LL-L: "Grammar" LOWLANDS-L, 21.JAN.2001 (01) [E/German]

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From: Edwin Alexander [edsells at idirect.com]
Subject: LL-L: "Grammar" LOWLANDS-L, 20.JAN.2001 (01) [E]

At 04:33 PM 01/20/01 -0800, Ron wrote:
>Bob,
>
>Thanks for the pointer.  I have never heard "dilled pickles" used, and
>neither have people I have asked since: five local (Seattle) native
>speakers, two Californians, and one Irish woman who has lived in England
>and New York before moving here.  This is not to say that I doubt that it
>is used in your neck of the woods.  It certainly would explain "dilled
>salad."

Nope, not here in Canada, either.  I believe that it is simply a new
formation based on the analogy of <spice> and <spiced>.  Doesn't something
the reverse happen in <pickle> which is a verb.  When you "pickle" a
cucumber, it becomes a "pickle".

----------

From: Stefan Israel [stefansfeder at yahoo.com]
Subject: "Grammar"

Ron asks:

> Here is another question:
> If "dilled" is acceptable, are "to dill", "dilling" and "she
> dills" [...] acceptable as well, or does such a
> part-participle-derived adjective skip the actual use of
> verbal forms that would normally precede it?

Certainly you can have the -ed ending in the meaning "supplied
with" without any verb: an antlered deer (= a deer with
antlers), a longhorned cow, etc.

My recollection is that this adjective, going back to
Proto-Indo-European, is ultimately unrelated to the
part-participle ending, but once the two came to look alike, the
distinction was blurred.

But since the participle and the "supplied with" adjective look
the same, you can derive a verb from a word in -ed any time.  A
person could ask "why did nature antler deer" instead of "why
did nature provide deer with antlers."  Stylistic considerations
might limit what contexts you use these new derivations, but I
don't see any limitations on what words can become nouns or
verbs in English.

Does the same goes for adjectives?
You can argue whether the "opera" of "she's an opera person" is
an adjective or part of a noun phrase.  What if someone said
"she's a very opera person, more opera than he is"?   That
doesn't sound quite right to my ears.
Verb stems as opposed to participles don't seem to work as
adjectives:  would any accept "He's a jog person"?  "This is a
motivate speech"?  I'd have to use other constructions (He's a
jogger/is into jogging etc., and "motivational/motivating
speech).

Stefan

----------

From: Stefan Israel [stefansfeder at yahoo.com]
Subject: Grammar

John Feather replied to Ron:

> I really don't think that the shortage of morphology in
> English is at all
> relevant to the ease of formation of new grammatical
> entitities. Hans
> Eggers, in "Deutsche Sprache im 20. Jahrhundert" notes the
> different forms
> which can be derived from the verb "denken" ("think"):
> Adj: denkbar, denkend, gedacht
> Noun: Denkbarkeit, Denkende, Gedachte, Denken

German has many ways to derive different parts of speech from a
given noun, adjective or verb, but the resulting word is still
clearly marked by the ubiquitous endings (even if spread across
article, adjective and noun, etc.) and often by derivational
affixes (-bar, -keit, ver-...-en) for grammatical category.  The
topic Ron has raised is the radical volitility of English parts
of speech, often with no morphological marking.
In English you can off someone, up a price, etc. without having
to add any derivational affixes; German is not nearly so
flexible.

John replied to me:

> If English can get by without different prepositional cases
why
> can't German, unless German speakers have worse hearing? What
> redundancy solves this potential problem in English?

In an instance like German "ins" versus "im", English either has
to use "into" versus "within", or, more commonly, English makes
do with the ambiguous "in".  English sacrifices information in
"It's driving in front of the hotel" versus "Es fährt vor
das/dem Hotel".  English has traded off content for
morphological simplicity.

Yes, you could strip German of endings- it's been done.  Just
look at Gastarbeiterdeutsch or Unserdeutsch (a German pidgin in
the Pacific), but these are impoverished pidgins that do a poor
job at communicating.  Languages like English that have
gradually given up endings have had to compensate in other ways,
such as using more words to express the same idea, or being less
precise.  English works fine with few endings, English worked
fine with lots of endings.  Latin worked fine with 6-7 cases,
French works fine with barely two.  Chinese and Hungarian work
fine.  Yes, of course German demonstrably could be made to work
without cases.  English could be made to work with 13 cases like
Finnish.  But what would be the point of disrupting people's
language to switch to a system that doesn't work any better (or
worse)?

