`tun' in Bavarian

[Thomas McFadden]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Hello all,

I'm wondering if there's a standard explanation out there for the odd
behavior of the Bavarian cognate of Standard German `tun.'

The following paradigm, taken from Kufner's (1961) `Strukturelle Grammatik
der Muenchner Stadtmundart' is typical of what I've seen elsewhere:

Inf.    dOa
Sg. 1   dua
    2   duasd
    3   duad
Pl. 1   dean
    2   deadds
    3   dean

O= the open o rendered by a backwards c.  Kufner doesn't indicate
nasalization on vowels, but other dialect grammars have a nasalized vowel
in the inf.  What is odd here is the variation in the stem vowel.  The
difference btw. inf. and sg. may have something to do with nasalization of
the vowel, but I can't think of anything that could be responsible for the
difference btw. sg. and pl.  Of course, vowel alternations exist btw the
numbers in umlauting strong verbs and in preterite-presents, but this verb
doesn't fit into either of those classes, and even if it did, the
alternation ua/ea would be unique.  Interestingly enough, it seems that
certain Bavarian dialects have a plural stem vowel a rather than ea (the
relatively front, unrounded a that's usually the outcome of MHG ou or
umlauted a).  I've found no indication of this sort of alternation in MHG
or OHG, and the dialect grammars that describe it tend to be either
semi-popular works for lay-people or purely synchronic-descriptive works,
so they don't discuss the history of it.

So, does anyone know what the story is here, or have a suggestion of where
I could find it?  I can't imagine that no one has worked on this before,
I'm just not sure where to look for it, since I can't seem to find an
index for the big German dialectology journals.

Thanks!
Tom McFadden