THE DIALECT 0F METZENSEIFEN AS SPOKEN IN CLEVELAND, OHIO Thesis for the Degree of .Ph. D. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY NANCY ANN. ELLIOTT 1972 LI I 7 ~ " Michigan ate University ... IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 3 1293 10528 2697 IHESIS This is to certify that the thesis entitled THE DIALECT OF METZENSEIFEN AS SPOKEN IN CLEVELAND, OHIO presented by NANCY ANN ELLIOTT has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph. D. degreein Germin 5 Russian MVIW Major professor Baum 0-7 639 1: BINDING aw IIIIAB & SUNS! BOOK BINDERV INC. LIBRARY BINDERS l SPRINBPDM MICHIGAN “w u... t I I SEP 2 2 20113 .‘ILI ABSTRACT THE DIALECT OF METZENSEIFEN AS SPOKEN IN CLEVELAND, OHIO BY Nancy Ann Elliott Metzenseifen is a small town in eastern Czechoslo- vakia, which was settled in the Middle Ages by Bavarian and Silesian miners and metal workers. After the 1870's emigrants from Metzenseifen began settling in several American cities, including Cleveland, Ohio, where the dialect is still spoken by a dwindling number of their descendants. The object of this study is to present and thereby preserve the phonology, morphology, and syntax of the dialect as it is now spoken. The phonology and its development from Middle High German are described in Part A of this work. Part B deals with the structures of the parts of speech, and Part C with phrase, clause, and sentence structures. Data for this study was collected in the form of taped monologues, discussions, and translations of the forty sentences of Georg Wenker (Wenkersatze), which has been a'standard tool in German dialect study in this Nancy Ann Elliott century. Twelve informants from the Greater Cleveland area, representing immigrants and first and second gener- ation dialect speakers, contributed to the tapes. Two first generation speakers provided a large body of information transcribed directly from speech for the grammar and syntax parts of this study. Some published and unpublished written material was also consulted for purposes of comparison. Immigrants in Cleveland began adapting American English loan words to their phonological system before the turn of the Century. The first generation born in Cleveland increased the number of loan words and introduced some phonological changes. The inflection of nouns and adjectives declined in use, and loan constructions were introduced into the syntax. Sentence structure began to resemble that of American English. These processes continued into the second generation, however subsequent generations abandoned the dialect altogether, due to social pressures and marriages outside of the ethnic circle. It is estimated that the dialect will not persist into the next century. THE DIALECT OF METZENSEIFEN AS SPOKEN IN CLEVELAND, OHIO BY Nancy Ann Elliott A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of German and Russian 1972 Copyright by NANCY ANN ELL IOTT (31972 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am very much indebted to Dr. Thomas W. Juntune for his kind help and patience with the many revisions of this work. I would also like to thank the other members of my thesis committee: Dr. William N. Hughes, Dr. Stuart A. Gallacher, and Dr. George W. Radimersky. Thanks are also due to the informants who made this study possible: Viktor Eiben, Emaline Antel Rolfe, Michael and Mary Gedeon, Kasper and Anna Schmidt, Robert and Agnes Glosner, and Lucy and Viola Meder. To my Father, Richard Wagner, and to my good friend Father John Gruss I am deeply grateful for much valuable information and encouragement. I am also indebted to Dr. Werner Veith at the Forschungsinstitut fur Deutsche Sprache, Deutscher Sprachatlas in Marburg an der Lahn and the staff of the Sudetendeutsches Worterbuch at Giessen for making their unpublished materials on Metzenseifen available to me. Special thanks are due to Dr. Hertha Wolf-Beranek for her help and kind encouragement. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE O O 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O 1 INTRODUCTION 0 O O O O O O O 0 O O O O O 5 The Relationship of Metzenseifen to Other Dialects . ll NOTES: INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . 17 PART A: PHONOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Chapter 1: Vowels. . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Development of the Metzenseifen Vowels from MHG . 31 Chapter 2: Consonants . . . . . . . . . . 50 Development of the Metzenseifen Consonants from MHG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 PART B: MORPHOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Chapter 1: Nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Formation of Plurals . . . . . . . . . . 73 Declension. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Chapter 2: Pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Group I Pronouns. . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Group 2 Pronouns. . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Chapter 3: Adjectives and Adverbs . . . . . . 93 Primary Adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 iii Page Chapter 4: Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Classification of Strong Verbs . . . . . . . 101 Conjugation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 PART C: SYNTAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Chapter 1: Words and Phrases . . . . . . . . 119 Nouns, Pronouns, and Modifiers . . . . . . . 119 The Uses of Case. . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Prepositions and Conjunctions . . . . . . . 126 Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Chapter 2: Clauses and Sentences. . . . . . . 137 Traditional Main-Clause Word Order. . . . . . 138 Traditional Subordinate-Clause Word Order . . . 141 Americanized Word Order . . . . . . . . . 142 SUMMARY OF LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENTS AMONG CLEVELAND AREA SPEAKERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 NOTES: PART A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 NOTES: PART B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 NOTES: PART C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 APPENDIX I: EXAMPLES OF FOLK LITERATURE IN PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION . . . . . . . . . . 154 APENDIX II: INFORMANTS. . . . . . . . . . . 159 iv Table w 3’ I” w 3’ I” > >‘ m w I" LIST OF TABLES The Metzenseifen Vowel Phonemes . . . Umlaut . . . . . . . . . . . Development of the Short Stressed Vowels Development of the Long Vowels . . Development of the MHG Diphthongs . . The Secondary Diphthongs . . . . . The Phonemic Consonants. . . . . . Development of the MHG Stops and Fricatives Development of Other MHG Consonants. Nouns of Plural Group 1. . . . . . Nouns of Plural Group 2. . . . . . Nouns of Plural Group 3. . . . . . Nouns of Plural Group 4. . . . . . Nouns of Plural Group 5 and 6. . . . The Personal Pronouns . . . . . . Pronominal Adjectives . . . . . . Possessive Adjectives . . . . . . Strong and Weak Adjectives. . . . . weak Verb Conjugations . . . . . . Page 22 29 37 41 42 47 52 60 61 77 78 79 80 81 85 9O 91 95 108 Table Page B 11. Strong Verb Conjugations . . . . . . . . 109 C l. Tense--Time Relationships. . . . . . . . 131 D l. Informants. . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS A. accusative conj. conjunction D. dative ENHG Early New High German Fem. feminine imper. imperative imperf. imperfect indic. indicative infin. infinitive Masc. masculine Metz. Metzenseifen MHG Middle High German Neut. neuter P. possessive part. participle perf. perfect pers. person pres. present p1. plural vii sing. singular subj. subjunctive All dialect words are underlined in the text and MHG equivalents are enclosed in parentheses. viii PREFACE This work seeks to describe concisely the phono- logical, morphological, and syntactic aspects of the Metzenseifen dialect, which is now spoken almost entirely by people over fifty years of age and which may not exist in another twenty years. According to Metzenseifeners interviewed, young adults in the United States and in Metzenseifen itself are not using dialect themselves, nor are they passing it on to their children. Therefore there is only a short time left in which the living dialect can be studied first hand. Thus this work treats the general rules of the whole dialect rather than the phonology alone. Furthermore Metzenseifen is presented as one dialect instead of emphasizing the changes which have developed among United States speakers. These are changes which do not hinder communication and are therefore of lesser interest. They cannot be broken down clearly by gener- ation, as was expected at the outset. Ober- and Unter- Metzenseifen are considered as one dialect area, because they do form one culturally and linguistically solid community, although there have been separate administrations for the two towns in the past. Dialect differences, some of which are mentioned in the text of this work, are of a very minor nature. Twelve informants from the Cleveland, Ohio area, representing immigrants and first and second generation speakers, contributed to four thirty-minute free dis- cussion tapes and four thirty-minute monologue tapes. Five of these informants representing the three generations also made taped translations of the forty sentences of Georg Wenker (Wenkersatze), the official sampling tool of the Deutscher Sprachatlas. The Wenkersatze provided a comparison of morphological and syntactic features not possible in the unstructured tape recordings. Two of these informants, both first generation speakers, were used as principal informants to provide much additional detailed information for Parts B and C of this work. This information was transcribed directly from speech as reSponses to specific queries about points of grammar. All transcriptions, including those made from tapes, were recorded in a modified phonetic script devised for this study, based on the International Phonetic Alphabet. Information about the informants used in this study is found in Appendix II. In addition to the tapes, I have also consulted material in document form. This consisted of unpublished dictionary word-lists and wenkersatze from Ober- and Unter-Metzenseifen provided for this study by the Sudetendeutsches Worterbuch at Giessen and copies of the Wenkersatze for Ober- and Unter-Metzenseifen sent by the Deutscher Sprachatlas at Marburg an der Lahn. Because documentary information in the handwriting of the native speaker is often difficult to interpret, this material was used in a secondary way only to corroborate verbal information. Examples from the works of Schroer and Gedeon described in the following paragraph were also used in this way. Published material dealing with the Metzenseifen dialect, and for that matter all the Unterzips dialects, is extremely scanty, perhaps because it was the Ober- zipser and Siebenbfirger Sachsen dialects which occupied scholarly attention for so long a time. It was not until the mid 19th Century that German scholars became inter- ested in the medieval mining settlements of Hungary. An early investigator and traveller, Karl Julius Schroer, complied notes, word-lists, and sample texts, which he published in the Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna, 1857-63). He was the first scholar to recognize the Middle German basis of the Unterzips dialects, and he proposed a common origin for them tOgether with those of the Kremnitz-Schemnitz dialect area. He published a folktale, some proverbial expressions, and a brief word-list from Metzenseifen. In 1950 Alajos Gedeon, a native of Unter-Metzenseifen, published a phonological study of the Metzenseifen dialect in Hungarian entitled Az Alsé—Meczenzéfi Német Nyelyjaras Hangtana (Budapest, 1905), which continues to be the only Imnuograph dealing with this dialect. Gedeon's short work presents the vowels and consonants of Metzenseifen and shows their derivation from the sounds of Middle High Gernmanm Detailed information is given on the articulation Of erach sound, but the most useful part of his work is the COPiJDUS listing of examples illustrating the sound devezlopments. Another Hungarian work of this same period is Erna Lersch's A "Griindler" Nyelvjaras (Kolozsvar, 1904), a Veery small grammar which applies only to a few Unter- ZiEuser towns and not Metzenseifen. An unpublished master's t1“lesis by Emaline Antel Rolfe, (one of the informants in ting present study), entitled "A Study of the Metzenseifener I315-alect" (western Reserve University, 1933) is actually a 'Cranscription into phonetic script and glossary of some Poems of Theodore Kliegel of Schmolnitz, and was not found to be of help for this work.- Some material compiled from WEnkersétze of Metzenseifen is published in the text Volume of the Deutscher Sprachatlas (Marburg, Lahn, 1956). A large amount of dictionary material from Metzenseifen has been collected for the Sudetendeutsches Worterbuch at Giessen, which will be available in the future. INTRODUCTION The town of Metzenseifen, now called Nifini-Medzev, whixih includes Cher-Metzenseifen, is located in Czecho- slcnrakia near the Hungarian border between two branches Of t:he Tatra Mountains, a part of the Carpathian Range, at 418° 60' North Latitude and 20° 90' East Longitude. Abcnat twenty miles east lies the nearest large town, Kaschau on the Hernad, and Budapest is over 150 miles to the: south. About five miles away is the well-known monastery of Jasso, (recently destroyed by fire), which was; the scene of King Bela IV's defeat by the Mongols in 124IL. The surrounding terrain is infertile and in places densely forested; it is drained by the Hernad and the Bodva, atributary of which runs through Metzenseifen and is Galiled the gr¢nda pOX. The surrounding hills have yielded 90113, silver, and iron ore, as well as semi-precious stones Siruce ancient times, and metal working has been the chief actxivity of this region to the present day. Occupation of the Carpathian region by Germanic PEOples dates back to the Roman period, when Goths, Gepides, and Quads lived there and worked primitive mines until driven out by the Huns. Later, after gradual resettlement of Bavarians and Austrians under Charlemagne, Bavarian churchmen established monasteries in the river valleys farther east and paved the way for German re- settlement of the remote mountain areas. Already in 1044 North German miners were active in the Carpathian region.l Throughout the period of the medieval holy wars crusaders moved south-eastward from the Low Countries and Saxony in groups as large as 200,000 in some cases and settled the relatively empty timberlands. In fact many indentured workers from the overpopulated Rhine Valley joined the Crusades especially for the purpose of settlement, and in this way the first Zipser settlements of the 1150's were made. In the late 12th Century the Hungarian King Geisa II began to recruit large numbers of German hand- workers and farmers from Bohemia and Silesia, most of whom had settled these regions from the Cologne-Trier-Aachen area a few generations earlier. Thus a loose chain of German settlements sprang up, which became known as the Zipser towns, and in 1212 these towns were politically independent enough to elect their own local baron. The Zipser towns contributed significantly to the waves of migration called the Siebenbfirger Sachsen, who in later centuries moved into Rumania and Bulgaria. Many Zipser also helped settle the Unterzipser towns such as Metzenseifen. At the same time North Bavarians were moving slowly across the Hungarian Plain from the west and south, establishing a great many gold-mining settlements, including some of the Unterzipser towns. After the Mongol invasion of 1241, in which practically all of these towns were devastated, King Bela IV recruited German settlers to repopulate the old sites. He was anxious to have German settlers in his land because of their strict self- government, their skill in mining and tool-making, and their ability to improve the land on which they worked. Bela granted city charters and gave grazing, hunting, and water rights to the inhabitants. The new settlers came from East-Middle German colonies around Meissen, in Silesia, Bohemia, Méhren, and the metal-working area Iglau and represented a mixture of Middle Germans with North Bavarians and Rhinelanders. In the Unterzips region the major towns of Schmolnitz, G61nitz, Einsiedel and possibly Metzenseifen were resettled, as well as the colonies of Kremnitz, Schemnitz, and Deutsch Proben in the Turz- Neutra basins. Krickerhau in the Neutra basin, together with Drechslerhau and Kunneschhau, bears a remarkable resemblance linguistically to Metzenseifen, but it is not clear how the towns are related historically, since they are very far apart. In this period very many short-term gold-mining settlements sprang up and were abandoned. Literate and enterprizing men called Richter obtained permission from the king to open veins and found towns, whose names usually ended in -hau "clearing" or -seifen "steep valley". A very good mine was discovered near Jasso,2 and this could have been at Metzenseifen. An important medieval trade route, the Krackau-Kaschau road, may have been the road which runs through Metzenseifen, since the artifacts found in the region exhibit Krackau influence, so it is possible that Silesian and Bohemian settlers continued to move into these Hernad basin towns for several centuries. In the Late Middle Ages the German Carpathian mining region flourished and its inhabitants reaped a great harvest of material wealth. Later gold and silver became depleted, and the surplus population moved elsewhere, as the remaining inhabitants turned to iron-working, shingle- cutting, hunting, and subsistence farming. Many of the towns which had no iron works and were located on very barren hills suffered extreme poverty and isolation. The town of Metzenseifen is in the cultural area called the Unterzips, the Grfindner Boden, or the Grfindler region,3 which lies southward from the Oberzipser (also called Zipser) settlements of Burgerhof and Leutschau, separated from them by forests and small Slovak-speaking villages. The language, customs, and folklore of the Grfindner Boden are quite different from those of the Oberzipser towns, although the communities have always been in contact. The other major Grfindner towns include Schmfilnitz, Golnitz, Schwedler, Einsiedel, Wagendrfissel, Stooss,and Dobschau, of which Dobschau represents a link between the cultures of the Unter- and Oberzips. Most of the towns today bear Slavic names, and the original dialects and customs are rapidly dying out. The earliest mention of Metzenseifen was in a document dated 1376, granting the use of stream water to power the hammermills or héma of the local iron industry, but it is certain that the town existed before that.4 In 1639 the town received permission to hold a joamark or annual trade fair, which brought in many visitors from surrounding communities, and this event persisted into the 20th Century. The iron implement industry saved many Unterzipser towns like Metzenseifen from abandonment after the depletion of the precious metals of earlier times. In the 1850's Metzenseifen had about 6,000 inhabitants,5 comprising the two segments of Ober- and Unter-Metzenseifen, which had separate churches and schools and a history of continuous rivalry, though they were located only a few hundred feet apart. Each community in the Unterzips made one or two specific implements, and these were contracted for by dealers as far away as Bulgaria, Rumania, Serbia and Russia. Metzenseifen made shovels, rakes, and plow- shares. There are still Metzenseifeners alive today who can recall in detail the procedures of hand-tool manu- facture at the turn of the century. With the advent of the industrial revolution in Hungary about 1860-80, the 10 large foundaries of Budapest put the family-owned h§m3_ out of business. The héma persisted into the 1920's, but they were gradually shut down as the tool industry de- clined and workers left. After World War II and the advent of Communism in Czechoslovakia, Metzenseifen was selected as an industrial site; factories were built and workers imported from distant Slovak and Hungarian towns. Presently there are over 10,000 inhabitants, and new streets and housing developments are constantly being built to accommodate the expanding manufacturing industry now located there. Large-scale emigration from Metzenseifen began in the period after 1870 and lasted until the Communist occupation. Between 1880 and 1890 the town lost roughly one third of its population, and shortly after the turn of the century there were as many Metzenseifeners in American industrial centers as in Metzenseifen itself.6 A great many emigrants also went to industrial cities in Germany, and a few even colonized the Ukraine. Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, New York, and Pittsburgh were the chief United States cities chosen by immigrants from Metzenseifen. Some of the early immigrants to the United States returned to Metzenseifen after a few years, bringing back elements of American English, which remained in the dialect of Metzenseifen. The colony established in the city of Cleveland, Ohio was located on the near west side of town in the 11 area of West 25th Street, Fulton Road, and Clark Avenue. Many of the early immigrants found employment at a division of the White Sewing Machine Company, operated by the Kunz family, who were among the earliest arrivals from Metzenseifen. The near west side was also inhabited by Hungarian, Slovak, Czech, and Ukrainian immigrants as well as some from the Grfindner and Oberzipser towns, so the Metzenseifeners found themselves in the same cultural and linguistic environment as before. A cultural organi- zation, the West Side Sachsenheim, was formed by the Sudeten- German immigrants to keep their dialects and traditions alive. As is to be expected in a large urban society, the Metzenseifen colony, which numbered over 1500 in the first half of this century, did not persist long, but dissolved rapidly because of intermarriage, suburban expansion, and job mobility. By the third generation dialect was no longer spoken, and today there are probably no speakers under the age of fifty years who can converse fluently in dialect. The Relationship of Metzenseifen to Other Dialects As can be surmised from the history of the Grfindner Boden, a complex mixing of people and dialects has taken place, not only in the towns themselves, but also earlier in the parent settlements of Bohemia and Silesia. The region of settlement in Bohemia and Silesia contained colonists from the Lower, Mid, and Upper Rhine, 12 from Franconia, Thuringia, Upper Saxony, and Swabia, as well as Bavaria. Dialect mixture was so thorough that often several geographically distant traits came together in the same word. The mixing process also gave rise to some new traits not found in any West German dialect, such as f and 3: for initial MHG pf. Finding a West German homeland for Carpathian dialects derived from this mixture is a hOpeless, if not a meaningless task. However, it is possible to identify some areas of temporary settlement in Bohemia and Silesia and assemble some clues as to the dominant dialect forces. The Grfindner dialects all appear to be related by Middle German elements and especially East Middle German elements, with variable influence of Bavarian from town to town. A probable previous settlement area for those colonists who came to Metzenseifen can be mapped out in the Elb-Saale region, with the aid of the forms trgggf (triuge), apl (apfel), -l (-1in), and tsaryk (zerficke) forming a western boundary parallel to the Saale and running roughly from Leipzig to Zwickau to Saaz. The Metzenseifen initial f for p£_would indicate a location north of a line from Altenburg to Dresden, or else a small area just north of Prague. The latter is more probable, since the forms hgntg (hindene) n§x5_(naht), and §§_(ougen) indicate a region south of a line running roughly from Chemnitz eastward into Poland. The forms EXEE and nixt. indicate an area north and east of Saaz. This area is 13 characterized by what are usually called South Silesian dialect traits. It is possible that the area where the Eger joins the Elbe was a homeland for the Metzenseifen colonists for a time, and there may have been other intermediate settlement places in Iglau, the dialect island from which the Kremnitz area was settled, and which has been linked to Golnitz.7 Another possibility is the dialect island Olmfitz in North Mahren. These island dialect areas were both settled before 1300. Iglau has :g, e95 for the second person plural pronoun; MHG ug_> i; lengthening of e_in yétgr; p_for b initially; and p_for pf medially just as in Metzenseifen, but it does not have the rounded front vowels, b_for w, or diphthongization associated with g. Olmfitz has MHG 2i, gu_> a; p for b; vocalization of 5; f for pf initially and p for pf medially; and the words £23 (ros) and EEEEEI (triuge) in common with Metzenseifen. It does not have is, ggk_or rounding of the front vowels. Metzenseifen has many Middle German characteristics, which appear in the South Silesian settlements, and some Lower Rhine dialect elements acquired probably from the Oberzipser settlements which are known to have contributed to the Metzenseifen population. Some Silesian elements are identical with Bavarian elements, since Silesia had a large North and Middle Bavarian colonization. Other South Silesian traits reappear in areas of the Rhine 14 Valley and in West Germany generally. Those found in the Metzenseifen dialect include: MHG E > d_after 1; very closed §_and é; MHG i > e and g > g_before nasals; MHG p£_> £_initially and > p medially; loss of the -g_plural ending and loss of -§_on many feminine nouns; the in- finitive ending -n_or -en_rather than -a; EST for er: in prefixes; ixa for ix; the word hea_for er; the diminutives in -x_e_3_}_<_ (-chen) and 13313 (-lin) ; and the words ny§_, goat, ix gal, and EEEEET' The lengthening of vowels in short syllables with final MHG x, such as p§§_(bach) is of Dutch origin.8 The Bavarian dialect elements are very strong in Metzenseifen and date back to a very early period, before the 13th Century.9 They include the rounding of front vowels in words like bg§_(wesche) and tsb¢§n (zwischen); the complete vocalization of n_in words like mé (man); MHG b_> p; MHG w.> b; MHG e}, gu_> a; the diminutive ending -1; the vocalization of £7 assimilation of -gen, -dgn, and -bgn to 9, n, and m_respectively; and the words ufsan, Smas, huxtsat and kiemes, which are of Bavarian origin. The Metzenseifen dialect resembles those of the Unterzips towns Schmolnitz, Golnitz, Wagendrfissel, and Stooss in the following common traits: MHG b'> p; MHG w_ > b_(also in clusters); MHG a > é; MHG 3i, gg.> é; vocalized £3 i§_and egk; the prefix 9277 MHG pf.> p 15 medially; and lowering of u and i before nasals. It differs from them in that it has rounding of some front vowels, esPecially as umlauted back vowels; the diphthong gé, and MHG f > y medially. These last three character- istics are shared with the towns of the Krickerhau group; Krickerhau, Drechslerhau, and Kunneschhau, as well as the island dialect area of Deutsch Proben. Metzenseifen differs from the Krickerhau group in that the latter has MHG f > y_initially; MHG initial 5 > hg; the noun plural ending -e; and the infinitive and past participle ending -a for -gn. The Krickerhau y for f initially is thought to have been widespread in the Unterzips at one time, and there are occasional examples of it in Metzenseifen. The Metzenseifen dialect is not very similar to Dobschau, which seems to be a hybrid between the Unter- and Ober- ,zips. Because the Bavarian dialect characteristics of the Unterzips are of greater antiquity (mostly earlier than 1200), it appears as if Silesian settlers moved into towns already established by Bavarian and/or Austrian miners a century earlier, and yet another dialect mixture took place. A high degree of variation from speaker to speaker within the Metzenseifen dialect as well as within the other area dialects indicates considerable mixture and mobility. Many Metzenseifen family names imply origins in nearby towns: Sittner, Pimsner, and Kniesner 16 (from Sittna, Binse, and Kniesen in the Oberzips); Glosner and Bennesch (from Glaserhau and Benneschhau near 10 Kremnitz). Emigrants who recall life in Metzenseifen early in this century report a high degree of interaction among the various dialect communities. As a trade center in the Southern Unterzips region, Metzenseifen was by no means isolated and it may have attracted settlers over a long period. NOTES: INTRODUCTION lJohannes Kachelmann, Geschichte der Ungardeutschen Bergstadte (Schemnitz, 1852), p. 21. 2Kachelmann, p. 110. 3The origin of these terms is discussed in Karl Julius Schroer, "Beitrag zu einem Worterbuche der deutschen Mundarten des ungrischen Berglandes" in Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften (Wien, 1857), p. 219, note 1. 4Alajos Gedeon, Az Alsé-Meczenzéfi Német Nyelvjéras Hangtana (Budapest, 1905TT p. 4. 5Karl Julius Schroer, "Versuch einer Darstellung der deutschen Mundarten des ungrischen Berglandes" in Wiener Sitzungsberichte (Wien, 1863), p. 259. 6Gedeon, p. 5. 7Ernst Schwarz, Sudetendeutsche Sprachraume (Mfinchen, 1935), p. 309. 8Schwarz, Sudetendeutche Sprachréume, p. 294. . 9Schwarz, "Probleme alter Sprachinselmundarten" in Beitrage zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (Tfibingen, 1934), vol. 58, p. 342. 10Hanika discusses the possible link between Metzenseifen and Krickerhau in Ostmitteldeutsch-Bairische Volkstumsmischungim WestkarpathIschen BergbaugebIet (MfinsterEIn westfallen, 1933), p. 92. 17 PART A: PHONOLOGY Al. The vowel and consonant phenemes of Metz. are treated here both from a descriptive and from a historical point of view. Chapters 1 and 2 are subdivided accordingly. Metz. has twenty consonant phonemes, all of the same length. The vowel phonemes include eight short, or lax, seventeen long, or tense, and eleven diphthongal phonemes. The concept of lax versus tense or centralized versus decentralized vowels described by Moultonl applies also to the vowels of Metz. In this work tense vowels are distinguished by the long mark (a) rather than the dot (a), because the dot is being reserved to indicate tongue height in the special cases of é, a, Q, and g. Thus tension and length are regarded as the same feature here for purposes of historical comparison. In actual speech, however, the tense vowels have length only under primary stress; under secondary stress they actually lose length while retaining tension. A2. There are two recognizable degrees of syllable stress in Metz. Primary stress is phonemic, and secondary stress is predictable, as in German. There can be no 18 19 more than one primary stress per word, and this regularly falls on the stem syllable. Some monosyllabic words may receive secondary stress or no stress at all. Stress can affect the tension or length, as well as the quality of vowels. In the unstressed condition a vowel cannot have tension or diphthongal quality, and it sometimes appears as the central vowel 3 [A36]. This vowel cannot occur under primary stress. A3. As in many German dialects, close juncture is very frequent, especially between syllables with secondary or no stress. Close juncture affects the aspiration and voicing of the stops involved: 3 p233 "a bear" [open juncture, aspiration]; prompa "brown bear" [close juncture, no aspiration]. There are, however, some speakers who do not aspirate voiceless stops in any case [A39]. Unvoicing of b, d, g and assimilation usually accompany close juncture: 22232 = 22E + beat_"answer"; hosta = host + £3 "have you"; egkeg = ent + keg "towards". If the same consonant occurs on both sides of a close juncture, it appears as a lengthened conso- nant: kommit "come along". A4. Open juncture occurs between phrases and often before stressed syllables, as in English and Standard German. It is rare in compound words or words having prefixes and suffixes, except where a stressed syllable begins with a vowel, in which case the vowel is preceded by the 20 glottal stop: stant?oat "location." The glottal stop marking open juncture usually occurs between vowels: g3?oab8t "worked". Some speakers use an etymological /r/ to close the juncture between syllables where MHG E has been vocalized [A35]: farean "respect", 9i boa-r- émgl "there once was"; but others do not: fa’ean, 95 boa amol. A11 speakers use a non-historical /r/ to close the juncture between a word-final vowel and the pronouns 935 "us", egk_"you", p1., as well as the unstressed pronoun forms gm or 82, "him", "it", "them": ix hgfran 932%, "I saw him" [B10]. CHAPTER 1: VOWELS A5. The stressed vowel phonemes of Metz. can be divided into short, long, and diphthongal. The long and diphthongal vowel systems can be further subdivided into oral and nasal. Oral vowels are articulated completely in the oral cavity, whereas nasal vowels have a strong nasal resonance, because part of the breath stream flows through the nose. Each of these vowel systems contains three positions of articulation: front, center, and back. All back vowels are rounded, and all central vowels are unrounded. There are both rounded and unrounded front vowels. In the short vowel and the diphthong systems there are three degrees of tongue height, whereas in the long vowels there are four. The vowel phonemes are presented in Table A 1. A6. A11 short vowels are produced with the tongue and jaws in a slightly relaxed condition. These vowels are very similar to their Standard German counterparts. /i/, /y/, and /u/ have the highest tongue position, approximately the same height as for the vowels in Standard German ich, Mfitze, and Fuchs. Some speakers 21 22 TABLE A l. The Metzenseifen Vowel Phonemes. The front rounded vowels are represented in parentheses to indicate that they actually occupy the same front position as the front unrounded vowels. Short or Lax Long or Tense (all oral) oral nasal i (y) u I (9) E i (9) a (B) 6 a e (¢) 3 o a (B) 6 (a5) a a a Diphthongs oral nasal ie (ye) ue e¢ é¢ ea (¢a) oa ai ao ai ao 23 use a slightly lower tongue position for /i/ and /u/, roughly equivalent to i_and u_in American English "it" and "put". The vowels /e/, /¢/, /3/, and /o/ all have medium tongue height and are similar to the first vowel sounds in German Bett, Locher, Gestalt, and Gott. Some speakers use a slightly lower and more central tongue position for /o/, much like the vowel sound in American English "fun". The vowel /a/ has the lowest tongue position, much like the position for Standard German 3 in Stadt. A7. The long vowels, both oral and nasal, are articulated with strong tension of the muscles involved. In the oral long vowel system the vowels /I/, /§/, and /fi/ have the highest tongue position and are equivalent to the German counterparts in wie, Mfihe, and Kuh, The series /§/, /§/, /§/ is intermediate in tongue height between /I/, /§/, /G/, and /5/, /B/, /5/, and it has no counterparts in either Standard German or American English. /§/, /8/, and /5/ are almost equivalent to but slightly lower than the Standard German vowels in gehen, SBhne, and tot, but /E/ is not as low as the vowel in spét,2 There is no phoneme /B/ for most speakers, but for some this sound is used as an umlaut of /5/, and thus it is included here. /5/ has the lowest tongue position and is equivalent to é,in Standard German Staat. 24 A8. The nasal long vowels have no corresponding sounds in Standard German or American English. As can be seen from Table A 1, /i/, /§/, and /fi/ correspond to /I/, /§/, and /E/, and /§/ corresponds to /e/ in all aspects of tongue and lip position. However there are no nasal counter- parts for /§/ and /§/. In the next series there is no nasal counterpart for /5/. /5/ can be described as similar to the vowel in Standard German sghén, with more nasal resonance, and /5/ is like the second vowel in French maison. /a/ is the nasal equivalent of /5/. A9. The diphthongs are arranged in Table A 1 according to their first elements. In most cases both elements are of the same length. Articulation of the diphthongs is relaxed, as for the short vowels. The oral diphthongs /ie/, /ye/, and /ue/ begin at the tongue levels of /i/, /y/, and /u/ respectively. For most speakers the tongue moves to the position of /e/, however the variants[y3], and [u3] also occur. Before /x/, /ue/ becomes [ui]: Egix "through". The diphthongs /e¢/, /ea/, /¢a/, and /oa/ begin at the middle level of tongue height. /ea/ and /oa/ are peculiar in that the second element may dominate in fast speech, and the first element may be reduced to a semi-vowel: smjatak for smeatak "biscuit", Exam for beam "warm". The elements in /e¢/ and /¢a/ are always the same length. /ai/ and /a0/ originate at the lowest tongue level. As can be seen from Table A 1, the nasal diphthongs /e5/, /aI/, and /a6/ originate from the mid and lowest tongue positions. They are relatively rare in the dialect, especially /e5/, of which there are only two examples. A10. The following list presents examples of all stressed vowel phonemes plus the one unstressed phoneme /8/: /e/ /§/ /§/ /y/ /8/ /¢/ /¢/ /¢/ /5/ /6/ /U/ /6/ zig pi zigan 2%!) 9% 253 nem ks? kyhait bysn kngl mBgra sahalt "to be victorious" "bee" "to sing" "to bless" "to go" "to saw" "take" "cows" "cleaverness" "to know" "dumplings" "thinner" (phonemiciknr only some speakers) "beauty" "wash" "quiet" "to rest" "to hope" "floor" "to bathe" /5/ /0/ /5/ /5/ /a/ /ie/ /e¢/ /e%/ /ea/ /ye/ /¢a/ /ue/ /oa/ /ai/ /ai/ /a0/ /a5/ and the unstressed phoneme: /3/ All. Nasalization. 26 ros flag flag piek ne¢ neg peak gtyem b¢a étuem boa pai pai pao pao gabalt "track" "horse" "meat" "bone" "bottle" "birchtree" "nine" ll ' ll mountain "storms" "were", subjunctive "storm" was "by" "pain" "(1) build" "to build" "force" Nasal vowels and diphthongs may replace the combinations "long vowel plus n" and "primary diphthong plus 3" where these occur in word- final or preconsonantal positions. are long. All nasal vowels Nasal counterparts exist for the "primary" 27 diphthongs, i.e., those of vocalic origin, but not for the "secondary" diphthongs, arising from vocalization of /r/ [A33]. There are also no nasal counterparts for /5/, /§/, or /§/, perhaps because nasalization tends to raise /E/ and lower /5/. It would seem that nasalization is in complementary distribution with /n/, since /n/ occurs 1) initially, 2) after consonants, 3) word- finally after a short vowel, and 4) after a short vowel in a preconsonantal position. But /n/ can occur more rarely word—finally after a long vowel, so that in some cases : appears to be in contrast with /n/. The following minimal pairs demonstrate this: /pon/ "to bathe" : /p5/ "track" /ren/ "to talk" : /re/ "dear", D. pl. /jun/ "Jews" : /zu/ "son" /an/ "son-in-law" : /ala/ "alone" /15n/ "to load" : /15/ "wage" Nasal vowels can also be distinguished from their oral counterparts with minimal pairs: /pai/ "by" : /pai/ "pain" /fra/ "lady" : /fra/ "ladies" A12. The nasal long vowels are treated as phonemes here, even though they are often in complementary distribution with /n/. The long-vowel-plus-n words are in frequent 28 use and have been in the dialect a long time.3 Etymologically these are words arising from MHG nouns and verbs ending in -dgn, which became assimilated to n_[A78]. Though pronounced as one syllable in the infinitive or present tense first and third plural by most speakers, they are derived from disyllabic forms, as can be seen from the present conjugated forms or the present participle [B37, B32]. A13. A nasal vowel or diphthong cannot replace a combi- nation with /n/ where /n/ is followed by a vowel. In this case /n/ is retained as a syllable divider: Eli! alana "alone", nea, ne¢n3 "nine". A14. Umlaut. All of the Metz. back vowels and all diphthongs which originate in the back of the mouth are capable of being fronted or umlauted, due to high front vowels which had been present in following syllables in Old High German times, but which are lacking in Metz. It can be seen from Table A 2 that there is considerable correspondence among the patterns of umlaut in the three vowel systems. The umlauted forms of /u/, /o/, /fi/, and /ue/ are always the rounded front vowels, /y/, /¢/, /§/, and /ye/ respectively, however /a/, /5/, /§/, and /oa/ all have rounded and unrounded choices available. The basis for these choices lies in the speech habits of individuals for a few words, especially where plural- ization is involved: féta or tha (vater) "fathers", 29 TABLE A 2. Umlaut. Short Vowel Umlaut Long Vowel Umlaut (Nasals omitted for simplicity) i (y)<———u i (5}) e— {i 5 (¢) <— 6 e (¢)<-— o 5 (B) - \a a Diphthong Umlaut ie (ye)<——-———-ue ”IQ/fl ai ao 30 TABLE A 2. (cont'd). Examples for Diagrams on the preceding page Short Vowel Umlaut: Long Vowel Umlaut: fus fys (vuoz) gtul gtyl (stfiele) frog £r¢§ (vrosch) éSf ééf (schéf) zak zek (sac) th hgfiix (hof) piats pl¢tsa (plafi) 5159 glekst (slagen) moga magra (mager) nogl negl (nagel) has hasa (heis) Diphthong Umlaut: étuem ‘Etyem (sturm) oam eaml (arm) V V soaf s¢afa (scharf) paoa pe¢r8n (buwaere) 31 plet§_or plotsa (plaa) "places". Similarly in the com- parison of the adjective n§t_(naht) the choices n§t3_and ng£a_are possible. In each of these the rounded umlaut is rarer, and the sound /5/ is used by only a small number of speakers. Probably the rounded umlaut represents an older stage of the language, and un- rounded umlaut is an influence of the surrounding Grfindner towns, where it is a universal feature. Umlaut in word derivation is not subject to individual vari— ation. The diminutive of jga_(j§r) is always 2221! but the adjective is jealix. /§/ is umlauted to /§/ in glefrek (slaeferic) but to /@/ in éléfa (sléf) "temple". A15. Umlaut occurs in the comparison of adjectives [B 22], the second and third singular of some verbs [B 34.4], the plurals of some nouns [B 3.2-3], and the addition of certain suffixes in word derivation. The suffixes -lix (-1ich), -gk (-ec), and -a (-aere, -er) as well as the diminutive suffixes cause umlaut: grof, gréflix (grave), Eléf, Elefrek (sléf), jok, jéga (jaget), hont, h¢ntl (hunt) [B.2]. Development of the Metzenseifen Vowels from MHG A16. Vowel Quantity. In the following discussion the primary diphthongs, oral and nasal, are considered the equivalents of long vowels. Secondary diphthongs are considered short. Like short vowels, they can stand before word-final /n/ or /n/ plus a consonant without 32 becoming nasalized [A 33]. Actually these diphthongs may be long or short temporally depending on the speech tempo; but secondary diphthongs derived from short vowels are no shorter than those derived from long vowels. A17. Lengthening of MHG short vowels occurs under the following circumstances: 1) In a MHG open syllable, i.e., where the vowel is followed by a single consonant, which is followed by a vowel: f§d3_(veder), éyn_(oven), zég (sagen), BREE (obez). Lengthening usually occurs before MHG t, n, and m_in open syllables where other dialects retain the short vowel: pétla (bételaere), béta_(wéter), két (ketene), déna (doner), héma (hamer), §§m1.(sémel), tséman (zemen). Exceptions are listed in A 18.3. 2) In monosyllables with stem-final I: gél (gel), :36; (mél), 36; (vol), t_s<'3_l_ (zol), tic}; (wol), t_._§>_l_ (tal); also in some multisyllables: Ebolman (swalwe), holman (halme). Rarely lengthening occurs before MHG ll: élpég (ellenboge), giant (ellande). 3) In many monosyllables whose oblique case forms underwent lengthening according to A 17.1. Length was transferred to the nominative form by analogy. However, if the oblique case forms had doubled stem-final consonants, lengthening did not occur in the nominative [A 18.1]. 