LL-L "Morphophonology" 2007.07.25 (11) [A/E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  25 July 2007 - Volume 11

=========================================================================

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

Elsie wrote about Afrikaans under "Style":

Some of the older forms still exist in small rural pockets:

That's interesting. I take it pretty much all Afrikaans speakers recognize
the older (and Dutch) forms.

It is also interesting to note that at least in less modern Afrikaans
literature, especially in poetry, the older forms are sometimes used because
they have more more syllables, even if the poet didn't normally speak like
that. So there is lengthening rather than truncating.

For instance, he latest revision of H. F. G. Kuschke's translation of
Goethe's "Röslein auf der Heide" is as follows:

Knapie sien 'n rosie staan,
Rosie van die velde.
Haastig het hy toe gegaan,
staar dit met verrukking aan;
sien so 'n skoonheid selde.
Rosie, rosie, rosigrooi,
Rosie van die velde.

Knapie sê: Ek pluk jou nou,
Rosie van die velde.
Rosie sê: Dan steek ek jou
dat jy altyd sal onthou
Rosie steek met spelde.
Rosie, rosie, rosigrooi,
Rosie van die velde.

Maar die ruwe knapie breek
Rosie van die velde.
Rosie hou haar woord en wreek
Knapie's moedswil met 'n steek--
tog moet sy't ontgelde.
Rosie, rosie, rosigrooi,
Rosie van die velde.

I still learned it like this (though I don't remember all the words):

'n Knapie sien 'n rosie staan,
Rosie op die heide. (> hei)
....
We talked about this before.

Mark, I don't know why the hê (to have) in Afrikaans is so weird.

The Canadian Mennonite Plaut 'ha' sounded very familiar to my ears, as in

"Ekj wel kofi ha!"
The second name of "have" is "weird" in many languages, probably because
it's used to much, just as forms of 'be" are.

In Scandinavian, too, it's pretty much always "ha" even when it's formally
spelled have etc.  In other Low Saxon dialects hebben '(to) have' is pretty
much always pronounced "hem".

Another weird one tends to be 'to go' and 'to stand'.  Going by the
otherwise consistent deletion of old infinitive -(e)n in Afrikaans, we would
expect * and ga*sta.  But the infinitive suffix has been integrated into the
root in these cases: gaan and staan, ek gaan, ek staan, etc.  Similarly
Mennonite Low Saxon (Plautdietsch) gone and stone respectively, which amount
to gonen and stonen, thus, technically speaking, have the suffix twice
(though it is not perceived as such, just as Dutch speakers aren't aware of
the same in schoenen 'shoes').  Compare:

Dutch:

ga! - sta!
ik ga - ik sta
jij gaat - jij staat
hij gaat - hij staat
wij gaan - wij staan
ik wil gaan - ik wil staan

Low Saxon (Germany):
ga! - sta!
ik ga - ik sta
du gayst - du stayst
hey gayt - hey stayt
wy gaat ~ gaan - wy staat ~ staan
ik wil gaan - ik wil staan

German:

geh(e)! - steh(e)!
ich gehe - ich stehe
du gehst - du stehst (< du gehest - du stehest)
er geht - er steht (< er gehet - er stehet)
wir gehen - wir stehen
ich will gehen - ich will stehen

Afrikaans:

gaan! - staan!
ek gaan - ek staan
jy gaan - jy staan
hy gaan - hy staan
ons gaan - ons staan
ek wil gaan - ek wil staan

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20070725/2ad74e29/attachment.htm>