Dental past tense

The weak verbs (and the past tense ) of the Germanic languages form the past tense with a so-called dental suffix . This distinguishes them from the strong verbs , which mark the past tense by using stem vowels. The dental preterite is a novelty in the Germanic languages and is already documented in the earliest language levels.

ahd. share : share ta
nhd. share : shared
similar dǣlan : dǣlde
engl. deal : dealt

The origin of the dental preterite is still controversial today, as the juxtaposition of voiceless and voiced variants is not easy to explain.

The origin of the dental suffix

Research disagrees on how to judge the origin and historical development of the weak past tense. There are currently two theories under discussion, both of which are associated with certain inconsistencies. Dental is either attributed to idg. * D ^h or idg. * T , which is reflected in the following two theories.

The Composition Theory (idg. * D ^h )

Most researchers IE. * D ^h presuppose for the dental suffix, put it with the verb wgerm. * dō - in connection that today in nhd. do or engl. to do is still needed. This is a variant of the ablautende verbal root IE. * D ^h eh ₁ - which in many Indo-European languages . Is responsible, for example, in τιθέναι gr <set, place, place>. The composition theory assumes that the Dentalpräteritum of a combination of a noun in the instrumental and a Wurzelaorists fuses into one word. A common explanation sees the genesis in the later 2nd class of weak verbs ( ō -verbs). The following syntagm is often used as an example: Germ. * salƀō ‹ salbe › in the instrumental and the root laorist * dē (þ) ‹provided with ointment›, which are univerged to * salƀōðē (þ) , which in turn corresponds to Got. salbōda ‹I anointed›. From the 2nd class of weak verbs, the grammaticalized dental suffix has spread to the other weak verbs.

This theory has the advantage that similar grammaticalization processes are also visible in other Indo-European languages. The Latin past tense for - bā - for example, goes back to a verb that u. a. in NHG. Suppletivparadigma of his ( am , are ) and <grow> in gr. φύειν exists. Another benefit of composition theory is that it provides an explanation for the double dental suffixes in Gothic . Because in the indicative dual and plural as well as in the entire subjunctive past tense such double forms can be found (e.g. 3rd pl. Ind. Got. Nasidēdun ‹they saved›). These resemble the preterital forms of ahd.tuon and as. Dōn , namely ahd.tātun and as. Dēdun / dādun . If these double forms actually go back to the verb tun , this grammaticalization would explain the loss of the verbs in North and East Germanic. There are no traces of this do- word in Old Norse and Gothic . It was instead through on. gørva and got. taujan ‹tun› replaced. The dental past tense was sometimes associated with t -preterita in other languages.

Composition theory, however, also has some problems to contend with. Because the past tense and some weak verbs that form the past tense without a connecting vowel germ. * - i - (e.g. ahd. Think : dahta ), according to the law, cannot trace the dental suffix back to idg. * D ^h . In these cases germ. * D as a dental suffix would not have triggered any primary contact effect, which would have led to ahd. † dagda . The preteritopresents in particular are older verbs that have partly germ. * T , partly * þ as a dental suffix. Some preterite endings in Gothic (- dēdun ) correspond to the verbal forms of Old Saxon and Old High German ( dēdun / tātun ), but the 1st / 3rd. Sg. Prät. In Gothic auf - da ( eg got. Nasida ‹I saved›) does not correspond to the verbal forms ahd. Teta and as. Deda . In addition, it remains unclear to what extent the plural endings in Gothic match those in the other Germanic languages (got. - dēdun : ahd. - tun , as. - dum , ae. - don , an. - ðu ). Either spontaneous phonological developments or analogical compensatory phenomena in Northwest Germanic are to be expected.

Origin from idg. * T

The second theory traces the dental suffix back to idg. * T , with several sources being discussed here. It is true that Indo-European inflectional endings (e.g. 2nd Sg. Perf. * -T h ₂ e , 3rd Sg. Perf. Med. * - tai or 2nd Sg. Aor. Med. * - th ₁ ēs ) and tense stems brought into play with t , but most attention is paid to the verbal adjective suffix * - to -, which occurs, for example, in the Latin datus ' given' and nātus ' born'. It is likely that such verbal adjectives in Germanic were partly resultative in character. The associated past meaning would accordingly have extended analogously to the resulting verbal paradigm. Just for the preterite this is a less problematic approach, IE there. * D ^h in these cases is not persuasive because it can not explain the loss of voice in dental suffix.

One problem that arises with the * - tó suffix is the position of the accent . According to Verner's law , germ. * Ð follows , which also occurs in certain preteritos (e.g. got. Munda ‹ meinte › or skulda ‹ sollte ›). In most of the past preteritos the voiceless variant appears, but this contradicts the accent position of the past participle. For this reason, the inflected endings mentioned above have been considered, which, while providing a source for the dental suffix, do not offer a convincing motivation to spread it throughout the past tense. In order to solve the dilemma of the accent ratios and the * - tó suffix, the hypothesis was put forward that the accent of the past participle of the past tense has shifted before Verner's law, in contrast to the adjectives of the same name. In Sanskrit , the distinction between participles and adjectives is evidenced by a shift in accents, and comparable tendencies are also visible in Old Norse. Ultimately, the voiceless and voiced variants of the dental suffix cannot be clarified with this either.

Given these prerequisites, a polygenesis of the dental suffix is currently generally advocated, which takes both * d ^h and * t into account. Precisely because there are voiced variants of the preterito presences such as got. Munda and skulda , which probably go back to the * - tó suffix, it is possible that it was associated with the verb ‹tun› in folk etymology.

literature

Austefjord, Anders (1979). On the prehistory of the Germanic strong past tense. In: Indo-European Research 84, 208–215.
Bammesberger, Alfred (1986). The structure of the Germanic verbal system. Heidelberg.
Birkhan, Helmut (1979). Zipf's law, the weak past tense and the Germanic sound shift. Vienna.
Fulk, Robert (2018). A comparative grammar of the early Germanic languages. Amsterdam (Studies in Germanic Linguistics 3).
Heidermanns, Frank (201816). Old High German Grammar I. Berlin.
Hill, E. (2004). The Germanic verb for 'to do' and the exits of the Germanic weak simple past. In: Sprachwissenschaft 29, 257-304.
Meid, Wolfgang (1971). The Germanic praeteritum. Indo-European basics and spread in Germanic. Innsbruck.
Wagner, Heinrich (1961). Celtic t-praeteritum, Slavic root aorist and Germanic weak praeteritum. In: Zeitschrift für Keltische Philologie 28, 1–18.

Individual evidence

^ Heinrich Wagner: Celtic t-praeteritum, Slavic root laorist and Germanic weak praeteritum . In: Journal of Celtic Philology . No. 28 , 1961, pp. 1-18 .

[1] Heinrich Wagner: Celtic t-praeteritum, Slavic root laorist and Germanic weak praeteritum . In: Journal of Celtic Philology . No. 28 , 1961, pp. 1-18 .