South Dakotan 'yet'

[Mark A. Mandel]

Larry replies to my speculation:

>>>>>
>I suspect this goes back to the other sense of "yet", in which the
>(putative) present is a continuation of a past state rather than the
>inception of an expected future state:
>
>      His monument is standing yet = His monument is still standing.
>
>I can read Larry's example in this way more easily if I move "yet" left:
>
>      Is there yet turkey?
>
>Of course this isn't scholarly: we'd need to check earlier attested uses.
>But maybe someone can do that. So this isn't scholarly yet. (Sorry.)

I think they're at least slightly different.  I can get Mark's
example but only if I stress the "yet".  The Wisconsinite "yet" was
unstressed and lacks the rhetorical effect of the stressed "yet" =
'still' examples ("I remember it yet", "They can win it yet").  For
those of us not in the relevant dialect group, the unstressed ("Is
there turkey yet?") struck us as really deviant.
<<<<<

I agree that they're different in prosody, and the unstressed construction
being asked about sounds bizarre to me too. I'm not saying they're the
same; I'm speculating about a historical precedent and origin, wondering
whether this construction *could have arisen from* a use of "yet"
= 'still'.

-- Mark