The Germanic Dental Preterite - A Morphological and Semantic ExaminationTools Phoenix, Elizabeth (2023) The Germanic Dental Preterite - A Morphological and Semantic Examination. MRes thesis, University of Nottingham.
AbstractThe weak dental preterite is one of the defining features of the Germanic verbal system and is an innovation of the Germanic branch of Proto-Indo-European. This paper aims to examine the likelihood of a Proto-Indo-European construction as the origin of the dental preterite and if any of the relationship between morphology and semantics found in Proto-Indo-European was inherited into the old Germanic languages. This paper follows the periphrastic construction theory and while the reason the imperfective *dhe was utilised remains unclear, this paper will show that as the Germanic languages developed they reached a point where the relationship between form and function became opaque. The weak dental preterite’s function was broadened to be used as a safeguard against further verb system change resulting in the Proto-Indo-European deverbal and denominative verbs no longer being the only weak verbs.
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