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The Origin of the Germanic Weak Preterite

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Edward H. Sehrt
Edward H. Sehrt*
Affiliation:
George Washington University
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Abstract

[A review of the theory that the Germanic weak preterite is derived from the 2d person singular middle of the Indo-European root-aorist.]

Information

Type
Miscellanea
Information
Language , Volume 20 , Issue 4-Part1: October-December , December 1944, pp. 238 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © 1944 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Brugmann, Vgl. Gr.2 2.3.172 ff, 645; E. Schwyzer, Griech. Gr. 1.757, 762; J. Wackernagel, Altind. Gr. 1.120.

2 That the Germanic weak preterite and the Greek aorist passive started from one person of the tense should occasion no surprise; cf. the 2d sing. in r in Old Norse, which was extended to the 3d sing. and then in the modern dialects to the whole paradigm. Cf. also the t-preterite in Irish (Pedersen, Kelt. Gr. 2.377).

3 I disregard here Runic tawido etc., for which several interpretations are possible. Cf. Collitz 130 ff.; Hirt, Hdb. d. Urg. 2.155; Kieckers. Hdb. d. vgl. got. Gr. 256.

4 Hirt, Idg. Gr. 4.231, 301.

5 M. H. Jellinek, Gesch. d. got. Spr. 79.

6 Th. Frings, Anzeiger für deutsches Altertum 40.21 (1921); H. M. Flasdieck, Untersuchungen über die germanischen schwachen Verben III. Klasse 160–1 (1935).

7 Another possibility is that gahugds stands for *gahuhts with the second h having been replaced in Prim. Germanic by the g of hugjan. The final t then became d by assimilation. There is some support for this view in OHG (cf. Schatz, Ahd. Gr. 165), where gihuht—not only in Notker! cf. OE hyht—sometimes appears as gihugt with reference to the verb huggen, hugis. OHG also has quite a number of examples of gt becoming ct (Schatz 164 ff.).