31.319, Review: Gothic; Historical Linguistics; Morphology; Syntax: Miller (2018)

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Subject: 31.319, Review: Gothic; Historical Linguistics; Morphology; Syntax: Miller (2018)

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Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 21:49:09
From: Jean-François Mondon [jfmondon at gmail.com]
Subject: The Oxford Gothic Grammar

 
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-2504.html

AUTHOR: D. Gary Miller
TITLE: The Oxford Gothic Grammar
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2018

REVIEWER: Jean-François R. Mondon, Minot State University

SUMMARY

D. Gary Miller’s “The Oxford Gothic Grammar” is an impressive volume which
fills a void in Gothic studies.  Not limiting itself to just morphological
paradigms, the 692-page beautifully published opus dives headfirst into
encompassing every aspect of Gothic studies, far exceeding the traditional
grammars (e.g. Krause 1968, Braune and Ebbinghaus 1981).  To get a sense of
its breadth, a brief synopsis of each of the book’s eleven chapters follows.  

The first chapter, “The Goths and Gothic” (p. 1-20) begins with brief
extra-linguistic information on the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, pinpointing
primarily their geographic location and movements.  This is followed by a
detailed description of the nearly dozen manuscripts and graffiti, including
the Crimean Gothic attestations from the 16th century.  Miller spends ample
time on the important questions of whether Wulfila’s text reflects one
translator or multiple ones, and which version of the Greek or Latin Bible the
translator(s) worked from.  With respect to the former, Miller makes the keen
observation that variations in morphology and syntax are more significant in
answering the question than is lexical variation, which can be stylistic or
influenced by the source language.  The indicators are striking in that they
are often localized to only sections of the Gothic corpus, being wholly
excluded from others.  As an example from the syntax, separation of “du” (to)
from an infinitive as in “du akran bairan” (to bear fruit) is limited to the
Epistles in the Biblical corpus as well as a single attestation in Skeireins. 
Morphologically, “fadrein” (parents) is a defective masculine plural though it
exhibits unique neuter plural forms, such as “fadreina” and “fadreinam”, only
in the Epistles (p. 530).  Such variation and localization in structures
across the Gothic collection leads Miller to conclude that the “corpus
exhibits a range of constructions from fully idiomatic and carefully nuanced
to marginally acceptable, to ungrammatical constructions that are not likely
to belong to one individual’s grammar, and point to a team of translators” (p.
18).  As for which “Vorlage” the translators employed, Miller concludes it was
an early Byzantine version most likely coupled with a pre-Vulgate Latin
version to better aid in coping with difficult passages in the Greek (p 20).

