It has been hypothesized that separable complex verbs (SCVs, for example, ópzoeken ‘look up’) and inseparable complex verbs (ICVs, for example, doorzóeken ‘search’) form part of the same historical development, SCVs representing a stage intermediate to constructions with syntactic resultatives and ICVs. This paper shows that such a hypothesis is untenable, since many SCV preverbs and ICV preverbs are nonpredicative and thus semantically different from resultatives. Instead, it is claimed that predicative preverbs and nonpredicative preverbs result from two independent historical developments. In addition, the particular semantic and structural properties of SCVs are assumed to suggest a specific SCV structure, to be positioned in between syntactic phrases and morphologically complex words.I would like to thank Geert Booij, Hana Filip, Beth Levin, Andrew McIntyre, Ariane van Santen, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper. Of course, any remaining errors are entirely my own.

This article investigates the motivations for consonant cluster simplification through an analysis of consonant deletion in Icelandic, in clusters of three consonants created by the addition of the preterite suffix -ti/-di/-ði directly to the verb stem. It is argued that deletion is driven by perceptual factors interacting with sonority requirements. Deletion targets stops and nonstrident obstruents and its likelihood correlates with similarity in manner and place of articulation between the consonants and their adjacent segments. These two generalizations are elucidated in terms of perceptual cues, and an optimality-theoretic analysis is developed in which more perceptible consonants are protected from deletion by higher-ranked faithfulness constraints.I am grateful to Ólafur Páll Jónsson and Haraldur Bernharðsson, as well as Hanna Óladóttir, for patiently going through a long list of verbs with me and answering my questions. Haraldur also provided me with useful references and easy access to them. Thanks also to Michael Kenstowicz, Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson, and two anonymous JGL reviewers for answering questions, discussing different issues, and commenting on earlier versions of this research.

This paper examines the diachronic development and synchronic status of morphological doublets in Dutch derivation (adjectives in -(e)lijk) and German inflection (genitives in -(e)s) in the light of the commonly held view that functionally equivalent doublets are rare in morphology and, where they do exist, tend to be small in number and diachronically unstable (see, for example, Kroch 1994). It is shown here that large numbers of doublets can thrive for centuries, despite the fact that they require a high degree of arbitrary lexical information, while others tend to be eliminated systematically by organizing words into lexical “gangs” defined by phonological and morphological properties. It is also argued that the lexically conditioned nature of the inflectional doublets provides evidence for the wholesale lexical listing of German genitives.I am very grateful to Martin Durrell, and to Roel Vismans and other Dutch speakers present at the Association for Low Countries Studies Conference in Sheffield (January 2004), at which the Dutch section of this paper was presented, for their very helpful comments. I would also like to thank the two anonymous referees for their invaluable feedback.

This paper explores areas of reflexive and pronominal noncomplementarity in German Accusativus cum Infinitivo (AcI)-constructions and other configurations that involve embedding of a subclausal (smaller than IP) constituent. The main empirical finding is that there are several non-complementarity-inducing contexts that have not been noticed before. In examples with embedded AcIs or complex DPs, a reflexive may be bound across an intervening subject, and a pronominal may be free even if its antecedent is only a vP-, DP-, or PPboundary away. The proposed account of these facts is based on the claim that vP, DP, and PP are all potentially phase-defining categories (Chomsky 2000). The expected “regular” cases of complementarity are accounted for by postulating as the relevant binding domain for both reflexive and pronominal the minimal phase containing the anaphoric element. Newly discovered cases of non-complementarity that exist at least for some speakers stem from the ability of reflexives, but not pronominals, to covertly raise to the edge of their phase (Safir 2004). Finally, well known cases of non-complementarity in AcIs where the anaphoric element is embedded in a PP can be explained if θ-independent (that is, internally saturated) PPs are adjoined high, to the AcI (vP)-phase-edge. This then achieves a unified account of both the well established binding facts documented in the literature and the surprising long-distance binding of reflexives reported as acceptable for some speakers.My thanks to Judith Aissen, Jorge Hankamer, and especially Jim McCloskey, who have helped me with and greatly contributed to the various drafts of this paper. Thanks also to my JGL reviewers for their helpful feedback. (Any remaining errors are my own.) Finally, I am indebted to all my native speaker consultants.

