LL-L 'Grammar' 2007.02.06 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L - 06 February 2007 - Volume 05

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From: Leslie Decker <leslie at familydecker.org>
Subject: LL-L 'Grammar'

To:  Heather.  Re:  'do' auxilliary.

I'm always reminded of the Willem Ellschot poem "Het Huwelijk" with the
lines
'Maar sterven deed zij niet' and 'Maar doodslaan deed hij niet.'  It was
pointed
out to us in class, otherwise I would probably have never noticed it, since
it
just made perfect sense to me as an English speaker.

Leslie

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

Leslie,

This type of construction is quite common in Low Saxon, applying in all
tenses:

Emphatic negative: [subj] [[DO] neg [verb. inf]

Ik dou nich schryven. (I'm not writing.)
     vs Ik schryv' nich. (I don't write. I'm not writing. I won't write.)

Daar deed' ik niks vun af-weten. (I had absolutely no idea about it.)*
     vs Ik wüss daar niks vun af. (I knew nothing about it.)**

Contrastive/topicalized: [[verb inf] [DO]] [subj] [(neg)]

Schryven dou ik nich. (I don't write. I'm not writing. Writing isn't what I
do.)

Man eten deed' ik niks. (But I didn't eat anything at all (but I did other
things).)

_____

* Preterite deed' has the pronunciations [deːˑd], [dɛːˑd], [deːˑ] and
[dɛːˑ].

** 'to know':
Present: ik weet, du wee(t)st, hey weett, wy weett ~ weten
Preterite: ik wüss, du wüsst, hey wüss, wy wüssen

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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