The Question of Aspect in Pennsylvania German

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size NotesA. A. Potebnya, Iz Zapisok po Russkoi Grammatike. IV. Izdatel’stvo Nauk S.S.S.R. (Moskva, 1941), pp. 13ff.G. Trager, Review of R. H. Ružić, “The Aspects of the Verb in Serbo-Croatian,” in Language, Vol. XIX, No. 3, 1943.E. Sapir, Language (New York, 1921), p. 114, footnote.L. Sütterlin, Neuhochdeutsche Grammatik (München, 1924), Erste Hälfte, p. 463.C. E. Reed and L. W. J. Seifert, The Pennsylvania German Dialect Spoken in the Counties of Lehigh and Berks (Brown University Dissertation, 1941).Orally attested utterances in Pennsylvania German will be recorded phonemically within square brackets.Traditional terminology will be adhered to in the present discussion.O. Jespersen, A Modern English Grammar (Heidelberg, 1931), p. 177.In 230 pages of the most varied Pennsylvania German prose, in T. H. Harter, Boonastiel (Palmyra, Pa., 1928), about twelve instances of Forms Three and Five were noted, and about six instances of Form Two.The following examples are taken from T. H. Harter, op. cit..O. Jespersen, The Philosophy of Grammar (London, 1924), p. 278.Ibid..Term given by G. Curme, A Grammar of the German Language (New York, 1922), p. 380.Especially in folk poetry; cf. a portion of a ballad long known to the writer: As I was a-walking one morning for pleasure,I spied a young cowboy a-riding along,His hat was thrown back and his spurs were a-jingling,And, as I approached him, he warbled this song:.... Here the word “spied” is the event upon whose contingency currently continuous actions of “a-riding” and “a-jingling” take place. Likewise, “as I approached” expresses such contingency in relation to “warbled,” where “as” itself has continuative force (opposed to the possible “when”).G. Curme, op. cit..Ibid., p. 380.Ibid., p. 248, note.i.e., onera: standard German “an einer,” with safe classified as a feminine noun.G. Curme, Syntax (New York, 1931), p. 451.O. Jespersen, The Philosophy of Grammar, pp. 277ff.Quotations from T. H. Harter, op. cit..All examples observed by the writer so far have appeared in the present tense.L. Sütterlin, op. cit., p. 463.Translation my own.E. Roedder, Volkssprache und Wortschatz des Badischen Frankenlandes (New York, 1936), p. 253. Roedder’s dialect is quoted here in its standard German equivalent. [Translations my own.].Ibid., p. 253.Ibid., p. 551; translation: “What does she do?”—“She washes!”.J. A. Schmeller, Bayrisches Wörterbuch (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1827), I, 419: “Unsern Mundarten ist tuen wie der englischen Sprache ihr do, ein Hilfsverbum, wodurch sie sich gerne die eigne Conjugation der übrigen Verba ersparen, ein Gebrauch, wovon sich Spuren schon im Gotischen finden....”.Op. cit., p. 503; reference to classical use of the form “nur bei Nachahmung volkstümlicher Rede.”.F. Schiller, Sämmtliche Werke (Cotta: Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1844), II, 270. (Sütterlin quotes inaccurately from a secondary source.).Quotations from T. H. Harter, op. cit..Equivalent to expressions mentioned by G. Curme, Syntax, p. 373, under “Iterative Aspect.”

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• Language Contact and Grammatical Change

  Open Access•Bernd Heine, Tania Kuteva•Language Contact and Grammatical…•2005

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