The Old Frisian MASC.SG. form of the proximal demonstrative pronoun<i> this</i>

The ACC.SG.MASC. form of the Old Frisian proximal pronoun „this‟, thissen, does not appear in the earliest Old Frisian texts. Ms. B2 contains five instances of thenne with a proximal meaning, alongside the form thene as form of the definite article in the same fragment. This rare form of the proximal pronoun, which resembles Old Norse þenna, is corroborated by 19th c. Wangerooge Frisian din 'this(MASC.)'. The form thenneis frequent in Old West Frisian in the Unia version of the Old Skelta-law, where it appears as an archaic equivalent to the article thine; the latter is the default in younger Unia texts. It is hypothesised that incipient, incidental weakening of the geminate realisation in unstressed pronouns in pre-Old West Frisian, together with the existence of analogical patterns in the ACC.SG.MASC. forms minne, thinne, sinne, enna/anne 'my, thy, his, one', provoked a merger of the proximal form thenne with the much more frequent article thene. Eventually, when geminates were lost in unstressed syllables in the early 14th c., thenne disappeared and thine–independently developed from older thene or (re)created by analogy with the anaphoric pronoun hine –became the sole form of the ACC.SG.MASC. article in late Old West Frisian. A new analogical form of the proximal pronoun thissen was created in the 14th c

The West Germanic Heritage of Yorkshire English

Many English words, including everyday words, have been labelled as Norse loanwords in scholarly work on English etymology. The number and semantic range of these words is used as a key to reconstruct the sociolinguistic and demographic setting of the language contact situation in the Danelaw at the time. However, it has been pointed out on various occasions that the number of Norse loanwords may be overestimated through sole fixation on a Standard English-Old Norse comparison and contrast. This study considers a series of reasons why claimed Norse loanwords may need a reinterpretation as inherited West Germanic words. This approach is subsequently applied to hundred terms presumed to be Norse loanwords from a Yorkshire dialect dictionary, reflecting older scholarship. Their etymologies are scrutinised and compared with the ones given in the current version of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), involving more evidence from West Germanic varieties, in particular from English’s historically closest relative, Frisian. While the OED sees a West Germanic origin for a quarter of the hundred words, this study finds West Germanic evidence of another quarter, reducing the number of positively identified Norse loanwords in traditional scholarship by approximately 50%

Thermal Properties of the LHCb VELO Silicon Sensors

This note reports on the thermal measurements performed on the first VELO production modules and on a test module with TPG inserts for improvement of the thermal coupling. The thermal behaviour of the modules and their cooling performance was tested in both dry air and under vacuum operation. The measurements showed that the CO_2 cooling system is able to provide the required operating conditions of the module (< 0 degrees Celsius). Thermal images of the VELO silicon showed a direct relation between the silicon temperature and the temperature sensors on the hybrid. A slight thermal improvement (1.6 degrees Celsius) was found when comparing vacuum operation of the test module with and without inserts