A Non-Brugmannian Approach to the Genesis of the Germanic Verbal System

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The present Study attempts a new historical and comparative approach to the genesis of the Germanic verbal system, beginning with analysis of Old English preterite-present verbs. Preterite-present verbs show morphological peculiarities : their present singular typically exhibits the o-grade base vocalism, to conform with the preterite singular of a strong verb, whilst their preterite is augmented with a dental suffix, which accords with the preterite formation of a weak verb. Traditional studies have frequently construed these characteristics as stemming from the original o-grade perfect having been reinterpreted as the new present, along with the suppression of the original e-grade present, and from the Germanic dental or weak preterite having been newly adopted for the preterite formation. The present work calls this view into question by focusing on the difficulties inherent in this conventional approach. In order to give a more convincing and natural account of the historical development of preterite-present verbs, this investigation adopts a Proto-Indo-European reconstruction model proposed in some recent comparative linguistic studies and occasionally labelled as a Non-Brugmannian model or an Active hypothesis. This model or hypothesis takes the position that the Indo-European parent-language did not have a verbal system of the Greco-Aryan type, that is, a rich conjugation system based on the tense distinction, but a far simpler verbal system observable in active or split-S languages. Through a series of empirical analyses, the current work claims that preterite-present verbs are not sporadic creations in Proto-Germanic but rather fossilised remnants of archaic, non-agentive, stative verbs which were once quite productive in the verbal system. It is also demonstrated that this perspective leads to a plausible new explanation of the genesis of the Germanic verbal system itself.