NW vs. E Gmc

[Herb Stahlke]

On Sat, 22 Jan 2000, Sean Crist wrote:

> I'd like to bring up a few points which were discussed in connection with
> the distinction between NW and E Germanic:

> 1.  Both Marc Pierce and Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen cited *z > r as an
> example of a shared innovation in NWGmc.  It's true that a sound change
> along these lines operated in both WGmc and NGmc, but it can be shown that
> this is a parallel change which operated after the two dialects had
> separated.  The evidence is that there are rules both in WGmc and in NGmc
> which are sensitive to the *z/*r distinction; the merger of the two
> categories must have happened _after_ the two dialects had developed
> separately for a while.

As one only generally familiar with linguistic issues of early Germanic, I'm
puzzled by Sean's clause "after the two dialects had separated".  I've rather
gotten the impression from sources like Orrin Robinson's Old English and its
Closest Relatives and Hans Frede Nielsen's The Germanic Languages: Origins and
Early Dialectal Interrelations that Sean's presupposition is something of an
oversimplification.  Rather, I've gathered, early Germanic, even after the
Gothic migration, had very much the characteristics of a dialect continuum.
Certainly, one can distinguish EGmc as a separate group earlier than N or W,
but N and W don't become clearly distinct branches, rather than extremes on a
continuum, until quite late, perhaps after the continental period.  Or is Sean
simply using a convenient shorthand that I'm being overly critical of?

Herb Stahlke