Linguistic Purism in Action: How auxiliary tun was stigmatized in Early New High German [Reprint 2013 ed.] 9783110881103, 9783110170245

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
1.1 The Problem
1.2 Grammarians
1.3 Tun in Standard German
1.4 Thesis
1.5 Method
2. Part I: The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun
2.0 Auxiliary Tun in Other Languages
2.1 The Origin of Tun
2.2 Tun in Frisian
2.3 Tun in Dutch
2.4 Tun in English
2.5 Tun in Low German
2.6 Tun in Older Stages of German
2.7 Tun in Early New High German
2.8 Tun in Modern German Dialects
2.9 Tun in ENHG - a New Analysis
2.10 Conclusion of Part I
3. Part II: The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun
3.1 The Emergence of Standard German – Early Approaches and Current Thinking
3.2 The Emergence of Standard German and the Influence of Grammarians
3.3 Polynegation and Double Perfect
3.4 Syntactic Stigmatization by Prescriptive Grammarians
3.5 The Stigmatization of Polynegation and Double Perfect
3.6 Prescriptive Grammarians and the Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun
3.7 Conclusion of Part II
4. Conclusion
5. Appendix: Data and Bibliographies
5.1 Primary Data
5.2 Bibliographies

Citation preview

Nils Langer Linguistic Purism in Action

W DE G

Studia Linguistica Germanica

Herausgegeben von Stefan Sonderegger und Oskar Reichmann

60

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 2001

Nils Langer

Linguistic Purism in Action How auxiliary tun was stigmatized in Early New High German

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 2001

Gedruckt mit Unterstützung der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft D NW/U-1 (GB). Printed and published with the assistance of the Modern Humanities Research Association.

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Catalogìng-in-Publicatìon Data

Langer, Nils: Linguistic purism in action : how auxiliary tun was stigmatized in early new high German / Nils Langer. — Berlin ; New York : de Gruyter, 2001 (Studia linguistica Germanica ; 60) Zugl.: Newcastle upon Tyne, Univ., Diss., 2000 ISBN 3-11-017024-8

© Copyright 2001 by Walter de Gruyter G m b H & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. N o part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printing & binding: Hubert & Co., Götdngen. Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

für Mama

Wo aber jch geirret hab bitt jch zu bessern. die dz lesen, oder abschreybent Prosa-Tristant, as cited in Betten (1987: 116)

Table of Content Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1. Introduction 1.1 The Problem 1.2 Grammarians 1.3 Tun in Standard German 1.4 Thesis 1.5 Method 2. Part I : The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun 2.0 Auxiliary Tun in Other Languages 2.1 The Origin of Tun 2.2 Tun in Frisian 2.3 Tun in Dutch 2.3.1 Tun in Earlier Stages of Dutch 2.3.2 Tun in Modern Dutch 2.4 Tun in English 2.4.1 Tun in Earlier Stages of English 2.4.2 Tun in Contemporary English 2.5 Tun in Low German 2.5.1 Tun in Earlier Stages of Low German 2.5.2 Tun in Modern Low German 2.6 Tun in Older Stages of German 2.6.1 Lexical Tun 2.6.2 Causative Tun 2.6.3 Periphrastic Tun 2.7 Tun in Early New High German 2.7.1 Causative Tun 2.7.2 Regional Variation 2.7.3 Text Type Specific Variation 2.7.4 Functional Variation 2.8 Tun in Modern German Dialects 2.8.1 Regional Variation 2.8.2 Problems of Analysis 2.8.3 Optionality and Polyfunctionality 2.8.4 Major Functions of Tun 2.9 Tun in ENHG - a New Analysis 2.9.1 The Distribution of Tun 2.9.2 On the Functions of Tun 2.10 Conclusion of Part I

IX XI 1 1 4 6 8 9 12 12 12 14 14 14 18 22 23 28 30 31 34 37 37 38 41 44 45 46 46 47 50 50 51 52 54 63 63 71 97

Vili

Table of Contents

3. Part II: The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun 99 3.1 The Emergence of Standard German Early Approaches and Current Thinking 99 3.1.1 Early Approaches 99 3.1.2 The Standard Language up to 1600 102 3.1.3 The Standard Language up to 1800 105 3.2 The Emergence of Standard German and the Influence of Grammarians 107 3.2.1 The Sixteenth Century 111 3.2.2 The Seventeenth Century 114 3.2.3 The Eighteenth Century 119 3.3 Polynegation and Double Perfect 123 3.2.1 Polynegation 124 3.2.2 Double Perfect 131 3.4 Syntactic Stigmatization by Prescriptive Grammarians 134 3.5 The Stigmatization of Polynegation and Double Perfect 150 3.5.1 Introduction and Overview 150 3.5.2 Polynegation 160 3.5.3 Double Perfect 172 3.6 Prescriptive Grammarians and the Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun 176 3.6.1 Stage 1 (until 1640) 177 3.6.2 Stage 2 (until 1680) 188 3.6.3 Stage 3 (1680-1740) 195 3.6.4 Stage 4 (after 1740) 203 3.7 Conclusion of Part II 214 4. Conclusion 219 5. Appendix: Data and Bibliographies 224 5.1 Primary Data 225 5.1.1 Corpus 1 : Instances of Tun 225 5.1.2 Corpus 2 : Evidence from Modern Dialect Dictionaries 263 5.2 Bibliographies 276 5.2.1 Corpus 1 : The Primary Sources of Tun in ENHG 276 5.2.2 Corpus 2: The Primary Metalinguistic Sources 289 5.2.3 Corpus 3: The Dialect Dictionaries 299 5.2.4 Secondary Literature 301

Acknowledgements This monograph was presented as a doctoral thesis to the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in February 2000. Originally conceived of as a generative account of Early New High German syntax, the research quickly turned away from technical questions of grammar. In order to explain why certain constructions, as discussed in this book, are ungrammatical in Standard German, it was necessary to investigate the sociolinguistics of the Early Modern period in Germany. I hope that the comparison of contemporary language use with the views of seventeenth-century grammarians will contribute to the discussion of how effective prescriptivists were in shaping a prestige variety of German, or to put it in different words: why in Standard German, sentences such as Susanne tut den Kuchen essen are ungrammatical. This research was generously supported by several institutions in the UK, Germany and Ireland. I wish to express my gratitude in particular to the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB, London), the Faculty of Arts and the School of Modern Languages of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, the Faculty of Arts at University College, Dublin and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD, London/Bonn) for funding me to conduct my research and to travel to Germany to collect data. Thanks are also due to the University of Heidelberg and the Herzog August-Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel for granting me access to their facilities which proved vital for the successful outcome of this project. In addition, I wish to acknowledge the very generous support of the Arts Faculty Research Fund of the University of Bristol, the Modern Humanities Research Association (London) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Bonn) for their help in meeting the publication costs of this book. But it was not only institutions which helped and encouraged me to continue with what often seemed an enterprise not worth pursuing. Dr Jonathan West encouraged me at a very early stage to embark on postgraduate study and convinced me that research into Early New High German can be very interesting - I thank him for being such a great tutor, supervisor and friend. The data of Early New High German language use was collected from the ENHG archive at the University of Newcastle on Tyne (Dr. Jonathan West), which substantially draws on the Heidelberg Corpus (Professor Oskar Reichmann) and the Bonn Corpus (Professor Werner Besch). I owe my thanks to these researchers for allowing me to use these invaluable tools. Furthermore, I wish to thank Professor William J. Jones (Royal Holloway, London), Professor Oskar Reichmann (Heidelberg), Professor Hans-Werner Eroms (Passau), Professor Dieter Stein (Düsseldorf), Dr Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (Leiden), and Dr Annette Fischer (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin) for providing very valuable comments and words of encouragement on "my" auxiliary.

χ

Acknowledgements

A substantial amount of progress was made during my stay in Germany in 1999 and in this context, my sincere gratitude goes out to Professor Oskar Reichmann (Heidelberg), Dr Anja Lobenstein-Reichmann (IdS, Mannheim), Dr Gillian Bepler (Wolfenbüttel), and Mr. Christian Hofgrefe (Wolfenbüttel) for making me feel very welcome and for helping me find my feet when I most needed them. The thesis was written up during my year in Dublin, and here I must make special mention of Dr Siobhan Donovan, Dr Gillian Pye and Dr Miriam Frendo at UCD for proofreading a large pile of paper containing rather impenetrable English as well as Björn Norlin and Maria Rex (Umeâ Universitet) for feeding me. Und dann gilt es noch allen denjenigen zu danken, deren Hilfe und Unterstützung für mich sich womöglich eher auf die Hoffnung gründete, dass ein erfolgreicher Abschluss meiner Arbeit auch mit dem Ende meiner Besessenheit für ein kleines und noch dazu ungrammatisches Hilfsverb verbunden sein würde, so dass man am Kaffeetisch und anderen geselligen Ereignissen nun auch wieder über etwas Anderes reden könne. Auch diesen Personen deshalb hier ein herzliches Dankeschön: Hans und Mama, Dirk, Jason, Josie, Rüdiger & Gila, Marc, Die Rentzows, Die Neibigs, The Hayletts, Paddel and Shazza, Stefano, Enrico, Mietzi, Mr. Cat, Dixie, Mark & Honey, Josie, Papa und Marianne, sowie den folgenden Fußballmannschaften, die mich von meiner Arbeit nicht nur abgehalten haben: Medical Physics, TSV 05 Neumünster, Dynamo Medicus, Germania II Wolfenbüttel, HAB Soup and Football, Bank of Ireland, Arts Gradpad F.C. Und dann natürlich noch: vielen Dank an meine Susi - sie weiß schon wofür. Nils Langer Bristol, April 2001

Abbreviations AN CEUG chron dev did E ECG EModE ENHG EUG HD heino leg LG lit MD ME

Algemeen Nederlands Central East Upper German chronicle devotional didactic East(ern) East Central German Early Modern English Early New ffigh German East Upper German Heerlen Dutch Heidelberg-Corpus number legal Low German literary Middle Dutch Middle English

MHG MLG Ν NG NHG NEUG NUG OHG OE S sci theo W WCG WGmc WUG

Middle High German Middle Low German North(ern) Northern German New High German North East Upper German North Upper German Old High German Old English Southern) scientific theological West(ern) West Central German West Germanic West Upper German

1. Introduction 1.1 The Problem The existence of standard languages is a common and accepted notion in Modern Europe. It is generally accepted by most speakers of languages in Western Europe that an independent state such as Germany, France and the UK will use a standardized idiom in international and supraregional communication, and as a target language in language teaching. The standard variety of German is also used to identify the social class to which a speaker belongs: the ability to speak standard German is often seen as an indication of a higher education and a non-working class background. In contrast to English, this sociolinguistic labelling is largely restricted to grammar and lexis: by and large regional accent is (proudly) retained by speakers of all classes to the effect that in Germany, the regional origins of top managers and politicians can be easily identified by their speech. The linking of social identity and language by speakers is a well known phenomenon. From a system-internal linguistic point of view, it is nonetheless striking that speakers identify the social origin of a speaker on the basis of grammatical construction that s/he uses, especially since all grammatical constructions of a language serve some communicational need. Thus systeminternally it is hardly feasible to speak of the rejection of certain grammatical constructions as "bad" or "undesirable" because the speakers identify them as obstructions in communications. In other words: given the internal workings of a language, it is somewhat surprising that speakers consciously object to certain grammatical constructions as such. Traditionally this line of argument, namely that speakers somehow analyze their linguistic system, identify constructions that hamper communication, and stigmatize them as "bad" language, is rejected. In contrast, linguistic stigmatization is believed to emerge for purely systemexternal reasons. Firstly, a group of speakers is identified as being of a lower social status, secondly, certain linguistic constructions in the speech of these speakers are found to be particular to this group, and subsequently these grammatical constructions are stigmatized as "bad language," to the effect that users of the constructions can plausibly be identified as belonging to a lower social class. This line of explaining sociolinguistic stigma is well-established and logically coherent. This monograph, however, aims to show that other factors can also play a part in the condemnation of certain constructions.

2

Introduction

The sixteenth to eighteenth centuries saw the emergence of a strong interest in the use of the vernacular languages in several European countries, e.g. France, England, Italy and Germany (Jones 1995, Jones 1999, Coudert 1999). Scholars all over Europe concerned themselves with finding the etymological roots of their vernacular to prove its status as a "proper" or even superior language (Eco 1994), they wrote poetics to teach the writing of high quality vernacular poems, and they published prescriptive grammars aimed at a native speaker readership to advance a prestige variety of their language: French, English, Czech and German developed a standard language as a primarily written idiom, codified in the (prescriptive) grammars and dictionaries which subsequently appeared. Whilst the standard varieties of French and English have a clear geographic and sociolinguistic basis (Parisian and London court language), as well as undisputed language authorities in the case of French which clearly defined the speaker group of the prestige variety (Vaugelas 1647, Academie Française; cf. Lodge 1993, Schroeder 1996), the emergence and development of the German standard language is more complicated. The standard language of German is understood to have emerged in the Early New High German (ENHG; 1350-1750)1 period. In particular, the process can be divided into two phases: before 1550, moves were made towards establishing a supraregional language by the continuous, but ad-hoc and therefore largely subconscious elimination of regionally marked features from texts written for non-local use. This first stage of the standard language was thus mainly designed to facilitate communication across dialect boundaries (Besch 1967, 1968), with the earliest developments dating from as early as the fourteenth century2 when supraregional languages were used in writing which did not correspond to a single existing dialect but rather consisted of elements from various regions (Besch 1967). Whilst many of the linguistic changes (e.g. diphthongization, monophthongization and vowel lengthening (Stedje 1989: 115)) that took place in ENHG had already begun in the MHG period (10501350), we can distinguish between the two periods in that the beginning of ENHG coincides with the use of regional features outside of the diatopic context, i.e. in supraregional communication. Besch's data shows that by the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, two of these written idioms, East Central German and East Upper German became dominant, slowly replacing the other Schreibsprachen of MLG, Ripuarian and WUG (Stedje 1989: 122). However, at 1

2

There is some considerable variation on the exact dating of this period. Following Roelcke's suggestion (1995) that the periodisation of linguistic periods needs to be based on changes of individual variables rather than overarching, general developments, this book leads to the conclusion that the much-favoured year of 1650 as the end of the ENHG period cannot be upheld. Instead, the evidence presented in this book shows that the NHG standard language had not fully evolved or fixed before 1750, suggesting that the caesura between the ENHG and NHG period cannot be set any earlier than this date. Earlier developments, e.g. by the Carolingian Court and the MHG höfische Dichtersprache cannot be seen as beginnings of modern standard German as the continuity was interrupted at some stage. Cf. below Section 3.1.

The Problem

3

this early stage there were no tendencies to form a prestige variety of German; rather, a supraregional language was used solely for the purpose of supraregional communication, with no subsequent sociolinguistic stigmatization of non-regional varieties. This comparative neutrality of regional languages can be verified, e.g. in the earliest foreign language grammars (L2 grammars) of German, written in Latin in the 1570s, where the target German language variety was clearly identifiable with regard to a specific region. In contrast to the sociolinguistically comparatively neutral period before 1550 (Reichmann 1990's horizontale Varietäten), in phase 2, after 1550, supraregional German was very much seen as a prestige variety, reserved for a higher social stratum of speakers. Phase 2 of the process saw the desire to establish German as one of the major languages of Europe. Scholarly interest was concerned with showing that German in its "original" form was created after Babel and thus had a divine status which was equal, not inferior to Latin (cf. Eco 1994, 1998 for a study of this process across Europe). Grammarians, poeticians and language societies devoted themselves to creating an artificial idiom,3 not simply to further facilitate supraregional communication but rather to establish German as a language of similar or better linguistic status as / than Latin (cf. Takada 1998). This view manifested itself in the concept of German as an Uhralte Haubtsprache (Schottel 1641) which counted German as one of the original languages after Babel. J.G. Schottel's clear aim was to recreate the "original" German which because of its divine status would be a "perfect" language (i.e. without exceptions or irregularities in its syntax, morphology and phonology) ideal to be used as a contemporary prestige variety. It is a central topic of this monograph to determine whether this desire to recreate the original German by forming an artificial idiom (later becoming standard German) was successful. If so, standard German can be conceived of as being the product of prescriptive grammarians. Whilst this is frequently assumed in the literature, the details of this process are as yet unclear. This philosophically-driven strive for linguistic superiority and the increasing detachment from existing dialects in the Baroque period brought a sociolinguistic component to the discussion inasmuch as the distinction was made between the language of the educated (Gelehrte) and the language of the lower classes (Pöbel). The seventeenth century thus saw a heated discussion on the correct selection of grammatical and lexical items for the standard language, framed in the dividing debate over which principle should guide selection: language use (anomaliaj or grammatical exceptionlessness (analogia, Grundrichtigkeit). In the eighteenth century the discussion about the perfect German language concentrated on system-internal details, i.e. the choice of the grammatical constructions that were deemed fit to be included in the standard language, on the basis of the framework of rationalist thought. 3

Initially, attempts where made to promote and refine the language of one particular area (East Central German), whilst from the 1650s onwards, standard German was increasingly seen to be artificially constructed with no particular existing dialect as a model (Josten 1976, Takada 1998).

