Open Access

Damaris Nübling

• Extremely short verbs can be found in various Germanic languages and dialects; the roots of these verbs do not have a final consonant «C)-C-V), and they always have a monosyllabic infinitive and usually monosyllabic finite forms as well. Examples for these kinds of short verbs are Swiss German hä'to have', gä 'to go', gifii 'to give', nifif 'to take' which correspond to the Swedish verbs ha, ga, ge and ta. The last example shows that such shore verb formations also occur with verbs which do not share the same etymology. Apart from shortness, short verbs are characterized by a high degree of irregularity, often even by suppletion, which sometimes develops against sound laws. Furthermore they are among the most used verbs and often tend to grammaticalization. The present paper compares the short verbs of seven Germanic languages; in addition, it describes their various ways of development and strategies of differentiation. Moreover, it exarnines the question of why some languages and dialects (e.g., Swiss German, Frisian, Swedish, Norwegian) have many shore verbs while others (New High German, Icelandic, Faroese) do not. Finally, the paper discusses the contribution of shore verbs to questions concerning linguistic change and the morphological organization of languages.