LL-L: "Morphology" LOWLANDS-L, 07.JAN.2000 (03) [E]
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L O W L A N D S - L * 07.JAN.2000 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Jan De Craemere [rycobel at compuserve.com]
Subject: LL-L: "Morphology" LOWLANDS-L, 06.JAN.2000 (02) [E]
Ron wrote:
> /Süd-/ (shake) + /kop/ (head) > /Südkop-/ _schüttkopp-_ 'shake one's
head'
> _schüddkoppen_ ['Syt,kOpm] 'to shake one's head', _ick schüddkopp_ 'I
> shake/shook my head', _he schüddkoppt_ 'he shakes his head', _wie hebbt
> alltohoop schüddkoppt_ ("we have all shaken our heads") 'we all shook our
> heads', etc.
In Dutch there is the verb 'knikkebollen' from 'knikken' = 'to bend' and
'bol' meaning 'head'.
The meaning of the verb is repeatedly nodding the head from almost falling
asleep.
Van Dale mentions also 'knikkebenen' from 'knikken' and 'benen'='legs',
meaning walking with trembling knees ...
Jan De Craemere.
----------
From: Jan De Craemere [rycobel at compuserve.com]
Subject: LL-L: "Morphology" LOWLANDS-L, 06.JAN.2000 (02) [E]
Ron wrote:
> /Süd-/ (shake) + /kop/ (head) > /Südkop-/ _schüttkopp-_ 'shake one's
head'
> _schüddkoppen_ ['Syt,kOpm] 'to shake one's head', _ick schüddkopp_ 'I
> shake/shook my head', _he schüddkoppt_ 'he shakes his head', _wie hebbt
> alltohoop schüddkoppt_ ("we have all shaken our heads") 'we all shook our
> heads', etc.
Il already mentioned knikkebollen and knikkebenen in Dutch.
We have also:
trekkebekken to make funny faces
trekkebenen to walk slowly (dragging a leg)
schuddebollen to shake one's head
schuddebuiken (from laughing)
All these verbs seem to do something with a part of the human body: head,
face, legs, belly ...
Jan De Craemere.
----------
From: Siebren Dyk [sdyk at fa.knaw.nl]
Subject: morphology
You just introduced two interesting types of morphological combinations of a
verb + a noun, in that order. The first type also occurs in Dutch and
Frisian, and got its international introduction in a journal for American
indigenous languages, since the author C. Weggelaar (mistakenly) thought that
this was an instance of noun incorporation. In Frisian, one can observe the
phenomenon of noun incorporation, though, which happened to be the subject of
my doctoral dissertation. Maybe it is best to simply quote the passage about
"your" type from my introductory chapter, where I try to set apart other verbs
which are formed from a combination of a noun and a verb:
"But also within the category of the noun some further restrictions and
clarifications should be made, in that there can be found three other types of
combinations between a noun and a verb which I would like to exclude from
treatment, since these have properties that deviate from those of standard
Frisian noun incorporation. Nevertheless, the first type has - somewhat
unhappily - been dubbed "noun incorporation" indeed, in an article by
Weggelaar (1986). He mentions that it does not exist in English and German,
but that it can be found in Dutch and Frisian, without giving evidence for the
latter, however. Therefore, let us give some Frisian examples:
(9) skodholje ('shake-head', i.e. shake one's head)
knarseltoskje ('grind-thooth', i.e. grind one's teeth)
stoareagje ('stare-eye', i.e. stare)
lûkearje ('pull-ear', i.e. move one's ear(s) (by nervous, angry horses))
giselsturtsje ('swing-tail', i.e. swing with the tail)
stampfuotsje ('stamp-foot, i.e. stamp one's feet)
pûlemûlje ('bulge-mouth', i.e. murmur)
hûkearzje ('squat-ass', i.e. sit on one's heels)
skokskouderje ('shake-shoulder', i.e. shrug one's shoulders)
sleepsoalje ('drag-sole', i.e. shuffle)
J. Hoekstra (1993) mentions a few differences between this type and standard
Frisian noun incorporation. The most striking one is the opposite order of the
constituents, as the left-hand member is not nominal but verbal. Weggelaar
counts some 25 members for Dutch, and according to J. Hoekstra (personal
communication), the amount in Frisian will not deviate dramatically, although
it is surely not the case that all Frisian examples could be translated
literally into Dutch, and vice versa. The category does not seem productive,
although Weggelaar and J.W. de Vries (1975, 107-108) did find some
experimental attempts in Dutch literary sources. A severe restriction is that
the noun is always a part of the body. It is mostly interpreted as an
Instrument, not as a direct object, where the constituents are the opposite in
the case of noun incorporation. Weggelaar (1986, 303) points at a further
semantic peculiarity: the verbs refer to "automatic or inpremediated acts".