33 a) In monosyllables with stem—final t: prét (bret), p§E_(bat), grét (gerat). b) In monosyllables with the stem ending x, £3, 1: and 153: PP}: (bach), Egg: (re'ht), gal: (wec), b_'é_k_§_1_ (wéchsele), aidéks (eidéhse). In many cases lengthening does not occur [A 18.1]. c) In monosyllables with various other single stem-final consonants: h§£_(hof), grép_(grop), ros (graa), lém (lam). When a MHG syllable with stem—final n became lengthened, nasalization occurred: TE (man), pi (bfin), pg (ban), pi (bin), EB (sun). A18. MHG short vowels remain short under the following circumstances: 1) In all closed syllables, i.e., those with more than one final consonant: ziggn (singen), mesa (meager), 915 (dicke), hang (hant). This includes some words with stem—final x, x5, and kg: maxn (machen), flixt_(phliht), 9k§_(ochs). It also includes MHG double consonants and monosyllables where the oblique forms had two consonants although the nominative had only one: Eel (helle), EEEEE (zerren), £23 (ros, rosses), £2k_(roc, rockes). 2) In all words where E has been vocalized: E232 (bart), eat (erde), pea_(bér), klga_(klar). 3) In many cases before MHG single m: himl (himel), koman (komen), neman (nemen). Exceptions appear in A 17.1. 34 4) In words which are usually unstressed: jg, (ja), bo§_(wa§). These syllables are subject to lengthening when stressed. A19. The conditions under which MHG long vowels have become short in stressed syllables are difficult to describe, and there are many exceptional developments, as is true in other dialects. Shortening is probably a more recent development than lengtheing. The charac- ters 5 and 3h are often associated with shortening, perhaps because they were long, fortis consonants in MHG. The following general categories can be described: 1) Shortening before MHG 5, and st often occurs: pggg (bfizen), gstn (osten), but g£§5'(gr62), égtan. (astern). The MHG high diphthongs is, fig, and ug_have been monophthongized and before some consonants, especially x_[written eh] and 5, shortened to i, y, and 3. Before other consonants they have remained as long vowels. MHG is > i before MHG 3_and x: gi§n_(gie3en), £ix2_(riechen) for most Speakers, but gig (tief) and mitn_(mieten) have the long vowel for all speakers. MHG gg'> y_before MHG x, E, f, and z: tyxl (tuoch), hytg (hfieten), Eyfn'(rfiefen), g£y§n_(grfiezen), but EIEEE. (rfiemen), £1§k_(phlfiege). Long vowel forms also exist with E and f: plit’(blfiete), pryfegk (prfievunge). MHG uo > u before MHG x, g, f, and it: pu§_(buoch), Egg (voua), rufn (ruofen), gusta (schuostaere). Before MHG 35 E and k_either the long or short vowel can occur: plut (bluot), gut (guot), ganuk (genuoc), lukn (luogen); glfit (gluot), mat (muot), flfik (vluoc). Before other consonants the long vowel occurs: pruda (bruoder). The shortening of MHG diphthongs took place after the diphthongs were monophthongized to long vowels, [A 31, 32], and it has never been completely carried out. 2) The comparative and superlative forms of some adjectives with long stem vowels have shortened vowels: gros, grysa (gréz) [B24]. Some speakers use long vowels in the comparative and superlative forms of these adjectives, probably through analogy with the other long-vowel adjectives. Note that /§/, /§/, and /§/ are shortened to /i/, /y/, and /u/, rather than /e/, /¢/, and /o/. 3) Shortening occurs in syllables where E has become vocalized: ea (ér), pigt (bir), éiet_(schir). A20. Most MHG long vowels remain long in Metz.: bék (wage), Egg (schaf). Some with medial m, E, or 1 have remained long in Metz. despite shortening in other dialects: iéma (jamer), néta_(néter), ély§_(eilf). Also shortening does not usually occur before MHG x3, as in many other dialects: g8d§xt (gedacht), gaproxt (gebracht), ggd5xtnas (gedaechtnisse). Where long vowels occurred word-finally or followed by only one consonant, shortening also did not occur: Eng (sné), tat (t6t), é bais (wig), kazn (k65en). 36 A21. The Short Stressed Vowels. The earliest changes in the short vowel system date from the late MHG period and involve the rounding of MHG i and 3, but not g, in the presence of MHG w, s, z, and 1. Many examples of this persist into Standard German. Rounding in Metz. involves the same vowels and consonants and exists in a few additional words: bg§_(wesche), by§n_(wi55en), nyét (nihts, nfitz), tsbygn (zwischen), lgfl (leffel). Rounding is not universal in Metz. in the presence of these consonants: 99212 (gewisse), §:§_(tisch). A22. Other changes in the short stressed vowels include the lowering of the high vowels i, y, and 3 under conditions which vary for each vowel [A 23, 25, 27]. At one time there was a reorganization of MHG short vowels into a system with four levels of tongue height.4 In the present century, this system has again been reorganized into a three level system, so that the phonemes /e/, /é/, /u/, still in existence in 1900,4 have now disappeared for all speakers. For the de- velopments of MHG short stressed vowels discussed in the following paragraphs, the reader should refer to Table A 3. A23. MHG i remains i in Metz. short syllables when it is not followed by the MHG consonants 29! at, an, or mm: 2315 (bilde), zit§n_(sit5en), zin (sin), trigkg (trinken), éiml (schimel). Before MHG at, ES! and 221 lowering to 3 occurs: kent (kint), pean (binden), égenan (spinnen). 37 TABLE A 3. Development of the Short Stressed Vowels MHG MHG MHG MHG " 38 Before MHG mm both i and 3 occur: gbiman (swimmen), Etgm_(stimme). In a few cases rounding has occurred: by§n_(wi35en) [A 21]. According to Gedeon, MGH i became e_in a large number of words,5 but no examples of this phoneme could be found in the present study, so it is assumed that this development has been reversed in the present century. In lengthened syllables MHG i > i, 1: £133 (rise), p_1'_ (bin). A24. The mid front vowels g, e, and §.of MHG have converged into Metz. e; felt_(vélt), ext (echt), mextek (méhtec). MHG §_has undergone rounding in bé§_(wesche) [A 21]. The development of MHG e, §.in lengthened syllables is rather complex. Usually é.) é: 'yén (lében), légn|(lésen), féga_(véder), {Ext (réht), pétn_ (béten); however there are a few cases where g > a, g, perhaps because of the loss of the MHG stem-final consonants gland h_[A 78, 83]: Egg (segen), Egg (régen), z§.(séhen). In most cases MHG e_> g, g: him (heben), £§n_(reden), tgéln (zeln), kit (ketene), élix (enlich). This is probably because MHG e! the result of primary umlaut, had a higher tongue position than é. There are also many cases where MHG E.) g: knébl_(knebel), jéga (jeger), pib§9_(bewegen), gig (segen). A25. There has been a tendency for the back short stressed vowels to converge in their development from MHG to Metz. MHG 2 remains before 9, b, and kg} and 39 before single m: jug (jung), gatrugkg (getrunken), gbugk, (swunc), Etup_(stube), fuk§_(vuhs), 32mg (sumer). In the majority of cases 3 is lowered to g: BEES (buter), pglza_(pulver), tom (tump), bonda_(wunder), zgn_ (sunne). Before MHG x_and ngt_both developments occur: Epgux_(spruch), g2£95_(geruch), kunst_(kunst), dgngt (dunst). In lengthened syllables MHG u > i, g: tsuk (zuc), ii (sun). A26. MHG g_is retained in almost all cases: box (woche), klgpm (klopfen). Gedeon describes the development of MHG g'to g_in words like hgfn (hoffen),6 however at the present time this word is pronounced hufn, and all other examples of the 2 described by Gedeon are pronounced as u: puk_(bock), pazufn (besoffen). Apparently the shift of S.t° u was concurrent with the raising of the other closed mid short vowels. In lengthened syllables MHG g > §, § before nasals and Q elsewhere: déna_(doner), bét (wonet, fégl (vogel). A27. The rounded front vowels are similar to the back vowels in their development. MHG §_has undergone lowering parallel to the MHG u > 9 change [A 25]. MHG g > y before n, p, and £3: jygll(jungelin), kgypl (kruppel), fyk§|(vfihse), but elsewhere it is lowered to g: glgka(gelucke), E223 (sunde). Gedeon described a lowering of MHG B.t° 2J7 but these examples have since been raised back to y. In lengthened syllables MHG 40 g > §_or i: Iii (lfige), py_(bfin). MHG §_became Metz. g in all cases: Egp’(t6pfe). Where lengthened it became é_or Q: fégl (voegel), t§_(doene). A28. MHG 3 remains unchanged in stressed short syllables: lant (lant). In lengthened syllables MHG a > §.or é; gros (graz), m§_(man). A29. Stressed Lonngowels and Diphthongs. These vowel sounds can be considered in three categories: the oral vowels and diphthongs, the nasal vowels and diphthongs, and the secondary diphthongs. The last two of these are probably more recent developments. Both arise from the combination of a vowel with a resonant consonant (n or E)! and both occur in word-final and preconsonantal positions. The development of nasal vowels and diphthongs probably occurred gradually, as suggested by the following steps: MHG zuon ——> zfin -—-—> zfin -—-+ zfi Secondary diphthongs may also have developed by stages, with diphthongization occurring before the actual disappearance of E! as in some North Bavarian dialects:8 MHG héir -——r hoar —> hoa The development of MHG long vowels and diphthongs in stressed syllables is presented in Table A 4 and 5. 41 TABLE A 4. Development of the Long Vowels MHG MHG " (iu) MHG “ i ai ai ¢ ¢ u ao ao MHG “, ae MHG 2, oe MHG <3 9 y 95 u . . . MHG“ 42 TABLE A 5. Development of MHG Diphthongs MHG .8 2X 70% y § y o u u a MHG i MHG 6n MHG u WI m 9” DJ ai ai a a 43 A30. Before MHG n nasalization occurred where the MHG vowel or diphthong remained long or was lengthened [A 11] . It also occurred where the MHG consonants j,‘w, and h_have disappeared after a long vowel [A 83]. The following MHG long vowels and diphthongs developed as Metz. MH I" CHE» (D) Q! e Ozl O) (1» ie no fie ei ou 5n nasal vowels: G Metz. ‘63 02 can on): 01 DH I~<2 C12 P? 912 kr5 Sahait v spo (swin) (bfiwen) (niun) (réhen, D. p1.) (draejen) (kr6ne) (schoenheit) (span) (wien) (huon) (blfiejen) (stein) (schouwen) (zerstrouwen) A31. All the MHG long vowels and diphthongs occurring before consonants other than n_in syllables that remain long result in oral long vowels and diphthongs: 44 MHG Metz. i ai graim (schriben) fi ao haos (hfis) E e¢ he¢t (hiute) é a zel (séle) 8e a Eefa (schaefaere) 6 o gros (grfis) é o nbta (nater) 5 g rgta (roeter) ie I lIm (lieben) no a prada (bruoder) fie y fry (vrfieje) ei a bax (weich) ai faik (veige) ou a lafn (loufen) Bu 5 pam (baume) The MHG vowels Q and g have a special development in stressed syllables that remain long before MHG m and also before n, where nasalization is prevented by a following syllable [A 13]: MHG é: Smas (émeize) |m> V O> > o: frona (Ver6na, Veronica) If this m represents the assimilated syllable —ben, or if 2 represents -den, the vowel behaves as it would before b or d: amt (abent), 5n (étem, édem), 5m (oben). — — T— T—- T— 45 The two developments of MHG 3i seem to depend on the period when individual words came into the dialect from ENHG. WOrds with a are probably older because they are more s0phisticated: héln (heilen) : hailek (heilige); lat (leide) : laidnguft (leidenschaft); Etrax (streich) : étraixholts (streich-hola). A32. Shortening of the MHG diphthongs i3, go, and g3 as in Table A 3, occurred only before certain consonants [A 19.1]. In the shortening of MHG go > g > u, lowering occurred in the case of mgta_(muoter), but not in other cases: futa (vuoter). Lowering also occurred in the shortening of MHG é in lggn (153en). Other examples of shortening are listed in A 19. No examples of shortening could be found for the MHG vowels §, §, and a3, or for the diphthongs 3i, 23, and éu, except in unstressed syllables. A33. Postvocalic r and the Secondary Diphthongs. In the Metz. dialect postvocalic r is usually vocalized, producing a diphthong, although in other positions it remains a consonant [A 76]. The diphthong arising from vocalized E cannot be nasalized: dgan (dorn). These diphthongs are called "secondary" to emphasize their non- vowel origin, but they are nonetheless diphthongs in the usual sense, not merely diphthongal off-glides, as with Standard German postvocalic 3° In the Metz. diphthongs equal length is given to both elements when 46 the word is spoken slowly: EEEEJ not §g§£_"sharp". There are occasional allophones of the secondary diphthongal phonemes, as in the fast-speech varient EEE for EEEE_(wirt) [A 9]. Table A 6 demonstrates the development of the secondary diphthongal phonemes. A34. Words in which MHG E has been retained postvocalically exist in this dialect side by side with cases where E is vocaliced under the same circumstances. The following minimal pairs show that E and the secondary diphthongs are distinct phonemes: v « /steak/"strength" : /stark/"strong" /hoa/"hair" : /har/"mister" /foat/"you pl. drive" : /fort/"always" The words with postvocalic E seem to be in wide circu- lation and are known to have been in the dialect for generations. The word joamark, which has both the diphthong and the retained E, has been in use for a long time, because the annual fair was a Metz. tradition for centuries. According to native speakers, some indi- viduals use more or less E than others, so the occurrence of E_does not have as established a pattern as at first appears. The Grfindner settlements also seem to vary in the use of the consonant E versus the diphthong, Metzenseifen being one of the towns with comparatively little use of E and Dobschau with the most.9 47 TABLE A 6. The Secondary Diphthongs MHG Vowel+r i. 9: A er a! 0: ae ie E. ae DJ) 0) oe, Metz. Positions Initial Medial ie ie (ir) piek (birke) ea eaml (ermel) peak (bérc) oa oabat (arbeit) poat (bart) oa oat (ort) moag (morgen) ue ue (fire) gapuet (geburt) ye -- pyet (bfirde) ¢a ¢atl (ortelin) b¢ata (w5rter) Final bie (wir) abea (wér) boa (war) toa (tor) v snue (snuor) tye (tfir) b¢a (waere) 48 A35. A small number of mainly monosyllabic words have lost postvocalic E without diphthongization: E3E_(hart, hért), EEEE_(warten), éEgEg_(swarz), E3E§_(herz). Some other monosyllabic words retain postvocalic E: EQEE (vort), EEEEE (stark). E is also retained postvocalically where it represents MHG EE [A 76]. Often when a syllable with a final secondary diphthong is followed by another vowel, E occurs as a syllable-divider: fe¢-r-ont flam "fire and flame" [A 4]. A36. The Unstressed Vowels. Lack of stress causes shortening and centralization of all vowels in Metz. [A 2]. This condition is often found in prefixes and suffixes, as well as unstressed words. In compound words the no-stress situation alternates with secondary stress, and the alternation is a matter of vocabulary: maltsait "mealtime" secondary stress, huxtsat "wedding" no stress. The vowel E’is the most common development of vowels in the no-stress situation, because it is the most central vowel. MHG S.) E in prefixes and suffixes: BET (be-), g3: (ge-), ’32 (-en). The syllabic conso- nants E, E, E, and E represent further developments of the unstressed gfsyllable. MHG E also becomes 3 in suffixes like -§é_(-isch), -E§§_(-nisse), and ‘92 (-inne). Elsewhere MHG E > g'in the suffix -gE_(-ic, -ec), and Eg_> y_in EyEE_(wie-vil), where rounding has A occurred, perhaps because of MHG w, MHG E > E in -1ix 49 (-lich), and before a nasal E_> g; -_ggE_(-lin). MHG 3 usually remains g, and MHG i > 3, g, or E: ngE_(von), ‘EEE.°r -EEE_(—sam), -§EEE_(-schaft). MHG E > E: g_ (du). A37. Final MHG §_is retained as an ending in the declension of adjectives in the form of E [B 25], but it has been dropped in most nouns and in the conjugation of verbs. In a small group of nouns final MHG g is retained: EEEEE_"aunt", EE§E3_"niece", EgEg_"nephew", EEES "line", and E222 ”soup". It is very probable that these words are loan words from Standard German, since the last two are more or less international words, and since Metz. tends to borrow kinship terminology. CHAPTER 2 : CONSONANTS A38. There are twenty phonemic consonants in Metz. [Table A 7], about half of which occur in all three positions: initial, medial, and final. The distribution of consonants is much like that of Standard German, except that consonant clusters are often reduced because of assimilation and simplification [A 3, 52]. Through close association with preceding vowels, both /n/ and /r/ have developed as vowels as well as consonants [A 29]. /n/, /n/, /m/, and /1/ can be syllabic when following other consonants [A 48, 73], but /r/ cannot be syllabic. Among first and second generation speakers in Cleveland, several American English sounds have been added as allophones of Metz. phonemes [A 41]. Metz. has no double consonants, however consonant lengthening can occur as a result of close juncture [A 3]. The voiced stOps and fricatives never occur finally and rarely occur medially after short vowels. /j/ and /h/ do not occur finally and /h/ does not occur medially. /v/, /x/, /n/, and /s/ do not occur word-initially. The consonant phonemes are illustrated by the following examples: 50 /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/ /f/ /V/ /t5/ /5/ /2/ /‘é/ /X/ /m/ /n/ /9/ /l/ /r/ /j/ /h/ Initial poat "beard" boat "word" toa "(I) dare" doa "there" kesl "kettle" gesl "alley" fet "fat" tsop "pigtail" zuma "summer" V " n u sof sheep m6 "man" not "near" 153 "lay r59 joa "year" hoa "hair" 51 Medial halpa "berry" zelba "himself" n§ta "snake" hSdan "quarrel" pr¢kl "crumb" prygl "beat" glafn "sleep" Svn "oven" heatsn "hearts" paisn "bite" pabaizn "prove" naén "nibble" rixn "smell" h5ma "hammer" d5na "thunder" huga "hunger" féla "mistake" fara "priest" majestat "majesty" Final rip "rib" hut "hat" fr5k "question" tIf "deep" plats "place II tos "that", conj. tig "table" bax "soft" 5m "above" an "breath" 269 u say" bol "wool" har "mister" 52 TABLE A 7. The Phonemic Consonants labial dental palatal velar stops p, b t, d k: 9 fricatives and sibiants f, v s, 2 § x affricates ts nasals m n n laterals l trills r semivowels j cavity friction h 53 A39. Speakers of Metz. often comment on the soft sounds of their dialect in contrast to the harsher sounds of Standard German. This is partly because there are actually fewer consonants per utterance in Metz., and because they are produced with less energy. There is, however, slightly more energy in the Metz. consonants than in their American English counterparts. A40. Aspiration of the voiceless stops /p/, /t/, /k/ occurs regularly in the prevocalic position for many first and second generation speakers, however there are a few speakers who do not aspirate in this position. Unaspirated voiceless stops are nevertheless dis- tinguishable from their voiced counterparts. Probably the aspiration of voiceless stOps in this position is an influence from American English, because older speakers seem to use less aspiration. If the prevocalic stop occurs as part of a consonant cluster, it is not aSpirated, but the unaspirated voiceless consonant is still distinguishable from its voiced counterpart: /§p5i/ "spit" : /§b5i/ "pig". Terminally the voiceless stops may or may not be aspirated, and in fast speech before another consonant they are not released. Stops which occur before the syllabic consonants are always released nasally or laterally: gname "snap", pith "ask", pakNg "pack", §p£E_"apple", written in this work as Enapm, pitn, pakg, apl. Before syllabic nasals 54 some speakers do not even form the consonant stOp prior to the syllable change but use the glottal stop instead: gna7m, pi7n, 2313, A41. The voiced stop /b/ has the allophone [w], a labial semivowel, for some Cleveland area speakers when it occurs in the clusters [gw], [kw], and [tsw] for /;b/, /kb/, and /tsb/. A very few speakers use the allophone [v] in the same manner as [w]. A42. There is a tendency for some speakers to devoice initial g in some words. This often occurs after a voiceless consonant in the preceding word: Egg E3 "that the" compared to Egg §3_"when the"; SEEE.E£§."°Ver there" compared to E§E_QE§_"next to there". But E9§_g§_ "that the" also occurs with about the same frequency as Egg E3, Also some speakers devoice initial §_even in voiced surroundings or sentence initially: EEEE_E§E tuegtek "we are thirsty". Occasional devoicing of g is a feature of most of the Grfindner dialects. Metz. words with initial devoicing for all speakers include: E9222. (darf), and Egg (da5, conj.) [A 56]. A43. The stops /k/ and /g/ are pronounced without friction. Both are more palatal before front vowels and velar before back vowels. A44. The fricative pair /f/ and /v/ are pronounced as in American English or Standard German. A few speakers use /f/ in place of /v/ medially: te¢f1 for te¢vl (tiuvel). 