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Though equi-complexity of languages has long been an assumption in the study of language, recent research has argued that languages differ with regard to their morphological complexity. Some languages rely more on bound morphology to express grammatical meanings, whereas other languages rely more on lexical or word-order-based strategies. It is a moot point to what extent these differences correlate with demographic factors such as population size and language contact, and how complexity should be measured. In this study, we use information-theory, more specifically Kolmogorov Complexity, to assess morphological and word-order-based strategies and apply the procedure to three West Germanic languages, English, Dutch and German, which have been argued to form a continuum along the morphological complexity cline, plausibly due to different rates of demographic upheaval and concomitant language contact. Tracing the morphological and word-order-based complexity through time in parallel Bible translations, our results show that English is consistently less morphologically complex than its sisters, continuing on its path of morphological simplification. We see a statistically robust trade-off between morphology and word order complexity. We find support for earlier findings in the literature, with the exception of the difference between Dutch and German, which does not transpire in our results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study addresses the research gap of how being a speaker of a Slavic language influences the ability to convey tempo-aspectual meanings in Romance languages by examining personal and impersonal narratives delivered in written and spoken mode by learners of L3 Spanish and L3 Italian with L1 Slovak and L2 English. Narratives are analysed following the methods of interlanguage analysis proposed by Ellis and Barkhuizen [(2005). Analysing learner language. Oxford University Press] and Salaberry and Comajoan [(2013). Research design and methodology in studies on L2 tense and aspect. De Gruyter Mouton], such as coding for grounding, frequency analysis of tense forms and lexical aspectual classes, etc. Following the ideas presented by Bayley (2013, Data analysis: Quantitative approaches. In M. R. Salaberry & L. Comajoan (Eds.), Research design andmethodology in studies on L2 tense and aspect (pp. 357–390). De Gruyter Mouton), binomial logistic regression models were built which showed that (a) the combination of discourse grounding and lexical aspect is of predictive power regarding the appropriateness of participants' choices of morphological marking; (b) the distributional characteristics of morphological marking on telic predicates differs from activities and statives. One of the main differences compared to the results of previous studies, conducted on speakers of Germanic languages, is that the data did not provide enough evidence for morphological marking being used to convey primarily temporal distinctions (see Salaberry, 1999, The development of past tense verbal morphology in classroom L2 Spanish. Applied Linguistics, 20(2), 151–178. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/20.2.151; Wiberg, E. (1996). Reference to past events in bilingual Italian-Swedish children of school age. Linguistics, 34(5), 1087–1114. ]) and presented the marking of telic predicates in foreground with perfective morphology as consistent, disregarding the level of participants' performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wulfila (c. 311–c. 383) translated the Bible into Gothic, creating the first literary text in a Germanic language. His biography is contested; his parentage, place of birth, episcopal consecration, and theological position are all disputed. The fourth century saw heated debates about the Trinity, and the Goths were often termed 'Arians', despite the fact that the teachings of the African presbyter Arius (c. 256–336) were not directly transmitted to them. This article notes a rebirth of interest in Wulfila, his mission, and the Gothic Bible, employing the notion that 'Homoian' (a more neutral term than 'Arian') theology was a possible bridge between Catholic monotheism and Gothic polytheism as the starting point for a re-examination of Wulfila's evangelism as both an imperially mandated strategy and the creation of a route into civilization and modernity for the Goths. Christianity was modern and fashionable in the fourth century; Germanic tribes wishing to abandon their status as pagani (rustics) or heathens (heath-dwellers, not civilized city dwellers), viewed conversion as a move 'up'. The Gothic Bible played a role in developing Gothic literacy, but was also a magical object, the first of its kind, a book/roadmap for a people undergoing a great cultural transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the nuanced meanings of two Old English verbs related to visual perception. Topics include the distinction between agentive and experiential verbs in Old English, the rarity and poetic nature of the verbs wītan and wlātian, and the semantic relationships of these verbs to their cognates in other Germanic languages.

