LL-L "Syntax" 2004.09.07 (01) [E]

Tue Sep 7 15:17:13 UTC 2004

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
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From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Syntax" 2004.09.06 (06) [E]

Jo wrote:
> >When my oldest (at that time bilingual) daughter was about two years old,
> >she used to do the same in Dutch: "Dat ziet d'r mooi uit, of?", "Straks
> gaan
> >we ontbijten, of?", etc. - often ending almost every single sentence that
> >way. She refused to believe that this wasn't correct, since it was
> perfectly
> >OK in German. (Gabriel Kahn)
>
> If she'd said " Dat ziet er mooi, of niet", "Straks gaan we onbijten, of
> niet" it would have made very eloquent Dutch!

Er, yes, that's what her Dutch father thought, too... so every time she
said, "...of?", he waited in anguish for the other shoe to drop, and then he
corrected her: "...of niet?".

As a result, of course, she would then switch over to constructions like:
"Dat is leuk, of? Of niet?" Eventually she replaced it with the other Dutch
affirmative (which I think hasn't been mentioned yet): "Dat is leuk, hÃ©!".

Gabriele Kahn

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From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Syntax

Seems to me that Jo has some "ens" in his bonnet (English joke).

He wrote:
>Therefore i still wonder wheter "ain't" could be a hypercorrection of "en
not" or even "en niet", rather than a contraction of "am, is,... not", or
"isn't it" could be a hypercorrection of "innit" (ennot), possible under
influence of the french n'est-ce pas?<

1. Can't be hypercorrection. 2. Apply Occam's razor: unless there is a
plausible "en" in English (not a joke) you're inventing something to explain
something which is explained already.

>>But there is the complication that these phrases can all be used as
>>intensifiers or as simple verbal noise.Mockney gangsters say things
>>like: "I give 'im a spankin', di:n [didn't] I?"<<

>This last form (replacement of verb with the dummy verb "do" in the correct
>tense) seems particularly difficult for non-native speakers to grasp. (John
>Feather)

>>It truly is, but could the reason why that is be an hypercorrection.
Compare

>>He swam the Channel, didn't he?
>>He did swam the Channel, did he?
You could say: "He did swim the Channel, did he?" if there has been a
suggestion that he didn't, but the double preterite is an error. One of my
Polish relations who has lived here 25 years makes it all the time.

>>I swam the Channel, di:n I!<

> could "thou" (jij, you, du) be somewhere be (mis)understood as "do" (to
do) so
that "I give 'im a spankin', di:n [didn't] I?" once soundend like "I give
'im a spanking, thou ne" or even "...thou enne", (>di:nnai), in which this
"thou ne" could semanticly best be seen as, "(or thought) you not (so)",<

Yer avin a larf, inya. Which in the High Speech means:

Sorry to be dogmatic but the answer is "No" (and hypercorrection is
something different). You are basing too much on a chance relationship
between "thou" and "do", even though the examples given relate to other
(grammatical) persons. "Do" is used to form the negative imperative and the
negative preterite and the simple negative of the simple present when there
is no true auxiliary  and the negative interrogative of the simple present
and I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who've studied EFL who can
give some more examples and tell me the proper terminology.

Examples in same order:

"Don't run with scissors!"/"He didn't come yesterday."/"I don't swim in the
sea."/"Don't you understand?"

So "do" gets lots of use outside your contrived example.

As regards "gel", your explanation doesn't "gel" with me! (I don't often
make jokes.) Exporting the "g" of "gij" to Southern Germany seems to me to
be taking things too far! Gee whiz!

BTW I once spent the summer working in Steinau, between Hanau and Fulda. I
had to put a lot of effort into unlearning my Austrian which was the only
colloquial version of German I had ever come across. Could I really have
kept "gel" in my vocabulary (at least when talking to the peasants)? I can't
remember ever hearing it.
John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch-l at yahoo.com>
Subject: Syntax

Talking about the Lowlands Saxon (Low German) and North German tag _...,
ne?_ [nE], this ought to be quite familiar to our Afrikaans and Japanese
speakers.

In Afrikaans you use _..., nÃª?_ [nE(:)] in the same way, ne?

And it so happens that ... ãï¼Ÿ _..., ne_ [nE(:)] is also the most commonly
used question tag in Japanese, used particularly frequently by females.  It
may even occur in an affirmative answer, typically of a female speaker or of
a male speaker that needs to tone down assertiveness of his own authority
due to the (formally) higher status of the listener.  E.g.,

å¯’ã„ã§ã™ãï¼Ÿ  Samui desu ne?
ãã†ã§ã™ã?   Sou desu ne?

Literally:
Cold _ne_?
So (it) is _ne_?

It's cold, isn't it?
It is, isn't it?

It seems the reply might also be understood as "It appears to be so, doesn't
it?"

The effect seems similar to the one in the English tagged response: the
tagged question makes the response sound less authoritative than just
ãã†ã§ã™ã€‚_Sou desu._, or the rather abrupt and masculine-sounding equivalent
ãã†ã ã€‚_Sou da._ 'It is.'  (Please jump in to correct me if I'm wrong.)

If it's *really* cold and the two speakers, especially if they are female,
want to emphasize their strong agreement, the one who asked the first
question might chime in to the tag of the response, so that both speakers
say it in unison, often drawn out to a long _neeee?_ [nE:::] either with a
falling tone or with a high tone.

I vaguely remember a study in the 1960s or 1970s that found that
English-speaking females, too, used tag questions more often than did male
speakers, and males used it more often when their played "submissive" roles,
such as in deference to a socially high-ranking person, or any supposed
authority.  So, there is this "softening" sociolinguistic role many tags of
this type play.

However, I guess there are exceptions.  Isn't this the case in some British
English sociolects?  E.g.,

Where did you put the wrench?
I gave it to you, di(d)n'(t) I?

This response might be asked in real doubt.  Or it might be said as an
emphatic challenge-type response pointing out a stupid question.  Is this
correct?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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