Chapter two, “Alphabet and phonology?” (p. 21-57) delves into the morass of
the origins of some of the more opaque Gothic letters.  Miller comes to the
conclusion that it is reasonably possible that Wulfila was familiar with runes
and “adapted an older runic script to a Greek sequence of symbols…making
additional use of Latin models” (p. 25).  On the phonological side, Miller
outlines the synchronic state of affairs, with digressions into various sound
laws which resulted in the synchronic phonological system.  He seems to have
selected those laws which have either had some currency in debates between
various synchronic theories or whose diachronic details are muddled and whose
clarity has been the holy grail of countless writers, or both.  As an example
of the former, Miller discusses Thurneysen’s Law (TL) which has been a vital
part of recent studies (Suzuki 2018, Bernharðsson 2001).  TL mandates that a
continuant is voiced when immediately preceded by an unstressed vowel which
itself is preceded by a voiceless consonant (e.g. the <b> in “fastubni”
(fasting) where main stress is on the “a”) as well as the reverse as in
“waldufni” (power) with voiceless “f” after unstressed “du” (cf. Collinge
1985: 184)).  Miller succinctly summarizes the proposals, not coming down one
way or the other, but does point out concerns and problematic forms, such as
“diupiþa” (profundity) (p. 32).  Two laws littered with exceptions which
Miller strives to clarify are Breaking (p. 36-9) in which stressed /i/ and /u/
were lowered to [ε] and [ɔ] before r, h, and hw (e.g. “haúrn” (horn) and
“saíhwan” (to see)) respectively, and the Verschärfung (p. 53-7) in which
intervocalic /j/ and /w/ were geminated when the preceding vowel was short and
accented yielding orthographic <ddj> and <ggw> respectively (e.g. “twaddje”
(two) from *twajj-an and “triggws” (faithful, trustworthy) from *treww-u-). 
The former law is difficult for two reasons: it is replete with exceptions
which seemingly fail to have undergone the rule (e.g. “nih” (and not)) and it
has become opaque due to borrowings of the broken vowels in environments where
breaking should never have occurred (e.g. Paítrus (Peter)).  Miller concludes
that Breaking occurred in Pre-Gothic and remained as a synchronic rule which
became increasingly opaque via borrowings (e.g. Paítrus) and words
analogically kept in their pre-breaking form (e.g. “nih” under influence from
“ni” (not)).  As for Verschärfung, a myriad of proposals in which one size
fits all have been proposed, including perhaps most famously a few
laryngeal-based approaches (e.g. *kauh2- yielding *hawwan ‘hew’).  In sifting
through the data and theories, Miller concludes that Verschärfung was never a
unified process but that the geminates stemmed from a variety of sources.  In
terms of the phonetic process which underpins this change, Miller follows
Petersen (2002) in treating the geminate glide as ambisyllabic which led to
the phonetic constriction of the first member of the geminate.

Chapters Three and Four, “The nominal system” (p. 58-101) and “Case functions”
(p. 102-175), as the titles belie, focus on the nominal phrase.  The
discussion in chapter three is primarily geared towards the synchronic system
and is not a presentation of the development of the system from the
Proto-Indo-European or Proto-Germanic predecessor.  This is reasonable since
Krause (1968) does precisely that.  The discussion is thorough and precise yet
clear throughout.  To give a sense of the level of detail, Miller lists the
seven verbs cited by Ferraresi (2005) which take accusative and dative objects
(e.g. ‘ana-biudan’ to give), expands the list, offers textual instances for
each, and dissects several of these examples indicating where manuscripts
differ or where slavish Greek calques are possible.  The same is done for
every combination of argument structure, e.g. verbs taking two accusative
objects or an accusative and a genitive.

Verbs are the focus of Chapter Five (p. 176-231) and prepositions and prefixes
the focus of Chapter Six (p. 232-279).  The latter chapter nicely illustrates
Miller’s competence in descriptive and theoretical matters alike.  On the one
hand he provides an exhaustive discussion of every Gothic preposition, both of
the nuances of their semantics and the cases they control.  On the other hand,
he readily adopts a theoretically informed approach to preposition
incorporation as the left adjunction of the P head to V (p. 270-1).

Chapter Seven, “Compounding” (p. 280-322), and Chapter Eight, “Nominal
derivation” (p. 323-78), are the most rife with Germanic comparisons.  In
outlining the various types of compounds extant in the Gothic corpus, for
instance, Miller time and again compares the presence or absence of comparable
structures in the other Germanic languages.  The Germanic comparisons make for
interesting conclusions, particularly the question of any type of
Gothic-Nordic stage or a North-East Germanic Sprachbund.  He is skeptical of
such groupings due to the paucity, for instance, of *-inga-/ *-unga- in Gothic
⎯ a productive suffix elsewhere in Germanic ⎯ which was present in the
earliest attestations of Germanic as recorded in Greek and Roman sources. 
“Certainly the productivity can be claimed to be a post-Gothic development,
but the total absence of the feminine alternant is difficult to explain if
there was a special North-East Germanic Sprachbund” (p. 378).

