La fraseologia storica germanica: temi, strumenti, metodi

Gnomic tradition in medieval Germanic texts can be studied from different points of view. Maxims, proverbs, wise comments, and various rules of life and behaviour belong both to phraseology and paremiology, since they can display particular syntactic features as well as a reflection of the social and cultural environment in which they were transmitted. The analysis of these phrases and their context leads to interesting results which enrich our knowledge of past traditions, archaic words and constructions, and allows observations about the development of meaning and form of those ancient idioms which are still in use. The present contribution aims to introduce this particular branch of historical linguistics, which brings philology closer to disciplines ranging from language history to pragmatics.