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OE-estre and PGmc. *-ārjaz: The origin and development of two agentive suffixes in Germanic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Garry W. Davis
Garry W. Davis
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-MilwaukeeMilwaukee, WI 53201
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Abstract

PGmc. *-ārjaz was borrowed from Latin, and became a productive masculine agentive suffix in the older Germanic languages, gradually displacing various native agentive suffixes. Despite some assertions to the contrary, OE -estre can be shown to have been a feminine agentive suffix of Germanic origin that was also applied to certain feminine animal names. During the Old English period, a pattern obtained whereby masculine agent nouns were frequently derived using -ere (< PGmc. *-ārjaz), while the corresponding feminine agent nouns used -estre. This system was partially preserved in Modern Dutch, but died out in English as -er was increasingly used to form agent nouns of both genders.*

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Germanic Linguistics , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , July 1992 , pp. 103 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Germanic Linguistics 1992

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