Chapter Nine, “Verbal and sentential syntax” (p. 379-468), is a very welcome
chapter which has categorically been missing from previous grammars of Gothic.
 Miller seemingly touches on every topic, from determining the binding domain
of reflexive pronouns (p. 382-92) to isolating the conditions for the
accusative and infinitive (AI) construction.  With respect to the former an
interesting fact is that anaphors in Gothic could occur in a prepositional
phrase (PP) and not refer to a closer binder, but rather to the subject of the
clause; that is, something equivalent to “he appointed twelve to be with
himself.”  With respect to AI, the Gothic structure differed markedly from its
instantiation in both Latin and Greek in that only an active verb could take
the construction (p. 429).

Chapter Ten (p. 469-96) presents a few excerpts from various Gothic texts with
detailed morphological and syntactic notes.  Chapter 11, “Linearization and
typology” (p. 497-521), extends the syntax chapter by pinpointing what can be
determined about the constituent order of Gothic.  It concludes by comparing
Gothic to the rest of Germanic.

The book contains an expansive lexical appendix (p. 523-65) of about one
hundred or so words referenced in the grammar.  Textual examples and
etymological connections both within Germanic and outside of Germanic are
presented.  The book concludes with a list of references (p. 567-641), index
of Gothic words (p. 643-83), index of names and places (p. 684-86), and an
index of subjects (p. 687-92).

EVALUATION

D. Gary Miller leaves no stone unturned in this extensive new tome.  This book
has countless strengths, but two in particular are most notable.  Its
exhaustive 77-page bibliography is a much-needed compilation of what appears
to cover the entirety of Gothic studies since its inception with the
publication of Grimm (1819).  The quantity of the references contain not only
the most up-to-date results from rather lively research areas such as Gothic
syntax and lexical semantics, but each decade going back 150 years is richly
represented.  This impressive quantity of sources, however, is only matched by
their quality.  The citations are not just strictly philological nor do they
just embody traditional historical linguistics, but they represent a breadth
covering the gamut of linguistics, most especially various facets of
theoretical syntax which has yielded quite interesting results since
Eythórssons’s dissertation in 1995.  

The other most notable property of this book is Miller’s discussion of the
innumerable textual examples.  Miller not only fills each section with a
plethora of examples illustrating whichever point is under discussion, but he
gives each excerpt nearly equal shrift in discussing them all.  The result is
that a person, with little to no background in Germanic studies, can still
utilize the volume with much success.

There is little to nothing which does not recommend this book.  An excellent
binding job with no typos, this book has set the new standard for synchronic
grammars of the ancient Indo-European languages.  Germanicists, historical and
theoretical linguists, and curious historians alike, will all profit from this
book.

REFERENCES

Bernharðsson, Haraldur.  2001.  Verner’s Law in Gothic.  Ph.D. dissertation,
Cornell University.

Braune, Wilhelm and Ernst Ebbinghaus.  1981.  Gotische Grammatik.  19th ed. 
Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Collinge, N.E.  1986.  The Laws of Indo-European. John Benjamins:
Philadelphia.

Eythórsson, Thórhallur.  1995.  Verbal syntax in the early Germanic languages.
 Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University.

Ferraresi, Gisella.  2005.  Word Order and Phrase Structure in Gothic. 
Leuven: Peeters.

Grimm, Jacob.  1819.  Deutsche Grammatik: Erster Theil.  Göttingen: Dieterich.

Krause, Wolfgang.  1968.  Handbuch des Gotischen.  3rd ed.  München: Beck.

Petersen, Hjalmar.  2002.  “Verschärfung in Old Norse and Gothic,” Arkiv för
nordisk filologi 117: 5-27.

Suzuki, Seiicht.  2018.  “Aspirated fricatives in Gothic: Verner’s Law,
Thurneysen’s Law, and final devoicing,” (ed. A. Ratkus) “Studies in Gothic.”


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Jean-François Mondon is an Associate Professor of Foreign Languages at Minot
State University. He is the author of a textbook on Classical Armenian, a few
on Latin, and most recently on Middle Welsh. His research interests include
Indo-European linguistics and theoretical morphology.





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