LL-L: "Grammar" LOWLANDS-L, 15.JAN.2001 (05) [E]

Tue Jan 16 01:15:12 UTC 2001

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From: Stefan Israel [stefansfeder at yahoo.com]
Subject: Grammar

Criostoir asked:

> Am I correct when I say that Norse had
> no theta or dhelta phonemes?

Old Norse did have those sounds (but as allophones, with the
edh/dhelta pronunciation between vowels/voiced sounds and the
thorn/theta pronunciation elsewhere, with both symbols used
interchangeably).  By the 1200's, theses sounds were fast fading
in mainland Scandinavia, but Iceland has kept them.

Criostoir  also wrote:

> If "senn" enjoys a similar
> position in Zeeuws - with both deriving from
> "selfun"/"zelven" - could we propose that the
> "selfun/zelven" contiguity came about whilst the
> proto-English were still on mainland Europe?

I think it's surely a chance parallel development (or possibly a
later influence- is your town a harbor town i.e. formerly in
frequent contact with Dutch merchants?
If senn were ancient, you'd presumably see it in Old and Middle
English and Old Dutch etc.; to the best of my knowledge you
don't.  And it is a natural contraction that could happen at any
time until the -n ending was totally lost.

> A second curious feature of L.E.E which I know is
> It is peculiar that numerals are
> not affected by this absence, although "seven" is
> "sayun" [se:j:'@N], and "five of us" is "fain on us
> (oss)" [faijN: oN: us] (with the [o] being nasalised).
> Where would "on" for "of" derive from? Is it the same
> [v] + definite suffix causing eclipsis as in "selfun"
> to "senn"?

At a guess-  the v in five may have been lost, and then an -n
was stuck in to bridge the gap/hiatus, the same way some
varieties of English add an -r between two vowels.  I wouldn't
expect a suffix on a numeral-  German rarely adds one; Old
English rarely, and only to specifically mark the case ("mit uns
zweien" etc.).  Does that seem to fit?

John Feather wrote

> But I note that Stefan is also uncertain about how possessives
> with female names were treated.
> BTW, in the case of common nouns there was a tendency in the
> earliest ME for
> feminine nouns to take what was previously a masculine
> genitive ending (thus
> the genitive of "hefne" ("heaven") became "hefness").

!  "heaven" (heofon) had been masculine.  Did it become feminine
later?  But certainly all nouns have eventually taken genitive
-s (even in the plural of words without the -s plural: the mens'
stuff, the hippopotomi's dance).

But back to the his-genitive--  does anyone know to what extent
English had a her-genitive a la "Anna her house" for "Anna's
house"?

On a related note, we get relicts of the old feminine genitive
like "Our Lady Chapel", reflecting the s-less Old English
genitive (which was from Proto-Germanic -z still found in Gothic
and with rhoticism in German ending -er and Icelandic -ar, all
of which goes back to the Proto-Indo-European s-genitive.  So
the world and language change.)

Stefan

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Grammar

Stefan wrote:

> !  "heaven" (heofon) had been masculine.

It still is in Modern Low Saxon (Low German):

de Heven [dEI 'he:v=m] 'the sky'
pronoun: he [hEI] 'he'

Incidentally, in many Low Saxon dialects, _Heven_ means 'sky', and _Himmel_
means 'heaven' (also masculine).  I read somewhere that _Himmel_ began as a
German loan for the Christian concept 'heaven'.  I am not sure if this is
correct, and if it is a loan it could have come from Dutch also.  German,
of course, has _Himmel_ for both 'sky' and 'heaven'.  Dutch, too, I
believe.

(If you want to discuss this further, please do so under "Etymology".)

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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From: Edwin Alexander [edsells at idirect.com]
Subject: LL-L: "Grammar" LOWLANDS-L, 15.JAN.2001 (01) [E]

At 09:11 AM 01/15/01 -0800, John Feather wrote:
> >Well, this would explain why we say "Sally'r hat", for Sally her hat
>[sarcasm]. <
>
>I'm not sure whether the sarcasm is directed at me or to these
grammarians.

Directed at whose ever theory this was.  I find it hard to believe that
anyone who was a serious "grammarian" in the 16th century would have
proposed such a theory, since it is so obviously illogical.  Do you have a
source for this?

>But I note that Stefan is also uncertain about how possessives with female

>names were treated. BTW, in the case of common nouns there was a tendency
>in the earliest ME
>for feminine nouns to take what was previously a masculine genitive ending

>(thus the genitive of "hefne" ("heaven") became "hefness").

But one would have said "Sally her hat" and Not "Sally his hat", so how
could these grammarians supposed that this was a contraction from "his",
instead of the more logical contraction of the "es" genitive ending.

----------

From: Margaret Tarbet [oneko at mindspring.com]
Subject: Grammar

On Sat, 13 Jan 2001 15:40:47 -0800, Stefan wrote:

> What I can't recall is how this was
>applied to women's names:  _Jane's/Janis/Jane his_ or _Jane
>her_.

I'd almost make book that 'Jane her' existed alongside the
convenient contraction John's until the usage 'John his' became the
mark of a rustic.  At which point 'Jane her' also sounded couthless
and got 'normalised' to agree with the new masculine form.

Margaret

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