LL-L: "Morphology" (was "Etymology") LOWLANDS-L, 11.JAN.2001 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 11.JAN.2001 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Barbara Rentsch-Buschkoetter [rentschbuschkoetter at web.de]
Subject: cases - dativ and accusative

Dear Lowlanders,

Reinhard's remark about the dativ and accusative cases in German are
most important. In fact there are neither a dativ-case nor an
accusative-case in Low German. There are only - just like in English - a
subject-case and an object-case. First you should ask: What is a "case"?
Traditionally we know cases (latin:"casus") in the Latin language where
it shows as changes in nouns and pro-nouns by changing the endings.
Adjectives referring to nouns take the same changes. So the ancient
grammar books tokk the old latin system and grafted it on every other
language, not recognizing that it prevented the pupils to find a natural
way to the syntax of a language. Many languages that had  cases in their
old forms have substututed them by pronoun constructions. In French the
only remains of a dativ are the pronouns "lui" and "leur". In High
German you can talk about cases, because you still find endings for 4
cases. But in Low German as in English you have the same 2 cases which
you can best see in the pronouns:

ick     -    mi                       I    -    me
du      -    di                    (you    -    you - doesn't really
exist in the singular, because it goes with the plural form "are" )
he      -    em                    he    -    him
se      -     iär                    she    -    her
et      -     et                        it    -    it
wi      -     us                    we    -    us
ji        -     ju                   you    -    you
se      -     se                  they    -    them

The rule: "the left row stands before the verb, the right row stands
behind the verb" works best with my English students.

There are various explanations for the fact, that High German has still
got cases and more grammatical forms. Some people say it is a mere
political coincident. At a time where the confederation of all the
German countries and counties needed an official German standard for
international communication they decided to declare one of all the
regional dialects to be the official German language. Today they say the
people in the Hannover aerea speak the purest German, but that is only
because they declared that dialect to be the German standard. That must
have been because the king of Hannover was of of cultural or political
importance at that time. Another explanation is that the good obidient
German people has always done what the governments told them to do. in
the cultural revolution linguists put up rules for the language which
referred referred to the written word of the scribes at the courts and
governments and to the high literature. The spoken word of the people
was neglected. As a result of it children of my area in Westfalia who
grew up with Low German had great difficulties in learning "proper"
German at scholl, but found it quite easy to learn English. They were
laughed at because they mixed up dativ and accusative and they were
often mocked by the rhyme:

Komm bei mich,
ich helfe dich,
bei mich is alles klaor,
das "mir" und "mich"
verwechsel ich nich,
das kommt bei mich nich vor,
ich hab 'nen kleinen Mann im Ohr,
der sagt mich alles vor.

Regards, Barbara

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Morphology

Thanks, Barbara.

Allow me to add to your Mönsterland/Münsterland (Westphalian) dialect column
of subjective - objective pronouns the equivalents in North Saxon, in Eastern
Friesland Low Saxon (Low German) and in Eastphalian Low Saxon (Low German):

Westphalian     North Saxon     E. Friesland    Eastphalian
ick - mi        i(c)k - mi(e)   i(c)k - mi(e)   i(c)k - mi(c)k
du - di         du - di(e)      du - di(e)      du - di(c)k
he - em         he - em         he - hum        he - em
se - iär        se - e(h)r      se - hör        se - e(h)r
et - et         dat - dat       dat - dat       dat/et - dat/et
wi - us         wi(e) - u(n)s   wi(e) - uns     wi(e) - (i)us
ji - ju         ji(e) - ju/jo   ji(e) - jo      ji(e) - ju
se - se         se - jüm        se - hör        se - jem

Beste Gröten,
Reinhard/Ron

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