55 A45. The palatal and velar fricatives [c] and [x] form one phoneme written here as /x/. They have no voiced counterparts. [x] occurs after back vowels and [c] after front vowels and in the diminutive suffix -§33E, If /a/ and /5/ are considered back vowels, then it can be said that [c] occurs after back vowels in the syllable 'EEQE} Some speakers use the allophone [hj], a cavity friction consonant followed by a palatal semivowel, in place of [c]. A46. /s/ and /z/ are pronounced in the dental-alveolar region using the tip of the tongue, and /§/ is articulated against the hard palate with strong lip rounding. All sibilants are pronounced like their Standard German counterparts. /5/ has no voiced counterpart. A47. The nasals /n/, /m/, and /n/ are equivalent to Standard German E, E_and 3_and likewise are syllabic after most consonants [A 73]: trigkg (trinken). /n/ is velar after back vowels and palatal after front vowels. A48. /1/ is pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge with varying degrees of velar co- articulation. The amount of velarization varies with different speakers, positions, and surrounding vowels. Initial /1/ before a front vowel is-a fairly clear [1] for most speakers and medial or final /1/ after a back vowel is usually the allophone [i], very velar, with the tongue more flat and relaxed, and the tip not necessarily touching the alveolar ridge. Some first and second 56 generation speakers use velar [1] in all positions, just as in American English words. /1/ can also be syllabic when it follows a consonant: EEEE (himel). A49. /r/ is a voiced alveolar trill in all three positions and in consonant clusters. It always involves several flaps of the tongue tip. Some first and second gener— ation Cleveland speakers use the allophone [L], the American E, with lateral constriction and no tongue tip action in pre- and postconsonantal positions, where as these same speakers use the trilled [r] allOphone in initial and inter-vocalic positions. Very rarely [L] is used initially and intervocalically. A50. /j/ is pronounced like American English initial y; it never has the fricative overtones which sometimes accompany Standard German 1. /h/ is also pronounced without much friction. It resembles Standard German E but with less energy. A51. Consonant Clusters. The initial Metz. clusters are: V pl pr spr v tr ts str dr tsb kl kr kn kb 91 gr gn fl fr E1 gr gn gb 5p gm gt hn 57 All clusters with /r/ or /1/ have variants with [A] or [i] for some first and second generation Cleveland speakers. Likewise /tsb/, /kb/, and /§b/ have the variants [tsw], [tsv], [zw]; [kw], [kv]; [gw], [év]: . .V . tsby§n, tswygn, tSVién, ZWlsn (ZWlSChen) v v v kbetsn, kwetsn, kvetsn (quetzen) v J sbesta, Ewesta, svesta (swester) /gn/ occurs only in the rare word gnédek (gnéde). /hn/ is limited to a reduction of the MHG syllable EEE} EEEE (hin+in). A52. The Metz. terminal clusters are somewhat more complex because of the endings E, E, BE! which can occur after any voiceless consonant except /j/ or /h/. Clusters like mfst, nst are sometimes simplified by leaving off the last element. The terminal clusters are: I pt ps ps pst kt ks kst « ts ts tst ft fs fst J st st sp sts v at as nst nts nts mt ms mp mf mst mft mfst nt ns 9k nst nks lt ls ls 1p 1f 1k 1x 1n 13 lst 1t! 1‘s/t rt rk rx rn rst xt xs xst 58 Medial clusters are much too complex to list in detail, since an almost endless juxtaposition of consonants can arise by making compound words and adding prefixes and suffixes. Medial clusters often become involved in assimilation [A 3, A 77 ff]. Development of the Metzenseifen Consonants From MHG A53. In the following discussion stem-final consonants are considered to be voiced or voiceless for a given word according to their voiced or voiceless status medially. However stem-final stops and fricatives (including sibilants) which are also word-final are automatically devoiced, as was the case in MHG. Thus EEEE (kleit) can be said to have a voiced stem-final consonant, because that consonant is voiced in EE§g3_[the stem is EEégf], whereas EéE (rat) has a voiceless stem-final consonant, because t is voiceless medially: rata [the stem is _. _,___ EéEf]. In these terms it is generally true that MHG medially voiced consonants are medially voiced in Metz. If a stop or fricative has become word-final due to the loss of a syllable, it is also devoiced: MHG Metz. b > p houbet hap d > t vriunde fre¢nt 9 > k sorge zoak z > s weise bas w > b > p farwe foap 59 Devoicing of initial consonants occurs where the word becomes the second part of a compound in close juncture: EEEEE (heidel-ber) [A 3]. The development of MHG conso- nants in Metz. is presented in Tables A 8 and 9. A54. In the development of MHG consonants into Metz. all double consonants have become single: MHG Metz. pp > p snappen énapm tt > t bitten pitn kk > k ackern akan 35 > s hagzen hasn 55 > s gewisse ngis 11 > 1 vallen faln rr > r hérre har mm > m wimmeln bimln nn > n kennen kenan ff > f hoffen hufn A55. The Metz. stops and fricatives reflect the influence of Bavarian, Silesian, and Middle German dialects of the 13th and 14th Centuries, which was strong in all the old island dialects of Southern Bohemia and Northern Hungary. The dialect features 3 for E_and E for w_are very wide- spread in the island dialect groups such as Iglau, Kremnitz, Krickerhau, Deutschbrod, Deutsch Proben and Deutsch Pilsen, in fact all the Silesian settlements which had a strong Bavarian element. In the Unterzips 60 TABLE A 8. DevelOpment of MHG StOpS and Fricatives I tt pp k kk f ff x I I I I I I ' l I I I I l I , I I l l I I ¢ t ¢ 9 ¢ k v f x d //\\ //x\ t d p b k 9 ss 2 X f fia s a p 35 61 TABLE A 9. Development of Other MHG Consonants m ' nn N 1 11 r rr I I I I I I I I . I 93 I) D 3 h 62 region B for E and E_for E! singly and in clusters, vary from one settlement to another, Metzenseifen being one of those with total development of p for E and E_for 33 At one time, the feature I for E initially, medially, and in clusters, was probably widespread also, but now it occurs only in Kremnitz-Krickerhau with remnants in Metzenseifen.10 A56. The devoicing of initial MHG 2.13 universal in Metz., with the exception of a few loan words from German, such as baidB (beide) and baras gelt (bares gelt). Devoicing of MHG g_initially occurs in Egg (daz, conj.) and 322:2. (darf) [A 42]. Devoicing of MHG g has only been found in the work Egg (gegen) and its derivatives [A 64]. A57. There is also a tendency to drop final stops after a short vowel plus nasal or liquid in both Ober- and Unter- Metzenseifen, although this occurs much more frequently in Cher-Metzenseifen, and is considered characteristic of their speech: Egg for EEEE_(kint), EgE_for EEEE (walt), Egg for E322 (hemde), fieglan for fieglegk (phérsich). In the last example, loss of E causes the change of g_to E. There is also a loss of dentals following E_before the suffix -§E_[A 84]. A58. Both Ober- and Unter-Metzenseifen have added final E_ to some MHG words: SEEE.(9a§33)I EEEE_(schone), pEgE (bir), éiEE (schir), EQEE_(nfi, nu), BEE (nach), frailixt (vriliche), feast (vérsen). This addition may be a 63 hypercorrection to compensate for the frequent loss of E in many words, or it may be related to other similar cases in Silesian or Middle German dialects.ll A59. MHG E > E initially, medially, and in clusters: E92 (topf), E§E3_(vater), EEEEE.(triben). MHG EH.) EEE; tsbeak (twérc). Final E is retained after vowels, but it may be dropped after nasals and liquids in short syllables: EEE (huot), but E22 (hunt) [A 57]. After E, E has been voiced in some words: EEEEE_(kelter, com- parative) [B 27]. A60. In most cases g_> E initially and medially: dana (doner), EE§E_(wider). Medially g remains after E except where followed by ’93: EEEEE (wunder), but gaponan (gebunden) [A 84]. The syllables -EEE_and -§EE became assimilated [A 78, 81]. MHG g_> E_initially: Egg (daz, conj.) [A 56]. A61. MHG E.) E initially, medially, and in clusters: EQEEE_(pulver), kapitl (kapitel), pE§E_(plage). A62. MHG E_> p initially and in initial clusters: EEK (buoch), EEEE (blic). Medially MHG E_> E, except in the assimilation of -EEE_to E_[A 78]: BEBE (haber). After short vowels medial E is rare: krebas (krébez). A63. MHG E_> E_in all positions: E§E_(ketene), EEEEE (winkel), plutek (bluotec), EEEEE_(knebel). A64. MHG g > g initially and medially: géE (gél). Qégl (nagel). The MHG syllable -g§E_became assimilated to 9 [A 78]. MHG g > E initially in kég (gegen). 64 A65. MHG E_(also written 2) > E_in all positions: EEES (vater), EEEEE_(helfen), EéEi(sch$f), EEE3_(vliegen). After a nasal or liquid medial E sometimes became voiced to E: EEEE§_(ffinfe), EEyE_(eilfe). A66. MHG E.) E_initially and in clusters: EEEE_(warm), tsb¢lf (zwelf). In the intervocalic position g was dropped: E (ouwe). The syllable -EEE_became assimilated and nasalized [A 83]. A67. MHG BE > E initially and in initial clusters: font (phunt), EEEE (phluoc). Medially and finally MHG pE_> p; EEEE_(kupfer), Eggp (zopf). Finally after T! pE_> E_or EE.‘ EEEE or EEEpE_(dampf). A68. MHG E§_> E§_in all positions: EEEE_(zuc), EEEEE. (sitsen), EEE§_(hérze), tsbygn (zwischen). A69. The development of the sibilant consonants is parallel to that of Standard German sibilants. MHG E remains voiceless finally and medially before consonants: E§§_(los), pg§E3_(bester), but initially and inter- vocalically E > E: EEEEE_(silber), EEEED(k65en). MHG E > E intervocaliCally and finally: E§§g_(heiaen), BEE (heia). In all initial clusters E > E: EE§E_(slagen). MHG E_> §_in all positions: EEEEE_(schruben), Tigfl. (mischen), EE§_(visch). A70. MHG §,> E_medially and finally: pEEEE_(brechen), Egg_(woche). A71. MHG i > i initially and rarely medially: joa (jar), majestat (majestat). j_which became final disappeared: 65 ££i_(vrfieje). The syllable "122 underwent assimilation and nasalization [A 83]. A72. MHG I; > g initially: géé (hoch). Medial g was lost when it became final: Ei_(siche, lst. sing. indic.). The syllable -hEE_became assimilated and nasalized [A 83]. A73. MHG n_developed as a syllabic as well as a non- syllabic phoneme in Metz. n united with preceding Metz. long vowels resulting in the complete nasalization of the vowel with no trace of the consonant n, [A ll] : pg (ban). In the unstressed syllable '32! n_underwent assimilation after b, d, fi,[A 77 ff]. Elsewhere 3_ became syllabic, except after liquids and nasals, where it became a part of the same syllable: EEEEE_(sparren), or remained in the following syllable: Ei3§g_(singen). After fricatives and voiceless stops E'is syllabic: ézg_ (oven), however after 2, pp, or pf the syllabic conso- nant is m, and after E, §§_it is 3: EnEpm_(snappen), trigkg (trinken). The MHG combination 3g developed as the Metz. consonant 3_medially and finally: £332 (finger), 129_(jung). A74. MHG m.> m_in all positions: mEEE_(me§3er), lémg (eimer), p§m_(boum), smalts (smalz). A75. MHG l_> l initially, in initial clusters, and finally: lg}; (lagen), Elflg (blic), gal (vol). Medial l_was usually retained, except sometimes before a nasal in a long syllable [A 82] : sbolman (swalwe), but EEEEE. (halme). l can be syllabic after consonants [A 48]. 66 A76. MHG E’is retained initially and in initial clusters: EEEE (rouchen), EEEEE_(kraft). Postvocalic E from the reduction of MHG EE is retained [A 54]: EEEEE_(sparren), but postvocalic single £_was usually vocalized: boa (war) [A 33, 34, 35]. A77. Syllable Assimilation. The term syllable assimi- lation is applied here to the situation where two syllables are combined into one, resulting in the merger or loss of a voiced consonant. This situation is always caused by a voiced consonant followed by an unstressed vowel plus §_or l. The voiced consonant became so weakened that it was no longer able to divide the syllables effectively and merged with n_or l, while the syllable became dominated by the stressed vowel. In most cases assimilation occurs following a Metz. long vowel, probably because voiced consonants are not common after short vowels, but vowel length is not a condition for assimilation. However, it is essential that the assimilated syllable be final. Some speakers pronounce assimilated syllables with a faint trace of the voiced assimilated stem-final consonant just before the nasal: hégm, whereas others say h§m_(haben). However no actual st0p occurs, merely a change in the shape of the oral cavity which hints at a disyllabic state. A78. The most common forms of syllable assimilation result from the combination: vowel + MHG -ben, -den, 67 -gen. The merger of b, d, g_with n_has produced m, R! and 9 respectively: MHG Metz. abent §mt vaden fon tragen tron Exceptions to this rule are extremely rare. They include the rarely-used present participle and some loan words: steabant (sterbent), where the infinitive form is EEEEm; Eiggg_(eigen), and Eibgg, Eiben, a family name. A79. Syllable assimilation has also occurred with the liquids l_and £_before "922! -§EEJ ”SEE: In these cases 1 is retained and r is vocalized: MHG Metz. selben zelm melden meln galgen gala erben eam ermorden damoan morgen moan Assimilation does not occur with the MHG syllable —ern > 225 rudan (ruodern). A80. The MHG ending -igen resulted in an assimilated syllable where g was combined with n_ to produce § and i_ was lowered to E_because of the following nasal: pafesteg (be-vestigen). 68 A81. The MHG syllable -<_iE_l_ assimilated to _l_: rl§_l_ (nadel), k2§l_(kn6del), but 'EEl and 'flEl were not assimilated: £32111 (hiibel), £51; (nagel). A82. The MHG syllable ”122.15 reduced to n_by some speakers: g£§2_(grullen), however some speakers retain 1: EEELE} All speakers retain l in EE§12_(zoln), so there is no complete assimilation of this syllable for all cases. l is often lost after a long vowel and before a nasal where no syllable reduction is involved: 333133 (halme). A83. Another kind of syllable assimilation took place with the MHG consonants i, h, and 3 plus the -32 ending. When these consonants disappeared medially, the resulting long vowel plus n combination gave rise to a nasal vowel: MHG Metz. draejen dre geschehen gaée schouwen Ea A84. Simplification and Loss of Dentals. Loss of word- final dentals along with other stops is discussed in A 57. There is also a grammatical loss of stem-final d'or E_after a short vowel plus nasal, when the ’32 ending of the infinitive, noun, adjective, or the endings of the verb conjugation are added: 69 MHG Metz. swind- fagbenan hand- hean tante, Fr. tanan bind- penst vind- g3fon8n "to vanish" "hands", D. pl. "aunts", pl. "you sing. tie" "found" Final dentals following a short vowel plus nasal or l plus a nasal have occasionally been drOpped in word derivation: solt (schuld-): solek "guilty"; kalt (kalt-): keln "cold weather"; haln (halt-) "to hold". A85. Consonant simplification occurs when two similar consonants are merged, as in the addition of case and conjugational endings. Stem-final t or d'is merged with the endings -EE, -§£J producing the following results: du pits (bittest) hea hilt (helt) is fent (vindet) ngat (gewartet) But in behaoptat (behoubeten), a modified loan from German, the imperfect ending is added without simpli- fication to distinguish the form from behaopt, the first and third singular form of the present tense [B 39]. The addition of the possessive -E to stem-final E, E, or EE results in the loss of the final -E: dd fig hapa "the fishes' heads". 70 A86. Grammatical Change. Some remnants of Verner's law can be seen in the verb forms of Metz., however since imperfect-based past forms are lacking for all strong verbs, this phenomenon can only be seen in the com- parison of the infinitive and the past participle: J . V . . snaln gasnltn (snlden) frizn gafroan (vriesen) tsi gatsog (ziehen) PART B: MORPHOLOGY CHAPTER 1: NOUNS Bl. Nouns exist in two numbers, singular and plural, and three genders, masculine, neuter, and feminine. They can be declined according to four cases: nominative, accusative, dative, and possessive, but case endings are added to the noun itself only for the dative plural and the possessive singular and plural. Number, gender, and case are not always apparent from the form of the noun itself, but rather from the modifying article or adjec- tive. As in Standard German, gender is not directly related to sex: §E_bEip_"the woman" is neuter and modifying adjectives must be neuter as well. Historically the genders of most nouns have not changed since MHG times. A few exceptions include d§.p§x, feminine (bach, masculine); dE tsbeak, masculine (twérc, neuter); 3E EXEEE, neuter (schurz, masculine). B2. The diminutives make up a special category of nouns, which are used to denote small things, the young of animals, children, and things pertaining to them. A few words, such as leml (lamp) and fiesdlenk (phérsich) —— J 71 72 exist only as diminutives and have no corresponding regular forms. The formation of diminutives from noun roots always involves umlaut of the proximate (not necessarily the stem—) vowel and the addition of the endings -l, -_E3k, or -xggk: oatsyftl from oatsuft "village". As with the diminutives of German, there are no hard-and-fast rules for determining which words require which of these three endings, but in some frequently used diminutives there are definite regular endings. Thus "cup" is always EéEl! and "puppy" is always Eggtl, but "little hand" can be BEBE; or hentxegk, since this word is not commonly used in a diminutive form. -§33k_and -lE3k_are to some extent also inter- changeable with words that occur infrequently as diminu- tives, but they are fixed for some common diminutives. Some phonological factors are involved in the choice of a diminutive ending: words whose stems end in l always take the -xggk_ending, and words ending in a fricative add the element -§f before -xggk_or ’lEQEF stilxegk "little chair", Eifalegk "little boat". In Ober- Metzenseifen the diminutive endings are -l, -§i3 or ‘Eifl and -li or -l32, and in both localities -xE9k is sometimes pronounced -hji9 or big. 73 Formation of Plurals B3. Plural noun forms are derived from the singular in the following ways: 1) the addition of the ending '33 or 2! usually with no umlaut of the stem vowel; 2) the ending '3 with umlaut of the stem vowel where possible; 3) umlaut of the stem-vowel with no ending; 4) no change in form; and 5) and 6) addition of the diminutive plural endings -Ex33k_and “ELEQE respectively. 1) the first group contains most of the MHG strong feminine nouns as well as many of the weak nouns of all genders which do not have the stem-ending E: EEél, - V v tsoln (zal), zoak, zoan, (sorge), smeats, smeatsn (smerze), ampat, ampatn (antwfirte), hats, heatsn (herze). The last example is unusual in that the plural stem has vocalized £1 whereas the singular has lost 5. A few former feminine i-stems and a consonant stem have been added to this group: stot, stotn (stadt), sbesta, sbestan (swester). Words with the endings -§uft and -kait or hait occur here also: laidnsuft, laidnsuftn (leiden + schaft), kragkait, kragkaitn (krankeit). There are also some MHG strong masculine and neuter nouns which may have joined this group by expanding the dative plural form to include all plural cases: amt, émtn (Sbent), Eé! £§'(réch), tsbeak,tsbean (twérc). As can be seen from the last two examples the plural ending '32 causes nasalization of a stem-final vowel and assimilation of E, d, and g [All, 78]. A few nouns in 74 this plural group have umlaut of the stem syllable: plum, plyman, or pluman (bluome). 2) The second group is made up largely of MHG strong neuter nouns which in MHG formed the plural with umlaut plus "SE or had no endings: tol, tEla or tBla (tal), kent, kenda (kint), tie, tiera (tier). A few strong masculine and feminine nouns have been added: mg, mena (man), galeft, galefta (léfs), peak, peaga (bérc). The weak masculine noun has, hEZa (hase) has also joined this group. The feminine noun aiznpo, aiznpona (eisen + ban) does not have umlaut of the stem vowel although umlaut is possible. Metz. §.is not capable of umlaut in noun plurals: hap, hapa (houbet). . 3) This is a very large group made up of MHG strong masculine nouns, including many masculine and feminine i-stems which have stem vowels capable of umlaut. The MHG plural ending '2 has disappeared: bglf, b¢lf (wolf), nogl, nEgl (nagel), kg, ki_(kuo), mota, ngE_(muoter). A few strong neuters occur in this group: ééf! §§f_(sch§f), hi, hi_(huon). Many nouns from the same MHG groups have stems not capable of umlaut and they appear in group 4. 4) This is a miscellaneous group of nouns whose nominative singular and plural forms are identical for various reasons. There are many MHG strong masculine and neuter nouns which have lost the plural ending -E: 75 BEE: (brief), Eb§i_(swin), fre¢nt (vriunt), t§k_(tac). This last example also has plural forms with umlaut and with -§2; ték, tég, Egg. The MHG strong feminines brficke and b§2_belong here also: pgyk, p2, Many weak nouns which include E_as their final stem consonant have identical singular and plural forms: némgg (name), pégg (bote), pi_(bie, bin). Also the masculine weak noun BEE (bér) occurs here. p§m_(boum) and k§_(kamin) occur here because Metz. §_is not capable of umlaut in nouns. Nouns with the endings -E3k_(-unge), '3 (-aere), and '32 (-inne, -in) belong in this group: prifegk (pruevunge), £593 (roubaere), kyxg_(kocherin). Likewise there are diminutives with the singular ending -_Egk_or -xe3k which do not change for the plural: sbestaxenk T "little sister" sifalegk "little boat". Some nouns in this plural group have variants which would place them in other groups: p§m_(boum) has the plurals p§m_or pémgg, and EE§,(nuz) has ngE_or BEE: 5) Groups 5 and 6 include the diminutive plural endings -E§Egk_and -Elggk_respectively, which are the usual plurals for diminutives with -l_in the singular: paml, pamaxegk (boum), jygl, jynalegk (junge). There is no definite rule determining which of these plural endings belongs with a given noun, but the ending 'EEEQK is more common. Diminutives with -xE3k_and -lggk_in the singular also have these plural forms: faglxegk, fagaxegk (vogel). Diminutives which already have this 76 form in the singular remain unchanged for the plural and belong in plural group 4: gifalegk (schif). Declension B4. The declension of nouns is presented in Tables l-5. Nouns are subdivided into animate and inanimate. Inanimate nouns lack the possessive case and are thus given a separate declension. Remnants of the MHG genitive case still persist in adverbial expressions, such as moagst (morgens) and émEE_(ébends), but the genitive no longer functions grammatically. B5. The Metz. possessive case appears to have developed from the dative in the following way: At one time, presumably, possession was expressed by the formula: dative case [for the possessor] + the possessive adjec— tive EEin_modifying the noun possessed. This is a construction common in dialects: dem Vater sein Hut; der Mutter ihr Kind, etc. Later the unstressed §Eifl. became reduced to "i! which was attached to the possessor-noun, still in the dative case. By analogy -E was also affixed to feminine nouns, the possessive dative constructions in Metz. then being: EE.