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Article published In: NOWELE
Vol. 72:1 (2019) ► pp.11–41

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Conditional sentences in the Old East Frisian Brokmonna Bref

 | University College London
Published online: 12 April 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/nowele.00018.bre
Abstract
This paper offers a descriptive account of conditional sentences in the Brokmonna Bref (Brookmen’s Charter), an Old East Frisian regional law text of the thirteenth century. The text shows peculiarities of compositional design, particularly the systematised employment of verb-initial conditional sentences, attested to a lesser degree in other East Frisian texts, and which a comparative perspective reveals as sporadic outside Old Frisian. The descriptive approach provides a suitable opportunity to revisit, from the syntactic side, questions of phraseological inheritance in the language of Old Frisian law. In presenting data, this research takes initial steps towards further study of Old Frisian syntax and its relationship to West Germanic structures.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodological considerations and definitions
  • 3.V1 constructions
  • 4. Hwersa constructions
  • 5. Hwasa constructions
  • 6. Ief constructions
  • 7.Verb ellipsis
  • 8. Alsa constructions
  • 9.Occasional constructions
  • 10.Apodosis
  • 11.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Bremmer Jr, Rolf H.
2023. Reading Old Frisian laws as literature. Studia Neophilologica 95:2 ► pp. 281 ff. DOI logo
Bremmer Jr, Rolf H.
2021. Bilan des études sur le vieux-frison (1992-2021). Revue germanique internationale :34 ► pp. 93 ff. DOI logo

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