Cover not available
Part of
Walking on the Grammaticalization Path of the Definite Article: Functional Main and Side Roads
Edited by Renata Szczepaniak and Johanna Flick
[Studies in Language Variation 23] 2020
► pp. 97–128

The role of the definite article in the rise of the German Framing Principle

A comparative study of verbal and nominal constructions in the Old High German Muspilli and the Old English Dream of the Rood

This paper develops ideas broached in Ronneberger-Sibold (2010) on the origins of the divergent typological developments of English towards a “classical” analytic S-V-O language, and German into a “framing” language, in which the dominating typologically relevant feature is the framing of different constituents by two elements related to each other, such that the recipient can conclude from the appearance of the first element that the constituent in question will not be complete before the second element appears. This principle was discovered and gradually implemented by German language users in a self-fortifying process from OHG on. To isolate specifically OHG prerequisites for this process, two comparable alliterative poems, one in each language, were analysed with respect to separable verbal complexes, verb position as a marker of sentence type, and the structure of complex noun-phrases. The most radical differences concerned the noun-phrase, and particularly the definite article, whereas the differences in verb position were less pronounced. Therefore, a scenario of the first steps of the typological divergence is outlined in which the OHG definite article plays a decisive role.

Keywords: Muspilli, Dream of the Rood, Ruthwell Crucification Poem, Old High German, Old English, typological divergence of German and English, German Framing Principle, prerequisites for framing, German noun-phrase, definite article
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Research question and material
  • 2.The framing principle in New High German: Survey and general considerations
  • 3.Prerequisites of framing in the Muspilli
    • 3.1The inventory of separable verbal complexes
    • 3.2Verb position
    • 3.3Complex noun phrases
  • 4.Prerequisites of framing in the Dream of the Rood (and the Ruthwell Crucification Poem)
    • 4.1The inventory of separable verbal complexes
    • 4.2Verb position
    • 4.3Complex noun phrases
  • 5.Summary, conclusion and outlook
  • Notes
  • References
  • Online resources
Published online: 8 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.23.04ron
References
Agricola, Erhard
1968 Syntaktische Mehrdeutigkeit (Polysyntaktizität) bei der Analyse des Deutschen und des Englischen [Syntactic ambiguity (polysyntacticity) in the analysis of German and English]. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.Google Scholar
Bammesberger, Alfred
Forthcoming. „The Ruthwell Crucification Poem Revisited.” In Old English Runes Workshop: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Methodology ed. by Gaby Waxenberger, and Kerstin Kazzazi Berlin/New York Walter de Gruyter
Behaghel, Otto
1923 Deutsche Syntax. Eine geschichtliche Darstellung [German syntax. A historical account]. Vol. I, II: Die Wortklassen und Wortformen [The parts of speech and word-forms]. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar
1932 Deutsche Syntax. Eine geschichtliche Darstellung [German syntax. A historical account]. Vol. IV: Wortstellung, Periodenbau [Word-order, period-structure]. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar
Braune, Wilhelm
2004 Althochdeutsche Grammatik I. Laut- und Formenlehre [Old High German Grammar I. Phonology and morphology]. 15th ed., revised by Ingo Reiffenstein. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brunner, Karl
1962 Die englische Sprache. Ihre geschichtliche Entwicklung [The English language. Its historical development]. Vol. 2: Die Flexionsformen und ihre Verwendung [Inflectional forms and their use]. 2nd, rev. ed. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Campbell, Alistair
1959 Old English Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cichosz, Anna
2010 The Influence of Text Type on Word Order of Old Germanic Languages. A Corpus-Based Contrastive Study of Old English and Old High German. Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Dal, Ingerid
1942 “Systemerhaltende Tendenzen in der deutschen Kasusmorphologie [System-preserving tendencies in German case morphology].“ Norsk tidsskrift for sprogvidenskap 12: 199–212.Google Scholar
Davis, Graeme, and Karl A. Bernhardt
2002 Syntax of West Germanic: The Syntax of Old English and Old High German. Göppingen: Kümmerle.Google Scholar
Drach, Erich
1937 Grundgedanken der deutschen Satzlehre [Basic ideas on German syntax]. Frankfurt a. M.: Moritz Diesterweg.Google Scholar
Eroms, Werner
2002 Klammer und K-Frage: Konstanten und Kurzläufer in der deutschen Sprache [Framing and K-Frage: constant factors and short-lived words in the German language] Rede anlässlich der Verleihung des Konrad-Duden-Preises der Stadt Mannheim am 13. März 2002 [Speech delivered on the occasion of the Konrad Duden award of the city of Mannheim, March 13, 2002]. Mannheim: Duden-Verlag.Google Scholar
