ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTIONING OF GRAMMAR CATEGORY OF NUMBER IN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE

Abstract

The thesis suggests the comprehensive approach towards the study of the origin, development and functioning of grammar category of number in different historic periods of the German language. The investigation of the number of a noun in this study is based on a synchronic-diachronic approach. To solve the tasks, the comparative historical method, the method of linguistic reconstruction and descriptive analysis were used. The analysis is based on Old-, Middle- and Early High German texts as well as the data from lexicographic sources of the German language. In the course of the study, the chronology of the origin and genetic origins of the grammatical category of number in the German language were traced. We have identified and disclosed the features of the origin and development of the studied units in the diachronic aspect. The linguistic reconstruction of the preforms was also carried out and the primary motivation of the lexemes under study was revealed. It is suggested that the origin and development of the concept of number came from the opposition 'whole / part', which served as the source of the concept of 'singularity / duality (plurality)', to the emergence of proper grammatical formatives of the category of number in the Indo-European proto-language. The material of the analyzed ancient texts made it possible to single out a clear realization of the singular and plural in the nouns and to find traces of the dual, the functioning of which belongs to the preliterate time. As shown by the analysis of literary texts of all periods of the development of the German language, the most ancient one is the non-reflective type, which belongs to the lexical type of plurality, other means of expressing the number indicate the transition to the grammatical level and at the same time the emergence of grammatical markers of number. The research results of grammar category of number allowed defining the grammar-phonetic markers of plurality which replaced the semantic ones. Thus, we may suggest the idea about the substitution of the synthetic expression means by the analytic ones.

Keywords

• граматична категорія числа
• давні німецькі тексти
• множина
• однина
• фонетико-граматичні маркери