The Germanic Weak Preterite: Facing up to 'talgidai'

• Jay H. Jasanoff ^[1]
  1. [1] Harvard University

     Harvard University

     City of Cambridge, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Historische Sprachforschung = Historical linguistics, ISSN 0935-3518, Nº. 132, 2019, págs. 146-167
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • The 3 sg. pret. form talgidai, discovered in 1961, belongs to the earliest stratum of the Runic Norse corpus. But since the ending -dai (for expected -de) is incompatible with the traditional derivation of the weak preterite from a periphrastic construction in *-dhōm (< *dhoh1m), *-dhēs, *-dhēt, etc., much scholarly effort has been invested in explaining the final -ai as an error. This paper maintains that talgidai is probably a real form, and that the standard derivation of the weak preterite from a periphrasis in 3 sg. *-dhēt is problematic on independent grounds. It is argued that a periphrastic construction with a 3 sg. perfect middle *-(dhe)dh(h1)oi provides at least as good an explanation of the weak preterite as the traditional theory.