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Walking on the Grammaticalization Path of the Definite Article: Functional Main and Side Roads
Edited by Renata Szczepaniak and Johanna Flick
[Studies in Language Variation 23] 2020
► pp. 97–128

The role of the definite article in the rise of the German Framing Principle

A comparative study of verbal and nominal constructions in the Old High German Muspilli and the Old English Dream of the Rood

This paper develops ideas broached in Ronneberger-Sibold (2010) on the origins of the divergent typological developments of English towards a “classical” analytic S-V-O language, and German into a “framing” language, in which the dominating typologically relevant feature is the framing of different constituents by two elements related to each other, such that the recipient can conclude from the appearance of the first element that the constituent in question will not be complete before the second element appears. This principle was discovered and gradually implemented by German language users in a self-fortifying process from OHG on. To isolate specifically OHG prerequisites for this process, two comparable alliterative poems, one in each language, were analysed with respect to separable verbal complexes, verb position as a marker of sentence type, and the structure of complex noun-phrases. The most radical differences concerned the noun-phrase, and particularly the definite article, whereas the differences in verb position were less pronounced. Therefore, a scenario of the first steps of the typological divergence is outlined in which the OHG definite article plays a decisive role.
Keywords: Muspilli, Dream of the Rood, Ruthwell Crucification Poem, Old High German, Old English, typological divergence of German and English, German Framing Principle, prerequisites for framing, German noun-phrase, definite article
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Research question and material
  • 2.The framing principle in New High German: Survey and general considerations
  • 3.Prerequisites of framing in the Muspilli
    • 3.1The inventory of separable verbal complexes
    • 3.2Verb position
    • 3.3Complex noun phrases
  • 4.Prerequisites of framing in the Dream of the Rood (and the Ruthwell Crucification Poem)
    • 4.1The inventory of separable verbal complexes
    • 4.2Verb position
    • 4.3Complex noun phrases
  • 5.Summary, conclusion and outlook
  • Notes
  • References
  • Online resources
Published online: 8 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.23.04ron
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