This article discusses asyndetic verb-late clauses in Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch, which has long been considered a problematic text within the Old High German corpus in part because of clauses like these. Clauses with a dependent clause’s verbal syntax and no complementizer have been characterized as ungrammatical and/or rare (Behaghel 1932, Schrodt 2004, Axel 2007) and thus have not been included in accounts of early German syntax. I argue that asyndetic verb-late clauses are grammatical and that they can function as main or dependent clauses. Crucially, they demonstrate that main verb fronting was not obligatory in 9th-century German. Although Otfrid marked the main-subordinate asymmetry by various grammatical means, including verbal syntax, I demonstrate that verbal prosody also influenced syntax: Heavy verbs are more frequent in clause-late or -initial position and light verbs in clause-second position, regardless of the main–dependent distinction. I suggest that prosodically-sensitive verbal syntax is characteristic of Otfrid’s exclusively oral vernacular. In contrast, Otfrid imports the concept of differentiating main and dependent clauses grammatically from Latin. The Evangelienbuch, then, represents an attempt to transform an oral vernacular into a written language by imposing, however imperfectly, the norm of grammatically distinct main and dependent clauses onto a prosodically-sensitive verbal syntax.*

中文翻译：

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论诗歌的语法性：奥特弗里德《福音书》中的动词后期从句

本文讨论了 Otfrid 的动词迟到从句福音书，长期以来一直被认为是古高地德语语料库中有问题的文本，部分原因是这些条款。具有从属子句的口头句法且没有补语的子句被认为是不合语法的和/或罕见的（Behaghel 1932, Schrodt 2004, Axel 2007），因此并未包含在早期德语句法的说明中。我认为异步动词迟到从句是语法性的，它们可以作为主要或从属从句。至关重要的是，他们证明了主要动词前置在 9 世纪的德语中不是强制性的。尽管 Otfrid 用各种语法手段（包括动词句法）标记了主从不对称，但我证明了动词韵律也影响了句法：重动词在从句后期或-初始位置更频繁，轻动词在从句第二位置更频繁，不管主要依赖的区别。我认为韵律敏感的语言句法是 Otfrid 完全口语白话的特征。相比之下，Otfrid 引入了区分主从句的概念语法上来自拉丁语。这福音书因此，它代表了一种将口语白话转化为书面语言的尝试，方法是将语法上不同的主要和从属条款的规范强加到韵律敏感的口头句法上，尽管不完美。*