LL-L "Syntax" 2004.03.18 (09) [E]

Sat Mar 20 01:23:44 UTC 2004

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L O W L A N D S - L * 19.MAR.2004 (09) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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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: Jan Strunk <strunkjan at hotmail.com>
Subject: Syntax

Dear Lowlands,

two weeks ago I asked for some Low Saxon data. Thanks for all the responses:
Henno Brandsma, Reupen Epp, Reinhard Hahn, Friedrich W. Neumann, Helge
Tietz, Rudi Vari.

I've now completed the term paper I was writing on the Low Saxon prenominal
possessive construction
which involves a possessive pronoun between the possessor and the possessum,
e.g. "Helge sien Huus" (Helge's house).
And incorporated some of the data from the responses. I invite everyone who
is interest to take a look at the
paper at: http://www.linguistics.rub.de/~strunk/TheMissingLink.pdf or
              http://www.stanford.edu/~jstrunk/TheMissingLink.pdf

The first part gives an overview of the relevant data in Low Saxon. The
second part is a formal syntactic analysis of  the
construction in the framework of Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG), see
http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/LFG/

I'll probably even write my master's thesis about possessive constructions
in Low Saxon. So don't be surprised if I come
back with some more requests for data... I hope I don't annoy anyone...

By the way, I've put a thank you note into my paper and I give my
informants' names. If anyone of those that contributed
data does not want his name to be in my paper on the internet and maybe
later in my MA thesis or other publications, please
tell me....

For those of you who don't have the time or the energy to read the paper but
who are interested in the data, I'll give a short
summary below. But please also see
www.stanford.edu/~jstrunk/lowlands_data.txt for a summary of all the data I
got.

Summary:
As far as I can tell all Low Saxon dialects have the "X sien Y"
construction, and so have German, Dutch, Frisian, Afrikaans, and even
Norwegian. I analyze the Low Saxon construction as a prenominal possessive
construction with a possessive linking element occurring
between the possessor and the possessum. In Low Saxon, this linker generally
has the same form as the possessive construction.
"Jan sien Huus" (Jan's house) vs. "sien Huus" (his house). The linker
exhibits pronominal agreement with the possessor in gender and number
and concord with the possessum in gender, number, and case. The possessor
mostly occurs in the dative in those dialects that preserve it like
Plautdietsch: "Ekj seeh äahrem Brooda siene Pead." (I see her brother's
horses.)
However, there seems to be something else going on in Plautdietsch, too,
because the possessor is not always dative marked:
"Mien Brooda sien Peat es jreen." (My brother's horse is green.)
(Still have to look into this.)
In dialects that have lost a dative vs. accusative distinction the possessor
appears in the object case (which I'll call accusative). Often this
cannot easily be seen, because case distinctions are often lost.
But even pronouns can be used as possessors if they are stressed: "em sien
book" (HIS book)

The "X sien Y" is very general and versatile construction. It works with all
kinds of possessors: nouns, question words, relative pronouns,
personal pronouns, and demonstratives:
"Min Brauder sin Peer is greun." (My brother's horse is green.)
"well sien Hart" (whose heart)
"Dit is de Mann, den sien Huus wi sehn hebbt." (This is the man whose house
we have seen.)
"em sien Huus" (HIS house), "Se ehr Huus" (your house - polite form)
"de ehr Dackel" (those people's dachshund)

Besides the "symmetric" construction with an overt possessor, the linker,
and an overt possessum. You leave out either the
possessor to get the older possessive pronoun construction "sien Huus" (his
house)  or the possessum to get a pronominal
interpretation for the possessum: "mien Brauder sien" (my brother's) or even
both: "Dat is sien." (That's his.)
There seems to be some variation in the dialects as to whether the
construction without an overt possessum has to feature
a special form of the possessive pronoun/linker (as English "theirs", etc.).

Friedrich W. Neumann: Dit is Peiter siin Bauk. Peiter siin is grötter as
Anna ehr’t/ehr’n. (This is Peter's book. Peter's is bigger than Anna's.)
Reinhard Hahn: Dit is (jüm)ehr (~ de ehr) Land. Dit is (jüm)ehr (~ de ehr).
(This is their country. This is theirs.)
Helge Tietz: Duet is eer land. Duet is eers. (This is their country. This is
theirs.)
Reuben Epp: Dit es äah Laund. Dit es äaht. (This is their country. This is
theirs.)

In this context, it is interesting to look at the most grammaticalized
variant of this construction which seems to occur in Afrikaans.
In Afrikaans, the possessive linker (a) doesn't show any agreement, neither
with the possessor nor with the possessum anymore.
Moreover, it has a different form that both the normal possessive pronoun
(b) and the "independent" possessive pronoun that is used without
an overt possessum. Even the linker when used with a possessor but without a
possessum seems to have its own peculiar form (d).

(a): Haar broer se perde is swart. (Her brother's horses are black.)
(b): Hierdie is sy broer. (This is his brother.)
(c): Hierdie is syne. (This is his.)
(d): Dit is hulle s'n. (This is theirs.)

Some Low Saxon dialects might be at the beginning of such a development:
If  Friedrich W. Neumanns sentence: "Peiter siin is grötter as Anna ehr’n."
can be used for a neuter singular referent as e.g. for "book",
this would be interesting....

For more infos please follow the links above. Last but not least, some
interesting facts and questions...
In an book about Low Saxon I have come across the following example:

Anna ehr wegen ("because of Anna"). What do you think about this example?
Would it work in your dialect?

An interesting book for all people interested in possessive constructions in
Germanic (like me...):

Norde, M. (1997): The history of the genitive in Swedish. A case study in
degrammaticalization. Dissertation. Vakgroep Skandinavische taal- en
letterkunde. University of Amsterdam.

The book gives a good overview over the different constructions in Germanic.
It states that the "X sien Y" possessive construction
in Dutch is only used with animate (or even human) referents: That is "Jan
z'n huis" would be fine, but not "dit huis z'n raam".
Do you Dutch speakers out there argee? What about Low Saxon, Afrikaans,
etc.?

Ok, if you have any questions, complains or corrections, or new data (!),
keep it comming....

Thank you all again!

Jan Strunk
jstrunk at stanford.edu
strunk at linguistics.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.stanford.edu/~jstrunk/
http://www.linguistics.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/~strunk/

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