LL-L "Grammar" 2002.04.04 (01) [A/Ap/E/LS]

Lowlands-L sassisch at yahoo.com
Thu Apr 4 16:26:31 UTC 2002


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 L O W L A N D S - L * 04.APR.2002 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: "Colin Wilson" <lcwilson at starmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2002.04.02 (09) [E]

Ian James Parsley wrote:

>In Scots there is a similar issue.
>
>A gae tae kirk - I go to church (ie as a general rule)
>A gae tae the kirk - I go to church (ie a single
>event)
>That at least appears to be the case in Ulster
>dialects.

In north-east Scotland, it would just be "the kirk" irrespective
of the distinction above.

Regards,

Colin Wilson.

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From: "W!M" <wkv at home.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2002.04.03 (08) [E]

>From w!m (wim verdoold) wkv at home.nl

About the going too cases.

In Sallands dialect, overijssel netherelands. A low saxon dialect.

Ik goa op 'uus an. I'm going home wards.
Ik goa noar 'uus.   I'm going home

Ik goa noar bedde. I'm going to bed.
Ik goa noar de karke. I'm going to church.

ik goa noar skoele.  I'm going to school
Ik goa noar de skoele. I'm going to THE school. (and not elswere).

Well going to school is different indeed, I can't think of other
examples at
the moment.

I guess some one else will pick it up from here.

Going to town...only in Groningen city you can go town : "ik goa noar
stad".
They only have one town. Groningen city, that might be why they go
"town".
And not to the town.   Grönings is not my dialect. So I can't tell you
more.
I lived there that's why I know. (Grönings is an interesting dialect.
I'm
told it comes from the low German of the Hansa merchants, with a Frisian
substratum.)

Well it's time for me to go to sleep...just came home from night shifts.

Bye.

W!M.  wim verdoold  wkv at home.nl

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From: Simon Hoare <simon.hoare at mail.be>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2002.04.03 (02) [E]

Well, "going to court" is sueing somebody whereas "going to the court"
concerns the journey to the building. Similarly "going to sea" is to
become a sailor whereas "going to the sea" is a fun day out...

Simon Hoare

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From: "Elsie Zinsser" <ezinsser at simpross.co.za>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2002.04.03 (08) [E]

Haai almal!

Ron wrote:
"I can also imagine that Afrikaans _na ... toe_ and Low Saxon _na ...
to_
have relatives in Dutch, Zeelandic and/or Limburgish dialects.  What
about Frisian, Scots and Appalachian?"

Note that the form in Afrikaans na...toe....is not that cemented.
I'd much rather say:

Ek gaan huistoe/skooltoe  [note the spelling]
Ek ry werk toe.
Ek loop liewer kerk toe as om te ry.
Julle moet vanaand konsert toe gaan.
Ons moet ouma toe gaan
Ons moet na ouma toe gaan [is also good]

The use of the preposition "na" seems to have become redundant, unless
there's some sort of urgency or when specifics are required. [I'm not
sure what's the significant element here]
Examples:
Kom julle kuier? Nee, ons moet na ouma toe gaan. [again: 'na' is
unnecessary]
Het julle by pa gaan koffie drink na (after) die inkopies? Ja, ons moes
{na hom toe} OR
 {soontoe} gaan om die grasmasjien te leen.

Groete
Elsie Zinsser

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From: "Mathieu. van Woerkom" <Mathieu.vanWoerkom at student.kun.nl>
Subject: Grammar [E, D]

Ron wrote:

> I cannot think of cases with _na ... to_ lacking an article.  However,
> I would not be surprised to hear or read for instance *_na Kark to_ or
> *_na School to_.  Does anyone else know of such cases?

In Dutch, it is perfectly normal to say:
- naar huis toe (gaan) ["ik ga naar huis toe" --> I'm going home (always
a
single event)]
(In Limburgish this is not the case: "Ich gaon heivers" / "Ich gaon
heim" -->
I'm going home)
For school it's the same:
- naar school toe (gaan) ["Ik ga naar school toe" (single event,
though)]

Overall, it seems as though the form "naar ... toe" is only applicable
in cases
of single events: "Ik ga nu naar school toe!" but "Ik ga in Amsterdam
naar
school".

I hope it makes sense...

Mathieu

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From: "Jan Strunk" <strunk at linguistics.ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2002.04.03 (08) [E]

Leive Ron, leive Lowlanders,

Ron schreev:
> I can also think of "institutional" scenarios without articles in Low
> Saxon.  You may hear people say _na School_ [nQ So.Ul] 'to school' (as
> opposed to _na de School_ [nQ de(I) So.Ul] 'to the school').  (Again, in
> some dialects you will hear _na (de) Schole_.)  Similarly, you will hear
> _na Kark_ [nQ ka:k] 'to church' (as opposed to _na de Kark_ [nQ de(I)
> ka:k] 'to the church').  However, this seems as far as I can stretch it
> at the moment.  For instance, *_na Markt_, *_na Sükenhuus'_ or *_na
> Raadhuus'_ sound ungrammatical, while _na (d)'n Markt_ 'to (the)
> market', _na (dat ~) 't Sükenhuus_ 'to (the) hospital' and _na (dat ~)
> 't Raadhuus_ 'to the townhall' are definitely grammatical.  I would not
> be surprised to hear or read _na Stadt_ 'to (down)town' in contrast with
> _na de Stadt_ 'to the town/city''.