For native speakers, languages with intricate cases systems and
those with none work equally well.  The only objection to
complicated morphology is that the intricacy is harder for
non-natives to learn, at least in the early stages of learning a
language.  But what community is going to radically rearrange
their language?  And how could you justify the upheaval?

> So did the Greeks really need their cases?  [...]
> I can say: "I'll be in New York next week."
> It could mean either that I'll be there for the whole of the
> week or that I'll be there during the week. The Greeks
> distinguished these meanings with case endings. We don't.

Exactly-  we've traded off greater precision for greater
simplicity.  Both work, but both have their advantages.

> >If you look at the word order of Old English, you'll see just
> >how much the loss of endings has reduced the flexibility of
> >word order,e.g. the main verb usually came second, but could
> >come first for purely stylistic  reasons, or it would
> >optionally come at the end of a subordinate clause,etc
>
> This is a different point. But in any case, is it possible to
> argue convincingly that it is changes in morphology which have
> forced a restriction on the position of the verb?

Very much so.  In the older Indo-European languages, word order
was very free, but as the nominative and accusative increasingly
developed the same ending (or lack of one) in Germanic, putting
the verb in second position (V2) was adopted as a way of keeping
the subject and direct object apart.  V2 is only a partially
solution supplementing other ways of marking grammar.

To this day, German, even with its incomplete case marking can
freely put the direct object (or anything else) in front of the
verb in a way that English no longer can, e.g.

1.) "Den Mann sieht die Frau."

That's totally unambiguous, whereas English "The man sees the
woman" cannot have that meaning.  English gave up the ability to
lend emphasis to the object in this way.

2.) "Kinder essen Kuchen, Kuchen essen Kinder."

German tolerates some grammatically ambiguous sentences as in
2., since context usually helps out.  The expression "Kleider
machen Leute" plays on this ambiguity.  As the ambiguity grows,
additional devices are needed to distinguish between subject and
direct object; English uses relatively fixed word order.

English gains in morphological simplicity at the expense of
syntactic and stylistic freedom.

> My point was that Swedish had lost all person and
> number markers in the finite verb but had not adopted more
> complex word orders

Proto-Scandinavian had -already- adopted subject-verb-object
order by 600 AD, as found in runic inscriptions, beating English
by half a millenium.  Sound changes in Proto-Scandinavian led to
a large number of mergers between nominative and accusative
endings, increasing the pressure to find some supplementary
means to keep subject and direct object distinct.
Compare Swedish versus German (let alone Latin!) word order, and
you'll see that Swedish has given up much of its flexibility in
word order to make up for the reduction in morphology over the
past millenium.  Icelandic, which has retained clear (but highly
complicated) case marking is intermediate.

> >Case ending after a preposition that only takes one case
> >still contributes some information-  we often don't quite
> >hear all that a person says, because of background noise,
> >mumbling etc.,and if you weren't sure if someone said _von_
> >or _für_, the ending will tell you.
>
> Not very persuasive, if only because "ihn" and "ihm" are too
> alike.

No more than "dim" and "din", "seen" and "seem".  "Mir/mich",
"sie/ihnen" are even more clearly contrastive.  Certainly, in
some instances, the cases are indistinguishable (euch, uns
etc.); natural languages evolve messily and are full of
imperfections like that.  That doesn't keep the clearly marked
endings from functioning, and yes, itthe benefit is often
marginal, but I certainly have had to rely on it times beyond
counting.

In summary:
It's easy to point to the disadvantages of a system with
imperfect case-marking like German, but you have to look at the
disadvantages of English's system: ambiguity and imprecision
often increased, and stylistic freedom has been decreased- and
speakers are as interested in the social information in
stylistics as they are in the formal informational content.

Languages with intricate morphology work no better and no worse
than languages with no morphology at all--  you'll find specific
advantages and disadvantages to any and every language, but
having or not having cases does not make a language inferior.

