The papers contained in this issue feature specific phenomena characteristic of one Germanic language in question and set these phenomena off against functional or structural equivalents in one or more other Germanic languages.

The collection pursues this course in great detail for specific aspects of the following languages: Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, English, Faeroese, German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and Yiddish. To some extent also regiolects and dialectal phenomena (such as South German, i.e. Austrian, Bavarian, Swiss German) were incorporated.

There are two large domains which are looked into in great detail: morphology and its syntactic functions; and syntax proper and its relation to semantics. Diachronic perspectives are included, but are not the focus of the contribution.

Table of contents:

JOHN H. MCWHORTER: What happened to English?

HALLDÓR ÁRMANN SIGURÐSSON: Agree and agreement - evidence from Germanic

JÓHANNA BARÐDAL: The semantics of the impersonal construction in Icelandic, German, and Faroese: beyond thematic roles

CEDRIC BOECKX & KLEANTHES K. GROHMANN: Left dislocation in Germanic

C. JAC CONRADIE: Verb sequence and placement: Afrikaans and Dutch compared

HARTMUT CZEPLUCH: Reflections on the form and function of passives in English and German

MOLLY DIESING: The upper functional domain in Yiddish

BRIDGET DRINKA: Präteritumschwund: evidence for areal diffusion

WERNER ABRAHAM: The European demise of the simple past and the emergence of the periphrastic perfect: areal diffusion or natural, autonomous evolution under parsing facilitation?

LÁSZLÓ MOLNÁRFI: Some remarks on the formal typology of pronouns in West Germanic

ROLF THIEROFF: The subjunctive mood in German and in the Germanic languages