NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/sci/lang/8712

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-08 | 1.9 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!pipex!demon!cix.compulink.co.uk!petex
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: [e-mail] (Peter Christian)
Subject: Re: Morphological development of the genitive case in German
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Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 01:47:00 +0000
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In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]> [e-mail]

> Can anyone out there give me a brief history of the evolution of the genitive
> morphology of German throughout its history of a language, including any
> explanative points from Proto-Germanic, etc...

What? for all the declensions, singular and plural?

> If masculine and neuter nouns change their ending in the genitive as -es, as in
> die Mutter meines Vaters, and feminine nouns don't have the -es ending, as in
> der Vater meiner Mutter, why when making compound nouns with feminine nouns is
> there sometimes something like die VergangenheitSbewaeltigung?  Notice the
> genitive 's' there, I would conjecture that it follows from a pronunciation
> rule,

I don't *know* the answer to this but I can think of two
non-exclusive answers. 1) The point you suggest about pronunciation (not
a rule, though, it's too irregular for that), i.e. to ease the
transition between two consonants. 2) But initially probably the analogy
of the masc. & neuters where people must have come to regard it as a
compounding feature rather than as a reflex of the genitive. It would
certainly be interesting to find the earliest example of this -s-
with a feminine.

Peter
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Peter Christian
  Dept of European Languages              [e-mail]
  Goldsmiths' College, London.            [e-mail]
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