£§EE§J 33 EEEEEJ dE_m9£EEJ "the father's, the child's, the mother's." Likewise the -E ending appeared in the dative plural of all genders, following the -E_ending: 32.5éifli "the horses'." This stage in the development of the possessive was noted by Schroer around 1860.1 77 TABLE B l. Nouns of Plural Group I Animate: Masc. Neut. Fem. (nachbure) ... (swester) sing. N.,A.,D. noxpa sbesta P. noxpas sbestas pl. N.,A.,D. noxpan gbestan P. noxpans ghestans Inanimate: Masc. Neut. Fem. (smérze) (ouge) (schibe) sing. v _ J . N.,A.,D. smeats ak salp pl. v N.,A.,D. smeatsn A §aim 78 TABLE B 2. Nouns of Plural Group 2 Animate: Masc. Neut. Fem. (man) (wip) ... Sing. ~ N.,A.,D. mo baip P. mos baips pl. N.,A. mena baiba D. menan baiban P. menas baibas Inanimate: Masc. Neut. Fem. (berc) (wort) (ort) sing. N.,A.,D. peak boat oat pl. N.,A. peaga b¢ata ¢ata D. peagan b¢atan ¢atan 79 TABLE B 3. Nouns of Plural Group 3 Animate: Masc. Neut. Fem. (wolf) (schéf) (mfis) sing. v_ N.,A.,D. bolf sof maos P. bolfs gofs " pl. v- N.,A. b¢lf sef me¢s D. b¢lvn sefn mebzn P. b¢lfs sefs me¢s Inanimate: Masc. Neut Fem. (wagen) ... (want) sing. _ N.,A.,D. bog bant pl- _ N.,A. beg bent benan 80 TABLE B 4. Nouns of Plural Group 4 Animate: Masc. Neut. Fem (bér) (eninkel) (bin) sing. _ ~ N.,A.,D. pea enekl pl P. peas Enekls pis pl- _ N.,A. pea enekl pi D. pean enekln " P. peas enekls pis Inanimate: Masc. Neut. Fem. (troum) (jar) (prfievunge) sing. _ _ N.,A.,D. tram joa pryfegk Pl- _ _ N.,A. tram joa pryfenk D. traman joan pryfenkg TABLE B 5. Nouns 81 of Plural Groups 5 and 6 Animate: sing. N.,A.,D. P. pl N.,A D. P. Inanimate: Group 5 (katze) ketsl ketsls ketsaxenk ketsaxenkg ketsaxenks Group 5 (vu03) fysl fysaxegk frysaxenkg Group 6 (junge) jygl jynls jygalenk jygalenkg qualegks Group 6 (bach) p¢xl p¢xale9k p¢xale9k9 82 B6. Down to the present time the -E ending has always been limited to animate nouns. In the past century the idea of "possessive dative" has been lost for the feminine, neuter, and plural of all genders. These now have the article and adjective endings of the nominative- accusative cases, though they retain the -E ending on the noun: d3 motas, §§ kents, d3 Eéi "the mother's, the child's, the horses'." [For simplification of E see A 85.] The masculine singular retains the dative endings for the article and adjectives, however these endings are identical to the accusative singular endings. As a result of these developments, the possessive can be listed with the accusative case in the paradigms for articles and adjectives: §£_altn mos poat "the old man's beard"; g3 klana kents mota "the small child's mother", etc. A few speakers even use the nominative case for the article and adjectives of masculine nouns: dE_alt3 mos poat "the old man's beard." B7. There is only one other noun case ending in Metz.: the ending ‘33 (-en) for the dative plural of all genders: b¢lvn (wolven). The accusative singular and plural and the dative singular have the same noun case forms as the nominative. This includes the masculine weak nouns, even where the ’3 ending has not become part of the stem: BE QEEE "the dragon", 82.§E£E."the nephew", both are accusative or dative. 83 B8. A few important phonological effects result from the addition of case endings. The possessive ending -E is involved in simplification following E’or E: §E_E§E_ EEEEE "the rabbit's foot" [A 85]. The dative plural ending has the same effects as the ending of plural group 1: assimilation, nasalization, and the loss of a stem-final dental in short syllables after 2: Egg. (tagen), §i_(kuejen), tsenan (zenten). After a final nasal vowel the -§E_ending has no phonological effect: Ei_(suen). [A 78, A 11, A84.] CHAPTER 2: PRONOUNS B9. The Metz. pronouns can be divided into two groups: 1) those that only replace nouns in a sentence and 2) those that can replace or modify nouns. Group 1 includes the personal, reflexive, interrogative, and relative pronouns, and group 2 contains articles, demonstratives, possessives, and other pronominal adjectives. Group 1 Pronouns BlO. The personal pronouns [Table B6] exist in singular and plural in three cases: nominative, accusative, and dative, for each of the three persons. The third person has forms for masculine, neuter, and feminine in the singular. Most personal pronouns have stressed and unstressed forms. The stressed form occurs when the pronoun begins an utterance or occurs singly. It may also be found within a sentence when Special emphasis is placed on the pronoun. The unstressed form occurs -when the pronoun follows a stressed syllable or is one of a series of unstressed syllables. The syllable divider -r- is heard when the pronouns egk, ons, 9m, 84 85 TABLE B 6. The Personal Pronouns (The first form given is the most common in each case.) Stressed Unstressed lst. pers. sing. N. ix, ixa x, i A. mix mix, mi D. mie ma pl. N. bie, bien, da ba, pa, p A. (r) ons (r) ons D. (r) ons (r) ons 2nd. pers. sing. N. du, d6 d8, ta A. dix dix, di D. die da, ta pl. N. is s A. (r) egk (r) egk D. (r) enk (r) enk 3rd. pers. sing. N. hea a, ea A. in _ (r) 8n (Masc.) D. im, in (r) om, (r) an N. as as, s (Neut.) A. as _ as, s D. im, in (r) om, (r) an N. 2i 23, 53 (Fem.) A. zi 23, 53 D. ie ra pl. all genders N. z: 23, SE A. gi _ 23, 58 D. in, inan (r) om, (r) 8n 86 and fig follow a word with a final vowel: ii Eé rom gazokt, "I said to him" [A 4]. The pronouns are often assimilated to preceding words: dos hox gazokt, "I said that". The unstressed pronouns EE, Q3! EE, and Eg_are used following a vowel or voiced consonant whereas 33, E, E3, 33, and EE are used after voiceless consonants. Bll. Metz. £§E_is a little-used form probably related to EEEE_of the other Unterzips dialects.2 The first person plural form gE is of unknown origin, as is the E of ELSE (wir). The second person plural forms EE, 335 are survivals of the Germanic second person dual, which occur in a few Bavarian dialects especially in the Hungarian and Bohemian mining regions. E and EE_are both unstressed forms of EEE_used interchangeably. 23.15 not a loan from Standard German.3 The accusative singular masculine form 23 is also used in the dative singular masculine as an alternate to im, and it has been extended to the neuter singular as well. This tendency to use the accusative form for the dative is often apparent in the pronominal adjectives as well. B12. Reflexive pronouns exist only in the accusative and dative. The reflexive forms of the first and second persons are identical to the corresponding forms of the personal pronouns. The third person has the following reflexive forms: 87 Masc. Neut. Fem. pl. zix zix zix zix D. (r) om, zix (r) om, zix ra, zix (r) om, zix The forms (r) om and £E_appear to be derived from the MHG reflexive forms £m_and ££_respective1y. B13. The indefinite pronouns include mE_(man), 2293. (ein-wér), EEEE (ein-wag), nimant (nie-man) and EXéE. (nihts, nfitz). nimant and EyE£_are singular only and not declined. £2.15 nominative only; the dative and accusative are both E (einen). The plural of £3.13 fi11e¢t (vil - liut) for the nominative and accusative and fille¢tn for the dative. 3223.3nd EEEE are both singular and share the declension of EEE_and EEE [B 14]. Some pronominal adjectives are also used as indefinite pronouns: EEE_(einer), E§£§E (manec), Egygl.(ein-wie-vil) "some". B14. The interrogative pronouns are EEE_(wér) and 222.0r E§E_(wa5), which exist only in the singular, but may be used with a plural verb when they function as a predi— cate: EEE_E§£_d3_fre¢nt, "Who are the friends?" bos or bas is indeclinable, and bea has the forms: N. bea A. be 88 The possessive BEE appears to have developed from the dative possessive construction KSE.§EEE.in a way parallel to the formation of the possessive case in nouns and articles [B 5, 6]. As in the articles, the accusative singular masculine form was used for the dative, and the possessive developed from that. The adjective §E§E_Or belxa (swelch) is also used as an interrogative pronoun. 815. For the relative pronoun the demonstrative QEEJ_§§§r g; is used, since there is no separate relative de- clension. A possessive form of the relative pronoun exists: des, which developed like bes [B 14]. If the -T—- —T— antecedent is neuter, the relative pronoun can be the interrogative bos or bos. Group 2 Pronouns B16. The pronouns of group 2 are used mostly as pronominal adjectives, i.e., to modify nouns; however all of them can be used pronominally [in place of nouns] as well. When used pronominally, pronouns of this group with a long stem vowel plus final Q_have the ending pattern of kana (keiner) "none", "no one": Masc. Neut. Fem. p1. N. kana kas kana kana A. k5 kas kana kana D. k5 ka kana ka 89 Those whose stems end in a consonant other than E take the endings of onza (unser): Masc. Neut. Fem. pl. N. onza onzas onzrd oner A. onzan onzas onzra onzra D. onzan onzan onza onzan There is no possessive form for these pronouns. Since some of them are already possessive in meaning, a pos— sessive form is unnecessary. For pronouns in this group without possessive meaning, the idea can be expressed with the preposition £92_p1us the dative case. When the pronoun 12 (ir) is used in place of a noun, it takes the form ££E_for the nominative singular masculine and EEEE for the nominative singular neuter. The rest of the declension is like that of the adjective i3 [Table B8, C]. B17. The forms of the pronominal adjectives when used as modifiers are outlined in Table B 7, and the possessive adjectives, which can be regarded as a kind of pronominal adjective, are declined in Table B 8. When used as modifiers, the pronominal adjectives have possessive forms which are identical to the accusative. EEE_(dein) and zai (sein) are declined like mai; enka "your" follows the patterns of onza (unser), and £2 (ir) has its own slightly different declension [Table B 8]. Unlike the definite articles and demonstratives, where the full 90 TABLE B 7. Pronominal Adjectives -...- [. m-_- ...—--.... -.___—-§__. -—- “0.--. (Where two forms are given, the first is the most common.) Definite Article: (der) Masc. Neut. Fem. P1. N. da as d8 d3 A.,P. 3n, dn 85 d3 d3 D. 3n, dn 3n, dn da 8n, dn Demonstratives: (der, diser) Masc. Neut. Fem. pl. N. dea, diza dos, dis di, dIza di, diza A.,P. d5, dizn d5s, dis di, diza di, diza D. d%, dizn dfi, dizn dea, diza d5, dizn (jener) Masc. Neut. Fem. p1. N. jena 3e jend jena A.,P. je 3e jend jena D- as 2% J'éfna a? 91 TABLE B 8. Possessive Adjectives Declension A: (meln, dein, sein) Masc. Neut. Fem. pl. N. mai mai mai mai A.,P. mai mai mai mai D. mal mal mai, maina mal Declension B: (unser, iuwer) Masc. Neut. Fem. pl. N. onza onza onzra onzra A.,P. onzan onza onzrd oner D. onzan onzan onza onzan Declension C: (ir) Masc. Neut. Fem. pl. N ie ie ira ira A.,P. ian ie ira ira D. ian ian ira ian 92 declension is used by all speakers, the possessive adjectives are sometimes not inflected. Nasalized forms méi, EEE, and E§£_exist along with the forms TEE! @33, E32} both of these can be used indeclinably or as in Table B 8. The indeclinable form m3; may be the result of American English influence.4 B18. The definite article g3, EE, _§_is declined in Table B 7. When used pronominally, the definite articles are equal in meaning to the personal pronouns, and there is no possessive case. The indefinite article E and the negative article §E_are usually not declined at all when used as adjectives. E_has no plural. When E and EE_are stressed, they become E and E5, which may have the inflected forms E_and EE, for the accusative singular masculine and the dative singular masculine and neuter. E3 can have the dative plural form EE. B19. The demonstratives [Table B 7] include: dea, dos g; (dér, daz, diu), diza, dis, diza (diser, diz, disiu), and jEEE, 1E, jégg (jener, jenez, jeniu). EEE_and 2133 can be used interchangeably with the meaning "this", but only EEE can be used as a relative pronoun, jéEE_has the meaning "that". B20. Other pronominal adjectives include: §§§§.°r Efilfii. (welch), EXEE (solich), Eéifii (manec), El2.(al)v jEEE (iedec), and EEEQE_(beide). The interrogative PPEEE (waz-ffir-ein) is often used as a pronoun, where it has the form bofrana. CHAPTER 3: ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS B21. Most of this chapter deals with the descriptive adjectives, those belonging to the "open" class, that describe nouns and verbs and are capable of being compared. Adjectives of the limited or closed class, such as "this", "such" belong to the pronominal group of adjectives discussed in Chapter 2 [B 10]. Adverbs of the closed class, such as "very" and "never", are called primary adverbs in this work and are discussed in B 28. B22. Metz. has the same three degrees of comparison for both adjectives and adverbs: simple, comparative, and superlative. The comparative and superlative endings are '3 (-er) and -EE£g_or ’EEE (-este) respectively. These endings are always accompanied by umlaut of the stem vowel where possible. Even E_< MHG El! 92 is umlauted in the comparison of adjectives and adverbs, although it is not umlauted under any other circumstances: bax, b5xa, béxast (weich), gana, anEa, anEasta (genou). Disyllabic adjectives umlaut the stem vowel rather than the proximate vowel: graozam, gre¢zama, gre¢zamst8 (grfiwesam). There are two adjectives which derive their 93 94 comparative and superlative forms from stems other than that of the simple form: gut, pesa, pesta (guot); slext, élema, glemstd (sleht, slimp). The adjectives klé (klein) and EE (schoen) have irregular comparative and superlative forms due to the addition of a consonant and the shortening of the stem vowel: klendra, §¢ndra. lagk (lanc) has the forms lenka, lenklstd when it refers T’ J to extension in space and lega, legasta when it refers to time. 823. The superlative ending -EEEE is much more common than -E£§, being used after almost all consonant and vowels. -st8 is used in multisyllabic words: pailixstd (pinlich). After MHG m and E both endings occur: glemsta or élemasta (slimp), fylsta or fylasta (vol). With a nasalized final vowel, both endings can occur: grystd or grynasta (grfien). B24. A few adjectives with long stem vowels have shorten— ing of the stem-vowel in the comparative and superla- tive: gras, grysa, grysasta (gréz), hox, hyxa, hyxastd (hoch), lip, liba, libastd (liep). However most long- stem-vowel adjectives retain the long vowel: myt, myda, mydasta (mfiede). B25. Descriptive adjectives vary greatly in the degree to which they are inflected by various speakers. Some speakers use the full inflection as presented in Table B 9, whereas others use the nominative singular form throughout, even for the dative plural. Usually 95 TABLE B 9. Strong and weak Adjectives Strong Forms: alt (alt) Masc. Neut. Fem. N. alta altds alts alt A.,P. altn altas alta alt D. altn altn alta kla (klein) N. klana klgnas klana kla A.,P kla klgnas klana kla D. kla kla klana Weak Forms: alt (alt) Masc. Neut. Fem. N alta altB altd A.,P. altn altB altB D. altn altn altn alts kla (klein) N. klana klana klana A.,P. kla k15n3 klana D. kla kla kla klana p1. alta alta altn klana klana kla p1. altn altn altn kla kla kla 96 descriptive adjectives are declined according to two patterns: strong and weak [Table B 9]. Descriptive adverbs are indeclinable. The strong declension has endings like those of the pronominal adjectives, whereas the weak declension has only the endings -§_and ‘93: The neuter strong declension has interchangeable forms for the nominative and accusative, and the feminine weak declension has interchangeable dative singular forms. The uses of these are discussed in C6. Adjectives with a stem-final nasal vowel have special peculiarities of inflection, as described in Table B 9: §3_Eé_gada9kg, "the good thoughts". B26. The cardinal numbers E, 333 (ein, eine) and EEEEJ EE§§_(zwo, zwene) have strong declensional forms, although these numerals are sometimes used indeclinably as §_and EEEE. E, Egg has a pattern like Elé (Table B 9], except that the nominative singular masculine has the form E, and there is no plural. tsbe is a form used with masculine nouns only, and it has the dative form B27. The comparative and superlative forms of adjectives are declined like the simple forms, with endings added after the comparative and superlative endings. £_of MHG 'EE is not vocalized when endings follow: 1133_(jfinger), but E3 quran kenda, "the younger children". The T addition of declensional endings may result in syllable 97 assimilation or nasalization: git, mi2_(mfied-), EEi' f£i_(vrfieje) [A 78, 83]. The voicing of 5 after l following a short vowel does not occur in the declension of the simple adjective, but it does occur in the comparative and superlative: g3.§l£3.§§."the old man", EE LE Sigir "He is older", éi.£§ EE eldasta, "He is the oldest." When 5 of the comparative -§£_is present, voicing of E after l does not occur: dE_eltra m§_"the older man". Primary Adverbs B28. Primary adverbs describe conditions, intensify verbs and adjectives, and explain spatial and temporal relationships. They are invariable in form. The most common are: $223 (dort), £g£E_(vort), ggE (gar), hEE (hart), ggEE (gerat), itstan (iezunt), £§_(hér-abe), gg_(hin-abe), din§2_(dar-innen), dEgggi(dar-fi3en), E 233$ (bis). The adverb 12 with the variations 1E, jé, also occurs as an interjection, as does the adverb s35, QEEEE or EE§3£_derived from the American English "sure". The negative adverbs are: EEEE (niht), §E_or n§_(nein), §E_or nimols and nietsant (nie, niemer). B29. Interrogative adverbs are often paired with answer- ing adverbs: ben, den "when", "then"; fabos, fados II I "why "therefore"; buhea, dahea "from where", "from there"; bifil or byfl, azofil "how many", "so many", buin, doatn "to where", "to there". Indefinite adverbs 98 are made from the interrogative words with the prefix E (ein) "some": abo "somewhere", abi 'somehow", abos __T ___ .____ "somewhat", aben "sometime", abuinhea "from somewhere". CHAPTER 4: VERBS B30. Metz. has simple and compound verb forms. The meaning of the simple verb is complete in the stem, whereas the compound verb uses a prefix to complete the meaning of the stem. Compound verbs have either separable or inseparable prefixes. Inseparable prefixes remain attached to the verb stem in all tense forms: 93 gEEEE, "it happens", 33 ii gEéE "it happened", §§_EEE gEEE, "it will happen". Separable prefixes remain attached to the stem in all tenses of the indicative and subjunctive except the present indicative and also in the imperative forms: as fe t E, "it begins" 33 is ‘L’ ogafagan, "it began", EEE.§§ E, "take it off". However, if the present indicative form is in final position in a dependent clause, the prefix is attached: Egg fig Efggt, "so that it begins". The elements g3: and EEET (ge-, ze) may intervene between the prefix and the stem in most verbs with separable prefixes: hEmtsagé, "to go home"; noxgafrokt, "asked about". The prefix bida is in- separable in the word bidaholn (wider-holn), but _____T__. separable in bidakoman (widerkomen). 99 100 B31. In conjugating the verb as well as deriving the non- finite verb parts it is necessary to know the verb stem. The stem can best be found from the first person singular present indicative form. In some cases this form is identical to the stem, but in others devoicing of the stem-final consonant has occurred: dagrEpm (ergriphen): dagrEp-; gég (sagen): §:gf; bondan (wundern): EEEQE” p§k§3_(begegenen): pgkégf. The stems of modal verbs are obtained by dropping the ending of the plural forms of the present indicative: bglg_(wollen): bglf. A few verbs also have past and subjunctive stems [B39, 42, 45]. B32. Metz. has three non—finite verb parts or verbals, derived from the verb stem: the infinitive, the present participle, and the past participle. Whereas the infinitive and past participle are used in tense formation, the present participle exists only as an adjective. The infinitive is made from the verb stem plus the ending ’92! which may cause assimilation or nasalization: EbEigf + —§2_= §b3£3_(swigen) [A 78, 83]. The present participle is formed by adding the element -§23 to the present stem. This syllable does not cause assimilation: IE2: + -§£E_= léant (lébent). Adjective endings can be added as in Standard German: E steabanda (ein stérbender). The past participle usually has the inseparable prefix gg- unless it is a compound verb already having an inseparable prefix: gaponan (binden), faloan (verliesen). Verbs whose stems begin with g 101 usually omit the ggf prefix: gosn (giegen), gagan (gén), (ga)glixn (lihen). Prefixes may not occur in jga)kom3n, (g3)boan (komen, wérden). B33. The past participle is the basis for classifying verbs as weak, with the ending -E_or ~33, or strong, with the ending -§§, These endings can result in assimilation or simplification [A 78, 85]. The past participles of weak verbs almost always have the same vowel as the stem: £33 (regenen): garESt. A few weak verbs have a vowel change in the past participle: pregan (bringen): gaproxt; prenan (brennen): gaprant or gfiprent; kenan (kennen): gakant or gakent; denkn J 7 (denken): gadoxt. These represent the so-called Rfickumlaut effect. Strong verbs often have vowel change in the formation of the past participle, which is the basis for their classification. Classification of the Strong Verbs B34. Many Metz. strong verbs have the phenomonon of Ablaut, a stem-vowel difference between that of the infinitive and the past participle. In addition some strong verbs have umlaut and/or raising of the stem- vowel in the second and third persons singular present indicative. To classify these changes it is helpful to think of the verb as having principal parts from which tenses are formed. For Metz. verbs the minimal neces- sary parts including these vowel changes are the 102 infinitive, the past participle, and the third person singular present indicative form: (hélfen) : helfn, gaholfn, hilft Metz. has about seventeen combinations of these three- vowel groups. To facilitate their classification into series or classes similar to the Ablautsreihen of historical German grammar, it is necessary to simplify the groupings by considering only the first two principal parts, which represent the only actual Ablaut change. There are many exceptional developments in the third principal parts which are not easily reconciled with the division into classes. The following five classes have been defined on the basis of the Metz. vowel differences between the infinitive and the past participle. They are not necessarily parallel to the historical Ablautsreihen: l. ai — 1,1 2. i, i - 5, o 3. i - u 4. e - o 5. no change 1) Class 1 is parallel to the historical MHG first Ablautsreihe. It contains twelve verbs, about half of . . -,- V which follow the pattern of graim, gasrim, sraipt 103 (schriben), having i as the stem-vowel of the past participle as a result of ENHG lengthening [A 17.1]. The rest of this group have the past participle stem—vowel i, like pagraifn, pagrifn, pfigraift (be-grifen). All verbs in this class retain the stem—vowel of the infinitive in the third principal part, and thus throughout the present conjugation. Two verbs of this v . . . A . , . group, snaln, gasnitn, snait (snlden), and lain, galitn, LEEE (liden) are unusual in that they show evidence of Verner's Law and lack the stem-final consonant in the third principal part due to consonant simplification [A 85]. 