Would you build a language from scratch with complicated case
endings?  No, Esperanto, pidgins, creoles all stick to simple or
no morphology, but give them a few centuries and in the course
of their development they'll add complexity, which may include
case endings.  German has inherited case endings; there hasn't
been any pressing reason for Germans to change that and
fundamentally rework their language.

Stefan

----------

From: Criostoir O Ciardha [paada_please at yahoo.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "Grammar" LOWLANDS-L, 20.JAN.2001 (01) [E]

A chairde,

Apropos of nothing in particular, as usual, I logged
that I have a severe reticence to use "I" in phrases
such as "she and I" or "I and John" etc. In all cases
I substitute "me" for "I": "she and me" and "Me and
John". In many senses the use of "I" is a taboo I will
not break: even in writing, where although I do not
use pomposities such as "one" (as in "one could
argue") in speech I write them, I nonetheless refuse
to use "I" in the position stated.

What is the significance of "I" and "me" and indeed
the difference between their usages? And is this
parallelism apparent in other Lowland languages or
just English and Lallans?

Go raibh maith agaibh,

Críostóir.

----------

From: niels winther [niels.winther at dfds.dk]
Subject: Grammar

Barbara wrote:
> In the working dialect of the industrial area of the
> Ruhrgebiet (Dortmund, Bochum, etc.) people don't use a genitive,
>they say "mein Bruder sein Fahrrad" = "my brother his bike".

Sandy wrote:
> This construction does indeed occur quite commonly in written
> records in Middle Scots.

Stefan wrote:
> I recall seeing that in England years ago (from the
> 1600's?

Ron wrote:
> This is a *general* Low Saxon (Low German) construction,
> not only in Barbara's neck of the woods.

Is the possessive_pronoun construction (A his B) redundant?
Why did it evolve in some Germanic languages,
if (A's B) served all needs?

Standard Danish (Rigsdansk) uses (A's B) while e.g. Western Jutish
follows the (A his B) strategy. The flexibility and great advantage
of the (A his B) strategy is that it can be extended to any needed
nesting level. In W.Jutish (A his B her C their D its E) is perfectly
possible. Try *(A's B's C's D's E)! especially if some of the nouns
have a final 's'. The fact that all words in (A's B) constructions
carry stress also adds to the awkward pronunciation.
Some Languages  relies on (B of A), at least when multiple levels are
required. But this construct starts specification at the low level.

In summary: (A his B) drills down like (A's B) and have the extended
nesting capabilities of (B of A).

Is the multiple nesting capability exploited where the (A his B)
construction is known in other Germanic languages?

Do you know of any interchanging use of (A his B) (B of A)?

rgds
niels

----------

From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Grammar [E/G]

Barbara wrote and I replied:

>>In the working dialect of the industrial area of the Ruhrgebiet ...
people
don't use a genitive, they say "mein Bruder sein Fahrrad" = "my brother his

bike". <<

>Also in Dutch: "mijn broer z'n fiets".<

Duden "Wie sagt man in Österreich?" says:
"In der Umgangssprache fehlt der Genitiv. Als Ersatz für den possessiven
Genitiv dient die Umschreibung mit 'von' (das Haus vom Nachbarn) oder der
Dativ in Verbindung mit 'sein' (dem Nachbarn sein Haus)."

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

----------

From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk]
Subject: "Grammar"

 Stefan wrote:

> >Every language needs some way to mark grammatical connections
> >between parts of a sentence: certainly, they could have stripped
> >the endings off, but they'd have had to put something in its place, be
> that
> a >swarm prepositions etc. or sharply reduced word order.

And John Feather replied:

> That simply ignores my point. I can say: "I'll be in New York next week."
> It
> could mean either that I'll be there for the whole of the week or
> that I'll
>
> be there during the week. The Greeks distinguished these meanings
> with case endings. We don't.

This is a welcome reminder that while syntax is a necessity,
morphology is a luxury.

Even if we remain within the bounds of morphologhy-ridden
IE languages, we can find languages with no morphology for
present tense verb conjugations (Swedish), no morphology to
indicate future tense (English), no morphology for case
endings, not even genitive (Welsh, French). And even, for a
limited number of nouns, no plurals (English "sheep", "fish").

