LL-L "Morphology" 2003.09.30 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Morphology"

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Morphology
>
> Críostóir (above):
>
> > In Nottingham English we say _us_ to mean _me_ in some situations, e.g.,
> > _Gie us tha_ ('Give me that'). Semantic shifts or something older?
>
> It may be fairly old if you consider its spread.  As far as I know, this
> feature is quite widespread in Scots, apparently also in
> Northumbrian and in
> various North English dialects.  You will also encounter it in Australian
> English.

Although it may seem like it, "us" is never used for "me" in Scots.

Rather, there is a pronoun "iz" which is the unemphatic form of me. In most
Scots dialects, "me" is used nearly all the time,  with "iz" used only in
some idiomatic contractions, eg "gie'z", "see'z", both meaning "give me".

In many dialects of the Lothians and the Borders (such as my own) "iz" is
used strictly as the unemphatic form of me:

"It's nae guid askin me, but tell iz what ye'r wantin an I'll ask yer
faither."
/ɪts ne: gɪd 'ɑskin mi: bɪʔ tɜ:l ɪz ʍɒʔ ir 'wɒnʔɪn ən ɑl ɑsk ir 'fe:ðər/

This is strictly distinguished from the plural form:

"It's nae guid askin us, but tell us what ye'r wantin an oo'll ask yer
faither."
/ɪts ne: gɪd 'ɑskin ʌs bɪʔ tɜ:l ʌs ʍɒʔ ir 'wɒnʔɪn ən ul ɑsk ir 'fe:ðər/

(in dialects which make full use of "iz", "we" is usually pronounced "oo").

I imagine the Scots and English usages are historically related, but in
Scots the two pronouns are pronounced differently and never confused.

However, in areas where the usage is restricted to contractions, it's
possible that speakers do think of it as a contracted form of "us", but when
you look at the usage throughout the dialects, it makes more sense to think
of it as a contracted form of "me" that's no longer used uncontracted in
some dialects.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

----------

From: Alfred Brothers <alfredb at erols.com>
Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2003.09.29 (06) [E]

Jan Strunk wrote:

>I think a standard assumption that I also find quite plausible is that
>the beginning consonant of the pronoun was contaminated by the nasal plural
>suffix of the verb.
>If certain personal pronouns often occur after the verb in the sentence,
>they tend to lean on it and partly fuse with them (so-called clitics).
>Examples from my dialect that does not use mir for the first person plural
>nominative:
>hat's /hatet    from    hat es / hat et   (it has)
>hamma        from    haben wir (have we)
>
>In some dialects, people have started using the fused form of the pronoun
in
>other
>contexts, such as in front of the verb, too.
>Bavarian:    mir ham    (we have)
>                  's hot        (es hat)
>
Ron responded:

>Sure, in the north, too, you'll hear _hammia_, _hamma_ etc. for _haben wir_
>("have we"), in Hamburg Missingsch _haamwiä_ in more careful mode and
_haami
>ä_ when spoken more rapidly, also _geemwiä_ ~ _geemiä_ for _geben wir_
>("give we"), etc. (_haamwia_ ~ _haamia_ and _geemwia_ ~ _geemia_  in
Berlin,
>right?).  However, it's always _wiä_ (and _wia_) where this sort of liaison
>is not possible.
>
>I feel rather skeptical with regard to attributing this shift from _wir_ to
>_mir_ to preceding verbs ending with [m] ([=m:] <- /...m+n/, [(b)=m] <-
>/...b+n/, [p=m] <- /...p+n/, [f=m] <- /...f+n/).  That would be quite some
>influence a few verbs have in infinitive form in prepronominal position.
>
Jan's assertion that the generally accepted explanation among Germanic
linguists is that the assimilation of "wir" to these verbs did lead to
the resulting "mir" form becoming the standard form even when preceding
the verb in Central and Upper German dialects. (See below for the Low
German/Low Saxon explanation.) Although it may seem to be a stretch at
first, consider the following (which applies to High German dialects only):

1) In inverted word order, if the pronoun is stressed, the m- remains.
Ordinary _hamma_ becomes _hamMIR_, never _haamwiä_ as you point out
happens in careful Hamburg Missingsch speech. This in itself reinforces
the independence of the word. (Some rural Bavarian dialects can even use
the pronoun twice, once before and once after:  _mia samma_ (wir sind).)

2) None of the South German dialects have a simple past tense form.
Every sentence in the past must consist of a _hamma_ or _simma_ (or
something similar) when inverted order is necessary. So these two verbs
alone, in addition to some other rather common "-m" ending verbs such as
_geem, leem, schreim, etc._, far outnumber the verbs whose endings might
not cause the _wir_ to _mir_ shift.

