The thesis concentrates on Latin influence on North Germanic languages, especially on Norwegian. First part deals with this topic from sociolinguistic point of view: relationship between Latin and domestic languages in Middle Ages, discerning contexts, where Latin was used, emphasizing the role of church, schools and literature. Second part concentrates on concrete examples of Latin influence, persisting to the modern times, especially loanwords, prefixes and suffixes, irregular declension, idioms. Original research concentrates on Norwegian letters from Middle Age, in Diplomatarium Norwegicum. Research about numbers of Latin letters and letters in domestic language, according to topic and time, in comparison with similar informations from Denmark and Sweden.

Descriptive perception verbs have failed to receive a uniform analysis in previous verb classifications (cf. Chomsky 1965, Rogers 1974, Hengeveld 1992, Levin 1993, Van Eynde et al. 2014). This thesis argues that the descriptive perception verbs in Dutch (i.e. eruitzien 'look', klinken 'sound', voelen 'feel', ruiken 'smell', and smaken 'taste') should be classified as copular verbs, much like lijken 'seem' and schijnen 'seem'. This classification is supported by both the synchronic and diachronic behaviour of these verbs in Dutch. Synchronically, proposing that Germanic copular verbs (as opposed to copulas) are defined by their syntax rather than their (empty) semantics, I discuss that the Dutch descriptive perception verbs behave like stereotypical copular verbs: they require a predicative complement, usually in the form of an adjective. Semantically, the Dutch descriptive perception verbs are much like the copular verbs blijken 'turn out', lijken 'seem' and schijnen 'seem' in terms of epistemicity and evidentiality. Diachronically, I hypothesize that the Dutch descriptive perception verbs have evolved from one of the following two origins: either from intransitive verbs (as is the case for klinken and ruiken), much like English remain, through grammaticalization processes of semantic bleaching and reanalysis; or from cognitive perception verbs (as is the case of eruitzien and voelen), as found in Latin, Japanese and Zulu, through the process of argument reordering. The origin of smaken is not clear, and is left for future research. I show that other Germanic evidential copular verbs (i.e. lijken, schijnen 'seem', scheinen 'seem', seem) have developed diachronically in a uniform fashion, suggesting the following grammaticalization path: from a lexical verb to a copular verb, to taking a that-complement, an infinitival complement or a like-complement, and eventually being used in parenthetical constructions. The results of this thesis indicate that the Dutch descriptive perception verbs are only at the beginning of this grammaticalization path, but are on their way to becoming grammaticalized evidential copular verbs.

Women’s perception of university education and professional life during the period 1900 to 1945 is the focus of this study. In order to examine these perceptions, the thesis undertakes a close textual analysis of autobiographical writings by two medical doctors, Rahel Straus (1880-1963) and Charlotte Wolff (1897-1986) and the aviator Elly Beinhorn (1907-2007). The images employed in these texts indicate the intricate ways that individual women in the professions define their sense of who they are in relation to their surroundings and how that sense may shift in different settings and at different times, or may ostensibly not shift at all. I have developed a differentiated language for the purposes of articulating the fluidity. This language allows me to take apart narrative levels and to examine the importance that is attached to gender in relation to religion, race, nationality, sexuality and professional identities. Through differentiating between narrative levels I am able to juxtapose life experiences that at first glance seem unconnected and to show this can be done without imposing binary classifications such as ‘emancipated’ or ‘un-emancipated’, as ‘political’ or ‘apolitical’ or ‘victim’ or ‘perpetrator’. The language that I have developed enables me to explore the articulation of self where it cannot be classified and where self should not be judged.

Bislang konzentrierten sich die Untersuchungen des westdeutschen Blicks auf Ostdeutschland auf den Zeitraum vor der Wende oder auf Rundfunk- und Fernseh-Medien. Die Gegenwartsliteratur stellt einen weißen Fleck in dieser Frage dar. Anhand des Chronotopos-Konzepts von Michail Bachtin werden in dieser Arbeit daher zeitliche und räumliche Tiefenstrukturen in der Darstellung Ostdeutschlands in den Werken Jan Böttchers und Andreas Maiers herausgearbeitet und mit ihrer Darstellung Westdeutschlands verglichen. Neben grundsätzlichen Unterschieden fallen dabei signifikante Übereinstimmungen auf.

Diese tragische Geschichte von einem Jagdunfall, bei dem ein dreizehnjähriger Junge, einziger Sohn seiner Eltern, ums Leben kommt, ist die bekannteste Episode aus der 1975 posthum veröffentlichten Baasdörper Krönk. F.E. Peters hat sie zu Lebzeiten auf Hochdeutsch veröffentlicht. Die Erzählung variiert den Freischütz-Stoff.

