Michiel De Vaan
Biographic Data
| ID | 3671770 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michiel De Vaan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michiel |
| FAMILY NAME | De Vaan |
| SIGNATURE | DE VAAN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Lausanne |
| ORCID | 0009-0006-2905-6800 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Anaphoric polar answers in Gallo‐Romance and West Germanic
In several medieval and modern varieties of Gallo-Romance and West Germanic, answers to polar questions may consist of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ followed by a personal or demonstrative pronoun with anaphoric reference. This type of answers is typologically rare, which begs the question of its origin and its possible spread via language contact. The present article reviews the dialectal evidence, especially on the Germanic side, discusses the etymology of the…
Dutch porren, Low German purren ‘poke’, High German pfurren ‘dash away’, and Proto-Germanic *spurnan ‘to kick, spurn’
Dutch porren and northern German purren ‘to poke, prod’, Middle Dutch porren, purren ‘to set in motion; start to move’, High German pfurren ‘dash away’ have no accepted etymology within Germanic. The author proposes that they go back to PGmc. * spurnṓ- , * spurn- ‘to spurn’, from which also derive English spurn and German anspornen . Through the Proto-Germanic sound change of pretonic * rn to rr and partial loss of s- from word-initial * sp- , a …
Das limburgische Konverb als Relikt der prädikativen Adjektivflexion
The Limburgian dialects contain a participial formation that is traditionally called a gerund, but is in fact a converb. The suffix appears in different forms. Since the emergence and development of the converb have not been convincingly explained so far, in this paper I revisit this topic. More precisely, I introduce the converb, discuss the history of the existing studies, treat the different formal variants of the suffix, and propose a linguis…
A contact-induced strategy of femininisation: Middle Dutch and Middle High German nouns in ‐ erse
Middle Dutch and Middle High German possess a femininizing suffix ‐ erse , of which reflexes survive in some modern dialects. Its Old Germanic preform arose from the grafting of Latin ‐ issa onto the masculine suffix *‐ ārja ‐ in Dutch and German dialects closest to the Gallo-Romance area in the Early Middle Ages. The main aim of the present contribution is to provide hitherto underexposed details on the Dutch linguistic area, to show that the ma…
Gallo-Romance lenition in Germanic loanwords: The case of ‘market’
One of the earliest changes affecting Western Romance before the end of the Roman Empire was the lenition of intervocalic * p , * t , * k to * b , * d, *g . We find its effects in a number of Romance loanwords in West Germanic. The word for ‘market’ has not played a role in this discussion because it is often attested with t in the West Germanic languages. Still, there are strong indications that the word was borrowed into Germanic as * markadu a…
Pourquoi [vøːrtər]
Des mots, encore des mots... C’est l’une des nombreuses passions de notre collègue et ami Rudolf Wachter, alias Ruedi, en l’honneur duquel ce cahier a été concocté. Désirant honorer le dédicataire de ce petit ouvrage à l’occasion de son départ à la retraite, nous avons proposé à quelques unes et quelques uns de ses collègues, amis et proches de rédiger pour lui de brèves contributions, centrées, à chaque coup, sur un mot
Regard linguistique sur la regiquine
Latin regiquina et français regiquine se trouvent dans des documents juridiques de la Suisse romande du XIIIe au XVIe siècle.1 Sur leur sens et leur usage, l’essentiel a été dit par Von der Mühll 1967, qui traduit le mot par « déclaration faite sous serment de dire la vérité, dans le cadre d’une enquête », mais la confusion règne encore sur l’explication étymologique. Cela justifie notre contribution sur ce mot gallo-roman de souche germanique, e…
Jeux de langue et Olympiade linguistique: Méthodes ludiques pour diffuser le savoir linguistique
Dans le contexte de la collaboration croissante entre la recherche universitaire et la société en général, notamment, dans le cadre des activités de sensibilisation, le présent article décrit deux manières par lesquelles les linguistes peuvent intéresser la jeune génération, des enfants entre neuf et dix-neuf ans environ, aux similitudes structurelles et aux différences entre les langues. Ces activités, notamment le jeu des langues et l’olympiade…
Designing Inter- and Transdisciplinary Research on Mountains: What Place for the Unexpected