Aims and objectives/purposes/research questions: This study investigates how the perfective/imperfective distinction is encoded across various ethnic varieties of Namibian English, with a specific focus on progressive -ing, simple verbal forms, and used to. Design/methodology/approach: The sample involves 158 Coloured and White Afrikaans-speaking informants, Damaras (L1: Khoekhoegowab), Hereros (L1: Otjiherero), Ovambos (L1: Oshiwambo). The sample thus includes Bantu, Khoesan, and West Germanic languages. The informants were administered an L1- into-English translation task. Data and analysis: The analysis follows two steps. First, the study looks at the distribution of English verbal forms across tenses, event classes, and English verb types. Second, the study looks at the distribution of English verbal forms across aspectual indicators in the informants' respective native languages. Findings/conclusions: Regardless of event classes and verb types, Khoekhoegowab-speakers are the most frequent users of -ing while Afrikaans-speakers are the most frequent users of simple verbal forms. A close look at how English verbal forms are distributed across L1 aspectual indicators possibly reveals hypercorrect L1-pattern avoidance, spearheaded by women. Along with L1-pattern avoidance, one finds overreliance on positively transferable L1-patterns, manifest in the use of used to by Bantu-speakers, who grammatically mark the habitual in their L1s. Finally, one finds instances of English output features that cannot be triggered by L1-patterns. This concerns primarily -ing and used to among Afrikaans-speakers and used to among the Damaras. Originality: Unlike most research on aspect in postcolonial English varieties, this study systematically tracks transfers to their linguistic origin. Significance/implications: The paper argues that transfers (or their absence) are often better accounted for from the perspective of inter-group relations than as mere 'interferences'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In English teaching, developing students' reading habits has been emphasized for its critical role in promoting overall core competencies. However, in practice, many teachers and parents are not informed of the effective approaches to developing good English reading habits, hindering the overall development of students' core competencies. In light of this, an empirical study was carried out to explore the developmental features of students' English reading habits and individual, family and school factors that affect its development. A questionnaire was adopted to collect quantitative data. A total of 2,130 primary and secondary school students from China participated in the study. The results indicated that their English reading habits varied with age and gender. In terms of age, secondary school students, especially middle school students, performed better than primary school students. In terms of gender, females performed better in reading frequency, reading time and ways of reading, while males had a larger reading volume. Reading habits were found to be impacted by individual, school and family factors. Among them, age had the strongest influence on the development of English reading habits. These findings shed light on effective ways to develop English reading habits, especially in foreign‐language‐learning contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Prosodic focus marking in Seoul Korean is known to be achieved primarily through prosodic phrasing, different from the use of prosody for this purpose in many other languages. This study investigates how children use prosodic phrasing for focus-marking purposes in Seoul Korean, compared to adults. Methods: Using a picture-matching game, we elicited semi-spontaneous production of SOV sentences in various focus conditions from monolingual Seoul Korean-speaking children aged 4 to 11 years. Results: We found that the children varied prosodic boundaries to distinguish narrow focus from pre-focus and broad focus in a largely adult-like manner at the age of 4 to 5; at this age, they did not distinguish narrow focus from post- focus or contrastive focus using prosodic boundaries, similar to the adults. Their use of the prosodic boundaries in distinguishing the focus conditions was not fully adult-like in terms of frequency until the age of 10 to 11. Discussion: In conjunction with the findings of previous studies on the acquisition of focus marking in Germanic languages, performed using a similar experimental method, our findings suggest that Seoul Korean-speaking children acquire the use of prosodic phrasing earlier than Dutch-speaking children acquiring the use of pitch accent but slightly later than Stockholm Swedish-speaking children acquiring the use of a prominence-marking high tone. These findings imply that the rate of focus-marking acquisition depends on the transparency of the form-meaning mapping between the phonological cue and focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents several new empirical observations regarding some interpretive effects and structural restrictions of modals that occur in sentence-initial positions in Chinese. It provides a new analysis of sentence-initial modal sentences in terms of the overt head-movement of a modal to the sentence periphery to value strong focus features and to focus-mark either the proposition or the subject of a sentence. This new proposal helps explain the markedness exhibited by such sentences, correctly predicts the structural and semantic restrictions of modal sentences, and directly explains the scopal interactions observed between modals and various types of focus constructions. It also shows that changes in word order in Chinese are not ascribable simply to an optional or free derivation in syntax but are related to