Re: Ungrammaticalization?

Patrick Dunn wrote:

> > Does anyone know the reason for the strong/weak terminology?  I'd heard
> > it was because German had so many, and the early linguists, mostly
> > German, wanted to emphasize German's "strength and manliness".  Sounds
> > apocryphal to me, but that's the story I've heard.
>
> Dr. Deskis taught that it was because the change in the word was more
> fundamental, i.e. "stronger," than the tacking on of a dental.
I had always heard that it was because ablaut was the normal process
of grammatical change in PIE, and that the dental suffix for past tense
was essentially a Germanic innovation, inasmuch as no other IE group
developed anything quite like it.  Thus, those verbs that retain ablaut
variations still (and haven't gone the way of English "help" [original "holp"
--> "helped"]) are "stronger" than others with the dental suffix.

> Of course, that could be wrong.  But I suspect the German story has its
> roots somewhere in anti-German sentiment during WWII.
Well, the early German philologers like Jakob Grimm did at times go
to quite obvious "excess" in explaining Lautgesetze. The story about
the second High German soundshift is a good example:  supposedly,
the people up in those high alpine regions in Switzerland and the like
just got tired walking up and down mountains all day, and so it was
only natural when they were short of breath for what were normally
stops to become fricatives. (!!)

For that reason, I don't think any anti-German sentiment was needed;
(a small few of) the German explanations were patently ridiculous
anyways.

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
AIM: Deuterotom ICQ: 4315704
<http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

"Things just ain't the way they used to was."
     - a man on the subway
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