4

Introduction

With the aim of replacing Latin as the primary written language,4 grammarians like Schottel attempted to re-create the original post-Babel language by levelling out irregularities in the paradigms of German grammar (Takada 1998). It was at this stage that certain grammatical constructions were labelled as undesirable in the contemporary grammars of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. On the basis of a salient morpho-syntactic construction, this book seeks to explore to what extent the influence of prescriptive grammarians on the formation of standard German can be traced and verified by a close comparison of language use and metalinguistic comments in the ENHG period. It hopes to find out whether the choice of the stigmatized construction can be reduced to system-internal reasons (as illustrated by an analysis of ENHG language use), sociolinguistic identification (as illustrated by distributional patterns of language use e.g. with regard to text type), or random (no conceivable reason for the particular selection of one construction over another).

1.2 Grammarians The publication of German grammars written in German and also the activities of Baroque language societies (Sprachgesellschaften, cf. Otto 1972, Josten 1976, Jones 1995) show that prescriptive grammarians were clearly involved in the discussions over the design of standard German. However, modern research is divided over the issue of their actual effectiveness, that is to say, to what extent grammarians' innovations or conservative notions can be seen to have been successful in the decision to include or exclude certain constructions from the emerging grammar of standard German. The task of determining the effectiveness of prescriptive grammarians is a difficult one, as the interaction between the grammarians themselves (cf. Takada 1998), and between grammarians and printers has yet to be determined in greater detail. Furthermore, it is not clear to what degree prescriptive grammars were actually read, taught and followed by speakers of the later ENHG period as defined above, although one can infer this information to a certain extent from data on second and third editions, as is the case for example for Bödiker's Grund=Sätze (1690) which saw four editions and two revised editions, suggesting that it sold reasonably well to its target audience, namely schools (Diedrichs 1983, von Polenz 1994). The subject of prescriptive grammarians was largely ignored in the secondary literature until the 1980s when several monographs on individual grammarians were published (Diedrichs 1983, Jahreiss 1990, Götz 1992). More recently, Konopka (1996) and Takada (1998) have provided very detailed investigations on the degree of influence ( Wirkungsgrad) of grammarians from

4

For instance, 1680 was the first year in Germany where the number of books printed in German exceeded those printed in Latin (cf Keller 1978).

Grammarians

5

1720-1775 (Konopka) and 1640-1700 (Takada) by comparing the prescriptive statements with respect to each other to see how the discussions between grammarians influenced each other or resulted in certain patterns. This leads, for example, to the suggestion that one grammarian was more important than another. Furthermore, both Konopka and Takada compared the grammarians' statements with data from language use to determine whether the suggestions by the grammarians were actually taken up by contemporary writers and printers. The result is somewhat inconclusive: Takada found that the success of (seventeenth century) grammarians was restricted to certain aspects of certain areas, notably orthography and morphology. Konopka, restricting himself to (eigtheenth century) syntax, established that grammarians who used a refined degree of grammatical terminology and who described current language use accurately, and who therefore postulated linguistic constructions that were already part of the language, can be considered to have been more successful than those grammarians without adequate terminology and who postulated artificial constructions far-removed from contemporary language use, e.g. the radical application of the sentence frame even for very long and complex sentences. The common tradition of investigating the effectiveness of prescriptive grammarians has thus been to verify to what extent a certain suggestion of the type "use 'X' in these contexts" has found its way from the grammar books into language use. In contrast to this approach, this book aims to determine the success rate of stigmatization of an unwanted construction: a grammatical rule of the type "don't use X in these contexts." If it can be established that certain constructions of the contemporary language disappeared from language use after prescriptive grammarians objected to the construction, we have reasonable proof that grammarians were indeed effective in steering the course of language development. We will see below that this effectiveness can be seen with regard to the stigmatization of auxiliary tun, double perfect and polynegation. Crucially however, the grammarians' influence was restricted to the (primarily written) standard language, rather than any (spoken) dialects. Thus the effectiveness of grammarians will not be examined by establishing their success in including certain constructions in standard German but in excluding unwanted features. If it is found that a construction which was stigmatized as undesirable by prescriptive grammarians fails to become grammatical in standard German, there is a strong suggestion that the grammarians were indeed effectively forming standard German with regard to this feature. If independent evidence from language use in ENHG and nonstandard modern German shows that in the grammars of those varieties the construction was and is well-established, we can safely rule out that a direct correspondence of language use and prescriptive rules (with regard to the stigmatized constructions) was based on the possibility that the contemporary

6

Introduction

grammars were merely describing contemporary language use very accurately.5 With regard to the construction^) investigated in this monograph, it can be shown that the construction is ungrammatical in standard German despite its being part of all ENHG and modern German non-standard varieties. Since the grammarians' comments are the only ones that regard the construction as undesirable, and since the construction is indeed ungrammatical in standard German, it can be concluded that this ungrammaticality is due to the grammarians' influence, and hence that prescriptive grammarians were indeed effective in advocating or rejecting certain constructions.

1.3 Tun in Standard German The construction investigated in this monograph is the auxiliary tun. It was chosen because of its ungrammatical status in standard German on the one hand and its grammaticality and frequent occurrence in non-standard colloquial German and modern dialects on the other. In establishing the point in time when the auxiliary ceases to occur in (formal) written texts, wewill liave one criterion for the beginning of the NHG period (the absence of regional forms in printed texts has been linked with the completion of the standardization process (Penzl 1984)). Furthermore, in finding reasons for the disappearance of tun in the written language and its stigmatization in the standard language, a criterion will be established to evaluate the prescriptive influence on the condemnation of the construction by grammarians and hence on their general ability to steer or affect the standardization process and the actual design of the standard language. In standard German, tun occurs most frequently as a lexical verb, as shown in the following grammatical (la), stylistic (lb) and semantic (lc) functions: (la) (lb) (lc)

Er hat viel Gutes getan, (transitive with ACC-object) Ich riet ihm zu verschwinden, was er auch schleunigst tat. (anaphoric tun) Er tut so, als ob er nichts wüßte. ("einen bestimmten] Anschein erwecken", Duden 1 1989: 1569)

Its distribution as an auxiliary is restricted to one particular type of focus structure, viz. Verb-topicalization6 where the lexical verb occupies the topic or theme position of the sentence and the auxiliary tun is used as 'neutral' option 5

6

The problem of descriptivity formed a crucial part in Konopka's study on the effectiveness of syntacticians in the eighteenth century where the more successful scholars were shown to be closer to already existing language use than less successful grammarians whose suggestions were too far removed from the actual German that was spoken (and written) at the time. Crucially therefore, it was not a greater influence as a person or a better "quality" of linguistic rules that led to a higher success rate of prescriptive grammarians. "zur Betonung des Vollverbs" (Duden 1 1989: 1569).

7

Tun in Standard German

to satisfy the independent requirement to realize a finite verb in the V2 position of the sentence: (2)

Essen tue ich schon immer am Liebsten.

(V-topicalization)

The authoritative Duden which since the 1950s acts as the official guide to correct usage of standard German mentions two further distributions of the auxiliary tun as shown in (3), which are, however, marked or stigmatized as colloquial (3a) and regional (3b):7 (3a) [I\ch tu ' bloß noch schnell die Blumen gießen. (3b) Das täte mich schon interessieren. (Duden 1 1989: 1569)

The following sentences showing the auxiliary tun in various functions attested by the secondary literature on modern German dialects are all ungrammatical in standard German, despite the fact that they are frequently attested both in colloquial and regional language. (4a) * Das Buch tue ich für mein Leben gern lesen. (4b) * Heute tue ich das ganze Buch durchlesen.

(topicalized Acc-object) (topicalized adverbial)

(5)

(emphasis)

* Die Katze tut die Maus gleich fressen.

(6a) * Der Mann tut schon den ganzen Tag lang lesen, (durative reading) (6b) * Die Frau tut jeden Tag einen Apfel essen. (iterative reading)

(all examples: Duden 1 1989: 1569) The stylistic manual Richtiges und gutes Deutsch (Duden 4 1997) rejects these types of examples on the grounds that the insertion of tun is superfluous. As regards the function of V-topicalization in example (2), the presence of tun is merited and thus grammatical for syntactic reasons since tun is analyzed as taking over the syntactic function of the lexical verb (Duden 4 1997: 648). This analysis of tun as a semantically redundant element is also found in Küpper (1984) who equates the semantics of gehen tun with gehen and argues that the presence of tun merely serves to describe (Umschreibung) the lexical verb:8 tun ν 1. als Hilfszeitwort in Verbindung mit einem Verbum (er tut gehen, tut schlafen [...]).. Diese Konstruktion, in der Umgangssprache sehr häufig, dient zur Umschreibung der betreffenden Verbformen (geht, schläft, [...]). (Küpper 1984: 2913)

7 8

umgangssprachlich and landschaftlich respectively. The vagueness of the term Umschreibung will be discussed in greater detail below in section 2.8.

8

Introduction

To conclude, the auxiliary tun is virtually ungrammatical in standard German, with its single grammatical distribution being devoid of any inherent function and its presence only permitted to serve the satisfaction of independent grammatical requirements. This situation is in stark contrast to its apparent polyfiinctionality in modern standard dialects and earlier stages of German. It is the purpose of this book to determine the reason for this divergence between standard German and the modern dialects.

1.4 Thesis Auxiliary tun represents a morpho-syntactic construction that is ungrammatical in standard German but grammatical in modern dialects as well as in earlier stages of German. In this sense, the construction differs greatly from all other auxiliaries which have similar grammaticality statuses in both standard and nonstandard varieties of German. The statistical evidence from pre-standardized German, in particular from ENHG, shows that the construction was evenly distributed across all regions, temporal periods and text types: the data discussed below will confirm that it occurred in approximately 50% of all texts. Furthermore, the proportional distribution never went beyond the extreme values of >80% and type I => type II

This development corresponds to some extent to other West Germanic languages, notably English, where the chain reads (14)

lexical do => type I => periphrastic do

Denison (1993: 257, 264) shows that although type II did exist in English, too, it was restricted to small areas in the East of England whilst instances of periphrastic do originated in SW England. Crucially, with regard to this comparison, van der Horst stresses that Type II and periphrastic do "are incompatible" (van der Horst 1996: 12). As indicated above, however, at least one of van der Horst's two primary examples can easily be seen to be an instance of periphrastic do. This does not mean to say that van der Horst's two types are not to be maintained to group instances of doen] rather, given that some instances of Type II doen can be (re-)analyzed as periphrastic doen, we may have a different, yet plausible "missing link" in the chain of developments. This is all the more desirable as van der Horst's theory, to his own acclaim, explains why periphrastic doen developed only in English but, crucially, not in Dutch. As Cornips (1994, 1996, 1998) shows in her research, however, periphrastic doen, although ungrammatical in AN, is a frequent part of many Dutch dialects. 5

It is a little mystifying how many texts van der Horst used, as he claims to have collected "all the available Dutch material, from the beginning of the 13th century up to 1270," yet the second part of his table only starts in 1270.

18

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

2.3.2 Tun in Modern Dutch In standard adult Dutch, the cfoew-periphrasis is not known except in formulaic expressions used e.g. in official letters: hierbij doe ik u toekomen.6 Whilst van der Horst (1998) examined the earliest development of the doen + infinitive construction, Cornips (1994, 1996, 1998) is concerned with the refutation of the claims that periphrastic doen in contemporary Dutch varieties is part of a "less-than-perfect" grammar. In particular, it is used by children and when speaking to children (ANS 1984, Duinhoven 1994, Giesbers 1983/4, Nuijtens 1962, Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1990), as well as by "inexperienced adults" in colloquial speech to avoid complex verbal morphology (Nuijtens 1962, Duinhoven 1994, cf. Cornips 1996: 2). Notwithstanding the fact that Cornips attempts to counter these types of explanations of the grammar and grammatical status of auxiliary doen in Dutch in general and in Heerlen Dutch in particular, she does not deny the sociolinguistic stigmatization of the periphrastic other dialects Yes = =>

modern standard German No modern standard German No

The average figure of texts containing tun in ECG across the whole ENHG period is 41.7%, the second lowest for any dialect area. Whilst this result on its 76

Although, of course, other dialects played an important role too. Theodor Fling's suggestion that ECG served as a überregionale Ausgleichssprache since the late Middle Ages and single-handedly laid the foundations for the standard language has since been rejected, or at least relativised to the status of contributing factor (cf. section 3.1).

68

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

own may suggest that the lack of auxiliary tun in present-day standard German may have been due to a prominent status of ECG, as suggested independently by Josten (1976) and by the relative scarcity of tun in this dialect, it should be noted that 41.7% is not a low figure as such, but only in comparison with the other dialect areas. In other words, it is hardly feasible to suggest that the disappearance of tun was caused or facilitated by natural developments in a dialect area, in which more than 40% of the texts contained the construction. Returning to the regional distribution in other German dialects, we find that the highest figure, 61.9% in West Central German, also suggests that the construction is never even on the brink of becoming fully grammaticalised. It is striking that a construction which is salient enough to distinguish between dialects and standard language appears to be fairly evenly distributed across all dialects, namely in c. 50% of all texts in total as well as c. 50% of all texts in each individual dialect. It can therefore be postulated that auxiliary tun was not regionally marked in ENHG. This conforms with the widespread distribution of the construction in modern dialects.

Enclaves Unknown NG WCG ECG WUG

absolute: tun in texts 0 out of 1 texts 1 out of 2 texts 5 out of 12 texts 13 out of 21 texts 10 out of 22 texts 16 out of 30 texts

percentage: tun in texts 0% 50% 41.7% 61.9% 45.5% 53.3%

NUG EUG

11 out of 19 texts 11 out of 20 texts

57.8% 55%

dialect area

69

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

•j Λη

vÖ *

,0>

-0> &

X>

$

sO)

vO $

Dialect A r e a

regional distribution of auxiliary tun

2.9.1.2.3 Text-Type Specific Distribution With regard to the variable of text type we obtain the same result as was found for the two aforementioned variables of time and space: there is virtually no meaningful variation between the distribution of auxiliary tun in different text types. Admittedly, the numerical distance between the lowest and highest figures is somewhat greater than that with regard to the other variables (34% is the difference in the case of text types, as opposed to 24% and 20% respecially for time and space), the mean figure is again around 50% with no text type obtaining or getting close to extreme figures of above 80% or below 20%. It can thus be claimed that the auxiliary tun is not particularly prominent or rare in any text type. Chronicles and theological texts are generally assumed to be comparatively remote from the spoken language because of their style and the ever-present potential influence from Latin. It therefore is unsurprising that these two text types achieve the lowest figures. On the other hand, the literary text type commonly assumed to be closest to spoken language, does not achieve the highest figure of all text types, despite the expectations raised by Ebert (1993) that auxiliary tun is particularly frequent in literary ("volkstümlichen") texts, i.e. those works that deliberately attempt to be closest to spoken German. A summary of the figures clearly shows that the distribution is not text-type specifically marked throughout the ENHG period.