an understudied mechanism in that language, i.e. T-to-C movement, and that the roles of information structure are represented as formal features in syntax. The results shed new light on how Chinese – though profoundly different from Germanic and Romance languages typologically – exemplifies a similarly fine structure in the sentence-internal domain, parallel associations of scope-bearing units with sentences' left peripheries, and a neat interaction of syntax with discourse configurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have shown that morphological knowledge has effects on reading comprehension separate from other aspects of language knowledge. This has implications for reading instruction and assessment: it suggests that children could have reading comprehension difficulties that are due to a lack of morphological knowledge, and thus, that explicit instruction of morphology might be helpful for them, indeed for all children. To find children who might especially benefit from specific instruction in morphology, we would need good tests of morphological knowledge. We evaluated a set of morphological awareness assessments to determine whether they conclusively tapped into morphological knowledge, and found that it was not possible to be certain that they were accurately targeting morphological knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relevance of research. The article examines the process of verb formation in Germanic languages, as well as the peculiarities of the grammatical semantics of verbs at different historical stages of the development of Germanic languages. Using the comparative-historical method, the functioning of verbs in texts of Germanic languages was investigated as an aspect of neurolinguistic science. Research results. The article proves that most modal verbs of Germanic languages have undergone significant semantic transformations. The study of texts of different historical stages of language development shows that verbs evolved through semantic transformation. Time frames of the formation of secondary semantics were revealed. The theoretical and practical significance lies in the fact that this research allows a detailed study of the features of the emergence of the primary, as well as the secondary, subjective semantics of verbs in Germanic languages from a neuroscientific point of view. It should be noted that the list of subjective values still raises many questions and discussions. The German language has an extremely clear system of means of expressing modal values. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the neurolinguistic approach to the study of the evolution of Germanic verbs. The article aims to study the evolution of verbs in the German language in the context of neurolinguistics. To achieve the goal, the method of comparative analysis was used. This made it possible to consider the evolution of the verb through a comparative study of texts at the main stages of speech development. To solve these problems, texts reflecting the state of the language at each historical stage were studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In phonological theory there are multiple ways to represent mid vowels. SPE conventions maintain that they are non-[high] and non-[low]. Conversely, frameworks like Element Theory argue that mid vowels are simultaneously [high] and [low]. This article examines eight processes (and groups of processes) within the Germanic language family, which strongly indicate their specification as simultaneously [high] and [low]. That specification is manifest from developments that tease out the [high] and [low] features of a single mid vowel into separate [high] and [low] elements of sound (e.g. [e] > [ja]). It also falls out from changes in which separate [high] and [low] segments coalesce into a single mid vowel (e.g. [au] > [o]). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue examines the question of how both formal(ist) and functional(ist) accounts or elements of theorizing can contribute to the explanation of (morpho)syntactic variation. Are formal and functional approaches really irreconcilable with each other, as often seems to be taken for granted by their respective advocates? It will be argued instead that they are rather complementary and that both can make a valuable contribution to explaining linguistic variation, in synchronic as well as diachronic respects. The integration of ways of looking at a certain phenomenon or problem from the respective other camp is proven to provide a significant added value and should not be excluded. The volume focuses on several Germanic languages and dialects, more specifically on German, Dutch, and Swedish varieties. It unites different formal and functional perspectives and, not least, it considers also semantic and phonological factors. The models covered include different versions of generative grammar, information-based morphology, construction grammar/construction morphology, natural morphology, and sociolinguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Проникновение древнескандинавских слов в английский язык доказывает бесспорное наличие контактов между народами внутри общегерманской языковой группы. Существование общей лексики не могло быть обусловлено типологическим сходством. Не подлежит сомнению, что слова, рассматриваемые в данной работе, имеют корни в древнегерманском языке. Условно такие слова здесь называются германскими, как и название языковой группы, хотя в более старых источниках их называют и тевтонскими. Большинство этих слов можно даже проследить до их первоначальных индоевропейских форм, так как известно, что по этому признаку выделялась германская группа. Ряд слов в этих языках – английском, немецком, скандинавских языках – имеют общее происхождение от древнегерманского языка.

