Bjarne Simmelkjær Sandgaard Hansen
Being a specialist on Indo-European and Germanic (including Danish) historical linguistics, cf. above all the subject of my Ph.D. thesis (see below), and having professional experience in including easily accessible aspects of historical and comparative linguistics in non-academic teaching of Danish to foreigners, cf. my employment as a Danish-as-a-second-language teacher at NSI SProg- og Integrationscenter and my freelance employment at Aktivt Språk, I find myself in the unique position of being specifically qualified for carrying out scholarly studies on how to apply knowledge of language history in modern language teaching.
Phone: +45 35329333
Address: Institut for Nordiske Studier og Sprogvidenskab
Københavns Universitet
Emil Holms Kanal 2
DK-2300 København S
Denmark
Phone: +45 35329333
Address: Institut for Nordiske Studier og Sprogvidenskab
Københavns Universitet
Emil Holms Kanal 2
DK-2300 København S
Denmark
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The first article Layers of root nouns in Germanic: chronology, structure and origin suggests that we can recognise Germanic root nouns inherited from Proto-Indo-European by the circumstance that their radical ablaut grade is predicted by the phonotaxis of their root. Germanic root nouns violating these principles have entered the inflectional class of the root nouns at a later stage. Few exceptions exist, but these may all be accounted for in various ways. The seeming exception of PG *aik- f. ‘oak’ deserves special mentioning in that the new regular sound change of PIE *#h2i- > PG *#ai-, which I suggest in the third article The outcome of PIE *#Hi- and *#Hu- in Germanic along with a parallel sound change of PIE *#h2u > PG *#au-, allows for the interpretation of PG *aik- as PIE *h2iĝ- which is the shape expected for a root noun of that phonotactic structure.
The second article The structure, form and function of the Germanic primary i-stems also centres on derivational morphology; in this case, however, with the i-stems as the object of study. For the primary i-stems, I tentatively suggest that the archaic-looking types of i-stem adjectival agent nouns and i-stem action nouns or verbal abstracts that occur with both radical o-grade and zero grade originate from only one type in which, as was the case with the root nouns, the choice of radical ablaut grade depends on the phonotaxis of the root. When handed down to Germanic, however this system was abandoned and shaped anew in a manner compatible with the ablaut system of the Germanic strong verbs, thereby giving rise to new radical ablaut grades in the primary i-stems.
In order to obtain a better understanding of possible transitions of nouns between i-stems and other inflectional classes, the fourth article The outcome of PIE *-ē̆i̯(C)# and *-ē̆u̯(C)# in Germanic makes a few adjustments to the standard assumption on the history of some of the i-stem case endings by suggesting a series of regular sound changes pertaining to PIE e-vowel diphthongs in final syllables.
With its primary focus on how to identify archaisms and subsequently how to separate them from later innovations in Germanic derivational morphology, this thesis will hopefully contribute to the further development of the general field of Germanic and Indo-European studies by identifying and removing some such forms that can easily be disregarded as innovations by future scholarship.
Book Reviews
The first article Layers of root nouns in Germanic: chronology, structure and origin suggests that we can recognise Germanic root nouns inherited from Proto-Indo-European by the circumstance that their radical ablaut grade is predicted by the phonotaxis of their root. Germanic root nouns violating these principles have entered the inflectional class of the root nouns at a later stage. Few exceptions exist, but these may all be accounted for in various ways. The seeming exception of PG *aik- f. ‘oak’ deserves special mentioning in that the new regular sound change of PIE *#h2i- > PG *#ai-, which I suggest in the third article The outcome of PIE *#Hi- and *#Hu- in Germanic along with a parallel sound change of PIE *#h2u > PG *#au-, allows for the interpretation of PG *aik- as PIE *h2iĝ- which is the shape expected for a root noun of that phonotactic structure.
The second article The structure, form and function of the Germanic primary i-stems also centres on derivational morphology; in this case, however, with the i-stems as the object of study. For the primary i-stems, I tentatively suggest that the archaic-looking types of i-stem adjectival agent nouns and i-stem action nouns or verbal abstracts that occur with both radical o-grade and zero grade originate from only one type in which, as was the case with the root nouns, the choice of radical ablaut grade depends on the phonotaxis of the root. When handed down to Germanic, however this system was abandoned and shaped anew in a manner compatible with the ablaut system of the Germanic strong verbs, thereby giving rise to new radical ablaut grades in the primary i-stems.
In order to obtain a better understanding of possible transitions of nouns between i-stems and other inflectional classes, the fourth article The outcome of PIE *-ē̆i̯(C)# and *-ē̆u̯(C)# in Germanic makes a few adjustments to the standard assumption on the history of some of the i-stem case endings by suggesting a series of regular sound changes pertaining to PIE e-vowel diphthongs in final syllables.
With its primary focus on how to identify archaisms and subsequently how to separate them from later innovations in Germanic derivational morphology, this thesis will hopefully contribute to the further development of the general field of Germanic and Indo-European studies by identifying and removing some such forms that can easily be disregarded as innovations by future scholarship.