poetry, in Old English sources the phrase commonly describes heaven, and is used to juxtapose its light and glory with the darkness of hell; the phrase is also formulaically associated with the theme of the War in Heaven. When read in the context of these resonances, Vǫluspá’s description of the Æsir’s early works take on a new tone. The paper also explores the possibility that these literary traditions may share overlapping oral and formulaic elements, highlighting the ways that commonly inherited poetic formulas can take on new connotations within new cultural and religious contexts.

This paper combines analysis of meter and syntax with speech act theory to analyze how the poet of Lokasenna effectively uses ljóðaháttr meter to put rhetorically effective insults into the mouth of the titular character. The result is a verbally virtuosic performance in which Loki profoundly damages the reputations of the gods. The paper closely analyzes the different strategies that Loki employs to illustrate how he is effective as a speaker. Because the poem ends with an irregular use of force to put a stop to the flyting, I do not try to answer the question of whether Loki should be considered the victor of this verbal battle, but I do show that he proves his verbal superiority to the Æsir. Thus, the Lokasenna poet is able to use the features of ljóðaháttr to put speech acts into Loki’s mouth that establish his reputation as a wordsmith who will long be remembered.

Direct speech is a vital part of Old Norse sagas and poetry, serving not only to set the scene and provide background information but also to drive and transform the narrative. In Eddic poetry, direct speech and its accompanying quotatives follow consistent patterns, with kvað (from kveða, “to say/claim”) being the most frequently used. In contrast, early skaldic poetry uses kvað sparingly, with few instances of other quotatives. This paper provides an overview of quotatives in Eddic and skaldic poetry, identifying key differences in their frequency, positioning, and narrative roles.

I argue that the lack of quotatives in early skaldic poetry is linked to the constraints of the dróttkvætt meter and the distinct narrative goals of praise poetry. However, in later Christian skaldic poetry, the use of quotatives becomes more frequent, reflecting a shift toward a narrative style resembling Eddic poetry. These findings highlight the interplay between metrical form, narrative strategy, and cultural context in Old Norse poetic traditions.

In 2007, Bo Ralph presented a new interpretation of the stanza in the Rök stone inscription in which the Germanic hero king Theodoric (454–526 AD) had disappeared and an unspecific rikr hin þurmuþi ‘the bold warrior’ had taken his place. More recently, a team of four Swedish scholars (Holmberg et al. 2020) have taken Ralph’s interpretation to a new level, suggesting that the Rök inscription expresses a kind of ninth-century “climate anxiety”. A precondition of this radical re-interpretation is Ralph’s initial detachment of the inscription from the heroic context so central to the traditional interpretations, from Bugge (1878) via Wessén (1958) to Grønvik (2003). Ralph’s interpretation of the Rök stanza does, however, encounter serious problems, both linguistic and metrical. In this article, these problems are addressed, and the traditional interpretation of the Rök stanza, assuming a reference to Theodoric, is re-assessed and further substantiated. Moreover, drawing on evidence from runic inscriptions, Old Norse poetry and the linguistic form of rune-names in early continental sources, the understanding of the stanza’s syntactical structure and metrical form is refined and improved. The assessment of competing readings involves an unsolved problem connected to the verb raiþ , which has been interpreted as both ‘rode’ and ‘ruled’. Its relation to its object strąntu hraiþmarar ‘the shore of the Hræið-sea’ is further explored, and a new interpretation is presented.

The runic monument at Karlevi on Öland (Öl 1) has a fragmentary and garbled Latin inscription on its back side, probably executed by the same person/s responsible for the runic inscription. This article investigates possible analogs for the Latin phrase, suggests how the carvers might have come across it, and investigates its significance for the monument as a whole. It concludes by arguing that the Latin phrase serves a similar apotropaic function to invocations of the god Þórr on other Viking Age runestones.

