<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 09 June 2009 - Volume 01<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)</span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">
<span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Language Codes: <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/codes.php">lowlands-l.net/codes.php</a></span><br>===========================================<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">Marcus Buck</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:list@marcusbuck.org">list@marcusbuck.org</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Grammar" 2009.06.08 (04) [EN]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: Marcus Buck <</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:list@marcusbuck.org" target="_blank">list@marcusbuck.org</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> <mailto:</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:list@marcusbuck.org" target="_blank">list@marcusbuck.org</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
The Wenker atlas has four maps about imperative forms: 'geh', 'tu',
'sag' and 'bleib'. 'sag' doesn't help us at all, cause the first and
second person forms have the same stem in both German and Low Saxon
('ich sag' - 'du sagst' in German, 'ik segg' - 'du seggst' in Low
Saxon). 'geh', 'tu' and 'bleib' are a bit more useful. Although they
have the same stem in German ('ich gehe' - 'du gehst', 'ich tue' - 'du
tust', 'ich bleibe' - 'du bleibst'), they differ in Low Saxon ('ik gah'
- 'du geihst', 'ik do' - 'du deist', 'ik bliev' - 'du bliffst'). This
difference is present in all Low Saxon dialects, so we can draw some
conclusions from that. _All_ dialects show the imperative forms 'do',
'gah' and 'bliev' (or the respective dialectal variants of it) and none
show imperative forms like 'dei', 'geih' or 'bliff'. So my question
above "Is it a general rule, that the imperative derives from the
root?" can be answered: Yes, without German interference the imperative
always takes the forms from the infinitive.<br>
</blockquote>
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
I made some further investigations in Germanic morphology and found
out, that all what I said was based on false presumptions ;-)</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
There's no paradigm "imperative follows infinitive/first person". "ich
fahre", "er fährt", imperative "fahre" shows, that German too doesn't
apply a rule like that. Actually the rules depend on the Ablaut classes
for Germanic verbs. Third person and imperative only coincide for the
Ablaut classes III.b. (Old High German: infinitive 'werfan', 1st person
'wirfu' [1st person followed the same pattern as 2nd/3rd person in Old
High German], imperative 'wirf' = Modern German: infinitive 'werfen',
3rd person 'wirft', imperative 'wirf'), IV. ('neman', 'nimu', 'nim' =
'nehmen', 'nimmt', 'nimm'), and V. ('geban', 'gibu', 'gib' = 'geben',
'gibt', 'gib').</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
At least according to <</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oudsaksisch" target="_blank">http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oudsaksisch</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>
corresponding forms existed in Old Saxon. The article mentions
infinitive 'helpan', 1st person 'hilpu', imperative 'hilp' [Ablaut
class III.b.]).</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Old Saxon short 'i' was sound-shifted to short 'e' in open syllables
and in front of 'r' and 'l' later, so 'nimu', 'giƀu', 'wirpu', and
'hilpu' would all coincide with the infinitive after that sound shift.
The 2nd and 3rd persons were formed with an 'i' in it (e.g. 'hilpis',
'hilpid') and where thus subject to Umlaut. So the 'i'->'e' sound
shift didn't affect them and they stay different until today.
Imperative forms 'wirp' and 'hilp' would have been subject to the
'i'->'e' sound shift too. But in closed syllables 'nim' and 'giƀ'
would lead to 'nimm' and 'giff'. They would only lead to 'nehm' and
'geev' if the syllables would have been open. It's not impossible, that
besides 'nim' and 'giƀ' based on dialect (most of our knowledge of Old
Saxon is based on documents from the southern periphery and we know few
about the northern dialects) there where different forms (e.g. 'nima'
and 'giƀa'), that would explain the modern forms of 'nehm' and 'geev'.
Another explanation would be, that the singular imperative forms were
adjusted to the plural.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
And in the end we are where we were right at the start: Most likely it's a matter of dialect.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" color="#888888">
<br>
Marcus Buck</font><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
•
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