In English there is not only no morphological future tense,
but even a construction that could replace the morphological
past ("I did go..."), even although the difference in
morphology here is (as usual in languages, cf Ron's Turkic
example) currently used to indicate a difference of emphasis.

Regarding Stefan's remark about "a swarm of prepositions",
it's interesting to note, also, that while one language may
start using a preposition to replace a morphological
construct, this doesn't mean that the preposition is
necessary. For example, while French uses "de" for the
genitive, Welsh has simply lost the genitive endings and
relies on what I might call an "applicative" syntax, the
idea being that a word in a noun phrase, whether adjective,
adverb or noun, is "applied" to the one before, eg "car
coch Sam" for "Sam's red car". The prepositional genitive
is reserved for quantitatives, eg "peint o laeth" for "a
pint of milk". Things aren't so regular when it comes to
pronouns and articles, but that's history rather than
necessity.

One advantage of having a lot of morphology is that the
language can seem more logical, with the one-word-per-idea
philosophy beloved of students of Latin. I'm not sure to
what extent this carefully-crafted written style applies
to spoken language, however. Julius Caesar used the "de"
form of the genitive in speeches, and some of the less
formal Latin poets seem to use a larger number of
prepositions at the expense of morphology. Again, with
Ron's Turkic example, is this a reflection of real speech
or is it a textbook example demonstrating little beyond
how clever the grammarians have been in imposing order on
the chaos?

What exactly do we mean by a "less flexible" word order?
In a highly morphological language, changing the order of
words a sentence can be used to denote a shift of emphasis,
but this is done in English as well, the departure from
the default form normally requiring a few supporting words.
You could argue that morphology-free languages are more
efficient because their most usual syntax requires neither
morphology nor supporting lexemes, eg:

I wrote my mother a letter. (most usual)
I wrote a letter to my mother.
It was my mother I wrote a letter to.
It was a letter I wrote my mother.

This is further varied in English by use of tones (the use
of which is even more extensive in Scots, it seems to me),
but this again is a luxury rather than a necessity - in
French one manages just as well without.

Sandy

----------

From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Grammar

Dear Lowlanders,

Stefan wrote:

> Certainly you can have the -ed ending in the meaning "supplied
> with" without any verb: an antlered deer (= a deer with
> antlers), a longhorned cow, etc.

In *any* case?  Surely only in theory.  Surely, while you can use this
device most of the time within the safety of your home and circles of
friends who are in on the joke (e.g., "oregano" > *"oreganoed"), there are
constraints of social acceptibility out in society at large.  However, I do
agree that acceptability is a relatively small thing to achieve in this
case.  I hardly think that it would be readily acceptible to say, for
instance, *"The garden was amply appletreed" or simply *"The garden was
amply treed," or *"an avenued part of town."  Not to mention cases in which
the lexical/semantic slots/items is already assigned, such as *"a jeweled
crown" vs " a bejeweled crown," *"the rocked shore" vs "the rocky shore,"
or "All the doors are locked" vs "All the doors have locks."

What I am trying to say is that rules may be relatively lax, but there are
always rules nevertheless, i.e., limits in the creation of words, including
lexical derivation.  Or briefer still, "General acceptibility of lexical
derivations is subject to certain lexical, semantic and/or social
constraints."

Niels wrote:

> Standard Danish (Rigsdansk) uses (A's B) while e.g. Western Jutish
> follows the (A his B) strategy.

Interesting!  Saxon-Jutish connection, i.e., Saxon influence?  Are
there non-Southern-Jutish varieties that have no contacts with
Southern Jutish but do not have this construction also?

I repeat: Many Low Saxon (Low German) varieties have the A his/her/its B
and the B vun/von/van A construction (the A's B construction apparently
being due to recent German influence).  It has been claimed (and I forgot
where) that the A his/her/its B implies an inalienable relation, but I am
wondering if this is (still) true and if it is a hard and fast rule.

I wrote:

> part-participle-derived adjective

Of course, this was supposed to be "past-participle-derived adjective."  My
Word spell-checker would have underlined it in green because of unusual
hyphenation, but it would not have picked up the "part/past" error and thus
underlined it in red.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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