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Gothic au in Inflectional Syllables

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Oscar F. Jones
Oscar F. Jones*
Affiliation:
University of Florida
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Extract

[All available morphological and orthographic data are re-examined in support of the theory that the Gothic digraph au designates relatively low back monophthongal values when it occurs in the inflectional syllables. This problem is compared with the closely related problem of ai, and the implications of parallelism in the use of the two digraphs are considered briefly.]

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 34 , Issue 1: January-March , March 1958 , pp. 33 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © 1958 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 As the reflex of Gmc. u where this is followed by r or h, in aufto ‘perhaps’ where we would expect u, and in borrowed words.

2 T. Le Marchant Douse, An introduction, phonological, morphological, syntactic to the Gothic of Ulfilas 20–1 (London, 1886); R. Bethge in Ferdinand Dieter, Laut- und Formenlehre der altgermanischen Dialekte 23 (Leipzig, 1898); Wilhelm Streitberg, Gotisches Elementarbuch 5–6 59, 77–8 (Heidelberg, 1920); M. H. Jellinek, Geschichte der gotischen Sprache 43–4 (Berlin, 1926); Ernst Kieckers, Handbuch der vergleichenden gotischen Grammatik 7–8 (Munich, 1928); Vittore Pisani, Paideia 4.118–20 (1949); Wolfgang Krause, Handbuch des Gotischen 62, 75–7 (Munich, 1953).

3 H. C. von der Gabelentz and J. Loebe, Ulfilas 2.2.30 ff. (Leipzig, 1846); Joseph Wright, Grammar of the Gothic language 362 (Oxford, 1910); C. J. S. Marstrander, Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap 1.232 (1928); Hermann Hirt, Handbuch des Urgermanischen 1.39 f. (Heidelberg, 1931); Fernand Mossé, Manuel de la langue gotique 41 ff. (Paris, 1942), nouvelle édition remaniée et augmentée 45–7 (Paris, 1956); O. L. Sayce in Wright, Gr. Goth. Lang. 2 367–9 (Oxford, 1954). For a detailed comparison of the monophthongal with the diphthongal theory see W. H. Bennett, Lg. 25.15–21 (1949).

4 Wilhelm Braune, Gotische Grammatik 1 11–2 (Halle, 1880; the 10th edition of 1928, ed. by Karl Helm, also gives dissenting opinions, 18–21); Karl Brugmann, Kurze vergleichende Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen 49, 107 (Strassburg, 1902); Friedrich von der Leyen, Einführung in das Gotische 16–7 (Munich, 1908); W. Wilmanns, Deutsche Grammatik 3 1.244–5 (Strassburg, 1911); A. G. van Hamel, Gotisch Handboek 28–9, 44–5 (Haarlem, 1923); R. C. Boer, Oergermaansch Handboek 2 45, 49, 51 (Haarlem, 1924). See also Bethge, op.cit. in fn. 1.

5 Eduard Prokosch, A comparative Germanic grammar 216 (Philadelphia, 1939).

6 Kieckers, Hdb. d. vgl. got. Gr. 192. For other explanations see Hermann Paul, PBB 4.376–83 (1877).

7 Paul 383; Hirt, Hdb. d. Urg. 2.185. Another Old Icelandic reflex is the -u (-o) found in the mediopassive (see Bethge in Dieter 430). Adolf Noreen, Altisländische und Altnorwegische Grammatik 4 364 (Halle, 1923), cites an Old Norwegian form which shows how this came about: ‘In ... kuœmomk ich käme (eigentlich mediopassiv) ... statt kuóema (got. qēmjau) ek ist die endung -o(mk) aus *-ō < *au [sic] vor m(i)k lautgesetzlich berechtigt ...‘

8 Prokosch, Comp. Gmc. Gr. 217.

9 Paul, PBB 4.383.

10 Scherer, ZfdA 19.158 (1876), derives this form from a present optative.

11 Hans Krahe, Historische Laut- und Formenlehre des Gotischen 123 (Heidelberg, 1948).

12 Piokosch 219; Kieckers 194. See also Edward Sehrt, Fragen und Forschungen im Bereich und Umkreis der germanischen Philologie: Festgabe für Theodor Frings 7 (Berlin, 1956).