The article "Rædels Reconsidered" discusses the translation of the Old English term "rædels" in relation to Boethius' psychological hierarchy. The term has been translated as 'imagination' but may also mean 'conjecture' or 'riddle'. The article explores the semantic range of "rædels" in Old English texts, highlighting its association with uncertainty and human knowledge. The translator's choice of 'speculation' as a translation for "rædels" is seen as a subtle adjustment to Boethius' Neoplatonic schema. [Extracted from the article]

The research deals with linguistic and extralinguistic features of the internationalization process of multimedia products text materials. The term internationalization is considered in the paper within the framework of the translation activity “GILT processes” (processes of globalization, internationalization, localization and translation). The article describes the current state of linguistic and translatological studies of the internationalization process. The paper presents the definition of the internationalization concept. The range of procedures carried out in the process of internationalization is defined. The paper describes the most significant technical procedures performed on the product during internationalization. The paper provides some characteristic linguistic transformations caused by the tasks of internationalization. The research paper offers several examples of using internationalization in the video game industry, the film industry and in creating multilingual and global versions of websites. As a result of the conducted research, two directions of internationalization were identified: pre-localization and global ones. The pre-localization direction of internationalization is to create an intermediate version of the product (mainly in English), which serves to simplify localization (following internationalization) into other languages. This approach significantly reduces the cost of creating a multilingual version of the product. The global direction of internationalization is to create a global version of this product in English. It is assumed that users of the global version can be not only native English speakers, but also those who speak it as a foreign language. Due to the wide spread of English as a foreign language in the world, the creation of an internationalized English version of the product allows companies to enter the global market with significantly lower financial costs and in a shorter timeframe than in the case of creating a multilingual version of the same product.

This paper analyses the use of verbal tense forms in Wangerooge Frisian, a West Germanic language spoken on the Wadden Sea island Wangerooge until the early twentieth century. Specifically, the use of the present, past, and perfect constructions is investigated in a corpus of texts from the nineteenth century. It is argued that the Wangerooge Frisian perfect could be used as a non-firsthand evidential strategy marking the propositional content as hearsay or inferred. While such evidential perfects are cross-linguistically well attested, they are generally thought to be uncommon in Western European languages. The Wangerooge Frisian case thus shows the value of lesser-studied vernaculars for the typology of European languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conversion is a common feature of present-day English, leading to many 'heterosemous' words that express related meanings across multiple word classes. Especially common is verb/noun heterosemy, as in flow or hand, both of which can be used as verbs or as nouns. The prevalence of verb/noun heterosemy sets English apart from closely related Germanic languages and is one respect in which English behaves as a language with high boundary permeability. This paper investigates how verb/noun heterosemy has been evolving in Recent English (1920s–2010s). Using quantitative analysis within a large sample of 877 heterosemous words, it is shown that associations between specific words and word classes have been weakening over the last century. More precisely, within our sample, heterosemous words on average tend to develop towards more balanced heterosemy, whereby their association to either one word class or another becomes less pronounced. The findings suggest that English is in the process of a long-term drift towards greater boundary permeability. As high boundary permeability has been associated with low reliance on inflectional morphology in a language, this could be a long-term consequence of the overall loss of inflections earlier in the history of the language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a book titled "Evidential marking in European languages: Toward a unitary comparative account," edited by Björn Wiemer and Juana I. Marín-Arrese. The book aims to fill a gap in research on evidentiality by providing a comprehensive survey of "extra-grammatical" evidential expressions in European languages. It explores the different types of evidential markers and construction types used in 13 European languages, including Germanic, Romance, Slavic, and other languages. The book also highlights the similarities and differences in the semantic extensions and functional preferences of these markers across languages. Overall, the book contributes to a better understanding of evidentiality as a conceptual domain and provides a basis for further cross-linguistic analysis. [Extracted from the article]