This is indeed different from standard Frisian noun incorporation, which has
as one of its important features that the action is under full control of the
Agent. And to mention a last curious property of the type at hand: its members
show elements of left-headedness, since the (verbal) category of the complex
word is the same as the left-hand member, which, as J.W. de Vries (1975, 104)
observed, is reflected in the semantics, since for instance stampfuotsje
('stamp-foot') is a particular way of stampe ('stamp'). This last point again
differs from cases of noun incorporation, which undoubtedly have their head at
the right side. Hence, I propose to put aside cases such as (9) from our
account of Frisian noun incorporation"
(quoted from: Siebren Dijk, Noun Incorporation in Frisian, Ljouwert (1997),
Fryske Akademy, pp. 7-8)
The bibliographical references in this passage are:
J. Hoekstra (1993), 'Sturtgiselje en giselsturtsje, Friesch Dagblad
[27-3-1993] [a daily newspaper in Friesland].
J.W. de Vries (1975), Lexicale morfologie van het werkwoord in modern
Nederlands. Leiden, Universitaire Pers.
C. Weggelaar (1986), 'Noun incorporation in Dutch', International Journal of
American Linguistics 52, pp. 301-305.
As to your second type, noun + verb followed by the ending of the past
participle, I cannot provide any Westerlauwersk Frisian examples at the
moment. Your example 'duuknackt' is 'dûknekkich' in West Frisian, so with a
suffix -ich. Your type reminds one of examples like 'platboomd'
(flat-bottom-ed) in Dutch or 'langskonke' (long-leg-ed) in West Frisian, but
those are formations with an adjective as first member, not a verb.
I hope this has helped a little.
Best regards,
Siebren Dyk
Siebren Dyk, Fryske Akademy, Postbus 54, 8900 AB Ljouwert
tel.: +31 58 2343053
faks: +31 58 2131409
----------
From: root at artemis.talo.nl on behalf of; Dr.J.C.Woestenburg [talo at xs4all.nl]
Subject: LL-L: "Morphology" LOWLANDS-L, 06.JAN.2000 (02) [E]
Dear Reinhard/Ron and Lowlanders,
Indeed it is "kopskud" in Afrikaans. Each time I write Afrikaans I have
to be careful to use Dutch verbs.
I looked up some dictionaries for the "schudkoppen" category and found
comparable ones in
an Middle Dutch dictionary "schuddebollen, knikkebollen". Perhaps
interesting for you these words are still listed in the Van Dale
dictionary: "schuddebollen, schuddebuiken, schuddekoppen".
However, in (the later) case(s) it can be said that the meaning of
"koppen" has been deformed from the meaning of the isolated verb: the
normal meaning is "met het hoofd opvangen en terugstoten" like in
football, and the act of "schudden" is different, apart from other
meanings of "koppen". As language is a carrier of meaning "schudkoppen"
is a bad carrier of meaning and in dialects there might be a lot of bad
semantics Presumably some have been accepted in the standard language.
It simply is a reversal van "kopschudden"
which is the most frequent case.
