300 GERMANIC LANGUAGES 



Gothic. haitans=O. N. heitinn, but is obviously seen in the third 

 person singular of the weak preterite, which actually has the ending 

 -Hi, corresponding regularly to the Goth, third person in -da. 



A better explanation both of the Runic and the literary forms of 

 the Norse preterite has been advanced some thirty-five years ago 

 by the late Professor Konr. Gislason. 1 In his opinion the ending -&a 

 of the Old Norse preterite is to be explained from an earlier form 

 -dau whose diphthong finds a parallel in that of the Gothic first 

 person subjunctive -dedjau. The mutual relation of the vowels is 

 exactly the same as in the case of the numeral 8, O. N. atta = 

 Goth, ahtau. The ending -do of Runic forms like tawido stands 

 midway between the Gothic and the regular Old Norse form in that 

 it shows the diphthong au contracted to o, but not yet shortened to a. 

 The ending is in accordance, therefore, with the general character of 

 the language of the " Primitive Norse " inscriptions, which occupies 

 a position intermediate between Gothic and the language of Old 

 Norse literature, but at the same time shares all the characteristic 

 peculiarities of the Norse branch. 



I have, for my part, no doubt that Gislason's theory is correct, 

 and have stated this many years ago. 2 Finding, however, that the 

 authors of Old Norse and Germanic grammars and handbooks 

 continue to disregard Gislason's view, I may be allowed briefly to 

 review the points which seem to me to furnish an almost mathematical 

 proof of his theory. 



First. The inflection in Old Norse of the weak preterite is peculiar 

 in that here the first person singular indicative and the third person 

 singular indicative have a different ending, while in Gothic, Old 

 High German, and, in fact, in almost every Germanic dialect (except 

 Old Norse) the ending of the first and third persons is the same. 



Secondly. The inflection in Old Norse of the weak preterite is 

 further more peculiar in that the ending of the first person singular 

 indicative agrees with that of the first person singular subjunctive, 

 and the ending of the third person singular indicative with that of 

 the third person singular subjunctive, while in Gothic (and more or 

 less so in the other Germanic languages) the endings of the indicative 

 and the subjunctive differ both in the first and in the third person. 



Thirdly. If we compare the endings of the first and third person of 

 the Norse preterite with those of the first and third person (indicative 

 and subjunctive) in Gothic, we experience no difficulty in identifying 



in accordance with the laws governing the change of final vowels 



these endings in the first person singular subjunctive and in the 

 third person singular indicative and subjunctive. 



1 Aarboger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historic, 1869, pp. 126-130. 



2 Compare my article on the origin of the weak preterite, American Journal of 

 Philology, vol ix (1888), p. 56. 