70 text type77 didactic legal literary devotional scientific theological chronicle

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

absolute: tun in texts 9 out of 13 texts 9 out of 13 texts 19 out of 35 texts 9 out of 20 texts 4 out of 10 texts 10 out of 25 texts 7 out of 20 texts

percentage: tun in texts 69.2% 69.2% 54.3% 45% 40% 40% 35%

Text Type

text type specific distribution of auxiliary tun

In sum, we can say that the suggestions found in the secondary literature could by and large not be verified. It proved not to be the case that the tunperiphrasis is regionally marked as a construction only or largely found in Southern German dialects. Neither is it the case that its occurrence is particularly frequent in literary texts but particularly rare in other text types. Furthermore, it could not be verified that the attestations of tun are decreasing towards the end of the ENHG period, i.e. the seventeenth century. On the contrary, it was shown that the auxiliary was present in at least 3040% of all texts, uniformly with regard to all categories and variable. Furthermore, the fact that the auxiliary could not be attested in more than 6070% of the texts with regard to any one variable, may suggest that the 77

Because some texts belong to more than one text type, the total number of classifications exceeds 127. In addition, four texts in the corpus are not classified with regard to text type and consequently are not listed in this table.

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

71

construction was never on the brink of becoming fully grammaticalised in any variety. This in turn may have been of importance for the fact that it failed to become part of the standard German grammar. 2.9.2 On the Functions of ENHG Tun In this section, I will critically examine the functions of tun in ENHG and modern German dialects as outlined in the literature and these will be tested on the findings of my corpus. It will be shown that each of the fiinctions postulated to be specific, or at least special to tun, can be explained by the general auxiliary status of tun. Consequently, it will be argued that tun is an "ordinary" auxiliary without any specific properties; in other words, it is not polyfunctional contrary to the suggestions in the literature. Instead, it will be suggested that the widespread distribution of tun is due to its semantic vagueness or vacuity, i.e. insertion of tun into a sentence will not add any predictable semantic meaning to the sentence, unlike the insertion of temporal auxiliaries like haben and sein or modal auxiliaries like können or müssen which do have a clear semantic function. The auxiliary tun is therefore a perfect choice when the speaker requires a shift in the phrase order of the sentence without wanting to change the denotational meaning of the sentence, as shown below in the role of ¿««-insertion in theme-rheme structures. Following this, the special status of tun as a stigmatised auxiliary in modern standard German is therefore not due to a potentially plausible restriction of the auxiliary to certain fiinctions in certain dialects. As will be shown in part II below, the contemporary grammarians of ENHG were aware of the semantic vacuity of the auxiliary and on the basis of their statements it is reasonable to assume that the stigmatization may have been due to this system-internal property. As was shown above for tun in ENHG and modern German dialects, the most important attribute of the periphrasis is its apparent polyfunctionality. As regards ENHG, Fischer (1998) concludes that the tun-periphrasis can be said to have nine functions (cf. section 2.7.4 for a critical assessment): This analytic verb form [= aux tun\ NL] was used to replace synthetic tenses present and past tense - as well as the synthetic subjunctive. Furthermore it was employed to mark subordinate clauses and - occasionally - to form subjunctives. Moreover it was used as a marker of a topic-comment structure and as a simple periphrasis of a cognitively more elaborate form. Finally the tun periphrasis was a supporting syntactic means to express durative Aktionsart and could be seen in connection with imperfective aspect. (Fischer 1998: 134)

72

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

It is important to note that these putative functions come from a range of areas of German grammar, ranging from verbal morphology such as tense (present and past), mood (subjunctives), and aspect (durativity, imperfectivity) to sentence-level syntax, such as the marking of subordinate clauses and changing the topic-comment structure. In addition, Fischer postulates that auxiliary tun functions as a semantico-pragmatic mechanism to faciliate the cognitive processing of the sentence. Naturally, given the wealth of function and its particular diversity, the suspicion arises as to whether all these functions are actually expressed by a single auxiliary or whether instead, as this book argues, the auxiliary is simply sufficiently vague to occur in a wide range of grammatical contexts without causing a marked interpretation. In this particular respect, it should be pointed out that Fischer (1998) suggests that tun is a "supporting syntactic means" to express aspect and Aktionsart, rather than being the unique or sole marker. Nonetheless, this implies that tun has some specific meaning to represent a particular aspect or Aktionsart rather than being semantically vacuous. The full list of taw-attestations in Corpus 1 (language use in ENHG) is given in Appendix 5.1.1. In this section selected examples will be used to test whether those functions (postulated by the research literature) to be expressed by tun can actually be verified. These functions are: tense (past, present), mood (subjunctive, imperative), focus (emphasis, theme-rheme), and aspect (durativity, habituality). 2.9.2.1 Mood One of the most convincing examples of a specific function represented by tun involves tense and/or mood. It is argued that the clear morphological evidence showing tun to carry present tense, past tense, and/or subjunctive was sufficient to postulate that tun is a tense or mood marker. Clearly, this is based on a misconception of the idea of "marker" as something which "represents / expresses a function." Simply because an element is licensed (by the grammar) to carry a certain feature does not indicate that this element is the marker of this feature by virtue of the grammar. Compare the following: (5 la) (5 lb) (5 lc) (5 ld)

Das Buch kauftest®;] ich gerne, wenn ich mehr Geld hätte. Das Buch hätte[+SuBj] ich gerne gekauft. Das Buch würde[+SuBj] ich gerne kaufen. Das Buch tätej+suej] ich gerne kaufen.

In (51b), a form of haben carries the subjunctive feature, as is clear from both the interpretation of the sentence and the verbal morphology. However, despite the evidence in (5 lb), it would never be suggested that it is a feature of the grammar of German to express or mark the subjunctive by a form of haben.

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

73

Similarly, in (5Id) the subjunctive marking in this paradigm is not on tun but on the finite verb (which in (5 Id) happens to be a form of turi). Thus the subjunctive marker is the finite verb (slot) and example (5Id) is grammatical not because of the presence of tun as such, but because of the presence of a finite verb, which merely happens to be tun. Similarly, nobody would want to suggest that haben is a specific marker of subjunctive on the basis of (51b) where a form of haben does indeed occur in the subjunctive. Note that this view has interesting repercussions for the analysis of würde as a subjunctive marker. Following the line of argument presented here, it cannot be said that würde is a subjunctive marker. Rather, würde is a potential candidate in German to fill the finite verb slot that is marked [+SUBJ]. Therefore, the reason that würde has become the prominent finite verb to mark the subjunctive in modern German is not because of an increased frequency or functional preference of würde, but rather because diachronically more and more lexical verbs, for independent morphological reasons which cannot be discussed here, lost their ability to fill a [+SUBJ] slot. The subjunctive form of werden, i.e. würde(n),n however, did not undergo the same development, and because of its combinability with lexical verbs (again, independent of the subjunctive marking as such, as attested by the existence of non-subjunctive werden + Inf.), it is frequently used to express 'subjunctiveness' with a range of lexical verbs. To conclude, (5 Id) is grammatical (in ENHG and modern German dialects) by virtue of tun being a verb that retains its morphological ability to fill a [+SUBJ] slot. The processes involving subjunctive marking in these varieties of German and standard German do not differ. What causes the ungrammaticality of (5 Id) in standard German is the general ungrammaticality of tun as an auxiliary. 2.9.2.1.1 The Subjunctive Philipp (1980: 123) lists four ways of expressing the subjunctive in ENHG (wollen + infinitive (lussiv); modal verb + infinitive (optativus); mögen + infinitive (potentialis), würde + infinitive (especially conditionalis)) without, interestingly, mentioning the ¿MM-periphrasis in this context. Philipp thereby implicitly argues, as does this book, that those instances where tun is clearly marked carrying subjunctive features are due to the general properties of tun as an (auxiliary) verb and have no basis in any special function of tun as a dedicated marker of subjunctive mood. The identification of morphologically marked tun in ENHG is not always easy, due to the varying developments of the /a/ and /e/ phonemes to mark past

78

"Die Konjunktivform würde tun usw. war ursprünglich die konjunktivische Entsprechung vom Präteritum ward tun. [...] Die Form begegnet schon im 14. Jh., ist im späten 15. Jh. und 16. Jh. verbreitet, wenn auch noch nicht häufig; danach wird sie ganz geläufig" (Ebert 1993: 392).

74

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

tense indicative and subjunctive, as elaborated on in Solms & Wegera (1993: 305f.). The problem thus arises that in the preterite indicative the forms tet(en) / thát(en) and tat{eri) / that(en) co-existed for some time. It was not until the seventeenth century that the stem vowel consistently marked a differentiation of mood, with t(h)at(en) marking preterite indicative and t(h)et{en) / t{h)at{en) marking preterite subjunctive (Philipp 1980: 75). Thus at least until the seventeenth century, information on the mood status of auxiliary tun has to be deduced from contextual information, a task which cannot always be resolved beyond doubt as exemplified in: (52a) Undt theten uns guthe essen drey schickhen, / mit wein undt brodt thet mans fest verzwickhen, / daß es stundt fest undt stet, / wir hetten auf der kirben gut gereth, / daß wir sie gantz nicht können schelten. (195, NUG, 16th, chron, : 92) (52b) Ey wer bist dan? / Mir zeig es an, / Gar freundlich thät ich fragen: / Doch nichts gewan: / Weil zeig es an, / Zu mir es auch thät sagen. (627, WCG, 17th, theo/dev, : 26) In both examples, the context is sufficiently informative to make an "educated guess" at the function of mood expressed by the auxiliary tun, i.e. past tense indicative in both instances. Nonetheless, the evidence is not tight enough to provide absolute certainty, especially in (52a), where a form of subjunctive does occur in hetten. More problematic are the examples in (53a-c) where the umlauted forms deden appear to be subjunctive from a morphological point of view, especially as they contrast with the past tense indicative daden on the previous and subsequent page of the source. However, reading the quotation in (53b) carefully, we find that the construction parallels those in (53a) and (53c) in meaning, tense and mood. The alternation of and thus appears to have no morphological meaning in these examples. (53a) Rait zerzijt sitzende syne vrunt alvmb in de stat zo alien ampteren, broderschaffen vnd geselschaffen ind daden yn gutligen sagen, dat sy alsulge brieue vnd gesetze, as yeclich ampt vnd broderschaf vp yre ordinantie besegelt hedde, [...]. (953, WCG, 14th, chron, : 425) (53b) So schickde der rait synen vrunt zo stunt hervss an sy vp de guldenkamer ind deden yn sagen, sij hedden verdragen, dat man yn geynreleye brieue noch gesetze weder vmb geuen noch besegelen [...]. (953, WCG, 14th, chron, : 426)

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

75

(53c) Ind do der rait des gewair wart, do beboiden sij hern remboden vur sijch ind daden eme sagen, sij hedden symon vnd david vurg. vurwerde gegeuen, die sij bisher noch allewege gehalden hedden, dat he darvmb die selue jueden nyet envienghe [...]. (953, WCG, 14th, chron, : 427) Finally, consider (54a-c) from WCG: (54a) wie die Widersacher trômen / so hette er seine zusage bei johanne (da er sein fleisch / welchs er vor die weit vbergeben hat/ vns wircklich zugebe [n] verheissen tut) in seinem h. abentmal nit geleist / leistete auch vns dieselbig nochnit/ [...]. (952, WCG, 16th, dev, : 8) (54b) Das ist gottes werck / das jr in den gláuben den er gesendt hat / jedoch dweil er darnaher vns daselbst verheissen tut / auch sein eigen fleisch zur speise zu geben / vnd dan die capernaiter vsz berurtem anfang der rede verstanden / [...]. (952, WCG, 16th, dev, : 13) (54c) Aber zwar vff fill eine ander meinung / habe[n] sie die wort des herre[n] verstande[n] / habe freilich wol gemirckt / das er jn verheissen thete / ein fill grosser wunderwerck zuerzeige[n] / dan yemals moyses jren altwváttern [...]/ durch das manna erzeiget [...]. (952, WCG, 16th, dev, : 14) Whilst (54a) and (54b) are unambigously present tense indicative, thete in (54c) could both be past tense indicative or subjunctive. These examples are to be seen as representative for a more general problem of analysing individual instances of Λε:ίθ/ in historical texts. Despite these difficulties, numerous examples for subjunctive (and obviously also indicative) tun were able to be attested in Corpus 1; to give an idea of the attested frequency, all those citations of tun from the corpus of language usage, which are unambiguously subjunctive, will be listed, showing that this function is not rarely represented by tun. Northern German (n = 1): Wen der mit bittern noten / Uns tet lebende werden, Vurst ist kunige der Erden [...] (15, NG, 14th, did, : 14)

West Central German (n = 13): Wan sich ein auswendiger gelüsten thete, unt Weiss- oder Schwarzbrot in hiesiger Stadt oder Dürenter Jurisdiction zum feilen Kauf aussetzen, oder heimlich bringen und verkaufenthaete, [...]. (275, WCG, 18th, leg, : 357) Solen auch Soldaten von unserm gnädigsten Herren oder fremde Völker hier einquartiert werden, welche Schlächter unter sich hätten, und die Weissgärber oder Rothgärber die Fell davon thäten einkaufen, so sollen selbige gehalten seyn, [...]. (275, WCG, 18th, leg, : 303)

76

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

[...], und darvor 8 Rhthlr. und eine Tonne Biers dem Ambacht zu geben angestrengt wurden, so thäten dennoch die Schustere sie zu ihren Zusammenkünften und Processionen nicht mit einladen sondern verächtlich zu Haus sitzen lassen, als [...]. (275, WCG, 181h, leg, : 311) darumb auch dessen nicht viel einkaufen thue, weil wie obgemelt ein mehreres nicht verdebitirt werde, [...]. (275, WCG, 181h, leg, : 342) Thäte sich ergeben, dass ein Fell den Ertrag eines oder eines halben Rthlr. nicht erreichen wurde, so solle alsdan von solchem Fell alleinig acht Heller zahlt werden, [...]. (275, WCG, 18th, leg, : 350) Sollten ihnen auch etliche Sorten manquiren, welche sie anderwerts thäten kaufen, selbige sollen sie beim Accinspfächter melden, [...]. (275, WCG, 18th, leg, : 303) [...], und darvor 8 Rhthlr. und eine Tonne Biers dem Ambacht zu geben angestrengt wurden, so thäten dennoch die Schustere sie zu ihren Zusammenkünften und Processionen nicht mit einladen sondern verächtlich zu Haus sitzen lassen, als [...]. (275, WCG, 18th, leg, : 311) [...], unt Weiss- oder Schwarzbrot in hiesiger Stadt oder Dürenter Jurisdiction zum feilen Kauf aussetzen, oder heimlich bringen und verkaufen thaete, demselben solle sien Brot confiscirt und dazu von seines Orts Obrigkeit gestraft werden. (275, WCG, 18th, leg, : 357) es were dann, daß der handel also wichtig, darzu so mercklichen Ursachen vorhanden, daß sollichs die notturft thet erfordern. (284, WCG, 16th, leg., : 84) Erweckt sie leist mit allem fleis / dz er sie nit thet erschrecken, / mein auffenthalt, mach dich auff bald,/der wechter thut uns wecken. (313, WCG, 16th, lit, :16) Kundschaft mit dir, ich begeren bin, / thets nur dir gefallen / trew heb und dienst, ich dir versprich, / las dir das nit mißfallen. (313, WCG, 16th, lit, :14) O Gott könd ichs erwerben ! / Wolts brauchen stät, / So früh, so spät / Biß auch im sang thät sterben. (627, WCG, 17th, theo/ dev, : 33) Aber zwar vff fill eine ander meinung / habe[n] sie die wort des herrefn] verstande[n] / habe freilich wol gemirckt / das er jn verheissen thete / ein fill grosser wunderwerck zuerzeige[n] / dan yemals moyses jren altváttern [...] / durch das manna erzeiget [...]. (952, WCG, 16th, dev, : 14) East Central German (n = 4): aber auff einer Taffei gemalet / die Bildnüß einer so schönen Damae, daß allein der erste anbück mich fast ganz meiner Vemunfft berauben thete / Auß welcher etliche brennende Sirablen schössen / welche einen Mann so gedachter Ritter mit gewalt [...]. (643, ECG, 17th, lit, : 7)