Der Beitrag gibt eine Übersicht über die Runeninschriften, in denen der Gott Óðinn bzw. Wōdan auftritt, und versucht, daraus die Entwicklung dieser Göttergestalt nachzuzeichnen. Die Runeninschriften stammen aus einem Zeitraum von 400 bis 1400, von der Völkerwanderung bis ins Mittelalter, und sind daher gut geeignet, eine Geschichte dieser Götterfigur abzubilden. Im Zentrum stehen folgende Inschriften: das Schädelfragment von Ribe (725–750), die Bügelfibel von Nordendorf I (560–585), ein Bleiwirtel von Saltfleetby aus England (11./12. Jh.) und zwei Runenhölzchen von Bergen (N B380 um 1185 und N B241 etwa 1375–1400). Mit Hilfe von literarischen Quellen (Liederedda, Snorra Edda, Skaldengedichten und Sagas) wird versucht, diese Inschriften zu deuten, auch wenn es in manchen Fällen nur bei Vermutungen bleiben muss. Dabei ergibt sich folgende Entwicklungslinie: Die vormittelalterlichen Inschriften zeigen Wōdan/Óðinn als eine Götterfigur, die in Triaden auftaucht, d. h. vereint mit zwei weiteren Gottheiten, von denen eine bösartig, bzw. betrügerisch ist, die andere neutral bleibt oder gutartig ist. Wōdan/Óðinn bildet die Mitte. Diese Triaden können auch in später bezeugten Mythen nachgewiesen werden und hängen vermutlich mit der Rolle dieses Gottes in einem kosmologischen Kontext der Weltschöpfung oder in Heilungsriten zusammen. Die Christianisierung des Nordens führt zu einer radikalen Veränderung der dieser Götterfigur. Seine gefährliche und dunkle Seite als Totengott, die es vermutlich auch schon früher gab, tritt in den Vordergrund. Zuletzt erhält er in einem Beschwörungstext aus dem 14. Jh. die Rolle des Teufels.

This paper investigates the etymologies of “candidate” medieval place-names of the historic county of Northumberland which potentially contain Scandinavian lexis. It considers how Scandinavian- derived lexical items, whether in general use or specifically toponymic use, might have entered Northumberland place-names. Tentative distinctions are made between the direct influence of Scandinavian speakers in the Viking Age and indirect influence, where lexis is adopted into late Old English or Middle English from more heavily Scandinavianised areas. For the indirect influence, some possible routeways and contributory factors are suggested. The lateness of the spelling evidence (from twelfth century onwards) and restricted nature of the Scandinavian-derived names make many conclusions tentative, but the varied Scandinavian lexis that emerges is of interest both linguistically and historically.

This article investigates the so-called Primärberührungseffekt, particularly the question of its relationship to Grimm’s Law, as both are spirantizations originating in the earliest period of Germanic. Yet there are differences across the early Germanic languages in the context of Primär­be­rüh­rungs­effekt, i.e. before a coronal, which include the unique pronunciation of <pt> in Old Norse, the sporadic velarization of /ft/ > [xt], /xt/ in West Germanic, and the evidence of loanwords. Based on these reflexes, I will argue that it is to be regarded as separate from Grimm’s Law, and continued to operate later in Germanic. The typological likelihood and predictability of such a sound change arising independently is one I will explore via comparison with notably similar contextual shifts in other branches of early IE (and Finnish), in both development and eventual obsolescence.

It is well known that sound changes differ in their duration. Some changes remain active across multiple periods of development; other changes are relegated to a narrow, discrete time frame. Many relative chronologies in historical phonology do not take these durational differences into account. In this chapter, I examine one such instance. I argue that early i-umlaut in Proto-Germanic was a protracted change. Because this development was active concurrently with other later-occurring sound shifts, some forms in relative chronology are opaque, similar to synchronic examples of counterbleeding or overapplication. Understanding this opacity — and being mindful of it — is crucial for evaluating relative chronology and improving reconstruction efforts.

This paper investigates Gothic productivity via nominalizations of both weak and strong verbs. Productivity is defined as “the possibility to coin new complex words according to the word formation rules of a given language” (Plag 1999: 6). While considering productivity in this light, the current paper studies these nominalizations according to their predictability in terms of form (i.e., reproducibility of word-formations) and whether there are or were cognates in other Germanic languages. Following the two metrics above, the paper finds that Gothic weak verbal abstracts were likely productive forms in comparison to strong verbal abstracts, which were likely unproductive forms.

