Minnesota "come with"

[FRITZ JUENGLING]

HI John,
I discussed this in an article about MN speech that I wrote about 8 years ago for an obscure publication for St. Cloud State University.  I don't even remember what it was called, but I have a copy somewhere. This is a feature that MN speech (it's not limited to MN, but congregated there) shares with South African English.  It's my belief that 'come with' in MN is more or less from German 'komm.....mit'  In SAf Eng, from Dutch/Afrikaans (and German) 'kom....mee'

Fritz Juengling


>>> jspartz at PURDUE.EDU 6/26/2006 2:43 PM >>>
I was wondering if anyone out there could possibly nudge me in the right
direction on some research I am conducting: I am looking for some attested
data/discussion of constructions such as "come with," "go with," etc. in the
Minnesota English dialect.  It is my contention that "with" functions as a
particle--part of the phrasal verb--in a limited set of verbs of movement in
this dialect.  I am hoping to track this down historically (language contact
of Norwegian, Finnish, etc), but I am having some difficulty finding it.

I find it mentioned, albeit briefly, on the LinguistList (1993), in Bert
Vaux's dialect survey (question 51), and on a couple of websites dealing with
the differences between British and American English.

Further, to this point, I have looked in "Heartland" English : variation and
transitionin the American Midwest (which is where I encountered a mention of
the construction), Comprehensive grammar of the English language / Randolph
Quirk ... [et. al.], Volumes 1 and 2 of Linguistic atlas of the Upper Midwest,
by Harold B. Allen, Handbook of dialects and language variation, Mike Linn,
ed., and Handbook of language variation and change /edited by J.K. Chambers,
Peter Trudgill, and Natalie Schilling-Estes.  None of these texts
mentions "with" in the way that it is used in Minnesota.

Does anyone happen to know of any place where this construction is discussed?
If so, could you point me in the right direction?  Thanks.

John

__________________________________________
John M. Spartz
jspartz at purdue.edu
English Linguistics & ESL
Purdue University

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org