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

77

denn ich wüste nicht / ob sie solches mich gleichsamb wiederumb zu versöhnen thete / Oder aber [...]. (643, ECG, 17th, lit, : 36) [...], dannenhero der von mir indebite bezahlte Überrest, welcher 4514 fl. anstraget, an denen der Stadt zustehenden practensis billichstermassen zu defalciren kommen thäte, wobei [...]. (295, ECG, 17th, chron, : 253) Jetzt kombt der gäß das Glück getreten / Klagt das sie viel verachten theten / Vnd rühmt sich seiner grossen Gwalt / Welch es in der ganzen Welt halt. (638, ECG, 17th, lit, : 11) West Upper German (n = 10): aber wisset, er thue sich der Verehrung bedancken, dann wol ein Itahaner duerffte einem vnvermerkt einen Dolchen in den buckel stossen. (939, WUG, 17th, lit, : 21 f.) vnd wo ihnen die hölle nicht von Rechtswegen zugehören thaete, sie nimmermehr durch andere mittel dazu gelangen solten. (939, WUG, 17th, ht, : 22) Der Pater [...] sprach [...], daß ich solche des Bößwichts spottreden mich nicht wolt irren lassen, als der, so man ihm das geschwaetz vergönnen thaete, tausenterlen scheltvnd schmachwort wider die heilige justitiam vnnd derselben Dienere austoßen wirde [...]. (939,WUG, 17th,lit,: 14) so sey dir auff meinem theil mein dochter zugesagt / mir aber wil dannocht gebúren / die muter und die dochter darunder anzusuchen / damit harnach kein verwiss daraus ervolgen thue /so wolt ich auch (sie die dochter) nit gern zwingen /[...]. (940, WUG, 16th, ht, : 36) Wen aber bemelte von Rötschmund etwas uf gwinn und gwerb hin hinter der landschaft Sanen erkaufen teten, wollen wir gesetzt haben, daß sy darvon fürohuin [...] den halben teil deßen was sy von Sanen von anderen bezeuchen, zu entrichten pflichtig sein söllin [...]. (304, WUG, 18th, leg, : 402) [...], daß solches laut mandats vom 11. novembris 1711 ihme alß unßerem Statthaltern zu gestatten gebühren thüe; worüber wir befunden, daß die landschaflt ihre befuegsamme harinn nit erwisen, [...]. (304, WUG, 18th, leg, : 380) Vnnd als er nun also gemartret ward / enthielt er sich / also das er keinen schray noch beklagung sunder starckmutiklich das volck tat ermanen. Vn also das volck beweget das sy auffstünde[n] vnd wurffen den tyrann mit steinen zetode. (945, WUG, 15th, lit, : 36) wellich sich vndereinandner selb schmachten ode verleczten/ die solten gestraft werden. Vnnd doch die fechter vnd kempfer erten die vndereynander kempften vn[n] sich selbs täte verlecze[n] dz ander das sy verpoten heten vndeinander heymlich zu liegen [...]. (945, WUG, 15th, ht, : 20)

78

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

Welcher aber fìlrsetzlich treffentlicher weis darwider handlen tette, der solle der obrigkeit ie nach beschaffenheit der mißhandlung in willkürliche straff verfallen sein [...]. (308, WUG, 17th, leg, : 600) Dass sie mit Zittern und mit Zagen / Flohen / als wann man sie thet jagen. (217, WUG, 17th, ht, : 44) North Upper German (n = 6): si thätten auch absagen / Regenspurg diser Stat. / das thun wir pillich klagen. / und wann ain Jud betrat / ain, der etwas wolt kaufen, / den fürgang wol er han. / er thet im stark vorlaufen / und ließ sich gar nit strafen. (270, NUG, 16th, lit, : 412) Eur Mayestat thu sich fuersehen! Dann deß Feinds Hertz das ruhet nit; (90, NUG, 17th, ht, : 35) wer sie etwan gefunden hett / daß er sie mir zustellen thet. / mit dem hilff thu ich versprechen, / will mich an meim Bruder rechen, [...]. (90, NUG, 17th, lit, : 52) Wenn ir euch thet des listes remen / Und versamlet ein zeug verborgen (140, NUG, 16th, lit,: 34) Also thuet ir nit fuersthch wandeln, / Sonder gleich einem bößwicht handeln. (140, NUG, 16th, lit, : 36) Drumb ichs ftirwar thet gerne sehn, / Dass diese Sach mucht für sich gehn. (242, nug, 16th, lit,: 21) East Upper German (η = 9): wie der Sententz des'z todes in lateinischer sprach [...] ihme abgelesen worden / so habe er nicht das geringste darwider geredt / sondern noch darzu sein heiliges haupt geneigt / als thue er dessen sich bedancken: [...]. (965, EUG, 17th, theo, : 47) Das's auch mánniglich vor dir die knie biegen tháte / und also mit dir dein adelicher stamm konte ewig prangen / vanitas vanitatum sagt Georgius wie verlogen und betrogen ist der menschen prangen. (965, EUG, 17th, theo, : 39) Dem weltkuendigen tempel salomonis zu sehen waren / ist auch gewest / das'z der altar des'z herm alidori aus lauter holtz / und dannoch immerzu tháte darauf das feuer brennen ohne einige Verletzung des'z altars / [...]. (965, EUG, 17th, theo, : 42) wie nun fast auf solche weis der h. soldat georgius so behertzhafft geredt / tháte der tyrann gantz unsinnig ergrimmen / und Messe ohne lángem Verzug Georgium auf ein mit scharffer dolchen bewaffnetes rad anbinden / [...]. (965, EUG, 17th, theo, : 41) Sein lannd vnd purg leich ich dir vnd dein magen. / Sunst wardt uerkauffet Lorandin, / mit gwallt, an schulld tet man von lanndt in iagen. (456; EUG, 15th, ht, : 7) Solt ich ewr person vasst loben vnd geüden, [...] tät ich ew das sagen vnd fülrbringen, [...]. (123, EUG, 15th, did, : 98)

79

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

vnd ob ich rechtleich zimlich gewynn nit suchen tat [. ..]. (123, EUG, 15th, did, : 92) Tat aber eur genad mir das vergunnen vnd verleyhen, [...]. (123, EUG, 15th, did, : 93) Und für dismals letztlichen were es gar gut und fast ratsamb, das man der burgerschaft aigentumbliche Waldung in Wulgersgraben gelegen umbgehen tete und aida in ain und andern reiflich betrachten, was nuz oder schaden gedeien mechte. (289, EUG, 17th, leg, :129)

Altogether, the forty-three instances were found in a total of twenty-three texts, which, with the exception of NG (only one text), were fairly evenly distributed across all dialect areas (between three to five texts per dialect area).

14th 15th 16th 17th 18th

NG did (1)

WCG

ECG

WUG

—

—

—

—

—

—

lit (2)

lit (2), dev (1) theo (1), dev(1) leg (8)

lit (3), chron(1)

litd) lit (4), leg(l)

—

-

--

NUG

EUG —

—

lit (3) lit (2) ~

did (2), lit (2) —

leg(l), theo (4) -

Bearing in mind that these statistics need to be taken with caution as they include only figures pertaining to indisputable instances of subjunctive auxiliary tun,1 it is striking that no regular patterns occur similar to our findings of the spatial, temporal and text-type distribution of auxiliary tun in general. The fünction of "subjunctive" appears to be a well-distributed, normal property of the auxiliary with no specific stigmatization attached. 2.9.2.1.2 Imperative Although not mentioned by Fischer (1998), the imperative mood is frequently listed independently in various dialect dictionaries and grammars as one of the specific functions of the auxiliary.2 All the occurrences of the imperative auxiliary tun found in Corpus 1 are listed below: NG (n = 0): no occurrences

1 2

It was shown above that many instances of subjunctive tun may go unrecognised. Furthermore, there is no mention of this in Philipp (1980: 124), Solms & Wegera (1993: 241f.), nor Ebert (1993: 418f., 422), etc, suggesting that the use of the imperative is not specific or special to tun.

80

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

West Central German (n = 15): Las mich der trew gemessen, / hertzallerliebste mein, / thu mir mein aufschließen, schleus mich hertzlieb hinein [...]. (313, WCG, 16th, lit, : 50) mit dem wilt nicht fem gnug heben, // thu dich nicht so hart betrueben [...] (313, WCG, 16th, lit, : 46) Ach las schöns heb gefallen dir, / mein dienst mit rechten trewen. / Erzeig dich freundlich gegen mir, / und thu mein hertz erfrewen. / Ein kleine weil kom her und eil, / thu mir dein lieb erweisen, / so wil ich dich, gantz sicherlich/ mein leben lang [...]. (313, WCG, 16th, ht, : 14) desgleichen thu du mir erzeigen // mein hertz ist gantz dein eigen [...]. (313, WCG, 16th, ht, : 45) du bist mein schätz auff erden: /[...]/ thu mir zu willen werden [...]. (313, WCG, 16th, ht, : 14) nim auff zu gut, was ich dir sag/ thu dich dama nicht kehren // mich dieser bitt gewehren [...]. (313, WCG, 16th, lit, : 41) wo sol ich mich hinkehren [...] / / thu mich weisen und lehren [...] (313, WCG, 16th, ht, : 15) hoffiiung thut mich emeren, / nach dir so werd ich kranck, / thu bald herwiderkehren, / die zeit wird mir so lang. (313, WCG, 16th, lit, : 13) Huet dich vor argen worten, / nicht schmehe wib noch priesterschaft, / so bist du vor got tugenthafft, / din lob das tut sich höhen. [...] Sun, huete dich vor gehen zom, / was damit ist dik er verlorn, / tu es mit siten bedenken. (44, WCG, 15th, lit/did, : 75) Sich ufmit sinn und tu die weit bekennen [...]. (44, WCG, 15th, lit/did, : 77) Got vatter herr, mit diner macht / Hab min in dinen gnaden acht, / Tû dich gen mir erbarmen. (44, WCG, 15th, lit/did, : 75) Des heiligen geistes gaben din / Din gotlich kraft tu senden, / Bös begir tu an mir wenden: / durch all din werden master / erbarm dich über den tichter. (44, WCG, 15th, lit/did, : 58) O tue min nit vergessen! [...] (44, WCG, 15th, lit/did, : 58) Wolda dan, wir dir zeigen / Wer orten er mag sein; / Zum Creutzweg thu dich neigen, / Dort findest ihn allein. [...]. (627, WCG, 17th, theo/erb, : 53) Thut zierhch sammen raffen / Die Verßlein in bezwang, / Vnd setzet sich zun Schaaffen, / Pfeiffi manchen Hirtensang. (627, WCG, 17th, theo/erb, : 19)

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

81

East Central German (n = 1): [...] auch diese Kunst / Frommer Gott / biß an das End / Thu erhalten sie in Gunst / Förder solch Werck unser Händ. (nlOOO, ECG, 17th, did, : 106) West Upper German (n = 4): hie frod haben und gemach / tut marter liden, / schrien ach / in der tieffen helle dort (16, WUG, 15th, lit/did, : 348) der sund glust erstirbet / in im und wirt der Got berait / tu hden, miden was man sait / er wirt im alles lihte, / bus, reiwe, bihte / daz im e was din bürde / e im genad wurdi, / und daz im waz ze tuend sur / verrent, das wirt im suers hur. (16, WUG, 15th, lit/did, : 1023) so tu mit allen dingen schin / Got und dem ursprung sin, / swas du mit dem hin wider gast. / in im, durch in viht und ring! / to liden, miden allu ding! (16, WUG, 15th, lit/did, : 1523) Die vnfelhgen vnd schmâchten verspot nit / wann sy werden dich hassen, so es dir wolgeet thu dich nit übernehmen / dann ob es dir hinach ubel geett das du nit verspot werdest. Du solt wissen die Verwandlung des geluck manlich czu gedulden. (945, WUG, 15th, ht, : 17) North Upper German (n = 7): Hast auch wol manchen groben / Im aliter dich thu loben / Und vor seym tot (115, NUG, 15th, lit/did,: 41) Thu nach sechs dingen werben [...]. (115, NUG, 15th, lit/did, : 39) Oder ist dir das Gelt zu schwer? / Wann dirs zu schwer ist / thu mirs sagen / So will ichs auch ein wenig tragen. (645, NUG, 17th, lit, : 131) Du junger laur, sag an du, / Was geht dich diese handlung an? / Thu ein weil in ein winckel stan. (140, NUG, 16th, ht, : 16) Ir bößwicht, last die jungfraw gehn! / Wehrt euch und thut doch stiller stehn! (140, NUG, 16th, lit, : 9) Sonder nur, das ich bhalt mein leben. / O Herr Vetter, thut mir vergeben! (90, NUG, 17th, lit, : 29) So thut in dem Tempel zuschicken! (90, NUG, 17th, lit, : 24) East Upper German (n = 2): lieber Crist, tû uns dein hilf schein

[...]. (25, EUG, 15th, theo, : 36)

Armer eilender thü nit spotten! (123, EUG, 15th, did, : 103)

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

82

Century 14th

NG

WCG

ECG

WUG

NUG

--

-

-

-

-

-

lit (4), did (3)

lit (2), did (2)

theo (1), did (1)

-

-

lit (2)

--

did

—

lit (3)

—

15th

—

16th

--

17th

—

lit (5), did (5) lit (8) theo (2), dev (2)

—

EUG

There were twenty-nine instances of imperative auxiliary tun, found in thirteen texts from all dialect areas. The fourteenth century is not represented, and neither are the text types "chronicles" and "legal." Overall, the use of the imperative in a taw-construction is much rarer than that of, for example, subjunctive which may be partially due to the fact that the imperative is only used in dialogues and therefore is restricted by and large to literary texts — this is borne out by the table above. The few instances of imperative tun in other text types are mainly used in prayers. 2.9.2.1.3 Indicative The use of auxiliary tun in the indicative mood does not merit special attention as the indicative is the default option and all those instances of tun which are neither subjunctive nor imperative will automatically be in the indicative. The comparatively low number of both imperative and subjunctive auxiliary tun (forty-three and twenty-nine respectively), as compared with the absolute number of all tun in the corpus (greater than 600), shows that the tunperiphrasis occurs mainly in the indicative mood, with a small but noticeable number of instances in other mood forms, thus paralleling by and large the distribution of other verbs and auxiliaries. It certainly is not the case that a marked mood (subjunctive or imperative) is predominantly expressed by auxiliary tun, and thus any postulation that tun is a specific marker for these functions is seriously contested. 2.9.2.2 Tense 2.9.2.2.1 Present and Past Tense There is an overwhelming preference for using auxiliary tun in the present tense, as is shown by the following data. The absolute numbers and percentages of instances of tun are given below (other tenses, e.g. present perfect, are not taken into consideration in this table):

83

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

dialect area NG WCG ECG WUG NUG EUG total

present tense 12 (75%) 138(79%) 34 (68%) 55 (60%) 91 (73%) 79 (58%) 409 (69%)

past tense 4 (25%) 36 (21%) 16 (32%) 37 (40%) 34 (27%) 57 (42%) 184(31%)

total 16 174 50 92 125 136 593

Interestingly, the fact that present tense is much more frequently realised by tun than past tense is uniform across all dialect areas, with the individual regional deviation from the overall mean value not exceeding 11%. This result supports the contention that auxiliary tun does not vary across regions: there is only one auxiliary tun — not various homophonous types of tun. The data provides no obvious hint to explain why present tense tun is much more frequent than past tense tun. However, it is likely to be the case that the independent tendency of German to avoid the simple past tense (preterite decay or Präteritumsschwund, cf. section 3.3.2 below) may be at least part of the reason why there are comparatively few instances of past tense tun. Furthermore, it should be noted that the table lists instances of morphologically marked tenses, i.e. instances where future time reference is realised by present tense morphology are listed under 'present tense' in the table above. 2.9.2.2.2 Other Tenses Given the overwhelming distribution of tun in the simple present and simple past tenses, the questions arises as to why tun is only rarely found with periphrastic tenses, e.g. the perfect, as shown below in the complete list of tun + perfect from Corpus 1 : (55) Der unbild mag ich nicht mehr hörn. / Ir habt den kuenig thun ermörn [...]. (140, NUG, 16th, lit, : 16) (56) Mein Agrippa, es geht die sag, / Amulius hab gestrichen tag / Sein Bruder thun ins elend jagen / Vnd seinen Sohn lassen erschlagen (90, NUG, 17th, Ut, : 31) (57) ir Teuffei thun durch sie Warsagn. / Amulius der thet sie fragn, / Ob er das Reich solt nemen an / Vnd sein Bruder treiben davon. / Daß haben wir jm gut geheissn, / Darnach auch jn thun vnterweissn, / Daß er sein Vatter liß erschlagn, / [...]. (90, NUG, 17th, lit, : 37) (58) So haben sie dich auch thun verschwetzen, / Wi du auch solt geheissen hon ein metzen [...]. (79, WUG, 16th, did, : 18)

