30.3834, Review: Germanic; Historical Linguistics; Linguistic Theories: Fulk (2018)
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LINGUIST List: Vol-30-3834. Thu Oct 10 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 30.3834, Review: Germanic; Historical Linguistics; Linguistic Theories: Fulk (2018)
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Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 11:33:59
From: Matteo Tarsi [matteo.tarsi88 at gmail.com]
Subject: A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/29/29-4341.html
AUTHOR: R.D. Fulk
TITLE: A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages
SERIES TITLE: Studies in Germanic Linguistics 3
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2018
REVIEWER: Matteo Tarsi, University of Iceland
SUMMARY
Fulk’s Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages is a comprehensive
overview of the early Germanic languages and a possibly full bibliographical
guide to the most important studies in the field. Special attention has been
put on providing recent bibliographical information, whenever possible. The
intended audience for this book is mainly students. As the author states in
the preface, there has not been published a comprehensive comparative study of
the early Germanic languages in English since 1939 (p. xiv). Thus, the aim of
the author is that of filling this quite impressive gap in the field.
The book consists of twelve chapters. The first chapter is introductory and it
is dedicated to general aspects of Germanic comparative linguistics such as
the position of Germanic in the Indo-European language family and its internal
tripartite division into North, West and East Germanic. The issue of Northwest
Germanic and Ingvæonic is addressed specifically. The theory embraced by the
author is that of an initial branching of Germanic into Northwest and East
Germanic. In addition, the classification of Germanic languages is also
addressed from a linguistic-historical perspective, i.e. the author provides a
concise account of the historical debate on the classification of the Germanic
languages. This is done also by listing and critically discussing the main
isoglosses between East and North Germanic and by pointing out the fallacies
of the Gotho-Nordic theory. Reference is specifically made to further
discussion of the relevant issues in the subsequent sections of the book.
Central problems in the linguistic, as well as cultural, debate on Germanic
are also briefly presented in the introductory chapter. These include the
substrate influence on Germanic, Germanic loanwords in Finnish and the
provenance of the Goths. The introduction provides the reader with the
necessary foundations of the study of the Germanic languages: the structure of
this branch of Indo-European and the main issues or matters of debate in the
field.
Chapters 2 to 6 are dedicated to the phonology of Germanic. Chapter 2
illustrates the prosodic features of Germanic together with its syllable
structure. This is done with reference to the evolution of Proto-Germanic from
Proto-Indo-European. Chapter 3 addresses the vowel system of Proto-Germanic
and its emergence from Indo-European. Some discussion is offered on specific
issues such as the sources of ē2 or apophony in Germanic. Summary tables of
vowel developments from Proto-Indo-European to the various oldest
Indo-European languages and from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic are
provided at the end of the chapter. Chapter 4 is devoted to changes of
stressed vowels in Germanic. These are presented in a gradual fashion,
according to the classificatory model adopted by the author (PIE > PGmc and
subsequent branching of PGmc into NWGmc and EGmc). The different Germanic
languages are specifically addressed in separate subchapters. Chapter 5 is
concerned with vowel changes in unaccented (or less accented) syllables. The
issue of trimoric vowels is specifically dealt with. Siever’s law is presented
in a separated subchapter. Chapter 6 presents the consonant inventory of
Germanic, its evolution from PIE and relative developments in the single
Germanic languages. The main sound laws of the Germanic consonant inventory,
Grimm’s law and its corollary, Verner’s law, are introduced in separate
subchapters, and so are their chronology and exceptions to Grimm’s law. Other
consonant developments common to Germanic, or only to part of it (e.g. the
Verschärfung), are addressed here. The discussion moves then on to the
exposition of consonant changes and related problems in the single Germanic
languages.
Chapters 7 to 12 are devoted to inflectional morphology. Chapter 7 presents
the morphology of nouns in Germanic, its development from Proto-Indo-European
and its classification in Germanic linguistics. Single subchapters are
usefully dedicated to the discussion of the origin and development of the
different Germanic inflections. Chapter 8 gives an account of pronouns in
Germanic. The chapter is further organized into four parts, each addressing a
different typology of pronoun (personal, anaphoric, demonstrative, other).
Chapter 9 is dedicated to adjectives. The discussion is organized into three
parts (strong declension, weak declension and comparison of adjectives).
