Andrew Kraiss

Determiner Phrase and Definiteness in Old High German: the Evolution of the Definite and Indefinite Articles in German Andrew Kraiss

Determiner Phrase and Definiteness in Old High German is a study of early Germanic definiteness marking and the rise of article use in the Old High German Isidor & Tatian translations and Otfrid?s Evangelienbuch. Previous work has often failed to take into account the many ways that the definite article can be employed or the fact that new grammatical structures sometimes evolve over great lengths of time. This study discusses the evolutionary process and stages of article use in these three individual Old High German documents, the three longest documents in Old Franconian dialects. It proposes that a definite article did exist from the earliest recorded examples of Old High German although with differing uses at different times (and places). The work further proposes that an indefinite article can be observed to have begun a similar evolutionary process by the time of Otfrid?s Evangelienbuch.