South Dakotan 'yet'

[Mark A. Mandel]

Larry Horn writes:

>>>>>
funny; this is different from (but I suspect related to) a
well-established regional use of "yet" as 'still' in Wisconsin and
adjacent areas (esp. in areas with strong German substrate influence)
that is ALSO unmentioned in AHD4.*  We used to include

Is there turkey yet?

on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense:  the
utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping
some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives
early hoping to start stuffing him/herself.
<<<<<

I suspect this goes back to the other sense of "yet", in which the
(putative) present is a continuation of a past state rather than the
inception of an expected future state:

     His monument is standing yet = His monument is still standing.

I can read Larry's example in this way more easily if I move "yet" left:

     Is there yet turkey?

Of course this isn't scholarly: we'd need to check earlier attested uses.
But maybe someone can do that. So this isn't scholarly yet. (Sorry.)


-- Mark A. Mandel