LCL 21:A Structural History of the German Language

A Structural History of the German Language

Joseph Voyles & Charles Barrack
University of Washington

This book originated as the result of almost fifty years of teaching the history of the German language dating from the PIE (Proto-Indo-European) of about 3000 BC until the present era. The students were German language learners, native speakers and linguistics students unfamiliar with the language. The book was written with a similar audience in mind.

The book consists of eleven chapters segregated into four major sections. These are Part I. Preliminaries with Chapter 1, an outline of synchronic and diachronic methodology; and Chapter 2, an overview of the major Indo-European language families, of the individual Germanic languages and of the place of PGmc. (Proto-Germanic), NWGmc. (Northwest Germanic), OHG (Old High German), MHG (Middle High German) and NHG (Modern High German) within this constellation.

Part II. Historical Phonology contains Chapter 3 with the phonological changes from PIE into PGmc., Chapter 4 with those from PGmc. into OHG, Chapter 5 with those from OHG into MHG and Chapter 6 with the phonological changes from MHG into NHG.

Part III. Historical Morphology consists of Chapter 7 with the changes in nouns, adjectives, numerals and pronouns from PIE through PGmc, OHG and MHG into NHG; and Chapter 8 with the corresponding changes in verbs.

Part IV. Historical Syntax and Semantics describes in Chapter 9 the changes in derivation and compounding over OHG-MHG-NHG. Chapter 10 describes the salient syntactic changes over the same route; and Chapter 11 describes a number of semantic changes from OHG through MHG and into NHG.

Each chapter contains a final section of exercises based on that chapter. In the key to each chapter are contained the answers to these exercises.

ISBN 9783862885251. LINCOM Coursebooks in Linguistics 21. 434pp. 2014.