84

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

(59) Er manet die brueder hicziklichen zu der behaltnis der regel vnd sprach, das er nut dar hette gesetzet noch sin selbes listen, wen das er die alle hette gedun schriben, als jm von gott was erofnet. (57, WUG, 15th, theo, : 65) The most striking aspect is, of course, that in a corpus of more than 600 instances of auxiliary tun only five (from four texts, two UG dialect areas, three centuries and three text types) are found in the perfect tense.3 Due to the rules of the grammar, tun is, of course, non-finite in these instances. Assuming that tun is a semantically vacuous element, the rarity of its non-finite form is explained in that its presence neither alters the verb order / placement (and therefore focus structure) nor realises any functions of the finite verb (number, person, tense). Its presence is truly redundant and thus there is no reason to use it with the perfect tense, where both these purposes (i.e. enabling the placement of lexical verb in the rheme position and realisation of finite verb features) are ensured by the presence of the finite auxiliary of haben. The question remains, of course, how to explain that five instances of auxiliary tun with perfect tense were found. A cursory look over the examples reveals that examples (55-58) above are from end-rhyming verse: one plausible suggestion is that the presence of tun is justified to ensure that the lexical verb occurs in the infinitive rather than the participle as traditionally selected by the auxiliary haben, as attempted in example (60): (60a)

Synthetic, present tense of ermörn : * Der unbild mag ich nicht mehr hörn. / Ir ermordet den kuenig (no endrhyme, wrong tense) (60b) Analytic, perfect tense of ermörn : * Der unbild mag ich nicht mehr hörn. / Ir habt den kuenig ermordet (no endrhyme) (60c) Analytic, perfect tense of ermörn with tun insertion: * Der unbild mag ich nicht mehr hörn. / Ir habt den kuenig gethun ermörn (tun does not match attested form in example 55) This is, however, not confirmed by the data: if haben was to select a participle, and tun was included as a "participle prevention" strategy, we would expect tun to be in the participial form; this clearly is not the case in (55-58) where tun is always in the infinitive.4 The explanation does not hold for either example as the target of an end-rhyming infinitive is not required. A closer look at the instances of tun in (55-59) reveals that all have causative reading. As regards example (59), it is not beyond doubt from the quotation as to whether schriben is to be analyzed as a causative (it certainly could be a causative), as we do not 3

4

Fischer (1998: 125ff.) confirms these findings indirectly in that she did not find any instances of auxiliary tun with other non-lexical verbs. Due to a constraint in the grammar which will not be discussed here. For our purposes it suffices to say that haben appears not to have selected a participle in these examples.

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

85

know whether the subject wrote himself or had ordered the writing. The case for an analysis as causative tun is, however, considerably supported by the fact that in text 57, four other tun constructions are attested in total, all of which are causative.5 It therefore is reasonable to analyse geduon in example 1 as causative. The circumstantial evidence for (55-59) is less convincing: text 90 has thirty-six examples of tun, only two of which are causative (namely our examples 56 and 57), text 140 has thirty-three examples of tun, the only causative being example (55) above and, in text 79, our example (58) is the only instance of auxiliary tun. Thus there appears to be a link between the ability to co-occur with auxiliary haben and the interpretation of tun as causative. Obviously, it will not be suggested that the semantics of haben and causative tun somehow attract each other, given that haben is virtually reduced to a temporal meaning and that throughout Corpus 1, causative tun is found in all other tense forms as well. Instead, it is more plausible to suggest that causative tun is a different verb from auxiliary tun encountered so far. This postulation is justified both on semantic as well as syntactic grounds. As argued throughout this book, auxiliary tun is semantically empty and thus can occur freely in many distributions to "help out" with the representation of a verbal function, including functioning as a catalyst in the interaction with the themerheme structure of the sentence. Since it is semantically vacuous, no conflicting interpretation will be prompted by the insertion of this form of tun. Causative tun, however, is not free to be inserted in any context since its own semantic meaning (causation) will always interfere with the other semantics of the sentence. It can therefore not act as a "true little helper" (Fischer 1998) since its distribution is restricted by its semantics. Syntactically, the two sorts of tun differ in that auxiliary tun will only be inserted to realise a certain function that can otherwise not be represented; it therefore follows that it will not occur in perfect tense constructions where both the verbal functions of person, tense, and number and the focus function of "move VLexicai to Rheme" are realised by the perfect tense auxiliary. However, causative tun could occur in a perfect tense context as it adds specific semantics to the sentence that could otherwise not be represented, i.e. causative reading. It thus follows from this semantic difference between tuncamatm and tuniWüi¡aiy that there is also a syntactic difference which is attested in Corpus 1 by the fact that all examples with [+perf] (i.e. 55-59 above) are of causative tun. This explanation is independently confirmed by the fact that these observations do not just hold for the combination of perfect tense with tun. As is shown below, the only examples of tun + infinitive with another auxiliary are instances of causative tun : (61) das toben des vremden wirstu nidirn und wirst ire vrucht adir geslechten tun welken als einis pregilndin wolkens. (69, ECG, 14th, theo, : 32) 5

Including, for the moment, example 55.

86

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

(62) noch vwer einvaltikeit sol vch nit erschreken, won als mir von vnserem herren ist jn der worheit erzeiget, so will gott vch tun wachsen in einer michli mengi vnd wil vch manickvaltiklich meren von der genod sines segens. (57, WUG, 15, theo, : 55) (63) Er bewert die regele vnd gebot in, daz si solten bredigen den ruwen, vnd allen den leig bruederen, die dem kneht gottes hatten nochgevolget, den det er gemacht werden kleine blatten, daz si gottes wort ftilichen moechten bredigen. (57, WUG, 15, theo, : 58) In addition, the frequent lexicalised (Ebert 1993 : 404f.) construction causative zu wissen tun also occurs with different (additional) auxiliaries, thus in a different distribution from the semantically vacuous auxiliary tun. Given the syntactic difference between periphrastic and causative tun, it is expected that causative tun occurs in non-finite forms, in contrast to periphrastic tun : (64) Und wo auch plib sein kunglich er, / Sollt er ym thun zu wissen (115, NUG, 15th, lit/did, : 10) (65) Das wil ich euch wol zu wissen thun, Dafür sorget nur nicht, Ich wil hingehen, vnd sehen, Ob ich bey meinem Bruder kommen könne. (636, NG, 16th, lit, : 385) To summarise, the occurences of auxiliary tun with tense and mood marking can be readily explained by resorting to the general properties of auxiliary verbs without having to imply any /««-specific functions. The apparent oddity of the low frequency of tun in the perfect tense, i.e. co-occurring with auxiliary haben, can plausibly be explained by categorizing auxiliary tun and causative tun as separate verbs: this suggestion is supported by the semantic and syntactic differences between the two tun. 2.9.2.3 Focus 2.9.2.3.1 Emphasis In contrast to modern English, where the auxiliary do itself is focused by way of audible phonological stress in (66)

Whatever you think, Susi did say that she liked me!

auxiliary tun canno/ receive phonological stress: (67a) * Den Kuchen tust du jetzt nicht essen. (67b) Den Kuchen tust du jetzt nicht essen.

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

87

Nonetheless, the use of tun to enable marked focus constructions has been postulated by a large number of researchers as well as dialect dictionaries, as illustrated in the respective sections 2.5, 2.7 and 2.8 above. Whilst Philipp (1980: 120) admits emphasis to be the only function of the /««-periphrasis, if indeed it has any functions ("wenn überhaupt"), Ebert (1993: 395) does not mention it directly but merely states that auxiliary tun is frequent in verse. Clearly the very nature of identifying focus properties of historical texts is very difficult, especially as there is the constant danger that using one's grammaticality judgements based on NHG to analyse ENHG sentences will potentially overlook the differences between NHG and ENHG. Nonetheless, due to the lack of a better method, I will attempt to analyse the role played by tun in the focal structures of ENHG sentences, using the sufficiently strong basis of textual evidence from Corpus 1. As shown above, the only use of auxiliary tun which is grammatical in modern standard German is in V-topicalisation structures (Duden 1 21989: 1569) where the lexical verb is in the theme or topic position I and the auxiliary in the finite verb position II. In Corpus 1, only one instance of this type is found: Lieder tichten tu nit mehr / Das rät ich dir bi miner er, / Davon man tanzen tut [...]. (44, WCG, 15th, lit/did, : 68)

The example is found in verse which might contribute to the explanation that Fischer (1998) found no instances in her (prose only) corpus, but it serves to refute her suggestion that the construction, although clearly very rare, "developed only in more recent times" (Fischer 1998: 131), citing the DWB (1935: 445) where the first attestation is from the mid-eighteenth century.6 2.9.2.3.2 Theme-Rheme In contrast to this scarcity of evidence, there appears to be greater empirical support to suggest the use of auxiliary tun as a catalyst to enable changes in the theme-rheme structure, in particular by forcing the lexical verb to surface in the focused position of rheme, which has been shown in a little more detail for NHG in Abraham & Fischer (1998). However, there is some doubt as to whether this observation can be traced to a specific function of auxiliary tun : (69a) (69b) (69c)

6

Rüdiger gab Gisela den Kuchen. Rüdiger tat Gisela den Kuchen geben. Rüdiger möchte Gisela den Kuchen geben.

A similar example of fronting of the lexical verb is: Auß senden er y n t e t e / I n fremde lant; (115, NUG, 15th, lit/did, : 50) where, however, both subject and direct object are also preposed.

88

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

The insertion of tun in the finite verb position (V2) causes a reorganisation of the theme-rheme distribution with the rheme being den Kuchen in (69a) and geben in (69b) and (69c). Speakers use this mechanism to emphasise particular phrases, and the use of tun in V2-position to achieve certain focal effects follows from more general rules of German grammar. Again, it is not a particular feature of tun that activates the mechanism as is shown by the fact that (69c) is grammatical. (69c) achieves the same rheme-reorganisation effects as (69b); however, in comparison to (69a), (69c) adds the semantics of mögen whilst (69b) is a more neutral alternant to (69a) (except, of course, for the changed theme-rheme structure), due to the semantic vacuity of tun. To conclude, it is not surprising that in a grammar which contains auxiliary tun, the auxiliary is used, just like any other auxiliary, to alter the theme-rheme structure of a sentence by preventing the lexical verb from occupying the V2 position. This is not to say, however, that tun is somehow the default or preferred marker for the theme-rheme alternation strategy or that one of the specific functions of tun is to change emphasis. Rather, this property is common to all auxiliaries. Returning to the issue of tun in ENHG, the evidence in Corpus 1 shows that tun is particularly abundant in verse, and that in sentences with auxiliary tun, the infinitive very often occurs in the sentence-final rhematic position, i.e. the Nachfeld frequently remains unoccupied. These findings suggest that the insertion of tun is indeed merited by the speaker's / writer's desire to focus the lexical verb: (70) [...] vnd [ich] wil mich derogestalt bessern, das jhr sonderlich wolgefallen darab haben sollet, Vnd thu mich gantz dienstlich bedancken, Das jhr mich wider zu gnaden auffgenomen, Ich wils auch hinwider Söhnlich zuuerdienen wissen, [...]. (636, NG, 16th, lit, : 360) In this rather typical example of non-rhyming prose, the speaker appears keen to express his honest desire to express his gratitude, as shown by the intensifier gantz and the presence of the lexical verb bedancken in the rhematic position. Note that in these examples the Nachfeld is occupied, although the lexical verb nonetheless receives special grammatical focus. In (71) Vnnd dar, vber min gebend / vnd so dick ich denn stein brachen wolt / det ich abschabenn / das plût das er frisch ward des geliehen sin puluer das merer teil vnder die obgenanten puluer gethon vnd also gebracht. (941, WUG, 15th, sei, : 26) the focus on abschabenn, grammatically achieved by fan-insertion, is also graphematically underlined by the presence of the Vir gel after the infinitive, with the direct object das plût in the Nachfeld. The use of sentence-final infinitives in end-rhyming verse can be seen as a subtype of focus constructions in that the phrase order is deliberately altered to achieve a marked focus effect,

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

89

without (necessarily) resorting to any phonological strategies of special intonation or phonological stress. Importantly, the case is not being made that all instances of auxiliary tun are due to the desire to achieve a marked focus pattern, or to achieve an infinitival end-rhyme which could otherwise not been achieved. Instead it is suggested that the (semantically vacuous) auxiliary tun was an ideal grammatical candidate to alter phrase structure for whatever reason, including the wish to achieve focal markedness, without having to resort to ungrammatical structures, or to enrich the interpretation of the sentence by adding features such as [+perfect] or [+modal] etc. Once it was established that /M«-insertion could be used comparatively freely to move the lexical verb into the rhematic position, the speakers were, of course, free to extend the operation to achieve different effects, e.g. the "Betonung der Tatsächlichkeit" as suggested for Rhenish German (but probably attested much more widely) as in (72)

child: mother:

Mama, ich kann nicht mehr. Liebes Kind, du TUST das jetzt aufessen! (hypothetical example)

where the ^«-periphrasis is indeed used with audible phonological stress on the auxiliary. Therefore, although there is clear evidence that not all instances of auxiliary tun in end-rhyming verse involved the positioning of the infinitive at the end of the sentence or line, it is not to suggest that the postulation of tun as a catalyst in theme-rheme operations is wrong. However, if the argumentation outlined above is to be up to scrutiny, it is to be expected that there is a great number of sentence-final infinitives, especially but not exclusively in endrhyming verse. Given the problems involved with analyzing the focal structures of sentences of historical stages of language, it seems advisable to use objective methods as much as possible, i.e. to exclude those where a high degree of intuitive grammaticality judgements is required. As the use of auxiliary tun in theme-rheme operations will typically imply that the auxiliary linearly precedes the infinitive, the corpus was scanned to compare the instances of "tun before infinitive" versus "infinitive before tun" with a selection of each type (one from each dialect area) presented below.7 2.8.2.3.3 Tun Before Infinitive Phoebus mit sehr großen Zeugen, weil die schoene Dafnis ward, in den Lorbeeren verkahrt, taete Tag und Nacht sich plagen: doch zagt Phoebus nicht so sehr, weil ich zage noch viel mehr. (824, NG, 17th, lit, : 36) Erweckt sie leist mit allem fleis / dz er sie nit thet erschrecken, / mein auffenthalt, mach dich auff bald, / der wechter thut uns wecken. (313, WCG, 16ht, lit, : 42); (endrhyme) 7

The choice of examples here, especially with regard to the alternation of end-rhyme vs. nonrhyming prose is not representative or in any way statistically meaningñil.

