We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Old Franconian and Middle Dutch <gh> and Velar Palatalization.
- Authors
van der Hoek, Michel
- Abstract
Our understanding of the relative chronology and linguistic geography of velar palatalization in West Germanic remains limited. A major obstacle is the lack of evidence for the earlier stages of the western Franconian dialects. An examination of the origins of the spelling <gh>, common in medieval Dutch as well as in the Old High German Isidor, reveals a relationship with velar palatalization. The view that <gh> goes back to Merovingian Latin and that its later use in Middle Dutch is a borrowing of an Old French spelling practice is untenable. Instead, the spelling is an internal development by Germanic scribes of an established model with diacritical <h> inherited from Latin. If Gmc. *g in the western Franconian dialects is analyzed as a voiced velar fricative, then the distinction <g ~ gh> points to an opposition between velar and palatalized reflexes of Gmc. *g.
- Subjects
GERMANY (West); CHRONOLOGY; LINGUISTIC geography; PALATALIZATION; MIDDLE Dutch language, 1150-1500; MEROVINGIANS; FRICATIVES (Phonetics); DIALECT research; VARIATION in language
- Publication
Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 2010, Vol 132, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
0005-8076
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/bgsl.2010.002