2) This class have twelve verbs and is equivalent to the second Ablautsreihe of MHG. Shortening of the infinitive stem-vowel is due to the presence of the MHG stem-final consonants g and x, MHG £2.) E preceding g [A 19.1] is shortened for only some speakers, so there are two possible stem-vowel lengths for verbs with a: J gisn or gisn, gosn, ge¢st (gieaen). MHG i3 > i became shortened for all speakers before x: rixn, garoxn, re¢xt (riechen). Lengthening of the past participle stem-vowel in verbs like flin, gaflon, fle¢kt (vliegen) is due to ENHG lengthening in open syllables [A 19.1]. Verner's Law is seen in the verbs frizn, gafroan, fre¢st (vriesen). falizn, faloan, fale¢st (verliesen), and tsi, gatson, tse¢kt (ziehen). All but two of the verbs in class 2 have the vowel Eé_in the third principal part. 104 These exceptions are pig, gap—g, pikt (biegen), and gim, gasom, gaipt (schieben). tsi (ziehen) can have the irregular third singular present form tsert. 3) This class involves only five verbs and is not exactly equivalent to the MHG third Ablautsreihe. These are all verbs with the stem-vowel i followed by the consonant 9. Since lowering of i and glare preserved in the infinitive and past participle. There are no irregularities in the formation of the third principal part. All verbs in this group follow the pattern of ziggn, gazuggg, Eigt (singen). 4) Class 4 includes about twenty—two verbs following the pattern of penan, gaponan, pent (binden). Historically this group includes the MHG third and fourth Ablautsreihen, combining into one group the MHG infinitive stem-vowels i and 3, because of Metz. lowering of i_before E_and m.[A 23]. The lowering of E_to QDin the past participle is the result of Germanic lowering or Brechung for most verbs and of Metz. lowering in the case of verbs with MHG gg_and E§.[A 25]. Verbs with the MHG stem ending Eg_have lost §_before the ending ’92 [A 84]. Likewise in the present conjugation E also disappears before the endings -§£_and -E_[A 85], hence there is no survival of the MHG stem-final E: fenan, ggfonan, fent (vinden). The MHG second and third singular present forms are preserved for all verbs in this group except before g_or m, where lowering of i 105 occurs: ngmgt (nimest). There are a few exceptional verbs which according to their MHG prototypes should belong in group 3 or 4: sbiman, gasboman, Ebimt (swimmen) does not have lowering of i_before MHG mm [A 23]. The stem-vowel of MHG stéln has undergone lengthening according to the Metz. rule for lengthening before MHG single l_[A 17.2], resulting in the long- vowel forms gtéln, gastoln, stalt. The third principal I r __l—— part of this verb is also irregular. The verb koman, gakoman (komen) has three possibilities for the third principal part, which vary from speaker to speaker: komt, k¢mt, kemt. 5) This is the largest grouping, containing about thirty-five verbs from the MHG Ablautsreihen 5, 6, and 7, all of which have the common feature of no Ablaut change in Metz. There are also survivals in Metz. that preserve the historical feature called "ngfpresent", an umlauted infinitive stem-vowel which is thus differ— ent from the vowel of the past.participle. a) Verbs of class 5 which came from the MHG fifth Ablautsreihe have the stem vowel E'or E, depending on the application of ENHG lengthening [A 17.1]. They follow the pattern of esn, gesn, ist (efiaen) or lezn, 93152n, last (lesen). In most of these long stem-vowel verbs the same vowel persists into the third principal part, as seen in the preceding example. E3, gaze, zit 106 (séhen), is an exception to this rule, and gaéé, gags (geschehen) has two interchangeable third parts: g8s5t or gasit, gém, gem (gében) has a diphthong in the third principal part: EEEELF and the jEEfpresent verb 129, g§l§3_(ligen) has a similar third form, perhaps through analogy: 13352! where the stem-final consonant remains. b) The verbs of class 5 which derive from the MHG sixth Ablautsreihe have the stem-vowel E, where MHG E has been lengthened, or E_where vocalization of E_has taken place: trog, gatrog, trekt (tragen), foan, gafoan, feat (varn). In other cases the MHG vowel E_has remained: baksn, gabaksn, bikst (wahsen). As can be seen in the above examples, the third principal part shows the effect of MHG secondary umlaut. The form bEkEE probably developed on the analogy of the MHG fourth series second and third singular forms. Verbs which preserve the MHG jan-present include hém, gghém, heEt (heben), and sbean, gagboan, sbiet (swern). The . ~ V " A irregular verb Ete, gfistanan, stet (stan) has loss of E due to the addition of -§2 [A 84]. c) The so-called reduplicating verbs of the MHG seventh series also belong to class 5 in Metz. and have a variety of stem-vowels. Most have umlaut where possible in the third part: plozn, g0plozn, plest (blasen).l lEfn, gBlEfn, 15ft (loufen). Three verbs of 107 this group, haln (halten), doafaln (vallen) and losn (léaen) have the stem-vowel l in the third principal part: hilt, filt doa, list. gE, gaan, gét has its J r infinitive stem-vowel from MHG gén, a variant of gan. Conjugation B35. Metz. verbs can be conjugated in the past, present, and future of the indicative and the past and present of the subjunctive [Tables B 10 and 11], and can be active or passive voice. These categories are comparable in meaning to the corresponding categories of Standard German. All tenses except the present indicative are compound tenses for most verbs and require auxiliaries for their formation. The Metz. verbs h§m_(haben), Eéi. (sein), and bEEE_(w§rden) [Tables B 10 and 11], are also used as auxiliaries. The modals are a special group of verbs which are used to express circumstances of the verbal action, such as desire, capacity, etc. [B 45]. The modal 52$! (sol) is used as an auxiliary by some speakers in place of bEE2_(wérden) [C 24]. B36. In forming the compound tenses the auxiliary 29$. (sein) is used with most intransitive verbs denoting motion or change in state, as in Standard German, whereas Eém (haben) is used with transitive verbs and some intransitives where no motion or change of state is implied: E2 pist ganan, "you went"; hea hot g§h¢at, TABLE B 10. 108 Weak Verb Conjugations (vragen) infin. frog pres. l. frok indic. 2. frdkst 3. frokt pl.l 3. fro 2. fro t past 1. ix ha gafrokt indic. 2. etc.’ 3. pl.l 3. 2. past 1. ix hat gafrokt perf. etc. ' indic. future 1. ix bea frog indic. etc: pres. 1. ix bye fro subj. 2. etc: 3. pl.l 3. 2. past 1. ix het gafrokt subj. etc. (wifiaen) bysn bEs bEst bas bysn byst busat busast busat bustn bustat ix hat gabyst etc. ix bea bysn etc. byth bysast bysat bystn bystat ix het gabyst etc. (haben) hom ha host hgt hgm _ hot, hopt hat hast hat hatn hat ix hat gahot etc. ix bea hom etc. het hest het hetn het ix het gahat etc. 109 TABLE B 11. Strong Verb Conjugations (némen) (sein) infin. nemBn in pres. l. nem zai indic. 2. nemst pist 3. nemt is pl.1 3. neman 251 2. nemt zait past 1. ix ho anoman boa indic. 2. etc. boast 3. boa pl.1 3. boan 2. boat past 1. ix hat ganom n ix boa gabEZn perf. etc. gabest, etc. indic. future 1. ix bea nemBn ix bea in indic. etc. etc. pres. 1. ix bye neman b¢a subj. 2. etc. b¢st 3. b¢a pl.1 3. b¢an 2. b¢at past 1. ix het ganoman ix b¢a gabezn, subj. etc. gabest, etc. (wérden) bean bea biest bit, biet bean beat ix zai gaboan, etc. ix boa gaboan etc. ix bea bean etc. bye byest bye byen byet ix b¢a gaboan etc. 110 "he heard". 251 is also used with the verbs in (sein), plaim (beliben), and zitsn (sitzen). B37. The Present Tense Indicative. The present tense personal endings are the same for all verbs in the dialect with the exception of the auxiliaries, modals, and bysn (w133en) [Tables B 10, ll]: sing. pl. lst. ... -(3)n 2nd. -st -t 3rd. ... -(3)n Formation of the present tense involves addition of these endings to the verb stem. In the plural the vowel E_may be added before the ending E_in verbs with stem- final E, m, or E, The conjugational ending is sometimes omitted in the first plural form when the unstressed pronoun bE_or pE follows. Assimilation caused by close juncture may occur here: kEmbE_(kennen wir) [A 3]. All weak verbs retain the stem-vowel of the infinitive throughout the present tense, however certain strong verbs have a vowel change in the second and third singular [B 34]. The vowel of the second and third singular form is indicated by the third principal part. Occasionally by analogy, this change is also applied to the second plural form: i§_E£Ekt_for i§_t£§kt_(tragen). The verb bysn (wifiaen) and all of the modals except beln 111 (wellen) have the historical feature "preterite present", meaning that the present tense forms are derived from past forms, and there is no ending on the first and third singular form. bygg_(w153en) and the modals E1292 (kan), myEE_(muoz), $22 (mac), and EEEE_(tar) have a stem-vowel difference for the present tense singular because of preterite present [B 45]: i§.§§§' E§.kE, ii Egg! Ex mgk, ii ESE: The infinitive bEE§_(wellen) is derived from a Germanic subjunctive form, whereas the past participle gabolt preserves the original vowel. The verb endings -§E_and E can result in simplification following a stem-final E_or E [A 85]: EE_QEE_(ir wettet). They also cause devoicing of voiced stem-final conso- nants: trag: EE trékst, hea trékt "you carry", "he carries." B38. The Past Tense Indicative. This tense is formed in two ways: 1) as a compound construction and 2) as a simple construction. These two methods are mutually exclusive in that no verb can use both methods. Method 2 can be used only by a fixed set of verbs listed in B 39, and Method 1 is used by all others. The compound con- struction of the past tense consists of a present inflected form of the auxiliary hém (haben) or EEE (sein) plus the past participle: i§;§§.33E§."I saw", Ex zai ggplim "I remained." Metz. has no distinction, as does Standard German, between a perfect and an 112 imperfect tense; there is only one past tense here that includes both meanings [C 23]. B39. The simple construction of method 2 usually uses a special set of endings cognate with the Standard German imperfect endings. There are used also in the present subjunctive of some verbs [B 42]: sing. pl. lst. -(8)t -tn 2nd. -(3)st -t3t 3rd. -(3)t -tn Here, as in the Metz. nouns, there has been apocope or loss of the final unstressed -E_of MHG [A 37]. The second plural ending -EEE does not have simplification, as would be expected from the rule [A 85]. Most speakers apply the unstressed vowel —§_before the consonant ending after most stem-consonants and always after stem- final E in the singular [B 40]: 52292 (kunde), EEEEE (wuste). If a pronoun follows immediately, the unstressed vowel is omitted: E§k£E_= EéEE EE "he said". The set of verbs using the simple construction is as follows: 251 (sein) boa ham (haben) hat kynan (kan) kunat beln (wellen) bolat bysn (weia) buth 113 maian (meinen) mainat, mEit degkq (denken) duxt 269 (sagen) 25kt This list includes two modals, two of the auxiliaries, and the most common verbs of saying and knowing. It can be seen from the list that most of these verbs have special imperfect stems to which the endings are added. gEE_(sein) has a completely unrelated stem for the simple past construction: ng_(war) [Table B 11]. B40. The imperfect endings are also added to the less common verb bahaoptn (behoubeten) a modified loan word from German: hea thaoptat. Here the simplification of —E§t does not occur [A 85]. The simple past construction is not freely applied to all words which express saying, knowing, or thinking; the compound construction [method 1] is used for verbs not listed in B 39: Ex_gé.g3glapt ii spil mit 5§tendgg_le¢tn, "I thought I was [lit. I am] J playing with respectable people." B41. Other Indicative Tenses. The past perfect tense is rarely used, and it is always a compound tense made from the past tense of ham (haben) or 251 (sein) [Table B 10, 11] plus the past participle: hea hat gabolt "he had wanted" in contrast to hea bolat, "he wanted". The future is also a compound form consisting of the present tense of bean (wérden) or rarely zoln (sol) plus the infinitive: §§_bit r53, "It is going to rain." 114 B42. The Subjunctive Mood. The subjunctive exists in only two tenses: present and past. The past tense is formed with the auxiliaries hEE_(haben) and bEE_(sein) [Tables B 10, 11] plus the past participle. Present tense subjunctive is formed in two ways which are mutually exclusive: 1) the subjunctive of the aux- iliary bEEE’(wérden): byE_plus the infinitive, and 2) the subjunctive stem plus the imperfect endings [B 39]: Ex_hEE_EE_mitganom3n [past] "I would have taken them along", Ex_byE'EE_mitneman [present] "I would take them along", 922 i§_bust3t [present] "If you knew." The two present tense constructions are equal in meaning. Only seven verbs have subjunctive stems and the second method is used only with them. These include three modals [B 45], all three auxiliaries [Tables B 10, 11] and byEE [Table 10]. The Metz. subjunctive is cognate with the so-called Subjunctive II of Standard German. Remnants exist of a subjunctive form based on the present stem, but it is confined to a few set phrases, and there is no conjugation [C 25]. B43. The Imperative. Imperative forms exist for the second person singular and plural and also for the first person plural. The imperative singular consists of the stem of the infinitive and is usually identical with the first person singular form of the present tense 115 indicative. Likewise the second person plural imperative is identical with the second plural form: Infin. MHG 2nd. sing. imper. 2nd. pl. imper. lézn lésen 15$ lést nemBn némen nem nemt sisn schieaen gis gist helfn hélfen helf helft k§zn kosen k§s k§st There are no differences between weak and strong verbs in the imperative. There are, however, a few strong verbs with irregular second singular forms: EE (sehen): 3:, gEm'(gében): ng_ B44. The first person plural imperative consists of the present stem, often in abbreviated form, with the unstressed form of the personal pronoun attached. Close juncture [A 3] usually causes devoicing of the first consonant of ba, when a voiceless consonant is stem- final: zokpa (sagen wir), bepa (wetten wir), zets-pfrons (setzen wir uns). B45. The Modals. Modals are a special group of verbs in frequent use which express the conditions or circum- stances of the sentence action, such as desire, necessity, ability, etc. [C 27]. The modals are: 116 lst. pres. lst. pres. imperf. subjunct. past Infin. indic. indic. MHG stem stem part. beln bil wil bol- b¢l- gabolt zoln zol sol ... ... gazolt kyan k5 kan kun- kyn- gBkynt mysn mus muoa ... ... gamust m¢g mok mac ... m¢g- ... t¢an toa tar ... ... g3t¢at m¢3 (mac) exists only rarely in the present tense indicative and subjunctive. t¢an (tar) meaning "to dare" has a rare varient t¢afn, g8t¢aft, toaf based on MHG darf rather than tar. The irregular present tense of modals is discussed in B 37. B46. The Passive Voice. In conversation the passive voice is usually avoided in favor of an active voice statement using the indefinite pronouns mE (man) or 922. (einer) as the subject. The true passive construction consists of an inflected auxiliary plus a past parti- ciple. The auxiliaries EEE_(sein) and bEE§_(wérden) can both indicate the "actional" passive, but bEEE_is rarely used. The agent is expressed by the preposition BEE. (bei) plus an object in the dative: hea E§_E2.krik plfisiet boan pEi Eganan komaratn, "He was wounded in the war by his own comrades", hea boa pai rEba gagosn, "He was shot by a robber." The use of pai "by" and the auxiliary in are American English influences. PART C : SYNTAX Cl. Word relationships and functions are expressed in Metz. by inflectional endings, prepositions, and word order, much as in Standard German. However the roles of these indicators are in a state of transition. With first and second generation speakers, case endings of nouns and adjectives have become less important, whereas prepositions and a more rigid word order have taken over part of their function. Inflection of nouns and modi- fiers after prepositions has also decreased, although the function of case in this position is still preserved in the personal pronouns. The traditional sentence pattern of Standard German, which has a sentence field determined by the two parts of the predicate, has in part given way to a sentence pattern like that of American English, with the verb elements closer together and important information at the beginning of the sentence. Sentence patterns vary with individual speakers, the traditional pattern being more common with older speakers and immigrants. The influence of American 117 118 English is as evident in the shifting roles of the indicators as it is in usage, vocabulary, and phonology. CHAPTER 1: WORDS AND PHRASES C2. The morphological units or sentence units, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc., perform grammatical functions on the sub-sentence level either singly or in combinations. Simple combinations lacking a predicate or subject, such as noun or prepositional phrases or compound verbs are discussed in this chapter. Complex combinations with both subject and predicate are clauses or sentences, which are the subject of Chapter 2. Nouns, Pronouns, and Modifiers C3. Nouns function as subjects, objects, predicate nominatives and accusatives, predicate modifiers, or possessives modifying other nouns. Nouns may also occur in apposition to other nouns in these roles. It is characteristic for nouns to be preceded by pronominal adjectives, such as the definite and indefinite article. If a descriptive adjective accompanies a noun, it precedes it, but it follows any pronominal adjective. The noun plus its modifiers constitutes a noun phrase: E apl "an apple", EE oama mE_"the poor man". If a relative clause modifies the noun, it must follow the 119 120 noun: EE_EEmE_mE ESE E§_EEp_§EE "the poor man, who was also deaf". All modifiers within a noun phrase can be said to agree with the noun in gender, number, and case, and any relative pronoun must agree in gender and number. Actually since the noun itself usually does not indicate case or gender and often does not indicate number, the modifiers function as the indicators of this information. C4. Pronouns, including pronominal adjectives which function as pronouns, can replace nouns as subjects, objects, predicate nominatives, and also possessives. Pronouns can have nouns in apposition but cannot occur in phrases with modifiers as attributes. The personal pronouns have several irregularities in use. All have stressed and unstressed forms [Table B6]. The first plural form §EE_(wir) can be used in any stressed situ- ation, however, some speakers use the stressed form EEEE before the conjugated verb: bien beln glafn, "We want to sleep." A few speakers use EE in place of bien: EE kazn, "We are talking."1 The unstressed forms ba [and _r__ .__ after voiceless stops BE] can occur in any situation where there is no sentence stress. It often occurs after the first person plural verb form, where it causes loss of the ending, as in the imperative forms [B 37, 44]: hi géba, hi gtéba, "Here we go; here we stand." The .__._r_. __ __T__ first person singular pronoun E5 has the variant form 121 iii! used interchangeably with it by some speakers. The second person forms EE_and E§_have no corresponding polite forms, as in Standard German. The third person singular and plural pronouns can be replaced by the definite article with no change in meaning: 5; or €3.12 EE_mEEE, "She is the mother." C5. The use of personal pronouns and pronominal adjectives sometimes reflects American English influence. The dative singular unstressed form (E) E§_of the masculine personal pronoun is sometimes substituted for the unstressed accusative singular (E) E2} hea hot gm_nixt gazé, "He didn't see him." This never happens with the stressed form, however: 92.h0t ig_gazé, nixt mix, "He saw him, not me." This substitution of the dative may result from its similarity to English "him" in an un- stressed situation. The neuter personal pronoun §§_(es) is used in Metz. like the American English "it" to refer to any inanimate antecedent regardless of gender: ... ben EE j5k frai boa ont ben EE.E§|fap5tn boa, "... when hunting was legal and also when it was illegal." The possessive pronouns occur very frequently in Metz. because they are used redundantly, as in American English: hea hat zai gabea 12.251 henan, "He had his gun in his hands." C6. Descriptive adjectives can occur attributively in noun phrases, as predicate adjectives, or as substantives, 122 in which case they have the same uses as nouns. When used as attributes, adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in gender, number and case, according to the weak or strong adjective declensions presented in Table B 9. Some speakers do not inflect adjectives according to case or gender [B 25]. For most speakers weak endings are used after the definite article: EE esta t5k, "the first day". Strong endings are used when no article precedes and after the nominative singular masculine of the indefinite or negative articles: alta mE_"old man", E grasa pEm "a big tree". After the nominative or accusative-possessive singular neuter of the indefinite or negative article, the strong ending or no ending may be used: mai lip kent or mai libas kent "my dear child". Likewise there are two interchangeable forms of the weak adjective in the dative singular feminine: fon EE altn kiex or fon EE altB kiex, "from the old church". With the indefinite article, weak adjective endings are often used although the article may be undeclined: fon E_altn pux, "from an old book". Descriptive adjectives are not inflected when used as predicate adjectives: zai ébesta £§.