90

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

Weil ich / was ich ergreiff mit klawn / In meinem Magen thu verdawn. / Das ist mein Land / da thu ich schwebn / Da wo die schwartze Moren leben / [...] (nlOOO, ECG, 17th, did, : 109); (end-rhyme) Vereiniget so fein vnd eben / So thun sie uns die Leibfarb geben: [...]. (217, WUG, 17th, lit, : 49); (end-rhyme) Also thuet ir nit fuerstlich wandeln, / Sonder gleich einem bößwicht handeln. (140, NUG, 16th, lit, : 36); (end-rhyme) WEr ye seinr tochter gerte, / den furt er auf dy prugken, / da von im leben verte, / starck riemen thuet der vngetrewe zucken. (456, EUG, 15th, lit, : 14); (end-rhyme) infinitive before tun Alsdann von Woll vnd Leder gut / Zween runde Ballen machen thut / [...]. (nlOOO, ECG, 17th, did, : 121); (end-rhyme) Gleichwie es die Erfahrung ergibt, dass die Christen- und Judenschlachter hieselbsten dergleichen schlachte Kalber schlachten und verkaufen thuen, dass es ekelhaft ist dergleichen Kalbfleisch zu sehen oder darob zu speisen, [...]. (275, WCG, 18th, leg, : 335) Als her spreche: ' vorhenges mir / Daz ich iz willigen tu, / Nicht entwine mich da zu, [...]. (275, NG, 14th, did, : 41); (end-rhyme) Und fur dismals letztlichen were es gar gut und fast ratsamb, das man der burgerschaft aigentumbliche Waldung in Wulgersgraben gelegen umbgehen tete und aida in ain und andern reiflich betrachten, was nuz oder schaden gedeien mechte. (289, EUG, 17th, leg, : 129) Recht hertzlich Euch jetzt wuenschen thu / Ohn alles arg: Und auch darzu / Tausent gesunder Tag in Ruh [...]. (217, WUG, 17th, lit, : 37); (end-rhyme) Man hoert taeglich mehr boeß als gut, / Berichts weiß man auch sagen thut, / Daß ein Vestalisch Jungfrau frey / An jren Ehm geschwechet sey [...]. (90, NUG, 17th, lit, : 24); (end-rhyme) Due to the nature of the texts (pragmatic influence of the writers) as well as the grammar (in subclauses "infinitive before tun" is occasionally required due to the syntactic properties of certain complementisers), the following numerical figures are to be taken as tendencies, rather than providing an insight into the absolute number of instances where tun is used to interact with theme-rheme operations.

91

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

tun before infinitive infinitive before tun total tuns

NG 11 (= 69%) 5 (=31%) 16

WCG 138 (= 76%) 43 (= 24%) 181

ECG 28 (= 56%) 22 (= 44%) 50

WUG 62 (= 67%) 31 (= 32%) 93

NUG 103 (= 81%) 24 (= 19%) 127

EUG 108 (= 79%) 29 (= 21%) 137

The statistics show very clearly that tun much more frequently precedes the lexical verb than that it follows it. In the light of the comments made before, this result can be seen as evidence that in the overwhelming majority of instances of auxiliary tun, the lexical verb does occupy the rhematic position, suggesting that at least in some cases the reason for inserting the auxiliary into the sentences was to achieve this particular effect. To summarize, the data suggests that auxiliary tun was deliberately used by speakers and writers of ENHG as a catalyst in focus structures. Whilst V-topicalisations, common in modern standard German, are still rare in ENHG, there are plenty of examples of auxiliary tun in end-rhyming verse,9 illustrating that the device was commonly used to create end-rhyme, a sub-type of focus whereby the rhematic element is contrasted with the rhematic element in the following line. Following the line of argument postulated throughout this monograph, the frequent use of auxiliary tun in end-rhyme and other focus structures is not due to a specific function of tun as a focus-marker or catalyst for focus: the rhematic structure is independent from the presence of tun, and the catalysing effect described above can be achieved by the insertion of any auxiliary. The frequency of tun in these structures is thus not due to a specific function of the auxiliary but, on the contrary, due to the lack of any specific functions or semantics. It is because of this semantic vacuity that poets were able to exploit the auxiliary in focus construction much more often than other auxiliaries, and thus, again, the lack of a specified (poly-)functionality is the reason for the occasional abundance of auxiliary tun in ENHG focus structures. 2.9.2.4. Aspect As was shown above, the seminal works on modern German dialects make numerous claims on particular aspectual properties auxiliary tun is said to express, in particular durativity, habituality, iterativity and progressiveness. A similar suggestion has been made for ENHG auxiliary tun, by the DWB (1935), s

9

The total of 588 does not correspond with the total of Corpus 1 Belege (601 instances of auxiliary tun) as some examples (e.g. causative tun with perfect tense) have been excluded from this table since they technically involve a different verb. In fact, it was this abundance of auxiliary tun in ENHG verse which led Fischer to omit data from verse altogether: "The tun periphrasis in verse texts, which are strongly influenced by metre and rhyme, was not taken into consideration [in Fischer's study]" (Fischer 1998: 122). I hope to have shown in the discussion so far that this precaution is unnecessary as the properties of tun in verse do not differ from that in prose and thus data from verse is as valid as prose.

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The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

Ebert (1993), and Fischer (1998), and therefore, in this section, my corpus of ENHG language use will be examined to test whether any claims which suggest aspectual meaning of auxiliary tun can be verified. As reported above, researchers have openly admitted that identifying aspectual differences caused by auxiliary tun is often problematic due not only to the subtleness of the change in meaning, but also to the blurring contribution of the semantics of the lexical verb as well as to accompanying adverbials (Abraham & Fischer 1998: 39; Eichinger 1998: 361). Standard German has no verbal aspect, i.e. there is no grammaticalised verbal category that changes the internal temporal situation of the sentence proposition with regard to perfectivity or progressiveness.10 This is in contrast to ENHG, where at least three constructions have been identified to express a specific aspectual meaning at least in some examples: (73)

werden + Part Präs / Inf wollen + Part Präs / Inf sein + Part Präs / Inf

may express ingressive may express ingressive frequently expresses progressive (cf. Ebert 1993: 394f.)

As regards the aspectual function of tun, we therefore cannot resort to comparisons with modem German but need to establish the aspectual system expressed by tun solely on the basis of ENHG data. The greatest problem with the identification of aspectual nuances is due to the fact that the classification of lexical verbs with regard to Aktionsarten (which in themselves are very important to determine the default semantics of the sentence prior to tuninsertion and thus are related to the aspectual interpretation of a sentence) proves extraordinarily difficult (Duden 2, 1984: 93). Nonetheless, there are certain tendencies which can be sensibly grouped as types of Aktionsarten expressed by German verbs, following Duden 2 (1984: 92-94): i. temporal dimension a. perfective, terminative, resultative ingressive, inchoative: erblühen, aufbrechen, erblassen, besteigen, entbrennen,losrennen, aufstehen, abmarschieren, erklingen, entnehmen', (also transformative: erröten, reifen, altern)

egressive, resultative, finitive, terminative, effective: verblühen, verblassen, aufessen, verklingen, verbrennen, ausklingen', (also privative: häuten, enteignen) punctual, momentary: erblicken, finden, treffen, ergreifen, erschlagen, fassen, platzen b. imperfective, durative: blühen, schlafen, wachen, frieren, wohnen, sein, andauern 10

This is in contrast to e.g. English which has an aspectual distinction between progressive and nonprogressive (the former expressed by -ing), as well as a marker for habituality in the past tense (used to).

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

ii.

repetition iterative, frequentative, multiplicative: flattern, sticheln, krabbeln, grübeln,

iii.

93

streicheln

intensity intensive: schnitzen, schluchzen; (also iterative) less intensive, diminutive, attenuative: hüsteln, lächeln, liebeln

iv. causative, factive: schärfen, tränken The most striking thing about this list is, of course, the variation in the list of terminological alternatives, itself suggesting that the research literature is not always in agreement on the number and types of classes there are, as well as the identification of individual verbs to belong to a certain class of Aktionsart. This problem is further complicated by the fact that Aktionsarten can be affected or changed radically by the presence of adverbials (Hentschel & Weydt 1990: 34): (74)

schwimmen vs. über den See schwimmen (durative => resultative) an einem Roman schreiben vs. einen Roman schreiben (imperfective => resultative)

Given this uncertainty on the exact classification, I will follow Hentschel & Weydt in using a comparatively limited number of types of Aktionsarten to classify the lexical verbs of my Corpus 1: perfective Aktionsarten are subdivided into egressive, inchoative and punctual, whilst imperfective are grouped into iterative and intensive (Hentschel & Weydt 1990: 39). The method employed in this book to identify any potential aspectual marking by tun is to survey Corpus 1 for any distributional patterns of combinability of tun with certain infinitives. Thus, ideally, in order to find that tun does indeed express durativity, one would expect to find out that tun can only co-occur with infinitives and adverbials that are [+ durative] or at the very least infinitives that are not [- durative]. If, e.g. it is assumed that tun expresses durativity, the following would be ungrammatical and therefore should not be attested: (75a) * Der Zug Μ[+Αιπΐ1ινε] explodieren[+punctuai]. (75b) * Das Kind tut [ + d u r a tive] plötzlich[+punctual] einschlafen. since there is a direct clash between durativity and punctuality as marked on the infinitive and adverbial respectively. By way of negative elimination, it could be concluded from a grammatical attestation of (75) that tun does not mark durativity. This is not to say that evidence such as (75) suggests tun to be Indurative] but simply that it is not [+ durative]. This is an important point to note: if the evidence from Corpus 1 shows that tun can only co-occur with verbs

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The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

and adverbials of a certain Aktionsart X, it would not prove beyond doubt that tun itself is positively marked as also expressing that very Aktionsart by way of being [+ X], It would merely suggest that tun is not [- X]. Therefore, we can summarize that there is no way of proving a feature to be [+ X] but we can deduce indirectly that a feature is not [-X]. If we want to avoid the caveats employed by Abraham & Fischer (1998) and Eichinger (1998), namely that there could be tendencies but we must refrain from making any real claims on the actual contribution of tun to the aspectual meaning of the sentence, the only way to find out anything about the aspectual meaning of tun in ENHG is to examine whether tun is restricted to co-occur with certain types of Aktionsarten as expressed by adverbials or lexical verbs. It should be noted in this context that obviously the classification of individual examples is not always beyond doubt. However, as will be shown below, the general tendencies are overwhelming enough to ignore the few examples for which it was difficult to decide on an Aktionsart contained in the lexical verb or sentence. total no. of Vlex-

perfective (52%)

imperfective (40%)

causative (8%)

aktionsarten

dialect NG WCG ECG WUG NUG EUG total

27 192 56 107 136 160 678" (100%)

inchoative 4(15%) 7 (4%) 3 (5%) 1 (1%) 1 d%) 18(11%)

egressive 5(19%) 88 (46%) 27(48%) 51 (48%) 52 (38%) 54 (34%)

punctual 0 (0%) 7 (4%) 5 (9%) 8 (7%) 13(10%) 9 (6%)

iterative 0 (0%) 2 (1%) 2 (4%) 4 (4%) 7 (5%) 14 (9%)

durative 10(37%) 76 (40%) 16(29%) 34 (32%) 56 (41%) 51 (32%)

causative 8 (30%) 12 (6%) 3 (5%) 9 (8%) 7 (5%) 14 (9%)

34 (5%)

277 (41%)

42 (6%)

29 (4%)

243 (36%)

53 (8%)

distribution of auxiliary tun with regard to aktionsart of the lexical verb

The table shows very clearly that, across all dialect areas, auxiliary tun is just about as likely to occur with perfective (52%) as with imperfective verbs (40%). Causative tun is listed as a separate entry since, and as shown throughout this book, it constitutes a distinct type of tun + infinitive. The most obvious result of this examination of the Aktionsarten expressed by the lexical verb, occurring with auxiliary tun, is that the average figures of each Aktionsart across all dialects (bottom row) does not deviate in any significant way from the figure of each Aktionsart in any one dialect; the deviation is never greater than 7% from the average figure for the very frequent Aktionsarten egressive and durative and never greater than 6% in the less frequent ones inchoative, punctual, and

" The fact that the number of aktionart-classifications (678) exceeds the number of fun-attestations (601 ) is due to the occasional double-labelling.

Tun in ENHG - A New Analysis

95

iterative. The only exception to this comparatively balanced distribution is NG, where the figures for inchoative (15%) and causative (30%) are very high, whilst those for egressive (19%), punctual (0%), and iterative (0%) are very low. A linguistic explanation for this phenomenon may have to do with the special status of NG as a High German language written on "foreign territory", i.e. the Low German area; a statistical explanation will not fail to note that NG is, by a substantial margin, the least strongly represented dialect area with regard to number of texts.12 We can conclude from the evidence displayed in the table above that the distribution of auxiliary tun is not sensitive to the semantic specifications of the lexical verb; it occurs freely with any lexical verb in ENHG and thus behaves like any other auxiliary.13 Turning to the distribution of auxiliary tun with accompanying adverbials, the situation is similar in that there are no particular types of adverbials that cannot co-occur with tun. In this context it is important to note that at most only some 129 attestations (of 601 ¿««-attestations) include an adverbial that expresses or may express aspectual meaning of some sort. This relative scarcity of adverbials stands to some extent in support of Fischer (1998) in that an auxiliary tun that does have aspectual meaning would not need a supporting adverbial as the aspect / Aktionsart is readily expressed by the auxiliary. The situation is, however, not as easy to decypher: the role of the adverbial is often unclear with regard to its Aktionsart, furthermore, it matches rather than contradicts or enhances the semantics of the lexical verb anyway. In cases where an adverbial is absent, the importance of the presence of tun to establish a specific semantic reading of the sentence is similarly unclear, as discussed above, in that the semantics of the lexical verb provide sufficient information to establish the desired Aktionsart of the sentence. In this context, cf. the following selection of tun + infinitive with accompanying adverbials: tun with Imperfective Adverbials: Dem weltkündigen tempel salomonis zu sehen waren / ist auch gewest / das'z der altar des'z heim alldort aus lauter holtz / und dannoch immerzu tháte darauf das feuer brennen ohne einige Verletzung des'z altars / [...]. (immerzu; 965, EUG, 17th, theo; : 42) (durative / iterative) noch thet sein hercz ser peinen, (noch, 455, EUG, 15th, : 19) (durative) Ich mein die fran / nach der so lang det tasten / Die himlisch samnung durch ir mild [...]. (so lang; 115; NUG, 15th; lit/did; : 52) (durative) war es denn noch nicht genug, dass Mannes seine Plagen, du leibes Hartenstein, dir greulich schickte zu, der, wie man sagen tut, bei Nachten und bei Tagen [...]. (bei Nacht und Tagen; 824; NG; 17th; lit; : 34) (durative / iterative) 12 13

This apparent oddity is mainly due the peculiarities of the Heidelberg Corpus. Note that sein and werden but not tun have a restricted distribution as they are aspectual markers in ENHG (Ebert 1993:394).

