The Gothic Language: Grammar, Genetic Provenance and Typology, Readings

by Irmengard Rauch

The Gothic Grammar, Genetic Provenance and Typology, Readings , now in its second edition, is designed for students and scholars of the oldest known language with a sizeable corpus, belonging to the English, German, Dutch, and Scandinavian language clade. The Gothic language is seminal to the history of the study of each of these languages. Gothic grammar is a standard text in courses on Indo-European and general linguistics since Gothic serves as the prototype Germanic language in the study of historical comparative world language typologies. Particularly pan-Germanic is the innermost core of the grammar, the genetic phonology, which is reconstructed within the most recent approaches of laryngeal and glottalic theories. Most challenging to traditional viewpoints is the total novel restructuring of Gothic synchronic phonology via current theoretical approaches such as underspecification theory and optimality theory. While the Gothic inflectional morphology is rendered in full paradigmatic display, its understanding is enhanced by the application of underspecification theory and the use of inheritance networks, a computational linguistic concept. Brief "Syntactic Considerations" concluding the grammar present a network of head-driven phrase structures. This book also brings the reader into the ambience of the fourth-century Goths. Readings from the Wulfilian Bible, the extant eight pages of the Skeireins, together with a glossary, definitions of linguistic technical terms, a bibliography, and an index complete this volume.

Genres: Language, Gothic

204 pages, Paperback

First published January 30, 2003

Reviews

[Christopher]

Irmengard Rauch's THE GOTHIC LANGUAGE: Grammar, Genetic Provenence and Typology, Readings is an introductory handbook to this earliest attested Germanic language. For the last thirty years of the 20th century, the linguistic study of Gothic had been somewhat moribund, with no new textbooks appearing to replace the old chestnut that is Wright's GRAMMAR OF THE GOTHIC LANGUAGE or Bennett's more recent but less rigorous AN INTRODUCTION TO THE GOTHIC LANGUAGE. Rauch's goal is to provide a new introduction that makes zealous use of contemporary developments in phonological theory and typology.

The book opens with a general history of Gothic philology. Rauch has some interesting points about Wulfila's relationship to Greek, noting for example that he preferred to use Greek loans instead of native words that were already too bound up with pagan worship. Crimean Gothic gets a brief mention. The grammar proper contains a very heady presentation of Gothic phonology, tracing its development from Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic. Unlike the older grammars, Rauch looks at phonological constraints, and she insists that the reader be able to view Gothic in a synchronic fashion and not fall prey to the etymological/historical outlook which "wrestles with phonetic plausibility only to retain a genetic representation." Unfortunately, this is all done in an overly concise and unfriendly manner. While there is great value here, this material is best encountered after one already has a grasp of Gothic from earlier handbooks. Also, I was unhappy with her approving tone in discussing the glottalic theory--already abandoned by many after its 1980s heydays--and her insubstantial treatment of laryngeals.

The section of the grammar dedicated to morphology is just a basic listing of forms as they are attested in Gothic along with their dependence on synchronic phonological phenomena. Regrettably, after a historical treatment of phonology Rauch doesn't seem interested at all in how inflection evolved from PIE. Syntax isn't treated all, although considering that the only surviving Gothic texts are translations, we may never know the precise details of the language's natural word order. The book ends with an abundant collection of readings, including Gospel texts, portions of 2 Timothy and Romans, and the Skeireins and fragment of Nehemiah, and glossary.

This book doesn't do much to challenge the position of Wright and Bennett as the best resources for Gothic neophytes. Nonetheless, it is worth looking into for general linguists and scholars of comparative Indo-European linguistics, and the readings and glossary will be of use to anyone studying Gothic.

[Volsung]

Not wonderful prose, but very useful and informative -- in my case the chapters on orthography, vowels (excellent charts) and on the verbs were particularly so. (I did not, for example, know that there is one recorded instance of a weak preterite "gaggida" to the verb "gaggan," contrary to the more frequent suppletive preterite "iddja.") Also the introductory chapter, on Wulfila and the Goths' historical context, is good, concise, and informative. A good volume.