§Eér "His sister is shy." When used as a substantive, the adjective retains its normal adjective endings: EE klEna "the little one", pesta "best one". C7. Primary and descriptive adverbs have no inflection. Both can be used as predicate modifiers or complements, 123 and both can modify other adjectives and adverbs: kést EH_§hela éraim, "Can you write faster?" E§_E§_h5t bixtek, "It is very important." :§_kynt fuexpa gut Epiln, "You can play terribly well." C8. Descriptive adjectives and adverbs can be compared in the same manner, and the conjunction EE£.°r EE_(wie) is used to relate the compared entities, usually in the sentence postfield: hea §E_§nela lézn abi EE_andan, "He can read faster than the others." Descriptive adverbs can also be compared by means of the primary adverb mE "more", which may be an example of American English influence: is myst m5 laot kazn, "You must talk louder." — _I' 6 When the adverb occurs as a superlative, it can only be in the form of an adjective in apposition to a noun or 0 ~ - V‘.’ substant1ve: hea E2.E§ pesta Sisn, "He can shoot best" [lit. as the best one]. C9. Negation is often a function of the negative primary adverbs [B 28], and conjunctions [C 19], which can negate entire predicates or single elements: EE_prfida E§_nixt _. , . V - daham, "The brother isn't at home." 9§.£§.n25t mg nont gtap ont EE, "There is nothing left but dust and ashes." The negative pronominal adjective EE, EEEE_(kein, keiner), and the negative pronouns nimant (nie-man) and EyEE (nihts) are used much as their Standard German counterparts. Double negative constructions are common: hea gEit nimant nygt, "He doesn't give anybody anything." 124 The Uses of Case C10. Some speakers do not inflect nouns and pronominal or descriptive adjectives according to case, although all speakers make case distinctions with the personal pronouns. Undeclined nouns and adjectives have the nominative singular and plural forms regardless of function: £22.§E.123§.E§1 "from the young man". Where case distinctions are lacking, prepositions and position in the sentence aid in function identification. All speakers use the nominative case for the subject of a clause, the predicate nominative, or the predicate adjective, where the adjective refers to the subject. Cll. After the disappearance of the genitive case, its varied functions were taken over in several ways. The possessive attribute became a function of the dative case, out of which evolved the possessive case for animate nouns [B 5, 6]. The possessive noun always precedes the noun it modifies: EE_§ustas bitba, the shoemaker's widow." In personal pronouns the genitive survives only as the possessive adjective mEE_(mein), EEE (dein), EEE (sein), etc. The dative is no longer used for possession with animate nouns. Possession is usually indicated by phrases like EEE £§.E§£§' "That is his." hea aignat d53, "He owns that." For inanimate nouns the dative is used with the preposition fon (von), rarely BE (uf): EE dax fon haos "the roof of the house", EE_hat8 125 £51 uf da nos "the hard shell of the nut".2 Verbs whose Standard German counterparts take at least one object in the genitive, express this function with prepositions: di hom om £E_moat égaklakt,3 "They accused him of murder." The old genitive with adjectives is expressed by the dative and sometimes left uninflected: EE_trfivl beat or E3 trfivl beat "worth the trouble"; £61 menan or £§l_mE§Ef "full of men". Subject and object genitives are expressed by prepositions with the dative: E§_EE9EE £2E.£éfll."the singing of birds", EEi.EEEE.E£.£lE§."mY basket of meat". Genitive expressions of time have become uninflected primary adverbs: moagst "in the morning". Prepositions whose Standard German counter- parts govern the genitive take the dative or accusative . J - . . ~ . - 1n Metz.: anstot d1x "1nstead of you", deza1ts QE.E°X "this side of the stream". C12. Dative and accusative are both used for the comple- ments of verbs, prepositions, and adjectives. When verbs have two objects which do not refer to the same thing, accusative is used for the object acted directly upon [primary object], and dative for the object receiving the benefit or effect of the action [secondary object]: da hot as 33 hoan gém, "He gave it to the dogs." Most transitive verbs, however, take only one object, which is usually in the accusative case: §§_kent lést E meaxegk, "The child is reading a story." A few verbs, such as verbs of naming, may take two accusative objects: 126 EE_h5m EE.Ena gBtEft, "They named her Anna." The following verbs take a dative object: ampatn (antwfirten), helfn (helfen), drE (drouwen), fatsEi (verziehen), fatrEo (vertruwen), féln (vaelen), dagkg (danken), and gratulien "to congratulate": £5 E§_EE_g3ampat, "I answered her." C13. There are also some less frequent uses of the dative and accusative without prepositions. The subject of an infinitive phrase which is dependent on another verb appears in the accusative [C 27]: EEEE.E§E.§1.£éEl.Eifl§E. gahpat, "We heard the birds singing." The accusative of place and time can appear without a preposition, as in Standard German: EE_gantsn t5k "the whole day", hea gtaikt halba laitn, "He climbs half way up the mountain." The dative of interest is often expressed without a preposition: abea hots mE'tsaproxn, "Somebody broke it on me." Dative is also used after some adjectives: §§_ EE_mE,5p3kant, "It is unknown to me." Prepositions and Conjunctions C14. Prepositions indicate the functions or relationships of the nouns or pronouns they govern. All Metz. prepo- sitions precede the words they govern, which are either in the dative or accusative case. A preposition plus the object and its modifiers form a prepositional phrase, which is usually used adverbially or as a predicate 127 complement: bilst itst fon lam dal¢st in... "If you want to be freed from life..." C15. Prepositions governing the accusative exclusively include: angtSt (an-stete), pEE_(bis), E335 (durch), om or EB (umbe), EEE "without", EEEE_(sit) and §E_(vfir). Prepositions which govern the dative exclusively are: §2§.(65)' EEEE (fijen), pEE_(bi) dézaits (dissit), jézaits (jensit), mEE (mit), ESE (nach), EEg_or EEm_E£E_(neben), EEEEE (traz), £9E_or £E£§_(vor), £32_(von), tsbygn (zwischen). Some speakers use §E3_(gegen) with the accusative and some with the dative. The same applies to the preposition EEE (ze, zuo). The prepositions E, EE (an) EE.(in) EEEEE_(hinder), EB (obe), QEEE (under), X23. (fiber) and HE (fif) govern the accusative as in Standard German to indicate a direction or change of position, and the dative to indicate a stable position or a place in which action occurs: kom hentas haos "come behind the house" [accusative], §E_bandan EE peagan, "They wander in the mountains," [dative]. C16. Prepositions are used idiomatically as complements of verbs, adjectives, and nouns. The preposition and the case it governs have a fixed meaning. Although these constructions are items of vocabulary, a few examples are presented here: QEQEQ £2 "thank for", EB£2.£E."hOPe for", §§3_E£_"say to" with the accusative; de k EE "think of", glam EE_"believe in", faxn foa "be afraid 128 of", £E§E_EE§_"smell like" with the dative. Adjectives associated with prepositional idioms include: gtolts BE "proud of", é¢1ek uf "guilty of", £61 uf "full of" with _____.__ .7. __ the accusative; ééE.£22.nt°° bad about" with the dative. Nouns can also have prepositional complements: ££EEE.E£ "joy in" with the accusative, E3§£_§EE_"fear of" with the dative. C17. Prepositions often combine with the following articles to produce assimilated forms: mit + a = men : men henan "with the hands”; EB + 3n = Em : om tis "on the _____ __ r_ r_ ___ table". Assimilation of the dative or accusative article E3 with a final vowel or E_in a preceding preposition results in loss of the article and/or nasalization of the vowel: en EE_balt = EE’balt "in the woods"; pai 3n prfida = p51 prfida "by the brother"; E EE_pEm = Em IO? '0 "against the tree". This disappearance of the article has been extended to other situations where nasals are not a factor: jEzaits reba "across [the] river; éraips §2_py§E EE, "Write it in [the] book." The combination of EE.(in) with the article §§_is pronounced EEE, a case where MHG E_has not been lowered because the article was already assimilated before lowering occurred in the dialect [A 23]: kom ins haos "Come into the house." The prepositions £E_(vfir) and foa (vor) often have the MHG consonant E_present before a following vowel: f -£fE box "for a week". 129 C18. Many prepositions combine with the adverbial element EEf [before vowels EEEf] to form pronominal compounds referring to inanimate objects: @2222."fr°m it"; QEEQE "after it". These can be used adverbially or as verb complements: hea bas dafon, "He knows about it." These compounds can also be used to introduce clauses: EEE baip boa kraq5_d5r3m zai EE'dahEm gaplim, "His wife was J sick, therefore they stayed home." C19. The Metz. dialect has a number of conjunctions, most of which are used to relate or join clauses and are discussed in C 32. Some of these are also used to relate individual words or phrases as well. The most common of these are BEE! EE_"and"; EEE_"or", "but"; EE, 223.2; (als-wie) "as", "like"; z¢ndan "but instead". A few conjunctions consist of more than one part: entbeda, . v . oba "e1ther, or"; nyst, nont "noth1ng, but" noa, nax "only, and": noa gaofl, nax kratsa, nax flfigaizn, "only rakes, shovels and plows." E52: C20. The verb expresses an action or state of being and relates the subject to other elements of the sentence. Hence it performs a key function of ordering as well as describing. The verb agrees with the subject in person and number. Transitive verbs may take objects in the accusative or dative cases and several may take more than one object [0 12]: 21 kEft ma a klEt, "She is 130 buying me a dress." Reflexive verbs take reflexive pronouns as objects, indicating that the subject and object are the same [B 12]: hea faxt zix foa E2! "He is afraid of me." Modal verbs and some others take infinitives as objects: ii bolt EE_kEfn, "I wanted to buy it," hea leant ébiman, "He is learning [or teaching] swimming." Verbs expressing a state of being or identity require a predicate complement, which may be a predicate nominative, adjective, adverb, or prepositional phrase: E§_hEs rEbat, "I am called Robert." E§_zai zixa, "I am certain." EE EE onta basa, "It is under water." Verbs with separable prefixes have these as verb complements in the present tense and in the imperative: 3E frEkt nax "she asks", EE_ E__E "take it off" [ 30]. C21. Expression of the verbal idea is impossible without simultaneously limiting the time and expressing reality or unreality. Time is expressed by the four tenses of the indicative and the two tenses of the subjunctive. Reality and unreality are expressed by the indicative and subjunctive moods respectively. Since these designations are very general, adverbial modifiers are often added to define the time or conditions of the verb more nearly. A conjunction introducing another clause may also act adverbially for this purpose. Tense-time equivalents are represented in Table C 1. C22. The present tense indicates actual present action as well as action which is habitual or continuing 131 TABLE C l. Tense--Time Relationships Indicative Pre-past Past time Pres. time Future time ‘Z Pres. tense\> T / é Pres. tense \ V7 ./ Pres. tense 4 x V 7 Pres. tense \ % Past tense Future tense <% ;< i} Pres. tense < .7 Past tense < > Past perf. Z \ <\ :7 Subjunctive Prejpast Past time Pres. time Future time A! Pres. tense \ Y / Pres . tense \ Past tense \ 7 132 indefinitely: E§_oab3t he¢t, "I am working today." EE régt fort, "It always rains." It may also describe present action that continues into the future: ixa zai nixt BE pai 15m pos mai gapuetEk, "I will not live till my birthday"; as well as action begun in the past: 31 bEt duet zait E_box, "She has been living there a week." With adverbs like Eon (schéne) grEt (gerat) it can express the immediate future: ix g5 Eon, "I am about to __._T ___ go. Occasionally the present tense is used in narratives to dramatize a sudden happening in the past, as in English or German: E: éflgl.£§ E EE, "Suddenly he was there." C23. The past tense has both simple and compound forms [B 38], but both are identical in meaning. The past tense is used for all manner of action occurring in the past, transitory as well as continuous or habitual. It also is the tense for narratives: EE huxtsat hot gadaoat box, "The wedding lasted for a week." hea boa fa—E- [9’ _E, "He was just here." Time before past time is [2 expressed by the past perfect. This tense is always used in comparison with the past: EE andan boan Eon EinglEfn ben bien in gestan Emt tsarykoman, "The others had already fallen asleep when we returned last evening." C24. The future tense exists only as a compound [B 41]. It can express all action which occurs completely in the future. Immediate future can be expressed by the present 133 tense [C 22]. The modal zoln has come to express the future without adding the idea of obligation: bos 251 201 201 in, "What will be, will be." Metz. has no future perfect tense, so the idea of completed action in the future has to be expressed with the future: EE_bean esn afoa tos bien doakoman, "They will have eaten [lit. they will eat] before we arrive." C25. Metz. has only one kind of subjunctive, and it corresponds to the Standard German Subjunctive II. Remnants of another subjunctive comparable to the Standard German Subjunctive I exist in expressions like: ERl.§l§.§2.EEQXlI "May the devil take you!" plaips gazont §§_gantsa haos, "May this household be healthy!" C26. The Metz. subjunctive is used to express contrary—to- fact conditions, suppositions, and uncertainties. Indicative is used in indirect discourse and after the conjunction Ep_"whether." The present tense subjunctive can be a compound form in the event that the verb has no subjunctive stem, or it can be a simple form [B 4]: bie baiba Eyen bendl b¢§n ben bien sttn EE_boam basa b¢a5 "we women would wash diapers if we knew where warm water was." das b¢a dis joa, "That would be this year?" The past subjunctive exists only as a compound. The following sentences illustrate the expression of time in the subjunctive: 134 ben ix a ros het byex raitn present meaning: If I had a horse, I would ride ben ix a ros het gBhEt b¢ax garitn past meaning: If I had had a horse, I would have ridden In the last example the present tense ben E§_E ros het could have been used in the condition clause without changing the past meaning of the sentence. The present tense of the subjunctive is also used with modals to lend politeness to requests or commands: E2_m¢kst 3E, "You may go" more commonly expressed by EE_kEst EE, indicative; l§,b¢1t glaixn t83 gé, "I would like to go."6 C27. Non—Finite Verb Forms. The participles and the infinitive, parts of the verb which cannot have conju- gational endings, are used in forming compound tenses and in other sentence functions. In addition to forming the future and present subjunctive, the infinitive also functions as a verb complement or object. The modals, as well as the verbs 1332 "learn or teach", and 2322. (wérden) may have infinitive complements without using the preposition Egg (ze, zuo), whereas some other verbs, such as EE£E_(hoffen), Efagan (vfihen), glaixn (lihen), etc., require the infinitive as the object of tsa: zi . V - . . b1l slofn, "She wants to sleep." hea blt gla1xn tsa bysn, "He will like to know." Verbs denoting seeing or hearing may often take a primary object which is the 135 subject of an infinitive phrase. This infinitive phrase may in turn have its own object: E§_EE_E_bolf gazé E_has EEE, "I saw a wolf eating a rabbit." When an infinitive is the object of a modal [other than EEE2_or EXEEEJ or of the verb EEEE (léfien) in compound tenses, it occurs at the end of the clause after the non-finite part of the verb, which appears as an infinitive rather than a participle: EE ham mysn oabatn, "They had to work" [C 37]. This double infinitive does not occur with verbs other than those mentioned: £§.§§.§i.533321 gah¢at, "I heard them singing." C28. Infinitives can be used as subjects in sentences, and when so used they can have objects or modifiers, forming infinitive phrases: E3_eat ufgrEm E§_§bea, "Digging up the ground is difficult." Very frequently infinitives are used adverbially to indicate purpose, and they usually appear in the postfield: asbi ben E; ...as if she went to the is en hEma ganan prant holn, __ __ I; hammermill to get firewood." C29. The present participle [B 32] can occur as an adjec— tive or adverb or as a substantive made from an adjective. In either case it is declined like an adjective. E iébanda "a living person"; dis hot 3 gteabant gazakt, "He said this as he was dying." The present participle is used very rarely and cannot be extended by additional modifiers or objects into a phrase as in Standard German. 136 C30. The past participle [B 33] forms the past, past perfect, and past subjunctive tenses as well as the passive voice. The past participles of verbs with separable prefixes have the prefixes attached: £33.13 Eon doagagan, "He went there already." The past participle in non-verbal use is much more frequent then the present participle. It occurs mostly as an adjective or a substantive made from an adjective, both following the adjective declension: §§_boa EE_EE_fapEt3n3 tsait, "It was in the forbidden time." §§_boan ext fahairEtn, "There were eight married people." CHAPTER 2: CLAUSES AND SENTENCES C31. Clauses and sentences represent a complex level of organization where elements are related to each other by a verb in finite form. In Metz., as in Standard German or English, clauses may be either independent or de- pendent, according to the way in which they are introduced and structured. Dependent clauses supplement elements in main clauses to which they are usually related by an introductory word, such as a conjunction. As in German or English, a sentence consists of at least one main clause which may have one or more dependent clauses. C32. Metz. has both co-ordinating conjunctions, after which normal main-clause verb placement occurs, and subordinating conjunctions, after which the verb usually appears at the end of the clause. Co-ordinating con- junctions include: 92E! EE_"and"; EgE_"so"; EEE_"or", "but"; EEEEE "then"; itstan "now"; z¢ndan "rather"; uftos "thereupon", EEQEEI dEer "therefore". Subordinating conjunctions include: Es, asbi, abi "as if"; asben "as when"; E; "when", "how"; bail "while"; ben "when", "if"; b5 "where"; benix "if not"; ta "since"; tos "so that"; .7 ._____ ___ ___ 137 138 afoa tos "before"; dEram tos "therefore that"; fabos "why"; nEXdem tos "after"; pos tos "until". Word order in subordinate clauses is discussed in C 38. C33. Metz. has two types of sentences: traditional and Americanized. The traditional remains the most common type and therefore is dealt with more fully here. The traditional sentence has a sentence field in the main clause, and semantic importance is attached to the last elements. The traditional subordinate clause has the conjugated verb in or near the final position. The Americanized sentence type resembles the American English scheme of subject-verb-object-modifications of time and space, with greater importance attached to the sentence anterior. Americanized dependent clauses usually have the verb close to the beginning. Traditional Main-Clause Word Order C34. In the traditional sentence the field is usually defined by the two parts of the predicate, such as the verb and its complement, or the inflected and uninflected parts of the verb. The sentence field usually contains the entire predicate idea, including most objects and modifiers. In the imperative as well as some inter- rogative and declarative sentences, the entire clause is contained within the sentence field: zai E§.niXt aos bEi aosgalafn, "Didn't they run out of wine?" nem dox a gtykl prEt oba E pisl kuxn mit, "Take a piece of bread 139 or a little cake along!" Most declarative sentences have the subject or some other element in the prefield: EE mus E pisl itstan kraign, "You have to talk loud now." In past tense declarative sentences the prefield is often left unoccupied in narratives: hEm 3E zix pakast, zEktn 33.2; bean ba 251 but krig, "They consulted each other 1 and said, 'How will we get his hat?'" In the present tense, where the verb often occurs as a single word with no complement, the end of the sentence field is often undefined: ii fagtE egk nixt, "I don't understand you." C35. Within the sentence field the usual sequence of elements is: verb--subject [if not in prefield]-- secondary object--primary object--verb complement. If an element within the field is given special emphasis, it appears closer to the end of the clause. If one of the objects is a pronoun, it precedes the noun object: dollar." But: Emol hot E EE rEbat 95m, "Once he gave it to Robert." Adverbial modifiers usually occur close to the verb or at the end of the sentence: bais dox EE junan abos a isl, "Show the boys something awhile." I _ E___ C36. The prefield is most often occupied by the subject in declarative sentences. Other elements, such as clauses, prepositional phrases, adverbs, or objects can occur in the prefield also: l¢f1 hEm EE_EE_§tES gamaxt, "They made spoons in Stooss." 