On the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday
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124 is not a ‘normal’ strong verb stem. On account of its marginal status, it will be disregarded in the following. Finally, the verb KOMMENw is usually assigned to the fourth class of strong verbs (gradation e-a-o, cf.
although its ‘principal parts’ are kommen-kam-gekommen ,34
Its base vocalism would have to be regarded as deviant. By the present synchronic approach, however, the stem KOMML shows
ordinary o-ablaut (komm—*kam): it has one (and only one) ablaut form (kam), which is an A-form, and there is short—»long-alternation. However, KOMML is
the only stem that shows U—»A-alternation.35 3 Functions of ablaut 3.1 Functional types It is customary to distinguish what may be called functional types of stem forms. Usually, these are referred to as ‘present stem’, ‘past stem’ and ‘parti- ciple stem’. In terms of the present approach, the differentiation of functional types constitutes a classification of stem forms (i.e., forms of stem lexemes), namely, a classification that accounts for the stem forms’ functions. Of course, these are related to the (functional) categorisations of the forms of verbs that contain the stem forms in question (cf. Lieb 1983: Section 11.3, 1992). In addition to the named three primary types there are the so-called ‘sec- ondary present tense stems’ and ‘secondary past tense stems’. The differentia- tion of primary and secondary stem forms is a matter of subclassifying the sets of present and past tense stem forms, respectively. The received terminology (primary-secondary) obviously reflects the assumption that secondary forms are derived from their primary counter-parts. It also points to the observation that this subdifferentiation does not always apply, that is, there are stems such that one or both secondary forms are missing. No doubt, the primary- secondary-differentiation imposes an order of markedness on functional types. An order in terms of markedness may also be established among primary stem forms. The traditional differentiation of three ‘primary stems’ tends to give the impression that these three types were on an equal footing, but they 14 15 14 In particular in historical grammars but also in reference grammars of Contemporary German; see, e.g., Curme (1922: 311). 15 It may be noted that some of the forms of anomalous verbs conform to standard ablaut patterns. w e sl
functions as a suppletive stem of SEINW used in past tense forms; it has a- ablaut, wes—*war (and consonantal change); cf. l es l . Similarly, the past forms of g e he nw
are built on GANGl , which shows /-ablaut (gang—*ging); cf. fa n g l .
w e r d l has an o-ablaut form word', cf. w e r b
l. 125 are positively not.36 Stem forms must not be classified into three types of equal rank; such a classification would be inhomogeneous, a mixing of two criteria that interact in the differentiation of the three functional types, viz. tense and fmitude. The traditional three-element classification should be replaced by a system of two classifications: a basic classification according to tense as proposed by Lieb (1978) and a sub-classification in terms of fmitude.37 38 I assume, then, a classification into non-past and past forms as a first functional classification on the set of stem forms of strong verbs.3X This is in accordance with a traditional line of thought that ranks past participles — as the name says — among past forms. The set of past tense forms is subclassi- fied according to fmitude: this subclassification sets apart stem forms that occur in finite past verb forms (the ‘primary and secondary past tense stems’) from those that occur in non-finite (or ‘infinite’) past verb forms (the latter being tradition’s ‘participle stems’, of course). In its turn, the prima- ry/secondary-distinction imposes a subclassification on the set of finite past tense stem forms in terms of mood. Accordingly, I distinguish between finite
forms (‘secondary past stems’). To complete the classification system the traditional distinction between ‘primary and secondary present tense stems’ would have to be accounted for. However, as ablaut concerns the formation of past forms only, this part of the classification system may be left without analysis for purposes of the present investigation.39 The proposed system of classifications may be presented by means of a classification tree that is given in Figure 1 (next page). The basic set stro n g is
the set of forms of stems of strong verbs; tense, fmitude and mood are the names of the three classifications introduced above. Names of classes are obvious abbreviations. The subclassification of non-past forms is left out. For 36 Compare, for instance, Augst (1975: 251), who assumes that in Modem German a formerly given discrepancy between four ‘ablaut grades’ and three ‘tense grades’ (“4 Ablaut- aber 3 Tempusstufen”) has been remedied. This would seem to imply that the three ‘primary stems’ are differentiated solely in terms of tense (cf. 266: “[...] wird der Vokal- wechsel allein mit der Tempusunterscheidung belastet.”). 17 Cf. also Halle & Marantz (1993), who assume two features, [± past] and [± participle], and see Wunderlich & Fabri (1995) on the feature [± AGR]. For discussion of the non- morphemic character of notions such as ‘past stem’ see Blevins (2003). 38 Significantly, in the case of ‘tense stems’ of weak verbs, this distinction is the only one that applies, cf. lob (non-past) vs. lobt (past). 39 Lieb (1978: 206) distinguishes three types of present tense stem forms because there are two varieties of ‘secondary present tense stems’; those that show umlaut are restricted to the 2nd/3rd person singular present indicative while those that show //e-alternation are used with imperatives in addition.
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