| This study examines the development of three constructions involving 'be' and a participle: (i) 'be' + present participle (die Sonne ist strahlend 'the sun is bright'), (ii) 'be' + past participle of transitive verbs ( die Tur ist geoffnet 'the door is open'), and (iii) 'be' + past participle of intransitive verbs ( das Kind ist gelaufen 'the child ran').; The present participle is derived from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) forms with the *-nt- suffix, and the past participle is derived from the PIE verbal adjectives in *-to- and *-no -. The paradigm of the verb 'be' in the Germanic dialects shows a history of suppletion; all of the dialects show present indicative forms derived from PIE *h1es- 'be' and preterite forms from PIE *h2ues- 'stay (the night).' In Continental West Germanic, reflexes from PIE *bhueh2- 'become, grow' are blended with those from * h1es- in the present indicative, while the present indicative paradigm of Insular West Germanic shows blending from PIE *h 3er- 'rise, start to move.' All five of the major early Germanic dialects: Gothic, Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old English and Old High German, evidence all three constructions studied, suggesting that they were likely inherited from Common Germanic. The range of interpretation of these three structures in German is traced from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries in the following translations of the New Testament (NT) gospels: The Monsee Fragments (800), Tatian (830), Beheim (1343) and Luther (1545). The only texts extant from each of the historical periods of German, the NT gospels relate familiar prose narratives and therefore provide contexts for distinguishing sentences relating events (dynamic structures) from sentences offering description (statal structures). The linguistic concepts of aspect and Aktionsart are applied to model the developments that occur, including the distribution of the ge-prefix on the past participle. Ultimately, the verb 'be' cannot be shown to possess either statal or dynamic Aktionsart; nonetheless, it has functioned in both statal and dynamic expressions throughout the history of the language. |
