1.3. Ways of word-formation

Old Germanic languages depended mostly on their own resources to enlarge vocabulary. In the course of earliest periods of their development their vocabularies grew mainly on the basis of native sources, by means of word-formation. High derivational potential was characteristic of the lexicons of all Germanic languages.

From the earliest stages of evolution Germanic languages employed two main ways of word-formation: derivation and word-composition.

Word-composition performed the most important role in the production of new words in Old English as well as in other Germanic languages. This means of word-formation was a productive way of developing vocabulary of all Indo-European languages but in none of the language groups it became as widespread as in Germanic. Word-composition in all Old Germanic languages was more productive in nominal parts of speech than in verbs.

Affixation including prefixation and suffixation was the second productive among the ways of word-formation. Prefixation was more productive in verbs. The prototypes of most prefixes were in fact independents words (adverbs, prefixes, etc.). The prefix modified the lexical meaning of the word.

Suffixation was also widely used, mainly for forming nouns and ajectives. Some of the suffixes applied for the production of new words were partially inherited from PIE and PG and new suffixes were developed from root-morphemes in Late PG and Old English (OHG, OIcel, OS, etc.).

As additional means of word-formation sound interchanges were used. Ablaut was employed in Old Germanic languages since PIE. Many vowel interchanges arose due to palatal mutation. The use of consonant interchanges in derived words arose due to Verner’s Law, rhotacism, hardening, etc.

Reading material Basic

Жлуктенко Ю.О., Яврська Т.А., op. cit., c.124-135.

Сравнительная грамматика германских языков: Т.1/ Под ред. М.М.Гухман. - М.: Ан СССР, 1962. Additional

Стеблин-Каменский М.И. История скандинавских языков. -М.-Л.: АН СССР, 1953.- С.257-310.

Маковский М.М. Английская этимология. - М.: Высшая школа, 1986.

East Germanic Languages

1. Historical Background

EAST GERMANIC SUBGROUP

Geographic distribution: Eastern Europe

Genetic classification: Indo-European

Germanic

East Germanic

Subdivisions: Gothic

Crimean Gothic

Vandalic

Burgundian

Status: dead languages, mostly extinct by the 8th century, remnants may have lingered into the 17th century

The East Germanic languages are a group of extinct Indo-European languages in the Germanic family. The only East Germanic language of which texts are known is Gothic; other languages that are assumed to be East Germanic include Vandalic, Burgundian, and Crimean Gothic. Crimean Gothic is believed to have survived until the 18th century.

Based on accounts by Jordanes, Procopius, Paul the Deacon and others, linguistic evidence (see Gothic language), placename evidence, and on archaeological evidence, it is believed that the East Germanic tribes, the speakers of the East Germanic languages, migrated from Scandinavia to the area between the Oder and the Vistula rivers, ca 600 BCE – ca 300 BCE. In fact, the Scandinavian influence on Pomerania and northern Poland from period III and onwards was so considerable that this region is sometimes included in the Nordic Bronze Age culture (Dabrowski 1989:73).

There are also archaeological and toponymic evidence that Burgundians originated in the island of Bornholm in Denmark (Old Norse: Borgundarholm).

The East Germanic tribes, related to the North Germanic tribes, had migrated from Scandinavia into the East of Elbe (Vandals, Burgundians, Goths, Rugians and others).^[1]

GOTHIC

Spoken inOium, Dacia, Italy, Gallia Narbonensis, Hispania.

Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from Codex Argenteus, a 6th century copy of a 4th century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable corpus. All others, including Burgundian and Vandalic, are known, if at all, only from proper names that survived in historical accounts.

As a Germanic language, Gothic is a part of the Indo-European language family. It is the Germanic language with the earliest attestation but has no modern descendants. The oldest documents in Gothic date back to the 4th century. The language was in decline by the mid-6th century, due in part to the military defeat of the Goths at the hands of the Franks, the elimination of the Goths in Italy, and geographic isolation. The language survived in the Iberian peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) as late as the 8th century, and Frankish author Walafrid Strabo wrote that it was still spoken in the lower Danube area and in isolated mountain regions in Crimea in the early 9th century (see Crimean Gothic). Gothic-seeming terms found in later (post-9th century) manuscripts may not belong to the same language.

The existence of such early attested corpora makes it a language of considerable interest in comparative linguistics.

Words in Gothic written in this article are transliterated into the Roman alphabet using the system described on the Gothic alphabet page.

Contents [hide] 1 History and evidence 2 Alphabet 3 Sounds 3.1 Vowels 3.2 Consonants 3.2.1 Stops 3.2.2 Fricatives 3.2.3 Nasals and approximants and other phonemes 3.3 Accentuation and Intonation 4 Morphology 4.1 Nouns 4.2 Pronouns 4.3 Verbs 5 Gothic compared to other Germanic languages 5.1 Gothic and Old Norse 6 Examples 7 Notes 8 References 9 See also 10 External links