The grammatical system of Proto-Germanic grammar largely derives from Proto-Indo-European.
Nominals
editSix of the original nine Proto-Indo-European cases were preserved: Nominative, accusative, vocative, dative, genitive, and instrumental.[1] The locative, and ablative cases merged into dative case.[2] In addition, the dual number was lost except in the words "two" and "both".[2]
Nouns
edita-stems
edita-stem nouns mostly descend from PIE o-stem nouns. With rare exceptions, they descend from masculine and neuter nouns.[a]
| *wulfaz ‘wolf’ (masc.) | *juką ‘yoke’ (neut.) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | *wulfaz | *wulfōz, -ōs | *wurdą | wurdō |
| Vocative | *wulf | |||
| Accusative | *wulfą | *wulfanz | ||
| Genitive | *wulfas, -is | *wulfǫ̂ | *wurdas, -is | *wurdǫ̂ |
| Dative | *wulfai | *wulfamaz | *wurdai | *wurdamaz |
| Instrumental | *wulfō | *wulfamiz | *wurdō | *wurdamiz |
In addition, wa- and ja-stem variants existed.[4]
The origins of the /s/ in the masculine/neuter genitives and masculine nominative plural suffixes have been the subject of much debate.
ō-stems
edit| *gebō ‘gift’ (fem.)[5] | ||
|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative-Vocative | *gebō | *gebôz |
| Accusative | *gebǭ | *gebōz |
| Genitive | *gebōz | *gebǫ̂ |
| Dative | *gebōi | *gebōmaz |
| Instrumental | *gebō | *gebōmiz |
Verbs
editSyntax
editReferences
editNotes
editCitations
edit- ^ Ringe 2017, p. 261.
- ^ a b Ringe 2017, p. 196.
- ^ Ringe 2017, p. 221.
- ^ Fulk 2018, p. 150, 153.
- ^ Harðarson 2017, p. 919.
Sources
edit- Ringe, Donald A. (2017). From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic. Linguistic history of English, v. 1 (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-955229-0.
- Fulk, R. D. (2018). A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages. Studies in Germanic Linguistics. Vol. 3. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/sigl.3. ISBN 978-90-272-6313-1. S2CID 165765984.
- Salmons, Joseph (2017). "The evolution of Germanic". In Klein, Jared; Joseph, Brian; Fritz, Matthias (eds.). Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics. Vol. 2. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-054243-1.
- Harðarson, Jón (2017). "The morphology of Germanic". In Klein, Jared; Joseph, Brian; Fritz, Matthias (eds.). Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics. Vol. 2. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-054243-1.
- Lühr, Rosemarie (2017), "56. The syntax of Germanic", Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics, De Gruyter, pp. 954–974, retrieved 2024-10-17
- Jasanoff, Jay H. (2003). Hittite and the Indo-European Verb. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-924905-3.
- Walkden, George (2017). Syntactic reconstruction and Proto-Germanic. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-871229-9.