Want I should?

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Aug 13, 2007, at 9:13 AM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

> I suspect Michael didn't mean to imply that German-heritage
> speakers only
> in Appalachia used the construction, nor that it might not have
> Yiddish
> origins in other regions--only that _when_ it's used in Appalachia, it
> might be because of German migration into the area.  The German
> requires an
> embedded 'that' clause, rather than the English infinitive: Willst
> du dass
> ich soll .... (or close).

i see that all of michael's examples have zero-marked complement
clauses.  in the pennsylvania-dutch-influenced english of my
childhood, "want... should" can have "that" complements as well:
   I want (that) you should leave now.
   Do you want (that) I should leave now?

"want... should" is another one of those items/constructions that
undoubtedly has arisen several times in several different places via
the influence of different varieties of germanic languages (yiddish
included).  people who attribute these items specifically to yiddish
are taking yiddish to be the germanic substrate language par
excellence -- something that only someone with little experience of
varieties influenced by other germanic varieties would be likely to
do.  (if it sounds sort of german, it's really yiddish.)

arnold

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