This study investigates acoustic properties of the monophthongal vowels of English as spoken by 20 Assamese speakers in North East India, based on their medium of education being English or Assamese. Research suggests that English in India may be converging to a more homogenous standard, at least among educated speakers, despite common first language (L1) differences (Maxwell & Fletcher, 2009; Sirsa & Redford, 2013; Wiltshire, 2020). Assamese, a member of the Indo‐Aryan language family, shares phonological characteristics with surrounding languages from the Tibeto‐Burman family. We find that the vowels of Assamese Indian English speakers maintain characteristics reflecting their L1, especially those similar to local Englishes spoken by L1 Tibeto‐Burman speakers. However, English‐medium educated speakers do more closely approximate the norms of the central Indian standard, suggesting that although North East Indian English norms diverge from those of central India, there is some convergence across India among English‐medium educated speakers, regardless of L1s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multifactorial studies of the be:get‐passive alternation are still rare. On the basis of the International Corpus of English, this is the first investigation to use mixed modelling for the passive alternation in world Englishes. Overall, our findings reveal that regional differences are far less important than language‐internal constraints, with Inner and Outer Circle varieties largely sharing a core grammar. Additionally, while there is qualitative evidence confirming the interchangeability of the two passive allostructions, our generalised‐mixed model reveals that the choice is still heavily influenced by the different semantic origins of the variants, evident not only in the adversative semantics of the get‐passive but also in a tendency to prefer human/animate subjects. The strong prescriptive reaction to the progressive passive in the Late Modern period, however, has not resulted in a marked preference for get over be in progressives in our data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on English teachers' teaching strategies in secondary-level classes to enhance students' deeper learning skills. This paper is the outcome of a qualitative study, a narrative inquiry with three secondary-level English teachers. With the help of in-depth interviews and class observation, the study figured out how the different teaching strategies allow teachers to adopt, integrate and ensure deeper learning skills in existing curricular content. The research primarily collected data through interviews and supplemented it with classroom observations. They subsequently analysed the data under three major themes. The first gives theoretical reasoning; in contrast, the second and third themes widely discuss the practical aspects and examples from actual classroom practices aligning with the researcher's observation track record that revolves around the theme. The study concludes that any strategies the teacher introduces must be reinforced by fostering an autonomous environment for learners, creating a school environment supportive of deeper learning, and ensuring the appropriate assessment of deep learning skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a review of the book "English historical linguistics: Historical English in contact," which is a collection of papers presented at a conference on English historical linguistics. The book covers various topics in the field, including Old English, American English, Cornish English, and Older Scots. The review highlights specific chapters that explore the contact between Middle English and Anglo-Norman, as well as the use of fronting and clefting in Cornish English. The book offers diverse discussions on English's major contact languages and provides new insights into the history of the English language. [Extracted from the article]

Book review of Burns, Rachel A., and Rafael J. Pascual, eds. 2022. Tradition and Innovation in Old English Metre. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press. Pp. xii + 281. ISBN 1802700250.