The phenomenon of rival suffixes in the history of German has received much attention in recent years. Most analyses focus on the semantics and/or functions of a given suffix relative to its competitors. Some scholars have argued that suffixes are monofunctional and mostly static over their history, while others have claimed that suffixes indeed change functions over time. The present contribution investigates the phenomenon of rival suffixes with special attention to -heit and -tuom in the Old High German period. These younger suffixes are analyzed against the older noun-forming suffixes -î, -ida, and -unga. It is shown that an abstract/concrete dichotomy emerges to limit the number of rivals in the language. Based on the type of distinction that emerges or lack thereof, I argue that -heit was partially integrated into the preexisting system, but that -tuom remained unintegrated. The analysis sheds light on how the development of new suffixes affects derivational rivals and raises the question of whether or not their semantic distinctions are stored in the lexicon.

This chapter investigates the strong/weak adjective distribution in Old Icelandic definite DPs. While weak adjectives account for the majority of cases in this environment, we identify four patterns with strong adjectives. We propose a structure for each of these patterns. Overall, existing analyses for Modern Icelandic apply straightforwardly to Old Icelandic.

There are strong pedagogical grounds for the study of Germanic philology and historical linguistics in German(ic) language education. German(ic) programs have long faced a rising tide of challenges. What options do we have to keep Germanic philology and historical linguistics on the rock so they are not swept out to sea? The author reviews North American German language use and trends in German(ic) language enrollment and teaching methods in higher education, then presents examples of linguistics in language teaching, trends in 21st-century teaching for which Germanic philology and (historical) linguistics are well suited, and ideas for transformations to carry them into the next century.

Kari Ellen Gade was a founding member of the Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages project, an international collaboration which has the goal of editing the entire corpus of medieval Norse-Icelandic skaldic poetry. This essay looks at her editing decisions in the context of previous scholarship for one such poem, the six-stanza Gamanvísur of Haraldur harðráði (c. 1015–1066), a poem that was first published in 1689 with a Latin translation, and which subsequently attracted the attention of such luminaries as Bishop Thomas Percy and Johann Gottried Herder. The first modern translation, also into Latin and by Sveinbjörn Egilsson, appeared in 1831. Kari Gade edited and translated the poem twice in her career. These translations and the textual choices which lie behind them are discussed in the context of the 1831 Latin translation and the Danish translation published in 1912 by Finnur Jónsson in the first volume of his Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning.

This study examines aspects of clause arrangement in 9th and 10th-century skaldic verse with a particular focus on the dróttkvætt poetry of Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld Óttarsson. Despite the usefulness of Reichardt’s (1928) system for classifying patterns in the arrangement of clauses within half-stanzas, there have been relatively few studies of clause arrangement that compare individual skalds or consider changes in general stylistic tendencies over time. Following the empirical approach outlined in Edwards (1983) and revisited in Sundquist (1998), I argue that clause arrangement data from 121 half-stanzas attributed to Hallfreðr are useful in identifying distinctive characteristics of his style and consider how clause arrangement data shed light on issues of dating 9th- and 10th-century dróttkvætt poetry.

On the basis of manuscript distribution alone it is possible to determine that thirty of the poetic stanzas contained in some manuscripts of Njáls saga are late compositions that were added to the saga after it was first committed to parchment. They appear in a circumscribed set of manuscripts: in some they are written in the margin, whereas in others they replace the prose that they often closely resemble. Aside from these added stanzas, Njáls saga contains a relatively limited amount of poetry, and it is apparent that some reviser undertook to remedy such a seeming defect by supplying stanzas at various dramatic moments in the saga narrative. That these added stanzas genuinely are late compositions is confirmed by various linguistic and formal features pointing to their composition ca. 1300, about twenty years after the saga is thought to have been written down. The purpose of this study is to highlight the formal features of verse construction, including alliteration, rhyme, and meter, that point to this conclusion.

