Volume 135, Issue 2

While the development of German - ung -nominalization (e. g. Landung ›landing‹, Bildung ›education‹, Heizung ›heating installation‹, Bedienung ›service; waiter/waitress‹) from Early New High German to New High German is fairly well-studied, the Middle High German (MHG) period has been neglected so far. This paper aims at filling this gap with a corpus-based study of MHG - ung -nominals. The data are derived from the document archive of the new MHG dictionary, containing about 7 million word forms from 207 texts. From these data, a corpus of 2355 - ung -nominals in their respective contexts has been assembled and analyzed. The corpus provides evidence for the hypothesis that the MHG - ung -nominals adopt the semantic content of their respective base verbs altogether more comprehensively than their NHG equivalents. However, the tendency towards lexicalization (and, thereby, loss of transparency and decrease of ›verb-proximity‹) is already visible. Therefore I argue that the development of ung -nominals from rather peripheral to more prototypical nouns by means of lexicalization started as early as in the MHG period.

This paper concentrates on Walther’s von der Vogelweide famous song ‘Nement, frowe, disen cranz’ (L 74,20), which is preserved in three medieval manuscripts. Most researchers have still not read the song in the order in which the verses are attested in the manuscripts, and base their reconstructions on a modern understanding of coherence. The following paper, however, carefully takes into account the different versions of the manuscripts. The interpretation shows how the courtly dance situation, which is the starting point of the poem, is transformed by the lover’s imagination. The poem emphasizes what the lover is capable of doing with the unattainable lady in his dreams. It illustrates how fantasies and dreams can undermine the boundaries and taboos of courtly love. Showing how imagination works, the text is not only a love song, but also a meta poetic poem, which reveals imagination as an elementary condition of poetry.

Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic ideas present a fruitful approach to Wolfram’s ›Willehalm‹ and Ulrich’s ›Lanzelet‹. Bypassing conventional applications of theory, this essay foregrounds the textual dynamics of language, showing how they generate against-the-grain readings or surprising connections. Vivianz’ battle against Noupatris can be read as a reflection of the young knight in his opponent; in Vivianz’ heroic and legendary story he is sometimes depicted in a female position. In ›Lanzelet‹ the hero’s missing image in the mirror in the tent, and his destruction of a knight who may be understood as his reflection on the ›Wachsende Warte‹, allow various views of his ego .

The article provides a critical discussion of Jürgen Wolf's study of the formation and development of German text and book production in the 12th and 13th centuries. The author presents a complementary approach to this broad field of research, based on two case studies of the written transmission of Gottfried's ‘Tristan’ and Minnesang. Moreover, the article provides, for the first time, a transcription of the recently discovered Wiesbaden fragment of Gottfried's ‘Tristan’ (p).

In his poem Nr. 85 Oswald von Wolkenstein describes a raid with the following words: Schalmützen ſchalmeuſſen niemand ſchied. While ſchalmützen can be attached to the loanword Scharmützel ‹skirmish›, ſchalmeuſſen is a hapax legomenon, created by Oswald. We suppose that he related ſchalmützen with the old regional word mützer ‹shrew› and invented the neologism ſchalmeuſſen based on the name of the resembling animal maus ‹mouse›. The two animals belong to different families, but their apparent similarity motivated him to invent not only a schalmützer but also a schalmaus . In the context the pun is comprehensible, but it has no objective meaning and is impossible to translate.