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The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

was lest du mir zur letzte, / du schönes megdlein fein, du thust mich offt ergetzen, / wenn ich weit von dir bin. (oft, 313; WCG; 16th; lit; : 13) (iterative) was jemand in der kyrchen fand, / das kam den Juden haim zuhand. / groß dieb sie teglich theten machen, / in irer straf waren sie lachen. (täglich; 270; NUG; 16th; ht; : 407f.) (iterative)

tun with Perfective Adverbials: Schönburg, du schönes Haus, wie tustu ietzung klagen, / indem ein großes Teil von deiner Schönheit faellt / und wird gerissen hin [...]. (jetzt; 824; NG, 17th; lit; : 34) (durative => punctual) da sol ein ieder räumen zu rechter weil und zeit; wa aber der richter heüt ansagen tuet und findet in morgen nit im graben zuraumen, so ist er demrichterverfallen 12 XX. (,heute; 289; EUG; 17th; leg; : 133) (inchoative => punctual) wo aber derselbe den daumb in die feist nit nimbt und nun den andern damit schlagen tuet, der ist sich [...]. (nun; 289; EUG; 16th; leg; : 154) (iterative => punctual)

Recht hertzlich Euch jetzt wuenschen thu / Ohn alles arg: Und auch darzu / Tausent gesunder Tag in Ruh [...]. (jetzt,; 217; WUG; 17th; lit; : 37) (egressive => punctual)

Keeping in mind that this list is a limited selection, it is nonetheless striking that perfective adverbials seem to be changing the Aktionsart of the lexical verb towards punctuality by inserting punctual adverbials such as jetzt and nun. However, this picture may be slightly misleading in that the four examples, albeit genuine attestations of auxiliary tun, are also clear-cut in their analyses and thus more appropriate to be listed under the aforementioned heading, rather than the great majority of instances of adverbials co-occurring with auxiliary tun where the semantic analysis is difficult and inconclusive. In any case, the evidence supports the postulation that it is not the presence of the auxiliary that determines or changes the sentential semantics but rather the individual semantics of the lexical verb and any accompanying adverbials. Whatever the function of auxiliary tun may be in these examples, it is not to affect the Aktionsart or aspect of the sentence, and therefore any suggestions that tun in ENHG served as a marker for aspect, in particular durativity or habituality, has to be rejected. 2.9.2.5 A Note On Causative Tun Finally, a quick comment on the distribution of tun as a causative verb. Weiss (1956) showed for OHG and MHG that tun + infinitive originated as a causative verb which was to be replaced by machen and lassen from the MHG period. According to Weiss, tun continued to exist as a causative but developed a

Conclusion of Part I

97

further function, i.e. periphrastic auxiliary tun, from the early fourteenth century on and it is clearly evident from the data in my Corpus 1 as well as from comments by Wells (1990) and Ebert (1993: 404f.) that causative tun continued to exist well into the ENHG period, with last remnants attested in Ripuarian until the nineteenth century. In this book the view is taken that auxiliary tun is a dummy auxiliary, that is to say, its lexical entry is not specified for any particular function, be it grammatical, semantic or involved with sentence-level information packaging. All grammatical specifications that tun carries when inserted into a sentence are due to its properties as an auxiliary: no functions specific to tun need to be postulated to explain why it can be specified for tense, mood, number and person: these functions are common to all auxiliaries. This view explains most occurrences of auxiliary tun] the exceptions are all instances of causative tun. In contrast to periphrastic tun, causative tun does contain specific functions / semantics, namely causation. Furthermore, we saw above that whilst periphrastic auxiliary tun cannot co-occur with any other auxiliaries, causative tun is attested as a non-finite form, in co-occurrence with both tense auxiliaries (haben) and modal auxiliary verbs (wollen, können). Given this evidence of history (auxiliary tun emerged whilst causative tun still existed and continued to exist), semantics (auxiliary tun has none, while causative tun has very specific semantics) and grammar (auxiliary tun can only occur as a finite verb and thus is restricted to distributions where, for whatever reason, no other auxiliary can be selected whilst causative tun can be non-finite and can co-occur with modal and tense auxiliaries), it can safely be concluded that auxiliary tun and causative tun are two different verbs. 2.9.2.6 Conclusion Using the functions of tun as reported by the secondary literature as a starting point, this section dealt with each suggested distribution in turn and compared it with the evidence found in Corpus 1. It was shown that whilst specifications of tun for tense, mood and focus were properties common to all auxiliaries and thus not specific to tun, postulations of tun as a marker of aspect could not substantiated either in the light of the fact that the auxiliary co-occurs freely with lexical verbs and adverbials of all semantic types. Finally, in a brief note, a comparison of history, grammar, and semantics showed that causative tun is not a sub-type or variety of auxiliary tun but that, in fact, auxiliary tun and causative tun are two fundamentally different verbs.

2.10 Conclusion of Part I In part I of this monograph, the history and development of auxiliary tun in all WGmc. languages was reviewed in order to gain an understanding of its general distribution. It was found that the construction of tun + infinitive is common in

98

The Distribution of Auxiliary Tun

all WGmc. languages except Afrikaans. As regards its function, a wide range of different uses is attested crosslinguistically with causation being the distribution found in all older stages of the WGmc. languages and thus suggesting that causative is the functional origin of periphrastic tun. By the Middle Ages, the situation in ME, MHG and MD changed in that a new functional variety of tun emerged and it is at this point that the development of tun in the various languages takes different directions. In English, it became a grammaticalised marker for negation, questions and emphasis, in Dutch, it became a common property of several dialects with some functions reported to have an aspectual nature (Heerlen Dutch), in Frisian and Yiddish it gradually disappeared and in Low German its syntax became restricted to sub-clauses. As regards German, opinions are divided as to whether ENHG tun is polyfunctional (Fischer 1998, Langer 2000a) or semantically empty (Philipp 1980, Langer 2001). As regards standard German, the construction is virtually ungrammatical (exception: Vtopicalisation) whilst it is found in all modern German dialect areas in a variety of functions. As will be shown in the next chapter, this book proposes that the stigmatization of auxiliary tun as "bad German" is due to prescriptive comments made by ENHG grammarians and thus proves that aspects of the standard German were created or formed as a result of the suggestions and discussions by prescriptive grammarians. In order to substantiate this claim with regard to the /ww-stigmatization, it is necessary to rule out any other potential reason for its absence from the standard language. It was therefore crucial to identify the qualitative and quantitative distribution of auxiliary tun in order to determine whether it was marked for specific text-types, regions or temporal periods of ENHG. The analysis showed that there are no noticeable patterns of the distribution of auxiliary tun with regard to any of the aforementioned variables: it occurred in roughly 50% of the texts of any variable and thus whilst it cannot be said that the construction was anywhere nearly as frequent as other auxiliaries like haben or sein, neither is it the case that the construction was rare, as suggested by Fischer (1998). Therefore, the statistical analysis of language use in ENHG does not shed any light on the reasons why the tunperiphrasis became ungrammatical in standard German.

Part II 3. The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun 3.1 The Emergence of Standard German Early Approaches and Current Thinking In this section, an overview of the development of the standard German language is given, based on the outcome of the research of the last twenty years or so (e.g. Besch 1986, Besch 1987, Hartweg & Wegera 1989, Kriegesmann 1990, Penzl 1986, von Polenz 1991, von Polenz 1994, Wolff 1990). Although today, standard German is a clearly codified and thus definable language variety, the history of its emergence and development is by no means clarified or beyond dispute. In fact, according to some scholars, the emergence and development of standard German is the topic most beriddled with controversy in the historiography of the German language (Penzl 1984: 165). Penzl's view of the controversy is repeated in virtually every introduction to the history of standard German, with Besch expressing disappointment on the scarcity of generally agreed evidence and theories despite the extensive scholarly activity over more than 120 years (Besch 1986: 170). The main reason for this lack of agreement between scholars appears to be the large and indeterminate number of factors that were involved in the historical development, and views differ on the exact weighting of each factor, for example the role of the chancelleries and the importance of Martin Luther (Wolff 1990: 103). Despite these doubts, Penzl was optimistic that the research on the topic is progressing with no "wirklich wesentliche Teilstücke" missing from the overall picture (Penzl 1986: 165). This view is echoed by Besch (cited in Kriegesmann 1990: 283) who states that this period can be viewed "in nicht zu ferner Zukunft als die besterforschte historische Stufe der deutschen Sprache." 3.1.1 Early Approaches The earliest attempts to chart the history of standard German are by von Raumer (1854) (see Josten 1976: 14, Penzl 1986: 165, Hartweg & Wegera 1989: 36) and Müllenhoff (1863) had a similar line of argument (1863) (see Penzl 1986: 165, Besch 1986: 170, von Polenz 1991: 168f., BRS 1985: 1783,

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The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

Hartweg & Wegera: 36f.). Their accounts can be termed monogenetic and linear in the sense that one origin of the language was postulated and that there was a linear development from the German (Franconian) at Charlemagne's court in the ninth century marked the starting point of a continuous development of a prestige variety of German. Therefore, the höfische Dichtersprache of SW German (Alemannic, Swabian: Staufer) in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the gemeine Teütsch of SE German (EUG: identified with the Wettiner, Luxemburger, Habsburger) of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries and Meißnisch of EC German (ECG, Saxon: associated with the sächsische Kanzlei, Luther) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were seen as a continuation from the language of the Carolingian court, making a direct connection between medieval unifying tendencies and the unity of NHG (König 8 1991: 93). This suggestion, which binds the respective local setting of the prestige language to the place of residence of the emperor was rejected on the grounds that the pluricentricity of the development was underestimated (Hartweg & Wegera 1989: 37) and that there are "starke Zweifel an den Möglichkeiten schriftsprachlicher Einigung unter den Bedingungen des Mittelalters" (Besch 1987: 15). Burdach (1884) (cf. Wolff 1990: 109, Eggers 1969: 23, Josten 1976: 15, Penzl 1986: 165, Besch 1986: 170, Kriegesmann 1990: 107-127) rejected the idea of a linguistic continuity since Charlemagne and postulated instead that the German spoken in Prague under Charles IV (1346-1378) could be seen as the foundation of modern standard German, as it was here that UG and CG dialects were synthesized (König 8 1991: 93). Concentrating on aspects of syntax and style, Burdach suggested that the prominent status of Prague as a centre of early humanism, striving for purification and systematization of the language (Hartweg & Wegera 1989: 38), was reflected in its leading role regarding a prestige German. Whilst it is not to be denied that in the Prague chancellery there were tendencies to level out certain linguistic elements to enable a more supraregional communication, Besch concludes that Prague was an interesting prologue of "schreibsprachlicher Annäherung", but crucially not more than a prologue (Besch 1987: 17). These early theories of the history of standard German crucially involve the idea of continuity of a prestige variety of German since the Early Middle Ages. Durrell (1999, forthc. in 2000) showed that these views need to be seen as products of the political thinking in Wilhelmine Germany (cf. von Polenz 1991: 168f.): [T]he notion of a continuous single 'language' known as deutsch associated with a single people since Carolingian times is a myth driven by late nineteenth century nationalist ideology. (Durrell 1999:14) The idea that a German Hochsprache had existed continuously since the Middle Ages, an idea which was essentially supported by many leading

Early Approaches and Current Thinking

101

Germaniste of the nineteenth century, was postulated to facilitate the identification of the Germans with the newly founded II. Reich. By the 1920s, the thesis of linguistic unity since OHG times had become untenable. In direct response to Burdach's suggestion regarding the prominent status of the Prager Kanzleideutsch of the fourteenth century, the Leipzig dialectologist Frings (cf. von Polenz 1991: 169, Penzl 1986: 166, Hugo Moser 3 1957: 142f., Besch 1987: 18f., Wolff 1990: 109, Hartweg & Wegera 1989: 3943, Kriegesmann 1990: 128-154) postulated that the basis of modern standard German is to be found in the spoken German of those who, in the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries left their home in Northern, Central and Southern Germany to settle as part of the Ostkolonisation in what is now Silesia and Upper Saxony, i.e. the area of ECG (Besch 1987: 18). Crucially, Frings suggested that the language, which he termed ostmitteldeutsche Ausgleichssprache or Verkehrssprache was not based on any one dialect but was a creation of the new settlers incorporating aspects of various dialects in order to enable communication between people of different geographical origins. In contrast to Burdach's preference for the written, educated language, Frings assumed that his Ausgleichssprache was formed and initially only spoken1 by the settlers, long before the first written evidence was found in the thirteenth century. Es ist ein Gewächs des neudeutschen Volksbodens, eine Schöpfung des Volkes, nicht des Papiers oder des Humanismus. (Frings 1956, Π, p.16, cited in Hartweg & Wegera 1989:39)

Frings's model was subsequently rejected, partly because the existence of a "omd. Mischdialekt [...]" could never be attested (Hartweg & Wegera 1989: 41), partly because there is no actual evidence for a continuation or influence of the language of the settlers on the language of the scribes, the language of Luther and the NHG Schriftsprache (Besch 1968: 426). Furthermore, it is hardly probable that spoken language could have played a decisive part in the formation and development of a supraregional written language (Besch 1987: 38). Regarding the importance of the spoken language of the Meißen area for the emergence of standard German, Guchmann concludes that "es ist die Meißner literatursprachlicher Variante, nicht die Meißner Mundart" which formed the basis of the German literary language (Guchmann 1969: 183f., cited in Hartweg & Wegera 1989: 45).

1

A possible suggestion of a parallel to the situation in medieval England, where a similar linguistic compromise was struck in the form of the lingua franca can only be tentative as the lingua franca was combining two comparatively different languages and as pidgin communication spread across social boundaries (English = peasant, French = aristocracy).

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The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

Modern approaches generally agree that the assumption of a continuity from the spoken language of peasants or town people to the written language of chancelleries is viable, even allowing for evidence from beyond the field of linguistics (von Polenz 1991: 169). The lowest common denominator appears to be that standard German was created by the successive elimination of specific variants for different reasons, e.g. regional or sociolinguistic restriction (cf. Besch 1967, 1987, cf. also Kriegesmann 1990: 213-241, Hartweg & Wegera 1989: 44-48). Having introduced the earliest explanations for the origin of standard German, the following paragraphs will be used to sketch out the course of development as viewed by the current research literature. 3.1.2 The Standard Language up to 1600 Although a prominent status of late medieval Prague for the design of modern standard German could not be upheld, there were important developments by the fourteenth century when scribes in scriptoria (Schreibstuben) changed their language to suit the target audience, i.e. with regard to the regional background of the receiver of a given document. This scribal flexibility led to the emergence of supraregional written idioms {Schreiblandschaften, Besch 1967) and thus to a reduction of variety between the scribal dialects of German. This process led from a multitude of written dialects (Schreibdialekte) via a restricted number of supraregional written languages (Schreibsprachen) to a widely accepted written idiom with an ECG basis (Stedje 1989: 115). The research literature generally agrees that the most prominent factors that influenced the development of standard German in the earlier stages, i.e. up to C.1650, were the major scriptoria and chancelleries, the invention of printing, economic interests across dialect boundaries and the person of Martin Luther. [D]ie neuhochdeutsche Standardsprache [ist] nicht geradlinig aus einem bestimmten herrschenden Dialekt entstanden [...], sondern [hat] sich durch fortlaufende Ausgleichsprozesse ausgebildet [...]. An diesem Vorgang der Normierung bzw. Selektion aus unterschiedlichen Sprachvarianten waren vielfaltige Faktoren beteiligt, wie z.B. der zunehmende Schriftverkehr [...], die Erfindung und Verbreitung der Buchdruckkunst, das Ansehen der Sprache Luthers, der Ruhm von bestimmten kulturellen Zentren und der Ausbau des Schulwesens. (Takada 1998: 1 )

In the following paragraphs, these factors will be reviewed only very briefly; the reader is referred to the literature for a more comprehensive account. Of particular importance in the context of standardization were the scribal dialects of the chancelleries. Furthermore the development was certainly not hindered by the fact that German became more widespread as a medium of writing with regard to its overall quantitative distribution (the imperial chancellery changed

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from Latin to German in the fourteenth century). The striving towards uniformity between dialects led to the first supraregional languages of the chancelleries (Kanzleisprachen, cf. Hans Moser 1985), especially in cities that were part of a wide-ranging trade network, such as Nürnberg, Regensburg and Eger (Stedje 1989: 120). Note in this context that at this stage of the development, the struggle for language unity or rather surpraregional similarity was solely based on the desire to achieve better communication. Tendencies to purify German or to elevate its status to a more prestigious language for noncommunicative purposes (simply to prove its inherent beauty or particular superior age) did not manifest itself before the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This explains why up until the late sixteenth century, there was simply a levelling of certain linguistic variants but "noch keine bewußte und reflektierte Normung" (von Polenz 1991: 167). The levelling process was thus part of "die Alltagsroutine der Schreiber und Kanzleivorsteher im Sich-Einstellen auf die Schreib- und Lesegewohnheiten der jeweiligen Adressaten der Texte" (von Polenz 1991: 167). In this context, the language variety of the imperial chancellery in Vienna acted as a particular model {Sprachvorbild) (Stedje 1989: 120) more so due to the greater political importance of its documents rather than because of a conscious desire to propagate its written idiom as a prestige variety. Furthermore, its influence or range remained restricted to "auf eine schreibsprachliche Mitwirkung" in Eastern Southern Germany (von Polenz 1991: 166f.). Besch concludes that prior to the sixteenth century and prior to Luther, one can hardly speak of a the beginning of the NHG standard written language (Besch 1968: 245; also Besch 1987: 38). Besch also says, however, that the fifteenth century was crucial in laying the foundation of the rapid spread and development of the standard language in subsequent centuries (Besch 1987: 37). At the turn of the century of the sixteenth century, there were five major Schreibsprachen : • • • • •

Middle Low German, as the internationally used language of the Hanseatic league West Central German, as the written idiom of the largest German city Cologne West Upper German, as the language written in the Calvinist Switzerland East Central German, as the language of Meißen and the Reformation East Upper German, the gemeines Teutsch, as the language of the imperial chancellery and the Counterreformation (cf. Stedje 1989: 122f.)