Beschreibung einer Reise durch das Elsass verflochten mit Zitaten aus F. Hölderlins Gedicht „Der Rhein“ (1801) und Entdeckung des Friederike-Brion-Grabes in Meißenheim. Peters entzaubert den Friederike-Mythos mit einer empathisch-kritischen Frage, die literarische Überhöhung und Lebenswirklichkeit kontrastiert: „Dem Mädchen aus Sesenheim geschah Leid von dem Halbgott. Leid war der Preis für das Licht der Unsterblichkeit,… War der Preis zu hoch?“

"Hinnerk Pick und der Steernkieker" ist ein poetischer Text, der sich mit dem Astronomen J. J. Sievers, der an der Altonaer Sternwarte tätig war, befasst. J. J. Sievers (1804-1881) stammte aus Stafstedt (Kreis Rendsburg-Eckernförde), einem Dorf in der Nähe von Luhnstedt, dem Heimatdorf von F. E. Peters. Er wird beschrieben als märchenhaft geheimnisvolle Gestalt und zugleich liebenswerter Sonderling, in dessen Augen sich eine Pascalsche Scheu vor der Unendlichkeit des Raumes widerspiegelt. "Immer aber wird mir der Steernkieker teuer bleiben als ein Zeugnis dafür, dass aus der Enge eines holsteinischen Dorfes zum Geist geführt werden kann, wen der Geist gerufen hat. Am Ende ist eines Menschen Drang ins Weite doch vergeblich, wenn er sie nach unruhigen Jahren des Suchens nicht findet in sich selbst." In den Mund des Astronomen Sievers ("de ool Steernkieker", "de ool Klooksnacker") legt Peters am Anfang der "Baasdörper Krönk" die berühmte Beschreibung von Baasdorp und der Anlage des Dorfes in drei sozial definierte konzentrische Kreise (reiche Bauern; Halbhufner und kleine Bauern; schließlich Handwerker und Katenbauern).

Der Begriff „Kindjees“ (Kind Jesus) bezeichnete lange Zeit in ländlichen Gegenden Norddeutschlands den Weihnachtsmann. Peters erinnert sich hier an die Weihnachtsbräuche seiner Kindheit und schildert gleichzeitig die eigene Entwicklung von dem blind der Macht des Kindjees vertrauenden Knaben zu dem Friedrich Schiller verehrenden Vierzehnjährigen, der selbst für die Kleineren die Rolle des Kindjees übernimmt. Die Schönheit der in der Schule gesungenen Kirchenlieder von Gerhard Tersteegen, die Faszination der Kinder für die Neuruppiner Bilderbogen (plattdeutsch: Lex) tragen viel zu der märchenhaften Stimmung bei, in der die Weihnachtsvorbereitungen in Luhnstedt, dem Heimatdorf des Dichters, stattfinden: „Überhaupt kam es vor Weihnachten sehr darauf an, alles, auch das Geringste, in der vertrauten Form wiederkehren zu lassen, Tradition zu schaffen. Die periodische, unbedingt gleichförmige Wiederkehr äußerer Ereignisse ist eine Quelle der Poesie.“

Heitere Anekdoten um Prominente und weniger Prominente aus Schleswig-Holstein.

This thesis concerns narratives about Anglo-Scandinavian contact and literary traditions of Scandinavian origin which circulated in England in the post-conquest period. The argument of the thesis is that in the eleventh century, particularly during the reign of Cnut and his sons, literature was produced for a mixed Anglo-Danish audience which drew on shared cultural traditions, and that some elements of this largely oral literature can be traced in later English sources.  It is further argued that in certain parts of England, especially the East Midlands, an interest in Anglo-Scandinavian history continued for several centuries after the Viking Age and was manifested in the circulation of literary narratives dealing with Anglo-Scandinavian interaction, invasion and settlement.  The first chapter discusses some narratives about the reign of Cnut in later sources, including the Encomium Emmae Reginae, hagiographical texts by Goscelin and Osbern of Canterbury, and the Liber Eliensis; it is argued that they share certain thematic concerns with the literature known to have been produced at Cnut’s court.  The second chapter explores the literary reputation of the Danish Earl of Northumbria, Siward, and his son Waltheof in twelfth-century sources from the East Midlands and in thirteenth-century Norwegian and Icelandic histories.  The third chapter deals with an episode in the Middle English romance Guy of Warwick in which the hero helps to defeat a Danish invasion of England, and examines the romance’s references to a historical Danish right to rule in England.  The final chapter discusses the Middle English romance Havelok the Dane, and argues that the poet of Havelok, aware of the role of Danish settlement in the history of Lincolnshire, makes self-conscious use of stereotypes and literary tropes associated with Danes in order to offer an imaginative reconstruction of the history of Danish settlement in the area.