In westföölsche dialekten givt dat, glööv ik, ouk de form
"anhuse" för "touhuus", aover Walter Born het in siin bouk "Plattdüütsk
is
gans anners" man blouts ein biispeel met "De was nich an'n huse". Hiir
bruukt hei ein artikel.

Dei form "tou markte gaon" hev ik ouk al lesen.

Beste gröten,

Jan Strunk
strunk at linguistics.ruhr-uni-bochum.de

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From: "Leonard Okhotchinski" <ok_lennie at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2002.04.03 (05) [E]

Ron wrote:
>Leonard, correct me if I am wrong, but don't you have something similar
>in certain phrases in Russian, distinguishing in part by means of case
>endings?  (E.g., _dom_ 'house', 'home': _Ja v dome_ ("I in
>dom+preposional") 'I am in the house/home' vs _Ja doma_ ("I
>dom+genitive[?]") 'I am at home')

There is a distinction in this particular case, but I'm not sure that
doma
is really genitive. "Dom" has two adverbial derivates which seem to be
petrified ancient case-forms: "doma"(at home/location)and "domoj"
(home/direction. "Doma" looks like genitive, but we never use genitives
for
location, at least I can't think of any example. "Domoj" is not found in
the
normal nominal paradigm. We have similar adverbs<nouns? that have to do
with
time: "zimoj" (in winter), "utrom" (in the morning) etc. They look like
the
instrumental case. This must be some antient locative, which we don't
have
any more.

By the way, have noticed that "home" is a tricky word in many languages?
I mean, it is irregular in Russian, Latin, English (home - no
preposition), Hebrew (habayta is very weird). How about Lowlands
languages?

Regards,
Leonard Okhotchinski
Moscow

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From: fr.andreas at juno.com
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2002.04.03 (08) [E]

Dear Ron et alia,
     There are indeed some constructions in, at least, Southern
Appalachian that eliminate the article.
     The situation with us is similar to that which has been described
earlier. The article is left out when the action is habitual or the
object is more of an institution than a place. We do say "tae home"
meaning "at Home," e.g. "Ere ye tae home?" or "He made hisself raat tae
home thaur in the chimbly corner." That is really the only remarkable
variation from Standard American English that springs to mind at the
moment. It may be that some other Appalachian on the list will come
forward with another example. (Un-lurk yuins, cat durn hit!)
     Now, let me explain what I mean by Southern Appalachian as opposed
to other varieties. Appalachia, in its entirety, stretches from
north-central Alabama to Maine. Northern Appalachia begins in Maryland
and winds its way north to Maine. Is there a distinct language variant
there? I confess that I do not know. Central Appalachia is in eastern
Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and a small corner in
south-eastern
Ohio. Southern Appalachia includes Virginia, western North Carolina and
East Tennessee, part of Middle Tennessee, the Piedmont region of South
Carolina, northern Georgia and north central Alabama. I live in East
Tennessee's Smoky (or Unaka) Mountains, so I am a speaker of the
Southern
Appalachian variety. Perhaps somebody will come forward to explain why
the East in East Tennessee is always capitalized. (A git sae tard o bein
on ma lonesome.)
Yorn,
+Fr Andreas Richard Turner.

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Grammar

Thanks for all the interesting responses, everyone.  And welcome to
those who just joined us -- from Canada (British Columbia), Germany
(Hamburg), Ireland (Gaillimh), the Netherlands (Noord-Holland,
Zeeuwsch-Vlaanderen), and South Africa (2 from Gauteng).

Simon, "going to sea" is also used in Low Saxon (Low German): _to See
gahn_ [toU zE.I gQ:n].  Note that here _to_ is used instead of the more
common preposition _na_.

_To_ is an interesting little word, considering that nowadays it is
associated with direction and arrival but in ancient, petrified forms
seems to convey location.  Examples are equivalents of "at home": Low
Saxon _to Huus'_ ("to house"), Dutch (_te huis_ "to house" >) _thuis_
and Appalachian _tae home_.

Leonard, this is probably also what happened to the "weird" cases in
Russian you referred to, cases that nowadays look like genitive (_doma_)
or instrumental (_zimoj_, _utrom_), though I do not find it implausible
that the instrumental case once included "temporal location" ("with the
winter" = 'in winter', "with the morning" = 'in the morning').  In
Germanic you get cases that look like genitive but are really ancient
"temporal locatives" (e.g., German _sonntags_ 'on Sundays', _morgens_
'in the morning', even more so in archaic German _des morgens_ and in
Low Saxon _'s morgens_ 'in the morning').  I believe that Hebrew
_habayta_ for 'at home' (< _ha-bayit_ 'the house/home'), that you
mentioned, is another petrified ancient form with little or no traces of
a paradigm left in known language.  (Or could it be an Aramaic loan?)

As for "home," I don't think there is a cognate of it in Modern Low
Saxon (Low German) (or in Dutch, Zeelandic and Afrikaans?, thus in the
"Low German" group).  In fact, besides the noun _Heim_ for 'home' as an
institution, forms with "Heim" wer and perhaps still are perceived as
southern and thus alien among Northern German speakers, probably because
of Low Saxon substrata.  By this I mean words like _daheim_ 'at home'
(Northern always _zuhause_, Low Saxon _to Huus'_) and _heimgehen_ 'to go
home' (Northern always _nach Hause gehen_ ~ _nachhausegehen_, Low Saxon
_na Huus' gahn_).  Note also Limburgish _heim goan_ mentioned by Mathieu
above.  And Yiddish has forms like _aheym_ 'home(ward)' (e.g., _mir geyn
aheym_ 'We're going home').

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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