Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Prefatory note -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Part I: Text -- 1. The Continental runic inscriptions -- 2. Phonology and runic orthography -- 3. The diphthongs -- 4. The back vocalics -- 5. The front vocalics -- 6. The low vowels -- 7. The consonants -- 8. The phonological system(s) of "Continental Runic" -- Part II: Catalogue -- Notes on catalogue entries -- Catalogue entries -- Appendix 1: Handlist of Continental runic inscriptions excluded from the corpus -- Appendix 2: Suspect inscriptions. Possible forgeries and the assessment of authenticity -- Appendix 3: The "Berlin" scabbard mouthpiece -- Maps -- Bibliography -- Index of inscriptions
Summary
In using runic inscriptions as evidence for sound change, we tend to focus on the interpretation of individual texts, rather than examining the dataset as a whole. This study aims at the phonological analysis of a corpus of 90 runic inscriptions on the Continent to test claims that the phonological processes which characterise Old High German and Old Saxon are at work in the 5th-7th centuries. The study presents significant challenges to existing models of these sound changes
Analysis
5th to 7th centuries
Germanic dialects
Southern Germany
phonetic language
runes
Notes
Originallly presented as the author's thesis (doctoral thesis -- University of Nottingham) under the title "Vocalism in the Continental Runic Inscriptions", 2009