3) Even dialects that have lost their final -n had it at some time in
their history. So _habbe mir_ > _mir habbe_ (or _hawwe mir_, etc.) most
likely arose after the _wir > mir_ shift took place. In addition, almost
all southern dialects have special forms of _haben_, such as _han, hand,
ham, hen, hend_, etc. These could easily have caused the shift. Forms
you may hear today in areas where -n is dropped, such as _hawwe mir_,
are usually half-dialect.

4) Once the sound of -MIR became strong enough to be felt as a separate
word, false division of the verb from its subject was easy. It also
happened in the second person plural in many south German dialects:
_ihr_ frequently becomes _dihr_ based on forms like _hend ihr_.
Pennsylvania German also recognizes _nihr_ as well as _dihr_ and _ihr_
based on _henn ihr_.

>I have done a bit more reading about it, and it turns out that _mir_ etc.
>for 'we' is extremely widespread, if not predominant, in non-Standard
>German, almost all the way north to the Lowlands Saxon (Low German)
>borderline, and from formerly German-speaking areas in today's Poland and
>Russia all the way west to the Moselle area and, as we have now heard, all
>the way into the Flemish area.  Besides, as I mentioned, 'we' is _mir_
(מיר)
>in Yiddish as well, in both Western and Eastern Yiddish, I believe, and in
>this case this points to the _wir_ > _mir_ shift going back quite a few
>centuries and to the general Rhenish area.  Moreover, as far as I know,
>_wir_ > _mir_ also occurred in dialects in which the infinitive and plural
>endings are not _-(e)n_ but _-e_ (e.g., _mir habbe_ -> _habbe mir_).
>
I can't speak for the northern (Low) German dialects, but I don't know
of a single German dialect south of the Central German area that does
not use _mir_ instead of _wir_. This includes both Yiddish, which
developed mainly south of that line, and Pennsylvania German, which
moved out of Germany over 300 years ago. I, too, suspect the change took
place much, much earlier.

Probably the most convincing evidence is a piece I found in Charles V.J.
Russ's _Studies in Historical German Phonology, A phonological
comparison of MHG and NHG with reference to modern dialects._ I can't
type in the whole thing, but in short, he claims that MHG initial /w-/
in Central and Upper German was a bilabial fricative, similar to English
[w] without the rounding or Spanish ß -- beta, if that doesn't come out
right. (It still *is* this sound in some south German dialects.) This
would certainly facilitate the assimilation of a following _wir_ to the
[-m] of the verb and would make the transition from /w/ to /m/ when
brought to the front of the verb less obvious.

To bring this back to the Lowlands topic, Russ points out that this
bilabial pronunciation of /w-/ in MHG did not exist in LG (his
abbreviation for Low German/Low Saxon), that the sound existed as a
labio-dental and was found in all LG dialects. When the Central and
Upper German /w-/ also became labio-dental, there was still a difference
in the point of articulation between the North German/Saxon and the
South German pronunciation of the same letter. This stronger [v]
pronunciation of North German /w-/ could very well account for the fact
that the _wir_ to _mir_ change didn't take place under all
circumstances, viz., when inversion was not necessary or the preceding
sound was not one which might produce a final -m. It would also explain
why in Luc's West Flemish dialect the shift did occur. (I am assuming
from the rest of his examples that final -n is retained in his dialect.)
I'd be curious to hear where else, if anywhere, it is found in the
Netherlands.

In the back of my mind, there is something telling me that I also ran
across this shift in one of the dialects of the Scandinavian languages,
too, but I may be mistaken. It certainly wouldn't fit in the theory
above, although there are always exceptions. If I ever locate it, I'll
let you know.

Regards,
Alfred Brothers

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Morphology

Thanks for the clarification (above), Alfred.

I do admit that I don't consider it impossible to have developed and spread
that way.  But, yes, that's quite some spread, and, yes, sounds like a bit
of a stretch, at least at first.

> In inverted word order, if the pronoun is stressed, the m- remains.
> Ordinary _hamma_ becomes _hamMIR_, never _haamwiä_ as you point out
> happens in careful Hamburg Missingsch speech.

Says who?  I knew Hamburg Missingsch before I knew "proper" German, and I
assure you that _haa(b)mwiä_ and _gee(b)mwiä_ are quite normal in more
deliberate speech mode.  However, I believe this is a somewhat separate
issue, stops at /haab+n/ -> _haam_ and conditional ("temporary")
assimilation of /w-/ to preceding [m] in faster speech modes.  Note that
'we' is always _wiä_, never _miä_, in other positions.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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