Syllabification and Word Division in Gothic

Abstract

This article discusses methodological aspects of using Gothic orthography for the purposes of deducing phonological properties of the language. The vowel/glide alternation known as Sievers' law is used as an example. In order for scholars to propose an analysis of this alternation they must form a view of how syllable structure works in Gothic, and in order to do that they must interpret the orthography and determine to what extent it reflects phonology. It is primarily consonant clusters and word divisions that serve as orthographic sources for syllabification, beside alternation of i/j and u/w in related forms. A closer methodological look at some of the arguments that have been brought to bear on the issue of orthography and syllabification reveals that the strongest position that word division consistently reflects phonological syllabification cannot be upheld. Furthermore, it is shown that word division has little bearing on which word-initial clusters are possible in Gothic.I would like to thank Jonas Carlkvist, Rune Palm, Santeri Palviainen, Marc Pierce, and Rudolf Rydstedt for their help and willingness to discuss different aspects of this article. I am also very much indebted to the three anonymous JGL reviewers, whose comments have been of considerable help. All errors are mine.

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