Chapter 10 addresses numerals in Germanic, cardinals, ordinals and others
(distributive, multiplicative, etc.). Chapter 11 presents adverbs,
prepositions and conjunctions. The last chapter is devoted to presenting the
Germanic verbal system. The chapter is divided into six parts. Part I presents
the Proto-Indo-European background of the Germanic verb. In this part issues
concerning the development of the verbal system from PIE to PGmc are addressed
(verb categories, aspect, tenses, types of PIE verbal stems, inflectional
endings, middle voice, moods, non-finite verb forms, verb particles). Part II
offers an overview of the restructuring of the PIE verbal system in Germanic.
Part III presents the Germanic strong verb. The discussion is organized in two
sections: A, stem formation, and B, inflection. Part IV is dedicated to the
Germanic weak verb. After a general introduction where the issue of the origin
of the dental suffix is discussed, the four Germanic weak verb classes are
presented in single subchapters. Part V is devoted to preterite present verbs.
Part VI addresses the athematic verbs.A very detailed reference list together
with a useful and detailed index verborum are provided at the end of the book.
Synoptic tables are supplied widely in the book, whenever needed, in
particular for noun, adjective and verb inflection. This makes it easier for
the book to be used as reference. A list of tables is, however, missing and
should be added in a second edition.
EVALUATION
Fulk’s book offers a dense and rather complete exposition of its subject
matter. The structure of the book is solid, logical and easy to understand. It
is in line with the classical way of exposition found in numerous grammars.
The author not only provides the reader with the necessary discussion on the
single topics, but he also enrichens it with extensive reference to relevant
literature, especially when a more detailed discussion was out of the scope of
his work or when reference had to be made specifically to grammars of single
old Germanic languages. In particular, and in accordance with his own words in
the preface, Fulk provides the reader with different extant interpretations of
single phenomena or issues whenever needed, at times favoring one over
another, but never omitting to support his choice. Flaws in Fulk’s account of
and approach to the subject matter are minimal to such an extent that, given
the aim of the book, it is quite useless to point them all out, because they,
in my opinion, do not inficiate the value of the book as a whole and its
usefulness as a research and reference tool. As an example of the flaws
encountered in the book, I can provide the following: in discussing
productivity of class I of strong verbs in Germanic, the author says that it
could accommodate new members well into the West Germanic period. Being this
true, the author quotes the renowned Latin loan scrībere. In a footnote, the
author is of the opinion that English is the source for the verb in the other
West Germanic languages but that is not possible in light of the semantics of
the verb in Old English, which never means ‘to write’. The same applies for ON
skrifa, which the author believes to be an Old English loan into Old Norse.
Moreover, the author, perhaps a bit uncritically, concedes that the issue of
whether the Germanic verb is a loan or a native lexeme is still open to
debate. He cites Orel’s Handbook of Germanic Etymology (s.v. *skrībanan) as
the main source but Orel’s view is impressively outdated, cf. my overview of
the topic in Tarsi 2019. One would of course expect the few typos to be
amended in a second edition, should it appear one day. Of course, the
experienced Indo-Europeanist might find himself sometimes at odds with Fulk’s
approach to Proto-Indo-European, which is of a mainly introductory nature. It
should, however, be borne in mind that Germanic is the main focus of Fulk’s
book. The author’s exposition of the single phenomena in the different old
Germanic languages possibly betrays his own main fields of specialization,
above all Old English.
Fulk’s Comparative Grammar is a fairly up-to-date bibliographical guide and
detailed overview of phonology and inflectional morphology of the old Germanic
languages. As stated in the book, Fulk’s Comparative Grammar is mainly
intended for students. The book could be easily used as a basis for a
comprehensive course on the foundations of comparative Germanic linguistics as
well as on specific topics such as the verbal system. The way the book is
organized makes it also easy to use alongside other, more general or more
specific, handbooks. I have in mind handbooks of comparative Indo-European
linguistics or single Germanic languages. It should also be relatively easy
for the user to compare the notions in Fulk’s handbook with those provided by
other scholars. Apart from the main intended audience for this book, I believe
that researchers will also profit from this reference work, which is freely
available on the publisher’s website as PDF. The choice of publishing such a
work in Open Access is, I believe, very much appreciated in the field in which
John Benjamins has firmly established itself as a first-class publishing
house.
REFERENCES
Orel, Vladimir 2003. A Handbook of Germanic Etymology. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Tarsi, Matteo 2019. Lat. scrībere in Germanic. NOWELE 72(1). 42-59.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
I am a last-year Ph.D student in Icelandic Linguistics at the University of
Iceland, Reykjavík. My research focuses on the interplay between loanwords and
native words in Old and Middle Icelandic. Among my other research interests
are: history of linguistics (especially in the 18th century), etymology,
loanword studies, comparative Germanic linguistics and language planning and
policy studies.
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