South Dakotan 'yet'

[Tim Frazer]

----- Original Message -----
From: <Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 2:08 PM
Subject: Re: South Dakotan 'yet'


> Larry Horn writes:
>
> >>>>>
> funny; this is different from (but I suspect related to) a
> well-established regional use of "yet" as 'still' in Wisconsin and
> adjacent areas (esp. in areas with strong German substrate influence)
> that is ALSO unmentioned in AHD4.*  We used to include
>
> Is there turkey yet?
>
> on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense:  the
> utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping
> some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives
> early hoping to start stuffing him/herself.
> <<<<<
>
> 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.)
>
>
> -- Mark A. Mandel