140 C37. The sentence postfield is used for most dependent infinitives and their objects: Eg'busat nixt bos tsa 259, "I didn't know what to say." host QB.E£.93h¢at de¢t§ kazn, "Did you hear her speaking German?" hea bit §§_mesa neman tsB goafn, "He will take the knife to sharpen it." However if a verb has an accusative object which is the subject of an infinitive having no object, the infinitive can occur within the sentence field: bien hom EE tseatln g§h¢at, "We heard her whimpering." When the modals Ey§2.(muoz), £2l2.(801)’ or E222.(tar)' or the verb EEEE (léfien), occurring in the compound tense forms have dependent infinitives, the non-finite part of the verb also appears as an infinitive [C 27]. In this double infinitive it is the main verb which occurs first and the dependent infinitive which follows: EE_hot losn bysn tos E.P¢s boa, "He let it be known that he was angry." tgarli hot mysn EE'plfiman tr6§;_"Charlie had to carry the flowers." The postfield is also used for non- verbal elements to a greater extent than in German. Adverbial and prepositional phrases often occur in the postfield: EE'metsenzaiana ham fort gpas gfimaxt fon E§_ ibadEfa, "The Metzenseifeners always made fun of the Ober-Metzenseifeners." E3_hont hEm §E_maol ungtE E3 gantsn t5k, "The dogs didn't open their mouths all day." 141 Traditional Subordinate-Clause Word Order C38. The subordinate clause is usually introduced by one of the subordinating conjunctions [C 32], by an inter- rogative pronoun or adverb, such as bea (wér), bos (wafi), or bEhea (woher) [B 14, 29], by a relative pronoun _T___ [B 15], or a prepositional adverb such as damit (dé-mit) [C 18]. Clauses introduced by relative pronouns usually follow the nouns they modify, often interrupting the main clause: zai baip E; EE fon duetn boa boa beneg, "His wife, who was also from there, was Wendish." Other subordinate clauses usually form the pre- or postfields of main clauses. If there is only one verb in the de- pendent clause, it usually occurs finally: Ri.l§£§ EEE 312.923! "When Lena was already here." In compound tenses the conjugated verb usually precedes the parti— ciple or infinitive: ben z-om E3_hont hetn gém, "If they had given him the dogs..." EE_EE§ nixt EE.EE_EEE_EE, "She doesn't know where she will live." More rarely the conjugated verb occurs after the participle or the infinitive as in Standard German: EE§_EE_EE_kiex gamuft EEE, "...that we moved the church." If there is a dependent infinitive, it follows the verb: zai haos dEs E_hot losn p30, "His house which he had built..."[C 37]. Passive verb constructions may have the same word order as the past tense compounds verbs if the auxiliary zai (sein) is used: tos EE ros boa gagtaln, "that the horse 142 V— was stolen, or more rarely: tos EE ros gBStoln boa. When the rare auxiliary bean (wérden) is used to form the passive, there are three verb parts which may occur . . - . v - 1n the patterns: E§_gB§toln boan or EE_boan gastoln, "was stolen"; bit gBEtEln bean or bit bean gBEtEln "will be stolen." Americanized Word Order C39. Within the traditional sentence there is a tendency to expand the postfield with predicate modifiers in the form of adverbs and prepositional phrases, so that the non-finite verb or verb complement occurs closer to the conjugated verb. ufsan zai §E_kom3n fon ybadEf mit k¢ap EEE EEEE, "Then they came from Cher-Metzenseifen with baskets full of cake." This tendency exists even among immigrants, but it is more noticeable with first gener- ation speakers, and thus it probably reflects the influence of American English word order: subject-- verb--object--predicate modifiers. Patterns of the following type can be considered Americanized sentences: hea hot gazé E tsigE, "He saw a gypsie." However they are not very common. C40. In subordinate clauses there is a tendency toward main-clause word order: ben a kunat nox 25 one gleza, —— —I' "When he could still see without glasses," tos a hat 8n V . sbaxn oam, "Since he had a weak arm." These clauses have lost the ability to show subordinate meaning by 143 means of word order, and thus they begin to resemble the patterns of American English clauses. SUMMARY OF LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENTS AMONG CLEVELAND AREA SPEAKERS A dialect-speaking enclave in an expanding American urban area, such as Greater Cleveland, is predestined to an early end. Survival beyond two or three generations is probably not possible for a dialect such as this because of mobility and social pressure to conform to dominant patterns. Since no fluent third-generation speakers could be found, it was impossible to trace the development beyond the second generation. The immigrants who arrived in the 1870's and 1880's quickly adapted many American English words, such as S3.£EE§I EE EEEE, to their phonological system without altering its phonetic structure. One possible phonetic development may have been the changing of the short vowels /e/, /g/, and /o/ to /i/, /y/, and /u/ respectively, but there is no evidence that this change did not take place in Metzenseifen at that time. According to the data collected by the Sudetendeutsches W6rterbuch and the Deutscher Sprachatlas in the course of the present century there is no such phonemic distinction in short vowels. 144 145 It was found in the present study that the speech of an eighty-one-year-old immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1909 was the same in phonetic details as that of a sixty-seven-year-old immigrant who arrived in 1936. The first generation of Metzenseifen dialect speakers born in the Cleveland area use a more varied phonology and a larger number of loan words than did their parents. One first generation speaker reproduced the sounds and intonation patterns of the parent dialect accurately but used a large number of American English loan words. Another first generation speaker of the same approximate age used almost no loan words but altered many phonological features. The ties of the first generation speakers to their dialect-speaking families and community have been strong, and many have married within their own dialect group or into a similar one. The influence of Standard German learned in high school is not very noticeable among these speakers and does not set them apart from their parents, who also learned Standard German in Metzenseifen. The phonological changes made by first generation speakers must be attributed to the heavily reinforced phonetics of American English. These changes include: 1) replacement of /l/ with l; 2) the use of [$4 in place of /r/, usually before all consonants and after stops; 3) the replacement of /§b/ with [gw], [Ev] and /tsw/ with [tsv] and /kb/ with [kw] or [kv]; 4) the 146 unrounding of the short vowels /¢/ and /y/ to [e] and [1] respectively. Speakers of the second generation who have main— tained close ties with their dialect-speaking families and friends have so many phonological features in common with the first generation speakers that they cannot be dis- tinguished as a separate group. They have added a few phonological changes: 1) replacement of /¢/ with the American English (, the vowel sound in "bird"; 2) re- placement of the nasal vowels with a long vowel plus 3, and sometimes 3) the change of /e¢/ to [ai]. Other second generation and most third generation people have lost the ability to speak dialect entirely, or they may use one or two dialect words as loan words in the framework of English, because these words are more colorful and express a shade of meaning not possible in English. The influence of American English vocabulary occurs in the form of direct word borrowings, such as EEEEE. "common"; phonetically modified word borrowings, like EEEE "river", 1E2 "yard"; and semantic borrowings, such as the use of EE£E_(loufen) to mean "operate", "run", and aolefn meaning "to be short", "run out". The loan words EEE "sure" and EE£E_"to move" were being used in Metzenseifen itself as late as 1930, according to one immigrant. It is not known how much American English vocabulary was brought back to Metzenseifen, but there 147 were quite a few families who returned after a few years in the United States. There are also some hybrid words in use, such as hatsbit "heartbeat" and gBjuzd "used", which crop up in conversations and are easily understood. The trend towards American English borrowings was positively reinforced by the immigrants' willingness to adapt to a new culture. Likewise borrowing of words from Standard German had a long history in Metzenseifen,'because Standard German was considered a part of the town's cultural heritage. On the other hand loan words from Hungarian are less frequent, since Hungarian was felt to be outside of the cultural sphere. The inflection of nouns and adjec- tives has been leveled, and the uses of case after prepo- sitions varies with different speakers. Sentences are often structured on American English modals, with position rather than inflection as a structuring device. Today in Cleveland Metzenseifeners estimate that there still are about 700 people who can understand their dialect to some extent, but probably not more than 200 who use it frequently. Most of the latter are believed to be over fifty years of age. Cleveland area Metzenseifeners who visited Metzenseifen in 1968 reported the same situ- ation there; in fact the Government of Czechoslovakia is promoting Slovak as a spoken language. Already in the last century and a half, the German mining towns of the Turz—Neutra basin have been totally integrated into the 148 Slovak population, and there is no reason to believe that this will not happen in the immediate future with Metzenseifen and the Grfindner towns. NOTES: PART A 1William G. Moulton, The Sounds E£_English and German (Chicago, 1962), p. 58. 2Theodor Siebs, Deutsche Aussprache, ed. Helmut de Boor, Hugo Moser, Christian Winkler, 19th ed. (Berlin, 1969): P. 58. 3Gedeon notes them, p. 52. 4Gedeon, pp. 1—26. Examples of these phonemes are scattered through this section. 5Gedeon, p. 22. 6 Gedeon, p. 24. 7 Gedeon, p. 27. 8Schwarz mentions instances in examples of North Bavarian in Sudetendeutsche SprachrEume, pp. 48-54. 9Schwarz, Sudetendeutsche Sprachréume, p. 311. 10Karl Julius SchrEer, "Die Laute der deutschen Mundarten des ungrischen Berglandes" in Wiener Sitzuggs- berichte (Vienna, 1863), p. 213. He gives the Metzenseifen wora g§futat (gefuotert) as gawitet. Schwarz mentions the probably extensive use of v for f in Metzenseifen in earlier times in "Probleme", p. 349. llSchwarz, Sudetendeutsche Sprachréume, p. 311. He suggests that the word nont is the result ofEOberzipser (Silesian) influence. 149 NOTES : PART B lSchrEer, "Versuch einer Darstellung", p. 266. 2Erna Lersch, E_"Grundler" Nyglvjérés Alaktani Sajatsagai (Kolozsvar, 1904), p. 15. 3In the Deutscher Sprachtlas Text zur 5. Lieferung (Marburg, Lahn, 1956), p. 215, ea is given as an OBer- Metzenseifen form of hea, but tHis is due to a misreading of the longhand E_useE—In the questionnaire, sentence 5, from which the Text compiled. The demonstrative EEE_was intended. 4However Lersch, p. 17, has examples of mai without endings in the nominative singular. 5In this case the diphthong ai is traceable to a loss of the stem consonant E.in MHG Eimes, with resulting diphthongization in the 2nd. and 3rd. sing. forms. 150 NOTES : PART C 1This rare word is also recorded in the unpublished dictionary material of the Sudetendeutsches W6rterbuch in the vocabulary of an Unter—Metzenseifener, A. G5bl. Pages not numbered. 2The preposition uf written of occurs in the un- published dictionary matefial of the—Sudetendeutsches W6rterbuch, in the vocabulary of A. G6bl. No page number available. 3Note the use of the dative personal pronoun for the accusative. See B 11. 4This could probably be accusative as well. 5 A traditional Metzenseifen tongue-twister. 6 laixn (lihen) is in verb class 1 and preserves the MHG mean1ng "to like". 151 BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY Gedeon, Alajos. Ea Alsé-Meczenséfi Német Nyelvjérés Hangtana. Budapest, 1905. Hanika, Josef. Ostmitteldeutsch - Bairische Volkstums- Mischung Em WestkarpathiSChen Bergbaugebiet. Munster in Westfallen, 1933. Kachelmann, Johannes. Geschichte der Ungardeutschen Bergstédte. Schemnitz, 1852. Lersch, Erna. E_"Grfindler" Nyelvjérés Alaktani Sajétségai. Kolozsvar, 1904. Moulton, William G. The Sounds E£_English and German. Chicago, 1962. SchrEer, Karl Julius. "Beitrag zu einem W6rterbuche der deutschen Mundarten des ungrischen Berglandes," Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften, no. 25, (1857), 213-272. . "Die Laute der deutschen Mundarten des ungrischen Berglandes," Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften, no. 45, (1863), 181-258. . "Versuch einer Darstellung der deutschen Mundarten des ungrischen Berglandes," Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften, no. 44, (1863), 253-436. Schwarz, Ernst. "Probleme alter Sprachinselmundarten," Beitrége zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, vol. 58, (1934), 323-375. . Sudetendeutsche Sprachréume. Mfinchen, 1935. 152 153 Siebs, Theodor. Deutsche Aussprache; Reine und gEmEssigte Hochlautung mit AussprachewBrterbuch, ed. Helmut de Boor, Hugo Moser, Christian Winkler, 19th. ed., Berlin, 1969. Wenker, Georg. Sprachatlas des Deutschen Reiches mit Einschluss Luxemburges, Eer deutschen Sprachteile der Tschechoslowakai, Oesterreichs, Gottschee und LiChtenstein, Text zur 5. Lieferung, ed. Ferdinand Wrede and Bernhart Martéh, Marburg an der Lahn, 1956. APPENDICES APPENDIX I EXAMPLES OF FOLK LITERATURE IN PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION APPENDIX I EXAMPLES OF FOLK LITERATURE IN PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION Two Folk Stories About Ober-Metzenseifen 1. ybadEfl hat Ex a kiex. 3s boa Emol g3EE d3 ybadEfa boltn d3 kiex mufn. hom z3 zix ts3th g3nom3n on hEm 23 an Ena zait Efa93n ts3 EtEsn. uf Emol 25kt a ybadEfa bi bean bien bysn tos ba d3 kiex g3muft ham? 25kt da andr3 das is gans laixt. bie bean prEt pr¢kln. on da andr3n zait bea-ba a line maxn mit prEtpr¢kl. on ben bien hEm d3 kiex g3muft tos z3 uf 3s prEt stEt [bea—ba bysn] bi bait bie h6m d3 kiex g3muft. h5m prEt g3pr¢k1t. ufsan 251 23 an da andan zait2 ga93n, hom z3 Efa93n ts3 EtEsn. bi z3 g3§tEsn ham, zai ngl kom3n, hom 23 3s prEt gesn. bi d3 ybadEfa a bail g3§tEsn ham, uf Emol is Ena gag3n an da andan zait, ont zEkta, bien hEm d3 kiex Eon _ J - g3muft, 353 gtet son uf 3n prot. The Cher-Metzenseifeners also had a church. Once it happened that the Ober-Metzenseifeners wanted to move 154 155 the church. They gathered together along one side and began to push. Suddenly an Ober—Metzenseifener said, "How will we know that we have moved the church?" Another said, "That's simple: we'll crumble bread, and along the other side we'll make a line of bread crumbs. And when we have moved the church so that it stands on the bread, [we will know] how far we have moved the church." They crumbled bread. Then they went on the other side and began to push. As they were pushing [some] birds came and ate the bread. After the Cher-Metzenseifeners had been pushing a while, suddenly one went on the other side and said, "We have already moved the church; it is already standing on the crumbs!" 2. ont Emol is grEs g3baksn uf 3n dax fon da kiex, bos z3 mit eat g3dekt hatn. dES hat om nixt gut aosg3zE. boltn 23 3s grEs mE. di bustn oba nixt bi 23-s maxn zoln. 25kt Ena, bie bean a k3 op 35 dax tfi ont d3 k3 bit 33 grEs fresn. hEm 23 a k5 op s dax g3h5m, ont d3 k5 hot 5 grEs g3fresn. bi 23 oba d3 k3 r5 boltn pre93n, hEm 23 932%, tos d3 k5 zix het faletst ben 23 ragprigt. 25kt Ena, bie bean fédapétn pre33n, bean bie uf d3 eat tfi, tos d3 k6 k5 uf d3 fédapétn Eprig3n. 251 23 al3 ga33n, hSm z3 fédapétn g3 prExt. itsdan d3 raixn hatn d3 pestn fédapétn ont di boltn z3 nixt uf d3 eat dekn. hEm d3 raixn d3 oam3n g3zEkt di zoln ir3 fédapétn uf d3 eat 156 EtrE, ont di bean ir3 fédapétn Emuf dekn. dEs hom z3 g3maxt. den is Ena 54 dax g3kl§tat, bolt a d3 k5 ragtasn. , _ ~ 4 . - b1 d3 ku hot g3ze tos 23 mus spr133n hot 23 en enstn om4 raixn fédapétn g3§isn. ufsan is 23 rEg3gpru93n. And once grass was growing on the roof of the church, which they had covered with earth. That didn't look good to them. They wanted to mow the grass, but they didn't know how they should do it. One said, "we will put a cow on the roof, and the cow will eat the grass." They lifted a cow onto the roof, and the cow ate the grass. But when they wanted to bring the cow down, they saw that the cow would [have] hurt itself if it jumped [lit. jumps] down. Somebody said, "We'll bring featherbeds [which] we'll put down on the ground, so that the cow can jump into the featherbeds. Now the rich had the best feather- beds, and they didn't want to put them on the dirt. The rich told the poor [that] they should spread their featherbeds on the ground and they [the rich] would put their featherbeds on top. They did that. Then somebody climbed on the roof and wanted to push the cow down. When the cow saw that it had [lit. has] to jump, it shit out of fear onto the rich peoples' featherbeds. Then it jumped down. 157 1A colloquial name for Cher-Metzenseifen. 2This speaker inconsistently uses both dative and accusative after prepositions where motion is described. 3The neuter pronoun can be used regardless of the gender of the antecedent [C 5]. om < MHG obe + dem. [C 17]. Also see note 1. r— 158 Two Nursery Rhymes 1. patgi patgi kuxn pexa hot g3rufn bea bil guta kuxn maxn dea mus hEm diz3 zaxn zalts Emalts pota mél zafrE maxt d3 kuxn gél Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake The baker called: Whoever wants to make good cakes Has to have these things: Salt, lard, butter, flour, Safron makes the cakes yellow. 2. hopa tsopa tideleE 3s ketsl hot a peltsa 5 da b5fr3 Enaida hots g3n§t da hot 3s rao3 raosg3dr5t Hopa tsopa tideleE, The kitty has a fur coat on. What kind of tailor made it? He turned the rough side outside! APPENDIX II INFORMANTS APPENDIX II INFORMANTS The twelve informants used in this study are: Father John Gruss, Richard Wagner, Viktor Eiben, Lucy and Viola Meder, Emaline Antel Rolfe, Mary and Michael Gedeon, Anna and Kasper Schmidt, and Agnes and Robert Glosner. Of these six are immigrants, four are first generation and two are second generation. Two of those considered here as immigrants were born in Cleveland, Ohio but returned with their families to live in Metzenseifen as children. The information in documentary form used with the permission of the Sudetendeutsches WErterbuch was written by their informants, Dr. Andreas GEbl and Viktor Schmotzer, who emigrated to Augsburg and Darmstadt, Germany respectively. The Wenkersétze obtained from the Deutscher Sprachatlas were written by their informants Julius Gedeon of Unter- Metzenseifen and Grenzer Vendel of Ober-Metzenseifen. The following two paragraphs provide some background infor- mation about the two principal informants used in this study. Information about all twelve informants is outlined in Table D l. 159 160 Father John Gruss is a Roman Catholic Priest at St. Michael's Church in Cleveland. He was born in Cleveland in 1906 of parents who immigrated in 1887, and he represents the first generation of Cleveland speakers. He spoke dialect exclusively until the age of six, and later used English and Latin, but he never studied German. Father Gruss has a B.A. degree in education and sixteen years of theological study. He currently uses dialect among friends and often with his brother. He also has devised his own script for writing notes to himself in dialect. Richard Wagner also represents the first gener- ation born in Cleveland. He is a retired Police Chief for the City of Cleveland, fifty-eight years of age. His parents emigrated from Metzenseifen to Cleveland in 1886. As a child he spoke dialect almost exclusively until he entered school at six years. He has had two years of college and speaks German and French besides English. He has used dialect often throughout most of his life but only rarely in the past few years. TABLE D l. Informa nts 161 =3 Age in Came to Name 1970 0.8. Occupation Immigrants: l. Viktor Eiben 78 19221 retired maintainance 2 director 2. Emaline Antel 80 1927 retired teacher Rolfe 3. Michael Gedeon 81 1906 retired trucking supervisor 4. Mary Gedeon 78 1910 housewife 5. Kasper Schmidt 67 1936 carpenter 6. Anna Schmidt 65 1936 housewife First Generation: 7. John Gruss 63, priest 8. Richard Wagner 58 retired police chief 9. Robert Glosner 61 upholsterer 10. Agnes Glosner 60 housewife, clerk Second Generation: 11. Viola Meder 63 librarian 12. Lucy Meder 58 secretary 1He was born in Cleveland in 1892 and return to He left at the age of fourteen to study at Pula, Yugoslavia. Metzenseifen as an infant. 2Though born in the United States, she spent 1912-27 in Metzenseifen. 162 TABLE D l. (cont'd.) Other Languages Education Besides English 1. German naval academy German, Italian, French, 10. 11. 12. degree in engineering M.A. in German grade school grade school apprenticeship in Metzenseifen grade school B.A. in education, graduate study in theology 2 years of college, police training high school high school B.A. in library science business college Hungarian, Rumanian, some Gypsie dialects German, Spanish, French some German and Hungarian some German and Hungarian some German and Hungarian some German and Hungarian Latin German, French German, Spanish, French some German, French ICHIGRN STATE UN m]! IV. LIBRRRIES [I] IHHI HIHIHHIVHIIHIHIIHH 12 3105282697