The Syntakkes Hole, or The Hollow Word

This is the last post on German for a while - the Hawaii adventure awaits. I am bringing my Hawaiian dictionary with me, so there will be linguistic content! But for now, more German. German is notorious among Anglophones for being a case language, the nearest modern one, and many fear it for that reason. If you look at the case system, however, it has a hollow core. In Indo-European languages, and perhaps other families, the core arguments have less case marking than the peripheral ones. A case system decays like a tree (in the case of Latin, like a eucalyptus on fire, once all five cases in feminine singular became -a), from the core outward. The plurals have already become arbitrary, with only a few rules of thumb and that strange little -n in the dative plural, and the only difference between the nominative and accusative is in the masculine (der vs den); all other nominatives and accusatives are the same for their genders and numbers (The pronouns have a similar problem, but that's another post, post-Maui). It's no wonder that the German have developed an obsession with word order! Yet even in languages that are far more meticulous about genders and noun classes and still preserve the nominative-accusative distinction, two participants of the same gender and number can still cause confusion. I was practicing my German composition by describing the plot of Mirror, Mirror (review coming soon), and ran into just such a problem describing the evil queen and Snow White (Schneewittchen, not Schneeweisschen - thanks to Bill Willingham, I know the difference).

The dative forms of German do not always aid in disambiguation. True to Indo-European form, the neuter article  dem shares the dative form of masculine, while the feminine dative singular definite article der shares a form with its masculine nominative counterpart. The plural dative definite article shares its form (den) with masculine singular accusative - perhaps this is why the dative -n hangs on. At least it's not a Russian genitive-accusative!

For now, German retains its cases, but the minute it loses its final -n's it's going to turn into Eastern Dutch!

Wandering Words

I've been thinking more about "separable prefixes," a truly bizarre phenomenon of German, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Hungarian (the last probably acquired the feature from German). The linguistics literati prefer the term "separable particle," which is more apt, since a prefix which wanders to the end of the clause would be a strange prefix indeed. This thing which is not a prefix could not be a clitic, either; a clitic could wander to the end of the clause, but a clitic must hang on some other word, and that is not required of the "separable prefix." Such confusion is not uncommon: the Greeks used the term "tmesis", "a cutting," to indicate a prefix which in certain cases could separate from the verb and go elsewhere in the line of poetry. In that case, however, the Greeks were looking backwards; since tmesis only occurs in forms of the language that tend towards archaism, the separation is actually a conjunction! English has adverbs and prepositions, but the use in a particular verbal phrase must be one or the other. Every grammar of a language is a snapshot, and therefore has features in transition; in the case of German, these features are the "separable prefixes" and a case system on the verge of collapse.

Sehen Sie den "N"?

German class last night! We studied the dative, and the bizarre dative plural -n. In general, German declension seems to be "tattered," filled with remnant consonants and half-declined adjectives which are driving my fellow students crazy. Dative is a hard concept for many English speakers, especially since den Mann is accusative masculine singular, but den Frauen is dative feminine plural. 'The young woman" is die junge Frau and "the young women" is die jungen Frauen, but "young women" is junge Frauen. And all adjectives in the dative have n - der jungen Frau, den jungen Frauen.

And then there are the pronouns! Sie and ihr (the Germans may use capitals, but you can't hear a capital letter) overlap a great deal, and ihnen only partially ameliorates this. In context, however, the meaning is usually clear.

Gefunden

Another poem (this time German) for your edification and delight
Goethe

Gefunden

Ich ging im Walde
So für mich hin.
Und nichts zu suchen
Das war mein Sinn.

In Schatten sah ich
Ein Blümchen stehn
Wie Sterne leuchend
Wie Äuglein schön.

Ich wollt es brechen
Das sagt es fein
Soll ich zum Welken
Gebrochen sein?

Ich grub's mit allen
Ein Würzlein aus,
Zum Garten trug ich's
Am hübschen Haus.

Und pflanzt es wieder
Am stillen Ort
Nun zweigt es immer
Und blüht so fort.

A Germanic Fly In Amber

I've been taking a German course over in Berkeley, and my memories of the difficulties are coming back, even if I like the language more than Mark Twain. Cases and genders are like bread and butter for me, but the truly bizarre feature of German is the Separable Prefix, a grammatical abomination in a linguistic Limbo between adverbs and prepositions. The infinitive of the verb "to call (on the phone)" is "anrufen", but "I call the doctor" is "Ich rufe den Artzt an." This example is not so bad, but a sentence with the verb "aufpassen" produces the bizarre sentence "Passen sie auf den alten Hund auf?", "Are you taking care of the old dog?" in which the last "auf" refers to the "passen" at the beginning and the first "auf" governs "Hund" - at least there are no reflexives combined with it!

Gender Matters

All too often, English-speaking students of European languages detest the "gender" (really noun class) systems of the language, and in seeking to dismiss that which they neither understand nor love, declare the system irrelevant. A system of noun classes, whether composed of three or fifteen sections, may be confusing to second-language learners, but the distinct features of a language are never irrelevant to its native speakers. Pope Benedict XVI's recent announcement about the use of condoms illustrates this point. The original book was written in German, the native tongue of the Pontiff, but translated into Italian. In the German, the word used to indicate rentboys and their ilk is "der Prostituierte", a masculine noun, but in Italian, "la prostituta", a femina noun. The use of the masculine noun in German led some to assume the Pope was referring solely to the members of the Theban Legion, while the Italian use suggests it applies to women alone (since Italian, true to its sensual nature has specific words for male companions). Although a quick glance at LEO reveals that the German masculine noun may encompass both genders, much to the dismay of the feminists and Riistoj, this error in understanding shows the distinctions which noun classes provide to their tongues.

(For those of you who must know, the Pope said his comments applied equally to the sexes, and condom use is merely a lesser evil than sentencing a fellow human being to a slow death through your own carelessness).