This chapter discusses the question of whether Old Norse skaldic poets used verbal echoes of the works of earlier skalds to enhance the meaning of their compositions. Possible examples from both early and late in the history of skaldic poetry are then subject to analysis to determine the circumstances in which literary imitation in skaldic poetry can be identified and is likely to be deliberate.

The short Icelandic narrative work Bergbúa þáttr contains a 12-stanza poem often given the modern title Hallmundarkviða . This poem appears to describe volcanic phenomena from the point of view of a supernatural being that inhabits a cave in the mountains. It is composed in the dróttkvætt meter, which employs formalized internal rhyme and alliteration, and which no other scholar of our generation has been better able to describe and analyze than the late Kari Ellen Gade. In addition to these formal features, the poem repeats the last line of each stanza, and it contains a large amount of repetitions of phonemes and phoneme groups such as nasal consonants. Many of these features do not fall under the extensive native poetic terminology of Old Norse, but can be demonstrated to have been composed for deliberate poetic effect in this poem.

This paper takes as a starting point the approach of Heslop’s study of Glymdrápa in Viking Mediologies (pp. 143–9), where it is demonstrated that both the diction and phonic system of that poem are directed towards representing the noise of battle. In Bergbúa þáttr the impetus is the apparent evocation of volcanic and/or subterranean phenomena — phenomena probably experienced primarily by medieval Icelanders in the form of the sounds and movement of earthquakes and related activity. This paper will survey the techniques used in the poem to build a sonic environment evocative of its subject-matter, as well as other sensory reference points related to the poem’s subject matter and context.

This paper discusses issues surrounding the syllabification of Old Norse for the purposes of metrics. I compare two competing hypotheses, namely the Coda Maximization approach of Gade (1995a) with the Onset Maximization approach of Kristján Árnason (1991) and other recent scholars. In general, these two approaches differ little in the predictions they offer. Where they do differ, there are often other assumptions that come into play and make a direct comparison difficult. Although the OM approach is usually favored in phonology, I show that the CM approach has certain advantages, including its ability to handle internal rhyme. Furthermore, I also point to work in phonology where CM has been proposed to better account for various phenomena in a number of typologically diverse languages.

This paper explores the diction of the poem Vǫluspá, comparing one of its phrases to a similar phrase widely attested in Old English religious poetry. In particular, the Old Norse phrase há timbroðo ‘built high’, which is used in the poem to describe heathen cultic sites, is examined and compared to uses attested in Old Norse, Old High German, and Old English works. Although rare in Old Norse poetry, in Old English sources the phrase commonly describes heaven, and is used to juxtapose its light and glory with the darkness of hell; the phrase is also formulaically associated with the theme of the War in Heaven. When read in the context of these resonances, Vǫluspá’s description of the Æsir’s early works take on a new tone. The paper also explores the possibility that these literary traditions may share overlapping oral and formulaic elements, highlighting the ways that commonly inherited poetic formulas can take on new connotations within new cultural and religious contexts.

This paper combines analysis of meter and syntax with speech act theory to analyze how the poet of Lokasenna effectively uses ljóðaháttr meter to put rhetorically effective insults into the mouth of the titular character. The result is a verbally virtuosic performance in which Loki profoundly damages the reputations of the gods. The paper closely analyzes the different strategies that Loki employs to illustrate how he is effective as a speaker. Because the poem ends with an irregular use of force to put a stop to the flyting, I do not try to answer the question of whether Loki should be considered the victor of this verbal battle, but I do show that he proves his verbal superiority to the Æsir. Thus, the Lokasenna poet is able to use the features of ljóðaháttr to put speech acts into Loki’s mouth that establish his reputation as a wordsmith who will long be remembered.

Direct speech is a vital part of Old Norse sagas and poetry, serving not only to set the scene and provide background information but also to drive and transform the narrative. In Eddic poetry, direct speech and its accompanying quotatives follow consistent patterns, with kvað (from kveða, “to say/claim”) being the most frequently used. In contrast, early skaldic poetry uses kvað sparingly, with few instances of other quotatives. This paper provides an overview of quotatives in Eddic and skaldic poetry, identifying key differences in their frequency, positioning, and narrative roles.