Dialect forms: looking to the Dutch dialects there are differences
between the dialects of the islands (Seeland) and even between villages
on the country side. I do not know much about Low German. We have done a
lot
on High German and the German spelling reform, however, we have noticed
that even in the northern part of Germany the interest in Low German is
low and probably the status is low and diverse. The same applies for
Plat Danish.
I get the impression that the dialects are losing and for the
Netherlands Dutch becomes the very standard,
so dialects are disappearing. Only Frisian stands as a language on it
own, but even the Frisian word forms are not very stable. Sometimes
words sounds like Frisian but they are not. There are a lot of Dutch
words made Frisian alike.
For a large part dialects are associated with social status and this is
an hindrance for standardization.
Finally we are only working on the main stream of European languages:
developing spellers and hyphenators, too much interference from too many
languages.
Best regards
Jaap Woestenburg
> Perhaps you could elaborate on this.
>
> First of all, what do you mean by "dialect forms"? As opposed to "standard
> forms"? How does this apply in the case of Low Saxon (Low German), given
that
> it is a language in its own right, not some aberrant Dutch or German dialect
> group (though some people still regard it as such).
>
> Secondly, if "reversal" were indeed involved, we would need to ask two
> questions:
> (1) Which is the reversed form? (Or should we simply assume that the
majority
> is "normal"?)
> (2) What would provoke such a reversal? (Surely it can not be assumed to be
> some accidental quaintness.)
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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Morphology
Dear Lowlanders,
Many thanks to everyone for their very interesting feedback. Yes, indeed,
this phenomenon does seem to be restricted to nouns that denote parts of the
body. Perhaps this is an indicator that these are not just cases of
"accidental" reversal but that there is some type of pattern involved.
Jaap Woestenburg wrote:
> Indeed it is "kopskud" in Afrikaans. Each time I write Afrikaans I have
> to be careful to use Dutch verbs.
Join the club! (Imagine having Low Saxon interference to deal with on top of
that!)
> We have done a
> lot
> on High German and the German spelling reform, however, we have noticed
> that even in the northern part of Germany the interest in Low German is
> low and probably the status is low and diverse.
First of all, much depends on in which circles you move. Some Germanists and
their departments won't touch it with a ten-foot pole while others specialize
in it and even help it survive. Likewise, in the general population there are
those who still buy in to the old negative image and propaganda, and then
there are those that love the language and insist on using it wherever they
can. You must realize that the language has been leading a largely secret
life. Due to a history of unfriendly treatment and neglect on the part of the
authorities, the language went underground in many instances, surviving mostly
in homes, clubs, churches, etc. So what you saw on the surface may have been
quite misleading, considering also that especially in the past many people did
not divulge the fact that they used the language in private. Furthermore,
much depends on the location. The language has a higher status in rural areas
and smaller cities and towns, and its status is fairly high in certain
districts, such as Eastern Friesland. Secondly, things have been changing
rapidly lately, especially since the language came to be officially
recognized. It has even become fashionable in some circles.
> The same applies for
> Plat Danish.
Yuck! This must be a direct translation of German _Plattdänisch_ in reference
to Southern Jutish (Sønderjydsk), which some see as a Danish dialect group
while others see it as a separate language. (These language varieties have a
lot of Saxon, "un-Nordic" features, and the Low Saxon (Low German) dialects of
the general area have noticeable Danish/Jutish substrates.) Yes, this is in
opposition to _Hochdänisch_ for Standard Danish or the dialects of Danish
proper. We are dealing with German transferral of their own peculiar
terminology of Low Saxon as _Plattdeutsch_ versus Standard German or
Standard-like German as _Hochdeutsch_. Why, I once heard a German linguist
refer to Standard Mandarin as _Hochchinesisch_. _Daar weer ick platt!_ ('That
baffled me!") Does this mean that the other dialects of Mandarin and the
other languages ("dialects") of China are _Plattchinesisch_?
Best regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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