13 Van Hamel 133; Boer 275–7.

14 Hbd. d. Urg. 2.135.

15 Kieckers 193; Van Hamel 133; Krause 214.

16 Sehrt, Festgabe Frings 7: ‘Für das au der 1. Sg. Opt. des starken und schwachen (mit Ausnahme der 2. Klasse) Verbums ..., sowie in allen Formen des Opt. Pass., der 3. Sg. und Pl. Ipv. ist noch keine vollauf befriedigende Deutung gefunden worden ... es ist doch sehr zweifelhaft, ob man hier eine fest verwachsene Partikel annehmen darf, die sonst noch selbständig auftritt ...‘

17 Ahtudin is a hapax legomenon occurring in a part of the text (Luke 1.59) where u and au are frequently confused. It is interesting to note that a similar compound ahtogild ‘eight fold’ (also spelled ahtugild) appears in an 8th-century Langobardic manuscript. See Carl Meyer, Sprache und Sprachdenkmäler der Langobarden 36–43, 45 (Paderborn, 1877).

18 ZfvS 27.428 (1885).

19 This explanation was taken in part from Rudolf Meringer, ZfvS 28.232 (1887). Meringer, however, had to explain ahtautehund as an analogical form, since he assumed that ahtau had the diphthongal value. André Martinet, Non-apophonic in Indo-European, Word 9.257–8 (1953), suggests a very interesting derivation for Lat. octavus ‘eighth’ based on the alternation -ō- (before consonants) : -āw- from the laryngeal formulation -eAwt-/-eAw+o-. Since IE ā is a source for Gmc. ō, very little modification is necessary to reconcile my explanation of the inflected Germanic cardinal with this theory.

20 PBB 4.383–91.

21 S. Singer, PBB 12.211–2 (1887). The compound sweþauh, ‘but, indeed’ seems to be a similar formation.

22 The exact values designated by o in the Greek used by Wulfila have not been determined. See E. H. Sturtevant, The pronunciation of Greek and Latin 2 47 (Philadelphia, 1940).

23 These were taken from Braune, Got. Gr. 10 21. Streitberg, Die gotische Bibel 1.148, 452 (Heidelberg, 1908), gives Nôe, Bagouia, Banaíou (and in his variants Bagoei, Bagouei, Banoui).

24 Friedrich Kluge, Die Elemente des Gotischen 12 (Strassburg, 1911); Streitberg, Got. Elb. 5–6 76; Braune, Got. Gr. 10 21.

25 Beiträge zur Erklärung der germanischen Flexion 76 (Berlin, 1891).

26 Sturtevant, Pron. Gk. Lat. 46.

27 Richard Loewe, PBB 46.51–84 (1922), 51.142–5 (1927).

28 Lg. 32.633–40 (1956).

29 The Naples document (H. F. Massmann, Die gotischen Urkunden von Neapel und Arezzo [Munich, 1837]) and the Salzburg-Vienna Alcuin MS (Streitberg, Die gotische Bibel 1.475 [Heidelberg, 1908]).

30 Sturtevant, Pron. Gk. Lat. 54–5.

31 Unfortunately it seems impossible to find any reliable reflexes of the au which concerns us in Gothic material preserved in the works of Latin and Greek authors or in the Gothic loanwords which found their way into other languages.

32 Lg. 32.633–40 (1956). See also Eric Hamp, MLN 71.266 (1956). I see no reason to believe that ai and au in the inflectional syllables had one value in Wulfila's dialect and a radically different one in the language of the East Gothic scribes. In the material cited by Ferdinand Wrede, Über die Sprache der Ostgoten in Italien 48, 61, 70, 83, 87, 96, 104–5, 112, 117, 128, 136, 149, 154, 158, 165–6 (Strassburg, 1891), and Stamm-Heyne's Ulfilas 13–14 295 (Paderborn, 1920) to support his post-Wulfilian monophthongization hypothesis, there is not a single form with unaccented -ai or -au in a syllable which follows the primary stress.