I argue that the lack of quotatives in early skaldic poetry is linked to the constraints of the dróttkvætt meter and the distinct narrative goals of praise poetry. However, in later Christian skaldic poetry, the use of quotatives becomes more frequent, reflecting a shift toward a narrative style resembling Eddic poetry. These findings highlight the interplay between metrical form, narrative strategy, and cultural context in Old Norse poetic traditions.

In 2007, Bo Ralph presented a new interpretation of the stanza in the Rök stone inscription in which the Germanic hero king Theodoric (454–526 AD) had disappeared and an unspecific rikr hin þurmuþi ‘the bold warrior’ had taken his place. More recently, a team of four Swedish scholars (Holmberg et al. 2020) have taken Ralph’s interpretation to a new level, suggesting that the Rök inscription expresses a kind of ninth-century “climate anxiety”. A precondition of this radical re-interpretation is Ralph’s initial detachment of the inscription from the heroic context so central to the traditional interpretations, from Bugge (1878) via Wessén (1958) to Grønvik (2003). Ralph’s interpretation of the Rök stanza does, however, encounter serious problems, both linguistic and metrical. In this article, these problems are addressed, and the traditional interpretation of the Rök stanza, assuming a reference to Theodoric, is re-assessed and further substantiated. Moreover, drawing on evidence from runic inscriptions, Old Norse poetry and the linguistic form of rune-names in early continental sources, the understanding of the stanza’s syntactical structure and metrical form is refined and improved. The assessment of competing readings involves an unsolved problem connected to the verb raiþ , which has been interpreted as both ‘rode’ and ‘ruled’. Its relation to its object strąntu hraiþmarar ‘the shore of the Hræið-sea’ is further explored, and a new interpretation is presented.

The runic monument at Karlevi on Öland (Öl 1) has a fragmentary and garbled Latin inscription on its back side, probably executed by the same person/s responsible for the runic inscription. This article investigates possible analogs for the Latin phrase, suggests how the carvers might have come across it, and investigates its significance for the monument as a whole. It concludes by arguing that the Latin phrase serves a similar apotropaic function to invocations of the god Þórr on other Viking Age runestones.

Der Beitrag gibt eine Übersicht über die Runeninschriften, in denen der Gott Óðinn bzw. Wōdan auftritt, und versucht, daraus die Entwicklung dieser Göttergestalt nachzuzeichnen. Die Runeninschriften stammen aus einem Zeitraum von 400 bis 1400, von der Völkerwanderung bis ins Mittelalter, und sind daher gut geeignet, eine Geschichte dieser Götterfigur abzubilden. Im Zentrum stehen folgende Inschriften: das Schädelfragment von Ribe (725–750), die Bügelfibel von Nordendorf I (560–585), ein Bleiwirtel von Saltfleetby aus England (11./12. Jh.) und zwei Runenhölzchen von Bergen (N B380 um 1185 und N B241 etwa 1375–1400). Mit Hilfe von literarischen Quellen (Liederedda, Snorra Edda, Skaldengedichten und Sagas) wird versucht, diese Inschriften zu deuten, auch wenn es in manchen Fällen nur bei Vermutungen bleiben muss. Dabei ergibt sich folgende Entwicklungslinie: Die vormittelalterlichen Inschriften zeigen Wōdan/Óðinn als eine Götterfigur, die in Triaden auftaucht, d. h. vereint mit zwei weiteren Gottheiten, von denen eine bösartig, bzw. betrügerisch ist, die andere neutral bleibt oder gutartig ist. Wōdan/Óðinn bildet die Mitte. Diese Triaden können auch in später bezeugten Mythen nachgewiesen werden und hängen vermutlich mit der Rolle dieses Gottes in einem kosmologischen Kontext der Weltschöpfung oder in Heilungsriten zusammen. Die Christianisierung des Nordens führt zu einer radikalen Veränderung der dieser Götterfigur. Seine gefährliche und dunkle Seite als Totengott, die es vermutlich auch schon früher gab, tritt in den Vordergrund. Zuletzt erhält er in einem Beschwörungstext aus dem 14. Jh. die Rolle des Teufels.