In recent decades, research on mountains has become more inter- and transdisciplinary, but a greater effort is needed if such research is to contribute to a societal transformation toward sustainability. Mountain research centers are a crucial actor in this endeavor. Yet, the literature has not paid sufficient attention to how these centers should (re-)design inter- and transdisciplinary research. In this study, we explored this question with a s…
The multiple semantics of PIE deictic * bhe in Baltic
The traditional equation of Lithuanian connective bè, be- with the preposition bè ‘without’ can be supported by a more detailed reconstruction of the semantic history of the words. This analysis can be supported by outer-Baltic evidence for the PIE deictic elements *bhe, *bho
The indefinite quantifier no sé cuantísimo in Contemporary Spanish
Many European languages contain an indefinite construction that consists of ‘I don't know’ and an interrogative pronoun, of the type pour je ne sais combien d’années ‘for I-don't-know-how-many years’ in French. Of the Spanish equivalent, no sé cuánto ‘I don't know how many’, a superlative no sé cuantísimo ‘I don't know how very much/many’, ‘an awful lot’, has been derived in the twentieth century. In this paper, I give examples of its usage from …
Inflected and uninflected possessives and Lithuanian kienõ
It is argued that the uninflected possessive adjective Lithuanian kienõ ‘whose’ replaces an earlier form *kienè which arose from the addition of stressed -nè to monosyllabic *kie. As the source of the latter form, an innovation *kwo-iʔ ‘whose’ is posited, which was made as an uninflected adjective in *-iʔ to the interrogative pronoun. The model for this formation was the existence of Balto-Slavic *ʔmoiʔ ‘my’, *twoiʔ ‘your’, *swoiʔ ‘his, her own’,…
Cooling and societal change during the Late Antique Little Ice Age from 536 to around 660 AD
Présentation
En 2009 Armando Antonelli découvrit dans les Archives de la Basilique de Saint-‐ Pétrone à Bologne un bifolium contenant un fragment du De Civitate Dei de Saint Augustin (Antonelli 2009, Modesti/Zuffrano 2010). Ensuite, Maddalena Modesti et Annafelicia Zuffrano 2013 reconnurent qu’il s’agissait d’un palimpseste, et Delio Vania Proverbio identifia la scriptio inferior comme écriture gotique (Finazzi/Tornaghi, ce volume). Rosa Bianca Finazzi et Pa…
Reduplicated demonstratives in ancient Indo‐European languages
This paper discusses the occurrence of reduplicated demonstrative pronouns in the older Indo‐European languages and analyses their usage in the light of general linguistic insights into reduplication and demonstrative pronouns. The main aim is to find out whether the attested and reconstructed reduplicated demonstratives were inherited from Proto‐Indo‐European or arose at a later stage in the individual branches. I will discuss evidence from Sans…
The emergence of Dutch: Consonant changes until 1200
In discussions on the history of Dutch phonology, vowels have played a more prominent role than consonants. In some recent and forthcoming publications (de Vaan 2012, forthcoming a, forthcoming b), I show that the consonants also hold important clues for language history in the Low Countries. The present article is a survey of the main pre-1200 consonant changes affecting the dialects of what eventually became the Dutch language. As far as possib…
The Metathesis of Suffixal - sl - to - ls - in West Germanic
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Dutch koon and Proto-Germanic "jaw, cheek"
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Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An introductionSecond edition
This book gives a comprehensive introduction to Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. It starts with a presentation of the languages of the family (from English and the other Germanic languages, the Celtic and Slavic languages, Latin, Greek and Sanskrit through Armenian and Albanian) and a discussion of the culture and origin of the Indo-Europeans, the speakers of the Indo-European proto-language. The reader is introduced into the nature of lang…
Old Persian
1.1. The language Old Persian (OP) is an Old Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Speakers of Proto-Iranian may have migrated southwest around 1000 bce from Central Asia. In 843, the Persians are mentioned in an Assyrian inscription as Parsua, who live in the vicinity of Lake Urmia. After a further southward migration they settled in southwestern Iran, giving their name to the region which st…
Another Frisianism in Coastal Dutch: Traam, Treem, Triem ‘Crossbeam’
The dialect geography and etymology of Dutch, Frisian, and German trVm(e) ‘crossbeam’ suggest that western Dutch triem continues West Germanic + ‐ ǣ- , which underwent vowel raising to /i./ as in Frisian. Thus, Dutch traam beside triem belongs to an established group of Standard Dutch words showing /a./ next to /i./ from West Germanic + ‐ ǣ- , such as schraal vs. schriel . It is argued that the survival of words in /i./ in the coastal dialects of…