Fleischer, Jürg (in Zusammenarbeit mit Oliver Schallert
) 2011 Historische Syntax des Deutschen. Eine Einführung [Historical German syntax. An introduction]. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
Flick, Johanna, and Renata Szczepaniak
2018 ”Über die Ordnung der Wörter: Die Struktur der Nominalphrase im althocheutschen Isidor [On the order of words: the structure of the noun phrase in the Old High German Isidor].” In Worte über Wörter. Festschrift zu Ehren von Elke Ronneberger-Sibold [Words about words, A Festschrift in honour of Elke Ronneberger-Sibold], ed. by Kerstin Kazzazi, Karin Luttermann, Sabine Wahl, and Thomas A. Fritz, 99–114. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
Fourquet, Jean
1938 L’ordre des éléments de la phrase en germanique ancien. Etudes de syntaxe de position [The order of elements in the Early Germanic sentence. Studies in positional syntax]. Paris: Les belles lettres.Google Scholar
Froschauer, Regine
2003 Genus im Althochdeutschen. Eine funktionale Analyse des Mehrfachgenus althochdeutscher Substantive [Gender in Old High German. A functional analysis of the multiple gender of Old High German nouns]. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar
Gallée, Johan H.
1993 Altsächsische Grammatik [Old Saxon grammar]. 3rd ed., revised by Heinrich Tiefenbach. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gillmann, Melitta
2016 Perfektkonstruktionen mit haben und sein. Eine Korpusuntersuchung im Althochdeutschen, Altsächsischen und Neuhochdeutschen [Constructions of the grammatical perfect with have and be. A corpus study in Old High German, Old Saxon, and New High German]. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harnisch, Rüdiger
1989 “Die sogenannte ‘sogenannte Flexion der Konjunktionen‘. Ein Paradigma aus der Bavarica thuringica [The so-called ‘so-called inflection of the conjunctions‘. A paradigm from the Bavarica thuringica].” In Bayerisch-österreichische Dialektforschung. Würzburger Arbeitstagung 1986 [Bavarian-Austrian dialect studies. Würzburg Workshop 1989], ed. by Regina Frisch, Erwin Koller, Werner Wegstein, and Norbert R. Wolf, 283–290. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann.Google Scholar
Haug, Walter
1977 “Das ‘Muspilli‘ oder über das Glück literaturwissenschaftlicher Verzweiflung [‘Muspilli‘ or the joy of dispair in a literary historian].“ In: Wolfgang Mohr, and Walter Haug: Zweimal “Muspilli“ [Twice on “Muspilli“], 24–78. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, John A.
1985 A Comparative Typology of English and German. Unifying the Contrasts. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
1994 A Performance Theory of Order and Constituency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hill, Eugen
2016 “Keltischer Einfluss in der Flexion des deutschen geschlechtigen Pronomens [Celtic influence in the history of the German gender-sensitive pronoun]?“ In Historische Sprachkontaktforschung [Research on historical language contact], ed. by Claudia Wich-Reif, 1–34. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hinterhölzl, Roland, and Svetlana Petrova
2009 “Introduction.” In Information Structure and Language Change. New Approaches to Word Order Variation in Germanic, ed. by Roland Hinterhölzl, and Svetlana Petrova, 1–13. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hinterhölzl, Roland
2010 “Zur Herausbildung der Satzklammer im Deutschen. Ein Plädoyer für eine informationsstrukturelle Analyse [On the evolvement of the German sentence frame. Making a case for an information-structural analysis].“ In Historische Textgrammatik und historische Syntax des Deutschen. Traditionen, Innovationen, Perspektiven [Historical German text grammar and syntax. Traditions, innovations, and perspectives], ed. by Arne Ziegler, Vol. 1, 121–138. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
König, Werner, Kurt Rein, Eberhard Wagner, and Ludwig Zehetner
1991 Bayerns Mundarten. Dialektproben mit Kommentaren und einer Einführung in die Verbreitung und Verwendung des Dialekts in Bayern [The dialects of Bavaria. Dialect samples with commentaries and an introduction to the geographical distribution and the use of dialect in Bavaria]. München: TR Verlagsunion.Google Scholar
Krahe, Hans
1969 Germanische Sprachwissenschaft [Germanic linguistics]. Vol. II: Formenlehre [Morphology]. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Leiss, Elisabeth
1997 “Genus im Althochdeutschen [Gender in Old High German].“ In Gram-matica ianua artium. Festschrift für Rolf Bergmann zum 60.Geburtstag [Grammar is the gateway to the arts. A festschrift for Rolf Bergmann on the occasion of his 60th birthday], ed. by Elvira Glaser, and Michael Schlaefer, 33–48. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar
Minis, Cola