This paper investigates the etymologies of “candidate” medieval place-names of the historic county of Northumberland which potentially contain Scandinavian lexis. It considers how Scandinavian- derived lexical items, whether in general use or specifically toponymic use, might have entered Northumberland place-names. Tentative distinctions are made between the direct influence of Scandinavian speakers in the Viking Age and indirect influence, where lexis is adopted into late Old English or Middle English from more heavily Scandinavianised areas. For the indirect influence, some possible routeways and contributory factors are suggested. The lateness of the spelling evidence (from twelfth century onwards) and restricted nature of the Scandinavian-derived names make many conclusions tentative, but the varied Scandinavian lexis that emerges is of interest both linguistically and historically.

This article investigates the so-called Primärberührungseffekt, particularly the question of its relationship to Grimm’s Law, as both are spirantizations originating in the earliest period of Germanic. Yet there are differences across the early Germanic languages in the context of Primär­be­rüh­rungs­effekt, i.e. before a coronal, which include the unique pronunciation of <pt> in Old Norse, the sporadic velarization of /ft/ > [xt], /xt/ in West Germanic, and the evidence of loanwords. Based on these reflexes, I will argue that it is to be regarded as separate from Grimm’s Law, and continued to operate later in Germanic. The typological likelihood and predictability of such a sound change arising independently is one I will explore via comparison with notably similar contextual shifts in other branches of early IE (and Finnish), in both development and eventual obsolescence.

It is well known that sound changes differ in their duration. Some changes remain active across multiple periods of development; other changes are relegated to a narrow, discrete time frame. Many relative chronologies in historical phonology do not take these durational differences into account. In this chapter, I examine one such instance. I argue that early i-umlaut in Proto-Germanic was a protracted change. Because this development was active concurrently with other later-occurring sound shifts, some forms in relative chronology are opaque, similar to synchronic examples of counterbleeding or overapplication. Understanding this opacity — and being mindful of it — is crucial for evaluating relative chronology and improving reconstruction efforts.

This paper investigates Gothic productivity via nominalizations of both weak and strong verbs. Productivity is defined as “the possibility to coin new complex words according to the word formation rules of a given language” (Plag 1999: 6). While considering productivity in this light, the current paper studies these nominalizations according to their predictability in terms of form (i.e., reproducibility of word-formations) and whether there are or were cognates in other Germanic languages. Following the two metrics above, the paper finds that Gothic weak verbal abstracts were likely productive forms in comparison to strong verbal abstracts, which were likely unproductive forms.

The phenomenon of rival suffixes in the history of German has received much attention in recent years. Most analyses focus on the semantics and/or functions of a given suffix relative to its competitors. Some scholars have argued that suffixes are monofunctional and mostly static over their history, while others have claimed that suffixes indeed change functions over time. The present contribution investigates the phenomenon of rival suffixes with special attention to -heit and -tuom in the Old High German period. These younger suffixes are analyzed against the older noun-forming suffixes -î, -ida, and -unga. It is shown that an abstract/concrete dichotomy emerges to limit the number of rivals in the language. Based on the type of distinction that emerges or lack thereof, I argue that -heit was partially integrated into the preexisting system, but that -tuom remained unintegrated. The analysis sheds light on how the development of new suffixes affects derivational rivals and raises the question of whether or not their semantic distinctions are stored in the lexicon.

This chapter investigates the strong/weak adjective distribution in Old Icelandic definite DPs. While weak adjectives account for the majority of cases in this environment, we identify four patterns with strong adjectives. We propose a structure for each of these patterns. Overall, existing analyses for Modern Icelandic apply straightforwardly to Old Icelandic.

There are strong pedagogical grounds for the study of Germanic philology and historical linguistics in German(ic) language education. German(ic) programs have long faced a rising tide of challenges. What options do we have to keep Germanic philology and historical linguistics on the rock so they are not swept out to sea? The author reviews North American German language use and trends in German(ic) language enrollment and teaching methods in higher education, then presents examples of linguistics in language teaching, trends in 21st-century teaching for which Germanic philology and (historical) linguistics are well suited, and ideas for transformations to carry them into the next century.