Cantera, Alberto, Studien zur Pahlavi-Übersetzung des Avesta
The Avestan Vowels
The Avestan Vowels
For the first time, the vowels of Avestan are studied comprehensively on the synchronic and diachronic level. All vowel changes which have occurred after the Proto-Iranian stage are discussed, and they are placed in a relative chronology. The phonological system of Avestan at various stages of its development is reconstructed, and the relationship between Old Avestan and Young Avestan is reviewed. Also, many philological details are discussed. Th…
Languages From the World of the Bible
The alphabetic script is part of the lasting heritage of the ancient Near East. It unites a number of newly-emerging civilizations in ancient Syria-Palestine, which together constitute the immediate background of the Hebrew Bible. Transformed by the impact of Hellenism, they also shaped the social-historical and cultural setting of the New Testament. This work presents fresh and concise yet thorough overviews of the relevant languages and their i…
The Indo-Iranian animal suffix *-Āćá
No Abstract
The Low Franconian Toponym niel "on a Downward Slope"
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The Indo-Iranian animal suffix *-Āćá
No Abstract
The Etymology of English to brag and Old Icelandic bragr
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The Avestan Vowels
For the first time, the vowels of Avestan are studied comprehensively on the synchronic and diachronic level. All vowel changes which have occurred after the Proto-Iranian stage are discussed, and they are placed in a relative chronology. The phonological system of Avestan at various stages of its development is reconstructed, and the relationship between Old Avestan and Young Avestan is reviewed. Also, many philological details are discussed. Th…
Avestan ao ̄ and vi ̄diδa ̄ra: On a new edition of Ha ̄ado ̄xt Nask 2
No Abstract
Avestan aō and vīdiδāra: On a new edition of Hāadōxt Nask 2
The Avestan Vowels
Cantera, Alberto, Studien zur Pahlavi-Übersetzung des Avesta
Another Frisianism in Coastal Dutch: Traam, Treem, Triem ‘Crossbeam’
The dialect geography and etymology of Dutch, Frisian, and German trVm(e) ‘crossbeam’ suggest that western Dutch triem continues West Germanic + ‐ ǣ- , which underwent vowel raising to /i./ as in Frisian. Thus, Dutch traam beside triem belongs to an established group of Standard Dutch words showing /a./ next to /i./ from West Germanic + ‐ ǣ- , such as schraal vs. schriel . It is argued that the survival of words in /i./ in the coastal dialects of…
Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An introductionSecond edition
This book gives a comprehensive introduction to Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. It starts with a presentation of the languages of the family (from English and the other Germanic languages, the Celtic and Slavic languages, Latin, Greek and Sanskrit through Armenian and Albanian) and a discussion of the culture and origin of the Indo-Europeans, the speakers of the Indo-European proto-language. The reader is introduced into the nature of lang…
Old Persian
1.1. The language Old Persian (OP) is an Old Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Speakers of Proto-Iranian may have migrated southwest around 1000 bce from Central Asia. In 843, the Persians are mentioned in an Assyrian inscription as Parsua, who live in the vicinity of Lake Urmia. After a further southward migration they settled in southwestern Iran, giving their name to the region which st…
The Metathesis of Suffixal - sl - to - ls - in West Germanic
Preview this article: The Metathesis of Suffixal -sl- to -ls- in West Germanic, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/nowele.64-65.05vaa-1.gif
Dutch koon and Proto-Germanic "jaw, cheek"
Preview this article: Dutch koon and Proto-Germanic "jaw, cheek", Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/nowele.64-65.06vaa-1.gif
The emergence of Dutch: Consonant changes until 1200
In discussions on the history of Dutch phonology, vowels have played a more prominent role than consonants. In some recent and forthcoming publications (de Vaan 2012, forthcoming a, forthcoming b), I show that the consonants also hold important clues for language history in the Low Countries. The present article is a survey of the main pre-1200 consonant changes affecting the dialects of what eventually became the Dutch language. As far as possib…
Reduplicated demonstratives in ancient Indo‐European languages
This paper discusses the occurrence of reduplicated demonstrative pronouns in the older Indo‐European languages and analyses their usage in the light of general linguistic insights into reduplication and demonstrative pronouns. The main aim is to find out whether the attested and reconstructed reduplicated demonstratives were inherited from Proto‐Indo‐European or arose at a later stage in the individual branches. I will discuss evidence from Sans…
