The Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic : origin and accentuation

Doctoral Thesis

This dissertation provides a thorough review of the words belonging to the oldest layer of Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic and answers the question of how these words were adapted to the Proto-Slavic accentual system. The dissertation contains a corpus of 78 words that can be regarded as Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic. The discussion of the etymology of these words is followed by a comprehensive linguistic analysis of the material, focussing on formal clues for establishing the Germanic donor language of the Slavic forms. It was found that, contrary to earlier ideas, West Germanic loanwords are more numerous in Proto-Slavic than Gothic loanwords. It turned out that there is even a small number of loanwords from Low German in Proto-Slavic. Research into the accentuation of the loanwords has resulted in the establishment of a distribution of the words over the three Proto-Slavic accent paradigms (a), (b) and (c). It is concluded that accent paradigm (b) was the “default”...Show moreThis dissertation provides a thorough review of the words belonging to the oldest layer of Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic and answers the question of how these words were adapted to the Proto-Slavic accentual system. The dissertation contains a corpus of 78 words that can be regarded as Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic. The discussion of the etymology of these words is followed by a comprehensive linguistic analysis of the material, focussing on formal clues for establishing the Germanic donor language of the Slavic forms. It was found that, contrary to earlier ideas, West Germanic loanwords are more numerous in Proto-Slavic than Gothic loanwords. It turned out that there is even a small number of loanwords from Low German in Proto-Slavic. Research into the accentuation of the loanwords has resulted in the establishment of a distribution of the words over the three Proto-Slavic accent paradigms (a), (b) and (c). It is concluded that accent paradigm (b) was the “default” accent paradigm for Germanic loanwords when they were adapted to the Proto-Slavic phonological system, as opposed to all earlier theories, which assume that Germanic loanwords regularly joined accent paradigm (a). The only loanwords that did not generally take accent paradigm (b) are loanwords with a long vowel in a stressed heavy syllable, which under certain conditions discussed in the dissertation adopted accent paradigm (a).Show less

Loanwords

Germanic languages

Slavic accentuation

Proto-slavic

Historical linguistics

Language history

Language contact