NW vs E Germanic

[Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2000, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

> What is the basis of this tree in Germanic?

> 	How secure is East Germanic?
> 	Why is it not just an early form of N. Germanic?
> i.e. what are the points that distinguish it?

Gothic is opposed to an innovating group of North and West Germanic in the
following respects:
1. Final /-o:/ yields NWG -u, but Goth. -a.
2. Final /-am(z)/ yields NWG -um, but Goth. -am.
3. Voiced /z/ is not developed in the direction of /r/ in Goth., but is in NWG.
4. The pronoun *ju:z preserves its original vowel in Goth., but is changed
to *ji:z in North and West.
5. Reduplicated ablauting verbs are preserved in Goth., but replace their
interior part by the odd "/e:/2" in North and West.

That spells unity for Norse and West Germanic. However, then there is the
Verschaerfung problem which seemingly combines Norse and Gothic to the
exclusion of West Germanic. On balance I believe one must see this as
secondary disappearance of (at least some) Verschaerfung in West Germ., so
that the events that produced Versch. operated in the common prehistory of
ALL the Germanic we know.

Jens

> 	Is there any merit to the idea that there was a separate branch of
> Germanic including Anglian, Jutish and pre-Frisian, intermediate between N
> & W Germanic, andf that modern English and Frisian are the result of a
> fusion between this and W Lowland Germanic? [...]

I would like to know what linguistic facts that idea is based on.

Jens