This study considered the songs currently in use in Gaelic groups for 0–3 year olds in Scotland, whilst investigating how practitioners use them in the groups. In this article, I argue that Gaelic Early Years practitioners insufficiently understand the potential of song in relation to Gaelic language acquisition with young children and their families. Although it is common practice to integrate Gaelic translations of popular English children's songs into Gaelic playgroups, these songs often distort and misrepresent the Gaelic language's rhythms and grammar. With the connected aspects of phrasing, inflexion and rhythm, music and language are closely related. Shared singing activities hold great potential in advancing young children's growing linguistic skills in first and additional language acquisition. Maximising the benefit, however, requires a highly skilled, knowledgeable and responsive practitioner base and a clearly developed teaching strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Frisian dialect of Heligoland sentences are found which apparently contain two finite verbs, the modal verb mut ‘must’ in the verb second position and a full verb in the verb final position. It will be argued that the original 3rd person present form mut developed into an epistemic particle, so that the inflection shifted to the former infinitive. The grammaticalization of this particle, its spread from deliberative questions to declarative clauses and its epistemic status are discussed in some detail. The epistemic particle mut in Heligolandic is compared to similar particles occupying the verb second position in West and North Germanic languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bodleian library at Oxford is one of the most important repositories of manuscripts and early printed books documenting the study of Old Frisian in the seventeenth century. Together with primary texts, two copies of the incunable print of the Frisian land laws, Codex Aysma and transcripts of the now lost Codex Unia, the collection includes annotations and glossaries by three pioneers of Old Frisian philology: Franciscus Junius (1591–1677), Jan van Vliet (1622–1666) and Thomas Marshall (1621–1685). This contribution explores Junius's and van Vliet's appraisal of the Old Frisian texts, their plans for an edition, and their interest in the narrative aspects of texts, such as the Statutes of Magnus and the Book of Rudolf. By analysing van Vliet's and Junius's annotations in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Junius 109 and Marshall 60, it becomes apparent that these seventeenth-century philologists studied Old Frisian texts not only for lexicographical reasons or to compare Frisian with the other Old Germanic languages, but also for their fascinating historical and literary qualities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article serves as a preface to a volume of Old Frisian studies, providing an overview of recent publications and developments in the field. The editors aim to create a platform for both established scholars and newcomers in the study of Old Frisian. The volume covers a range of topics, including the analysis of Frisian runic inscriptions, the publication of Old West Frisian charters, and the digitization of the "Richthofenkolleksje" collection. It also includes studies on specific Old Frisian texts and broader cultural-historical backgrounds to late medieval Frisia. The article concludes by discussing linguistic studies on Old Frisian consonants and vowel balance. The volume is dedicated to the memory of Nils Århammar, a prominent scholar in Frisian studies, and acknowledges the contributions of other scholars involved in its production. [Extracted from the article]

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Syntagmatic verbs are widespread in Germanic languages. However, they are also present in different varieties of Italian, including Ligurian dialects. Starting from a Genoese corpus extracted from a popular 19th century novel, the author shows their independent status by means of a semantic and syntactic analysis. An appropriate description is currently missing in grammars and dictionaries. Therefore, the author outlines a possible lexicographical treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a collection of studies on newly emerging aspectual expressions in West Germanic languages. The studies explore various aspectual forms in Germanic languages, including verbal and prepositional constructions, as well as lexical means of expression. The articles focus on standard and nonstandardized languages, providing insights into the sources of aspectual expressions, properties of early-stage aspectual markers, and new methods for analyzing aspectual constructions. The studies highlight the overlap between aspectuality, tense, and modality, and the additional pragmatic information conveyed by aspectual expressions. The authors use empirical data from corpora to support their analyses. Overall, the studies reveal the presence of aspectual functions in Germanic languages that have received little attention in previous research. [Extracted from the article]

