The Phonological Investigation of Old English;

THIS The object in view is to show what factors are involved in a systematic account of Old English words and speech-sounds. It is argued that the method of investigation is necessarily comparative, involving "a consideration of related words and speech-sounds in the kindred Germanic tongues." Tables of vowel and consonant correspondences are given to aid in a summary view of such comparison, and a list of important works, to which more or less constant reference must be had,...
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THIS The object in view is to show what factors are involved in a systematic account of Old English words and speech-sounds. It is argued that the method of investigation is necessarily comparative, involving "a consideration of related words and speech-sounds in the kindred Germanic tongues." Tables of vowel and consonant correspondences are given to aid in a summary view of such comparison, and a list of important works, to which more or less constant reference must be had, accompanies a few brief definitions of the details of the method. The author then fancies himself in a classroom; he is teaching beginners in the more advanced forms of English philology; the text-book is Sweet's 'Anglo-Saxon Reader.' The book is opened at page 36, and the entry of the Chronicle under the year 894 is subjected to special scrutiny. Fifty of the nouns and verbs found in this paragraph are, at apparent random, taken up and made the subjects of fifty separate and consecutively numbered expositions. The construction of these "problems" is highly synoptical, so that a specimen may easily be given. One of the selected words is hám (home). The rubric reads: "OHG. heim; OS. hém; ON. heimr; Goth. haims," and then follows the discussion: "h and m are constant. Goth, s here represents z...
This pamphlet will be welcome to many doubtful minds for showing to what uses the appalling first half of Sievers' Grammar may be put, as well as for the specific help it will afford to such as are struggling under less favorable conditions with initial modes of study in the broad domain of English philology.