Dieser Band vereint 20 BeitrAge aktueller Forschungen zur Familiennamengeographie in Europa und bietet damit erstmals einen Aoeberblick A1/4ber die internationale Forschung. Das Spektrum reicht von lAnderA1/4bergreifenden Untersuchungen (Skandinavien) A1/4ber lAnderspezifische Darstellungen (z. B. A-sterreich, Deutschland, Niederlande, England, Polen, Spanien, Portugal) bis hin zu kleinrAumigen PhAnomenen (z. B. Alemanisch, Westmitteldeutsch). Zahlreiche Verbreitungskarten dokumentieren die arealen VerhAltnisse.

It has been customary to regard morphological irregularity as an accident of language change and accordingly its eventual disappearance as only a matter of time. This study undertakes a fundamental re-evaluation of that assumption. On the basis of a contrastive analysis of ten highly frequent verbs in ten Germanic languages it shows that irregularity is in fact consistently generated in an astonishingly systematic way. In the course of the discussion it transpires that irregularity and brevity of expression are closely associated. The detailed description of irregularity principles is followed by a theoretical section. Here, the negative concept of irregularity is replaced by that of differentiation, which is shown to have a positive function in connection with high token frequency because it allows for formal brevity without any risk of syncretism. Against this background total suppletion represents the ideal combination of maximal differentiation and brevity of expression.

The volume contains 19 articles corresponding in their spectrum to the broad academic interests of Otmar Werner. They deal with orthography and writing change, runes; island Nordic (Icelandic, Faeroese); contrastive linguistics (German-Scandinavian); linguistic ddescription of German from phonology, morphology, syntax, dialectology to pragmatics; general linguistic (language change) theory, language history and onomastics of Scandinavia; medieval Scandinavian literature. The volume closes with a complete listing of Otmar Werner's publications.