It has been decades since corpora and corpus interfaces have emerged and become accessible to various users. As computers have been advancing in terms of speed and quality, so have corpus software providing faster and more advanced language investigations for language teachers and learners. In addition, corpus interface developers have constantly aimed to make language investigation easier and the queries more user-friendly to the user. In the recent times, some new web-corpus tools have emerged that specifically have teachers and students in mind. These include, for instance, SKELL, Netspeak, Just-the-word, among others. While there has been extensive research in the use of standard corpora and corpus interfaces, there has been little research in the use of these new web-based corpus tools in classroom settings. This paper reports on a small-scale study on the use of Netspeak in L2 writing and error correction conducted with a group of pre-service English language teachers. The results indicate that the participants have positive perceptions of the online corpus tool when used as a reference tool to improve writing. The paper also reports on some limitations identified throughout the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a correlation between Michael Herslund's concepts of "endocentric and exocentric languages" and Per Durst-Andersen's concepts of "hearer-oriented and reality-oriented languages", correspondingly. The article argues that the Danish syntagmatic tendency to discrete expression of meanings is manifested both in verbal and nominal naming. This syntagmatic tendency is interpreted as a manifestation of an addressee-friendly naming strategy, since it allows the addressee to reconstruct the meaning by referring to a general semantic category. The sections of the article are devoted to the implications of analytic naming as a reflection of the Danish hearer-oriented communication strategy and syntagmatic tendency to discreteness, modularity and distancing in expressing complex meanings. In this regard, the following phenomena are considered: systemic analytical tendencies in the Germanic languages, manifested at different language levels; analytical tendencies in the structural and semantic organization of Danish compounds; the modular nature of Danish verbal compounds and their correlation with analytic complexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this article is to expand the discussion on partitive‐related phenomena diffusion in the prehistoric Circum‐Baltic area by considering the role of early Germanic languages. The central message is that early Germanic languages have been historically overlooked in the study of partitive phenomena in the Circum‐Baltic area, and this paper aims to address this oversight. After briefly discussing the main hypotheses related to the development and spread of partitive functions, the focus will shift to two understudied phenomena in early Germanic languages, namely the 'genitive of quantification' and the 'genitive of negation'. It will be shown that these two phenomena were present in early Germanic languages, suggesting that they should be included in further studies concerned with contact in the prehistoric Circum‐Baltic area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay compares the back-breeding of the extinct aurochs by the German zoologists Lutz and Heinz Heck with the reconstruction of past Germanic languages and mythologies by Jacob Grimm. It then points to similarities between current rewilding projects and the absorption of the Hecks' back-breeding venture into the broader National Socialist vision of racial rewilding in the conquered eastern territories. Finally, it argues that the aurochs resurrection heralds the coming of a future age of total bioengineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this article is to expand the discussion on partitive‐related phenomena diffusion in the prehistoric Circum‐Baltic area by considering the role of early Germanic languages. The central message is that early Germanic languages have been historically overlooked in the study of partitive phenomena in the Circum‐Baltic area, and this paper aims to address this oversight. After briefly discussing the main hypotheses related to the development and spread of partitive functions, the focus will shift to two understudied phenomena in early Germanic languages, namely the 'genitive of quantification' and the 'genitive of negation'. It will be shown that these two phenomena were present in early Germanic languages, suggesting that they should be included in further studies concerned with contact in the prehistoric Circum‐Baltic area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a possible relationship between the Proto-Germanic term for 'shoulder' (ON. herðr f., Far. herðar f. pl.; Elfd. erde f.; OHG. harti, herti f., MHG. herte f. < PG. *hardīz f.) and the unexplained Greek gloss attested in the lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria: ... ("korsís: behind, buttocks, ass"). It is suggested that the above-mentioned gloss comes from the Laconian dialect, which already in the Classical era (5th--4th c. BC) spirantized the Greek phoneme θ [th] > [θ] > Lac. σ [s]. The Laconian word ... goes back to the Doric appellative *..., which presumably derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *... 'to fart, blow to, break wind', secondarily 'to stink, smell' (cf. Ved. śárdhate 's/he breaks wind downwards'; Lat. cerda f. 'dung' attested in mūscerdae f. pl. 'mouse droppings', ovicerda f. 'sheep dung' etc.). The Laconian derivative has reliable semantic equivalents in other Indo-European languages (e.g. Skt. ...- f. 'the anus, rump', .... 