Cooling and societal change during the Late Antique Little Ice Age from 536 to around 660 AD
Présentation
En 2009 Armando Antonelli découvrit dans les Archives de la Basilique de Saint-‐ Pétrone à Bologne un bifolium contenant un fragment du De Civitate Dei de Saint Augustin (Antonelli 2009, Modesti/Zuffrano 2010). Ensuite, Maddalena Modesti et Annafelicia Zuffrano 2013 reconnurent qu’il s’agissait d’un palimpseste, et Delio Vania Proverbio identifia la scriptio inferior comme écriture gotique (Finazzi/Tornaghi, ce volume). Rosa Bianca Finazzi et Pa…
Inflected and uninflected possessives and Lithuanian kienõ
It is argued that the uninflected possessive adjective Lithuanian kienõ ‘whose’ replaces an earlier form *kienè which arose from the addition of stressed -nè to monosyllabic *kie. As the source of the latter form, an innovation *kwo-iʔ ‘whose’ is posited, which was made as an uninflected adjective in *-iʔ to the interrogative pronoun. The model for this formation was the existence of Balto-Slavic *ʔmoiʔ ‘my’, *twoiʔ ‘your’, *swoiʔ ‘his, her own’,…
The multiple semantics of PIE deictic * bhe in Baltic
The traditional equation of Lithuanian connective bè, be- with the preposition bè ‘without’ can be supported by a more detailed reconstruction of the semantic history of the words. This analysis can be supported by outer-Baltic evidence for the PIE deictic elements *bhe, *bho
The indefinite quantifier no sé cuantísimo in Contemporary Spanish
Many European languages contain an indefinite construction that consists of ‘I don't know’ and an interrogative pronoun, of the type pour je ne sais combien d’années ‘for I-don't-know-how-many years’ in French. Of the Spanish equivalent, no sé cuánto ‘I don't know how many’, a superlative no sé cuantísimo ‘I don't know how very much/many’, ‘an awful lot’, has been derived in the twentieth century. In this paper, I give examples of its usage from …
Gallo-Romance lenition in Germanic loanwords: The case of ‘market’
One of the earliest changes affecting Western Romance before the end of the Roman Empire was the lenition of intervocalic * p , * t , * k to * b , * d, *g . We find its effects in a number of Romance loanwords in West Germanic. The word for ‘market’ has not played a role in this discussion because it is often attested with t in the West Germanic languages. Still, there are strong indications that the word was borrowed into Germanic as * markadu a…
Pourquoi [vøːrtər]
Des mots, encore des mots... C’est l’une des nombreuses passions de notre collègue et ami Rudolf Wachter, alias Ruedi, en l’honneur duquel ce cahier a été concocté. Désirant honorer le dédicataire de ce petit ouvrage à l’occasion de son départ à la retraite, nous avons proposé à quelques unes et quelques uns de ses collègues, amis et proches de rédiger pour lui de brèves contributions, centrées, à chaque coup, sur un mot
Regard linguistique sur la regiquine
Latin regiquina et français regiquine se trouvent dans des documents juridiques de la Suisse romande du XIIIe au XVIe siècle.1 Sur leur sens et leur usage, l’essentiel a été dit par Von der Mühll 1967, qui traduit le mot par « déclaration faite sous serment de dire la vérité, dans le cadre d’une enquête », mais la confusion règne encore sur l’explication étymologique. Cela justifie notre contribution sur ce mot gallo-roman de souche germanique, e…
Jeux de langue et Olympiade linguistique: Méthodes ludiques pour diffuser le savoir linguistique
Dans le contexte de la collaboration croissante entre la recherche universitaire et la société en général, notamment, dans le cadre des activités de sensibilisation, le présent article décrit deux manières par lesquelles les linguistes peuvent intéresser la jeune génération, des enfants entre neuf et dix-neuf ans environ, aux similitudes structurelles et aux différences entre les langues. Ces activités, notamment le jeu des langues et l’olympiade…
Designing Inter- and Transdisciplinary Research on Mountains: What Place for the Unexpected
In recent decades, research on mountains has become more inter- and transdisciplinary, but a greater effort is needed if such research is to contribute to a societal transformation toward sustainability. Mountain research centers are a crucial actor in this endeavor. Yet, the literature has not paid sufficient attention to how these centers should (re-)design inter- and transdisciplinary research. In this study, we explored this question with a s…
Linguistics and language evolution (23 works) · Philosophy (21 works) · Linguistics (16 works) · History (14 works) · Art (10 works) · Linguistics and Cultural Studies (8 works) · Lexicography and Language Studies (7 works) · German (6 works) · Ancient Near East History (5 works) · Computer Science (5 works)