The Malt stone as a witness of a morphological archaism: Reconstructing the Proto-Nordic and Proto-Germanic systems of kinship terms

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Malt stone as a witness of a morphological archaism

T2 - Reconstructing the Proto-Nordic and Proto-Germanic systems of kinship terms

AU - Heltoft, Lars

PY - 2018/4/21

Y1 - 2018/4/21

N2 - The form fauþr ‘father’ on the Malt stone is normally understood as a carving error for faþur, but could very well be read at face value as a one-syllable form fǫðr, an archaic accusative singular. In a wider Proto-Germanic context, I suggest that this form is part of an early levelling process of the kinship terms to one-syllable stem forms, an alternative paradigm co-existing with the classical hystero-dynamic paradigm documented in the Gothic singular. This levelling takes place not only in the plural, but also in the oblique cases of the singular. In a Scandinavian context, this reading sheds light on a handful of seemingly aberrant forms.

AB - The form fauþr ‘father’ on the Malt stone is normally understood as a carving error for faþur, but could very well be read at face value as a one-syllable form fǫðr, an archaic accusative singular. In a wider Proto-Germanic context, I suggest that this form is part of an early levelling process of the kinship terms to one-syllable stem forms, an alternative paradigm co-existing with the classical hystero-dynamic paradigm documented in the Gothic singular. This levelling takes place not only in the plural, but also in the oblique cases of the singular. In a Scandinavian context, this reading sheds light on a handful of seemingly aberrant forms.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - Maltstenen

KW - slægtskabstermer

KW - urnordisk

KW - urgermansk

KW - gotisk

KW - analogi

KW - paradigmekonstruktion

KW - paradigmer

M3 - Journal article

VL - 2019

JO - Nowele

JF - Nowele

ER -