'id.'). The Proto-Germanic term *hardīz (gen. sg. *hardjōz) 'shoulder' has no convincing etymology. Its juxtaposition with the Laconian word ... (< Doric Greek ... < IE. *... f.) seems phonologically indisputable. Doubts are raised only by the semantic part of the proposed etymology. The author assumes that ancestors of the Germanic people originally used the term *hardīz (< PIE. ... f.) to describe an extremely smelly part of the human body, i.e. the armpit located near the shoulder. The suggested change 'anus, rump' > 'a stinking part of the body' > 'armpit' > 'shoulder' must have taken place already in the Proto-Germanic epoch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estonian is a verb-second (V2) language: in certain types of sentences, the finite verb tends to be the second constituent. The V2 feature of Estonian is most likely to have developed under Germanic influence. However, there are differences between Germanic and Estonian V2 order. The word order of Estonian main-clause wh-interrogatives is one of the major exceptions to the V2 order. Main-clause wh-interrogatives are always V2 in Germanic but predominantly verb-final in Estonian. The paper describes two corpus studies -- a synchronic and a diachronic one -- that aimed to clarify the proportion, nature and development of the V2 order in Estonian mainclause wh-interrogatives. The synchronic study showed that the proportion of the V2 order in present-day Estonian main-clause wh-interrogatives is approximately 22%. The V2 order is thus considerably less frequent in wh-interrogatives than in declaratives, but it is subject to similar prosodic exceptions in both. The V2 order is nevertheless more frequent in main-clause wh-interrogatives than in embedded wh-interrogatives and relative clauses, giving evidence of a Germanic-like asymmetry between main and embedded clauses. The results of the diachronic study suggest that the V2 order has never been borrowed as the predominant order of Estonian main-clause wh-interrogatives. To explain why the V2 feature was borrowed to a different extent into declaratives and wh-interrogatives, we hypothesise that their word order had already diverged before the V2 order was borrowed. According to the hypothesis, wh-interrogatives had retained the historical verb-final order, which remained unaffected by the V2 order, while declaratives had already lost the verb-final order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Luxembourgish is a Germanic language in Western Europe situated on the Germanic-Romance language border. The centuries-long multilingualism, that has included German and French as main contact languages, has led to much variation on all linguistic levels, yielding lexical doublets – contact-induced synonym pairs. The study presents the results from the online Lëtzebuerger Futtballsprooch 'Luxembourgish football language' survey (n = 1189 participants), set up to analyze the distribution of the variants of lexical doublets in the special language of football in order to exemplify the mechanisms of contact-induced lexical variation in Luxembourgish as a whole. The variation is correlated with sociodemographic and language biographical factors (quantitative analysis, beta regression). The study also introduces linguistic orientation as an overarching factor for the individual language biography that is useful to model the positioning of individuals in relation to the contact languages involved in a complex multilingual society. The results reveal a societal trend towards Germanic variants linked to the linguistic orientation of the participants towards German, mirroring sociolinguistic dynamics and changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has suggested that L2 learners often use non-target processing strategies to understand sentences, but that these strategies can be changed through targeted instruction that directs their attention to different linguistic forms or structures. The present study explores the effects of pretraining 'blocking' practice—a novel type of training designed to help learners inhibit the application of a strict word-order based processing strategy—prior to receiving a traditional Structured Input (SI) training focused on OVS word order and accusative case markers in German. The study compares three groups of third-semester German learners who completed three different activities in one training session: (1) SI with blocking practice (+BP), (2) SI preceded by explicit information (+EI), and (3) SI without EI or blocking practice (−EI). The effects of training were measured by sentence-level interpretation and production tasks administered as a pretest, posttest, and four-week delayed posttest. Learner performance was also assessed during training. Results in all assessment measures indicated that EI was most effective, but that blocking practice lent a slight advantage over −EI groups during and after training. These results are discussed in the context of studies on processing instruction and learned attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which compounds should be included in general-purpose dictionaries is often an open question that is answered with a case-by-case consideration of all compounds above a certain corpus frequency threshold. Another way to determine which compounds should be listed, is to examine which compounds, or rather which compound properties, are in demand by the users. This study uses look-up data from the two officially sanctioned, general-purpose dictionaries of Norwegian (Bokmålsordboka and Nynorskordboka) to derive an explicit compound selection model that performs with comparable sensitivity and specificity as the traditional procedure. These findings demonstrate that it is indeed possible to arrive at a fully operational and explicit compound selection model that meets the needs of users. With such a tool at their disposal, lexicographers would be able to separate the wheat from the chaff in the boundless field that is the compound lexicon of North Germanic Languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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