This article discusses methodological aspects of using Gothic orthography for the purposes of deducing phonological properties of the language. The vowel/glide alternation known as Sievers' law is used as an example. In order for scholars to propose an analysis of this alternation they must form a view of how syllable structure works in Gothic, and in order to do that they must interpret the orthography and determine to what extent it reflects phonology. It is primarily consonant clusters and word divisions that serve as orthographic sources for syllabification, beside alternation of i/j and u/w in related forms. A closer methodological look at some of the arguments that have been brought to bear on the issue of orthography and syllabification reveals that the strongest position that word division consistently reflects phonological syllabification cannot be upheld. Furthermore, it is shown that word division has little bearing on which word-initial clusters are possible in Gothic.I would like to thank Jonas Carlkvist, Rune Palm, Santeri Palviainen, Marc Pierce, and Rudolf Rydstedt for their help and willingness to discuss different aspects of this article. I am also very much indebted to the three anonymous JGL reviewers, whose comments have been of considerable help. All errors are mine.

The present paper presents the results of a corpus-based study of the form and distribution of finite comment clauses in Dutch. More specifically, it was investigated where in the sentence such clauses can occur. For the analysis of the data, a topological descriptive model was used. While in the literature an extraction analysis has been suggested in order to account for finite comment clauses in English and German, our findings lead us to challenge this type of analysis and argue that a parenthetical analysis is to be preferred.Thanks are due to Antal van den Bosch and Hans van Halteren for their help in tagging the corpus, and to Toni Rietveld for his statistical advice.

Martin Luther is universally acknowledged as an important figure in the history of German. Although the study of his language has been broadly covered in research, the study of his word formation is rather meager. This article gives an account of Luther's nominal word formation, excluding compounds. The material comprises three corpora: samples of his main works, extracts from the 1545 Bible, and a selection of his letters. The most frequent suffixes are: -er, infinitival -en, -ung, -ϕ, and -heit. The most frequent prefixes are un- and heubt-. The class-maintaining functions show the diminutive as the most frequent overall, whereas it is the abstract that is the most frequent among the class-changing functions. A comparison of Luther's usage with that of his contemporary Dürer shows agreement in the most frequent suffixes as well as in the most frequent function of both the class-maintaining and class-changing functions. Modern (New High) German shows a similar agreement in most frequent suffixes and functions although there are new prefixes and suffixes. Word formation changes, albeit slowly. Luther's word formation fits into his linguistic context and shows the same main features as Modern German.

This paper pursues an “ingenerate” or phonetically based account of i-umlaut as it unfolded in North Germanic. We focus on a famous problem relating to umlaut distributions in i-stem nouns: In the long stems of that class (gestr ‘guest’, from earlier *gastiz), where umlaut is arguably less motivated phonetically, it is generally reflected throughout the paradigms, but in short stems (staðr ‘place’, from earlier *staðir), where it is more expected, umlaut is generally absent. A central feature of our understanding of these and other Norse facts is the interleaving of processes of sound change and analogy, the latter of which, by an assumption validated elsewhere, comes into play only under extraordinary circumstances. In contrast to previous work on the conundrum of umlaut in Old Norse, we situate this account in the context of umlaut as a general phenomenon, with parallels in development to that of its West Germanic sisters.Besides many members of the audience at the XVIth International Conference on Historical Linguistics (Copenhagen, August 2003), where a preliminary version of this paper was presented, we thank two anonymous readers for this journal and the following colleagues for their comments and discussion: Anthony Buccini, Rob Howell, Monica Macaulay, Richard Page, Michael Schulte, J. C. Smith, as well as Laura Catharine Smith and other members of the UW Phonology Group. As may become clear in the course of the paper, these individuals do not necessarily agree with what follows; of course, any shortcomings remain our own. The translations of Danish and Norwegian quotes are likewise our own.