1966 Handschrift, Form und Sprache des “Muspilli“ [Manuscript, form and language of “Muspilli”]. Berlin: Erich Schmidt.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Bruce
1985 Old English Syntax. Vol. II: Subordination, Independent Elements, and Element Order. Oxford: Clarendon Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson
2012 A Guide to Old English. 8th ed. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Pritchett, Bradley L.
1988 ”Garden Path Phenomena and the Grammatical Basis of Language Processing.“ Language 64: 539–576. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Orrin W.
1997 Clause Subordination and Verb Placement in the Old High German Isidor Translation. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar
Ronneberger-Sibold, Elke
1993 “ ‘Typological Conservatism’ and Framing Constructions in German Morphosyntax.” In Linguistics 1991. Papers from the 10th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, ed. by Jaap van Marle, 295–314. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1997 “Typology and the Diachronic Evolution of German Morphosyntax.” In Linguistic Reconstruction and Typology, ed. by Jacek Fisiak, 313–335. Berlin/New York/ Amsterdam: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2007 “Typologically motivated over- vs. unterspecification of gender in Germanic languages.” Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 60: 205–218.Google Scholar
2010 “Der Numerus – das Genus – die Klammer. Die Entstehung der Nominalklammer im innergermanischen Sprachvergleich [Number MASC., – gender NEUT. – brace FEM.. The origin of the German nominal frame in comparison with other Germanic languages].” In Kontrastive germanistische Linguistik [Contrastive linguistics of the Germanic languages], ed. by Antje Dammel, Sebastian Kürschner, and Damaris Nübling (= Germanistische Linguistik 206–209), 719–748. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.Google Scholar
2018 ”The history of the mixed inflection of German masculine and neuter nouns: Sound shapes, dialectal variation, typology.” In Reorganising Grammatical Variation. Diachronic Studies in the Retention, Redistribution and Refunctionalisation of Linguistic Variants, ed. by Antje Dammel, Matthias Eitelmann, and Mirjam Schmuck, 93–117. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schlachter, Eva
2012 Syntax und Informationsstruktur im Althochdeutschen. Untersuchungen am Beispiel der Isidor-Gruppe [Syntax and information structure in Old High German. Investigations illustrated by the group of Isidor translations]. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar
Schlegel, August-Wilhelm
1818 Observations sur la langue et la littérature provençales [Observations on Provençal language and literature]. Paris: Librairie grecque-latine-allemande. [Reprint Tübingen: Tübinger Arbeiten zur Linguistik 1971.]Google Scholar
Schmeller, Johann A.
(ed.) 1832 Muspilli. Bruchstück einer althochdeutschen alliterierenden Dichtung vom Ende der Welt [Muspilli. A fragment of an Old High German alliterative poem about the end of the world]. München: George Jaquet.Google Scholar
Sonderegger, Stefan
2003 Althochdeutsche Sprache und Literatur [Old High German language and literature]. 3rd ed. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Steinmeyer, Elias
(ed.) 1963 Die kleineren althochdeutschen Sprachdenkmäler [The shorter Old High German literary monuments]. 2nd ed. Berlin/Zürich: Weidmann.Google Scholar
Swanton, Michael
1996 The Dream of the Rood. 3rd ed. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.Google Scholar
Szczepaniak, Renata
2007 Der phonologisch-typologische Wandel des Deutschen von einer Silben- zu einer Wortsprache [The typological change in the phonology of German from a syllable-language towards a word-language]. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 Grammatikalisierung im Deutschen. Eine Einführung [Grammaticalisation in German. An introduction]. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
2016 “Vom Zahlwort eins- zum Indefinitartikel eine(e) – Rekonstruktion des Grammatikalisierungsverlaufs im Alt- und Mittelhochdeutschen [From the numeral eins to the indefinte article eine(e) – reconstruction of the grammaticalisation process in Old and Middle High German].“ In Regularität und Irregularität in Phonologie und Morphologie. Diachron, kontrastiv, typologisch [Regularity and Irregularity in Phonology and Morphology. Diachronical, contrastive, typological], ed. by Andreas Bittner, and Klaus-Michael Köpcke, 247–261. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
TITUS
Thesaurus Indogermanischer Text- und Sprachmaterialien [Thesaurus of Indo-European texts and linguistic materials]. University of Frankfurt.
Waxenberger, Gaby
Forthcoming. A Phonology of Old English Runic Inscriptions (with a Concise Edition). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Wöllstein, Angelika
(ed.) 2016 Duden. Die Grammatik [Duden. The Grammar]. 9th ed. Berlin: Dudenverlag.Google Scholar

Online resources

Schmeller
(1832): [URL]
Muspilli in the TITUS collection
[URL]