Of these, the latter two, i.e. ECG and EUG, progressed more rapidly than the others after 1500 with ECG replacing WCG and NG in the course of the century (Schildt 1976: 132), whilst Swiss German writers adopted the EUG

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Schreibsprache during the seventeenth century (Stedje 1989: 140). In this context, the chancelleries, especially the Wettiner Kanzlei (ECG) (Wolff 1990: 109) and the Wiener Kanzlei (EUG) (Schildt 1976: 131) retained their prominent status, as is also evident from the numerous citations as language models in the metalinguistic texts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Josten 1976: 19-58, 91-97). Apart from the chancelleries, another important factor in the process of forming and extending supraregional idioms were the printers (cf. e.g. Wolff 1990: 108fif., von Polenz 1991: 181, Penzl 1986: 168, Kriegesmann 1990: 155-176, König 81991: 95) who were keen to extend their market by making the printed texts as regionally neutral or unexceptional as possible. In order to make their products marketable in larger areas and to increase the profit margins, printers and proof readers avoided regionally marked and archaic linguistic features and thus loosened their connection with the local dialect (Kriegesmann 1990: 157, Keller 1978: 363). This reasoning led to a levelling out of differences between the major Schreibsprachen, including the two main ones ECG and EUG (Schildt 1976: 132), in particular with reference to a "Vereinheitlichung der Orthographie" (Wolff 1990: 108) and consequently to a greater horizontal mobility of texts (Hartweg & Wegera 1989: 44).2 Crucially, this means that the standardization that did occur due to the printers' influence was not a cultural matter but an economically driven factor of the printers' market concerns (Kriegesmann 1990: 158). As regards the geographical strongholds, the relocation of centres of printing partly mirrors the geography of the developing standard German, namely from WUG3 (Straßburg, Basel, Zürich) at the mid-fifteenth century to WCG (Köln, Frankfurt) by the mid-sixteenth century and ECG (Erfurt, Wittenberg, Leipzig, Dresden etc.) by the beginning of the seventeenth century (Kriegesmann 1990: 165; cf. Stopp 1978: 245ff). The scholarly community generally agrees with Keller that "[t]he printing press was only one of the several innovating factors of the time" (Keller 1978: 363). A further factor which is frequently cited to have had a great influence on the design and spreading of a particular supraregional variety in the sixteenth century was Martin Luther (cf. Bach 1985, von Polenz 1991: 176, 187, 189, 243-258; von Polenz 1994: 147ff.; von Polenz 1986, Penzl 1986: 166f., Kriegesmann 1990: 178-212, Besch 1987: 38). His importance has been both under- and overestimated in the literature (first reference to Luther as a Sprachvorbild are from as early as the sixteenth century,4 cf. Josten 1976: 1032

3 4

This is not to say that printers of the same area or even town would have used identical orthographies (cf. Kriegesmann 1990: 15 8f. for a select list of variations). Curiously, Kriegesmann (1990: 165) categorises Mainz as WUG while Heidelberg as WCG! E g by Johann Clajus 1578. Notice that the religious confession is not always binding: in the same year the protestant Hieronymus Wolf rejected Luther as a language model and advocated the imperial chancellery instead (König ®1991: 104).

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126). This is partly to do with his position as the 'foremost protestant' (cf. Grimm's classification of standard German as a "protestantischer Dialekt"), the unprecedented success of his published works,5 his particular comments on the desired language for translation (use German as people speak it and not as humanists write it on the basis of Latin, cf. König 81991: 99) and on his own language use ("[ich] gebrauche der gemeinen deutsche Sprache, daß mich beide, Ober- und Niederländer, verstehen mögen" (König 81991: 95); "Ich rede nach der sechsischen cantzley"; Penzl (1984: 22); cf. in particular von Polenz 1986). In short, Luther's influence on innovating new forms or commending certain established linguistic features was largely restricted to lexis and morphology. Luther, who grew up in a Low German speaking area (Ostharz, Madgeburg) and lived in a Central German dialect area (Eisenach) (Eggers 1969: 161) used the Common German (gemeines Deutsch)6 of ECG (Wolff 1990: 108, Besch 1987: 38) which had many salient features anticipating the modern standard language. It is therefore clear that Luther did not construct or initiate the standard language (contra to Jungandreas 1947) but used a pre-existing idiom (namely Common German), and furthered its usage as a means of supraregional communication. Important lines of development preparing the ground for a supraregional written idiom had already been in place before Luther. It is the fact that he used these tendencies and combined and modified them, that facilitated the success of both Luther and the emerging standard language (Besch 1987: 38). Bach (1985: 1442) showed that in the early period of his writing, Luther simply used the ECG scribal dialect without any personal modifications. After 1522, however, Luther made his orthography and inflection more and more regular, he eliminated alternative forms and avoided vocabulary that was regionally marked (Bach 1985: 1443). His syntax, however, corresponded entirely to contemporary use (Bach 1985: 1443). Despite the fact that Luther did not explicitly formulate any linguistic rules, his language had a normative power (Stedje 1989: 126) since he perfected the written language that he had found and he made it wide-spread and popular in large areas of Germany (Stedje 1989: 123). 3.1.3 The Standard Language up to 1800 Despite the influence of Luther on the written language, at the end of the sixteenth century there is "noch keine einheitliche Literatursprache" (Schildt 5

6

Whilst in 1500 there was a bible for every 300 Germans, by 1546 every thirteenth German owned a bible translated by Luther which is particularly impressive as the Lutheran bible would generally not be found in Catholic households (Stedje 1989: 123). Note the contusing use of the terminology: whereas Stedje (1989: 122) identifies the gemeine Deutsch as the südöstliche Schreibsprache (i.e. EUG), Wolff (1990: 108) equates it with the language of Luther and thus with East Central German.

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1976: 135). In the course of the seventeenth century, the spread of ECG continues and becomes the dominant dialect to be cited as a Sprachvorbild. This section will show in greater detail how, during the sixteenth and especially from the seventeenth century grammarians and other Sprachbewusstseinsinteressierte (Reichmann 1995) developed an interest in the purification and réglementation of all system-internal aspects pertaining to German. Whilst previously, the NHG "Gemeinsprache" merely consisted of general developments and tendencies, the sixteenth century brought with it the conscious reflection on its status and grammatical design. From now on, scholars actively worked out rules for the correct use of German (König 81991: 104). Although the extent of the influence of prescriptive grammarians on the standard language in general is under dispute, it is clear that influence cannot be denied with regard to orthographical rules (Takada 1998), lexical innovation and purification (Jones 1995). The prestige variety of German becomes more and more regularized, based largely on ECG and influenced by the desire to copy certain linguistic models {Meißnisch, Luther, Opitz, etc.), although it is not until the eighteenth century that the process of standardization can reasonably be assumed to have come to an end (cf. also von Polenz 1991: 166, Kriegesmann 1990: 279). König claims that the lexical semantics of the NHG written language can only be seen as fairly uniform by the mid-seventeenth century (König 81991: 101). Wolff adds that the levelling of linguistic differences between Sprachlandschaften is completed in the eighteenth century (Wolff 1990: 145), and Penzl (1984: 165) fixes the completion of the standardization process and the beginning of the NHG period at around 1730. To summarise, whilst on the one hand, the ENHG period is a stage of Sprachvielfalt and Sprachmischung (Wolff 1990: 108), the major development of the time was the emergence of a unified prestige variety which cannot be identified with any specific dialect of German. In contrast to earlier accounts, it is now generally accepted that the standard language of German has a polygenetic origin (von Polenz 1991: 166, Hartweg & Wegera 1989, Kriegesmann 1990: 277), based on various supraregional written idioms in several Sprachlandschaften first identified in the late fourteenth century. According to Guchmann (1964, as cited in Hartweg & Wegera 1989: 44), spoken dialects and written language started to drift apart from as early as the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance period, in the desire to achieve greater comprehensibility across dialect areas. However, it was not until the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries that these scribal dialects merged further to the extent that by the time of Luther, only two major ones for practical purposes, ECG and EUG, co-existed. These written idioms continued to develop according to a certain "Eigengesetzlichkeit" (Kriegesmann 1990: 277) and not so as to become an "Abbild der Mundartverhältnisse" (Guchmann 1964, Besch

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1967). Supraregionally accepted form of German graphemes and lexical items establish themselves step by step in the first half of the sixteenth century (Kriegesmann 1990: 278). From the late sixteenth century, German was starting to be seen as an aesthetically pleasing language which, if regularized 0Grundrichtigkeit) and purified, would be able to compete with Latin. This way of thinking encouraged the initiation of German language prescriptivism as exercised by grammarians, writers and Sprachgesellschaften which were all concerned with creating (or re-discovering) a perfect German. The development of a supraregional variety of German was achieved by a continuous reduction of regional variants (Variantenabbau) and furthered, amongst other thing, by the slowly fading use of Latin as the primary written idiom (Kriegesmann 1990: 279). Using the linguistic properties of the two major Schreiblandschaften of the fifteenth century, EUG and ECG, as a foundation, the locus of the language prescriptivism is firmly in the ECG area7 although it cannot be said that modern standard German is solely based on ECG. Während die Voraussetzungen zur Entstehung der nhd. Schriftsprache nicht allein auf dem omd. Sprachareal beruhen, dominiert diese Sprachfläche wegen der dort kulminierenden gesellschaftlichen Bewegung die eigentliche Ausformung [from the sixteenth century]. (Kriegesmann 1990: 281)

Furthermore, the spreading of the idealization of this version of written German wherever possible, following the seventeenth century motto "speak as you write," was largely completed by the end of the eighteenth century.

3 .2 The Emergence of Standard German and the Influence of Grammarians In this section, I focus on the degree of influence (Sprachreflexion) in the form of prescriptive statements from grammarians, poets and others concerned with metalinguistic aspects of German is assumed to have had on the formation of the standard German language during the ENHG period: Noch nicht genügend geklärt ist die tatsächliche Wirkung von Grammatikern und Orthographielehrem auf die Sprachentwicklung, (von Polenz 1994: 168; my italics, NL)

7

Note that it has been shown that it is not the case that "unsere Schriftsprache auch nur ein einziges ausschließlich omd. Merkmal aufweist." (Penzl 1986: 166).

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In general, we can say that the opinions of the research community are divided on the issue (Bergmann 1982), with some scholars claiming that metalinguistic statements did indeed have a measureable degree of influence at least on the choice of some linguistic properties of modern standard German (Prowatke 1988, von Polenz 1978, 1991, Konopka 1996, Takada 1998, Langer forth., this book) whilst others deny this hypothesis (Schmidt-Wilpert 1985s Piirainen 1980), either by resorting to the view that grammarians9 were not influential enough, since their discussions did not reach a sufficient number of people (Jellinek 1913/14, V. Moser 1929), or that their suggestions merely codified what was already-established language use (von Polenz 1994, also Konopka 1996 for some areas of grammar): no or negligible influence: Die Literatursprache kümmerte sich ebensowenig um Gottscheds wie früher um Schottels Regeln. (Jellinek 1913: 244)10 Early grammarians had "so gut wie keinen Einfluss" on the actual development of the language. (V. Moser 1929,1,1: 3) De[n] theoretischen Schriften [von Grammatikern kann] [...] kein wesentlichEinfluß auf die Vereinheitlichung der Sprache zugeschrieben werden. [...] Die Arbeit der Sprachgesellschaften und der Grammatiker ist an den natürlichen Entwicklungstendenzen des Deutschen vorbeigegangen. (Piirainen 1980: 599) Grundsätzlich haben weder einzelne Grammatiker und Wörterbuchschreiber die Sprachnormen präskriptiv 'gesetzt' noch haben 'Sprachideologen' ihre Vorbilder und Prinzipien willkürlich erfunden, (von Polenz 1994: 136) Im [Allgemeinen haben die Grammatiker und Lexikographen den in sozial einflußreichen, gebildeten Kreisen und Institutionen üblichen Schreibgebrauch nur nachträglich kodifiziert, (von Polenz 1994: 136, my italics, NL)

8

9

10

"Von einer Beeinflussung der deutschen Sprache durch Grammatiker kann erst für die letzten 250 Jahre [i.e. after 1735] ausgegangen werden." (Schmidt-Wilpert 1985: 1557). To ease readibility, I will follow the practice employed in the research literature and use the term grammarian as a cover term to refer to all types of early Sprachbewusstseinsinteressierte of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, unless specified more explicitly. Cf. e.g. Bergmann's (1982: 267) definition of grammarians as "Verfasser normativer Darstellungen der Grammatik und Orthographie" vs. Takada (1998: 1): "Auch eine Reihe von Poetikern, die sich in ihren Schriften über sprachliche Normen äußerten, werden hier deshalb als Grammatiker begriffen." I will follow Takada's definition. Jellinek (1913: 244) adds, however that in parts of orthography, prescriptive grammarians had some success, (cf. also Jellinek 1913: 184).

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noticeable and / or lasting influence: [Die] Standardisierung und Entwicklung der deutschen Schrift- und Literatursprache in Barock und Aufklärung sind nicht zu verstehen ohne die zahlreichen Bemühungen von Grammatiken und Lexikographen um Sprachregelung und Sprachreinigung. (Wolff 1990: 142) Ohne Zweifel haben die dt. Grammatiker und Stillehrer des 16. bis 18. Jh. regulierend und vereinheitlichend eingegriffen [...]. Dabei sind [...] manche nützliche Regeln aufgestellt worden, die [...] bis heute gültig geblieben sind, (von Polenz 1978: 99f.) u Die Grammatiker aus der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts haben diesen Prozeß [der Ausbildung der Literatursprache] nicht unwesentlich mitbestimmt. (Prowatke 1988: 194) Vor allem [...] seit dem 17. Jahrhundert geschah der formale Ausbau der Schriftsprache nicht so sehr auf dem Weg des natürlichen Wachstums von unten her, sondern von oben: nicht nur durch den Einfluß der Dichtung, sondern durch bewußte Regelung-durch die Arbeit von Grammatikern [...]. (Hugo Moser 61969: 158)12 [D]ie Grammatiker [haben] durchaus auch Einfluß auf die lokale und überregionalallgemeine Praxis ausgeübt. (Takada 1998: 299)

The general discussion on the degree of effectiveness (Wirkungsgrad) of early grammarians is made difficult by the sheer lack of in-depth studies of individual grammarians (Bergmann 1982, 1983)13. Despite the recent publication of a number of monographs on individual grammarians (e.g. Diedrichs 1983, Poppe 1982, Naumann 1983, Jahreiss 1990) as well as some studies investigating grammatical issues by comparison of several grammarians (e.g. von Polenz 1994, Konopka 1996, Takada 1998, Götz 1992, Erben 1989, Glaser 1979, Bergmann 1982, also Nerius 1967, Jellinek 1913/14), there is still no general agreement on the actual degree of effectiveness of grammarians, as shown in the quotations above (Schmidt-Wilpert 1985). The more recent publications tend towards a view that allows for prescriptive statements to have had an influence on at least some aspects of the standard language, in particular in regard to the areas of orthography (Nerius 1967, Götz 1992, Takada 1998; for an opposing view: von Polenz 1994: 245) and, to a lesser 11

12

13

Bergmann (1982: 279f.) expresses doubts over the validity of this particular claim (cf. Konopka 1996: 43). Hugo Moser argues in this context that the rich morphology of modern German (compared to other modem WGmc. languages) is due to the success of grammarians' intervention (Hugo Moser '1969: 158). "[The grammarians'] genauer Anteil an dieser Normierung [of the emerging Schriftsprache] [ist] noch längst nicht hinreichend erforscht." (Bergmann 1983: 265)

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degree, morphology (Takada 1998) and syntax (Konopka 1996). From a theoretical point of view, it is far from easy to establish the degree of influence of any given work or author, given the complexity of the factors involved and the relative arbitrariness of the survival rate of any metalinguistic texts from the ENHG period.14 It is therefore difficult to evaluate claims such as the idea that it was Schottel who ("eigentlich") formed the standard language on a foundation of Meissen and Upper German (Wolff 1990: 143), despite the fact that in the case of Schottel, plenty of documents have survived to give us an idea of the actual discussion that took place at the time (cf. Jellinek 1913/14 and Takada 1998 on the analogy — anomaly debate between Duke Ludwig & Gueintz vs Schottel & Harsdörffer). To be able to evaluate the degree of effectiveness, extralinguistic factors are often cited, such as the number of copies and editions printed of a grammar, the author's reputation in society, the use of a grammar by other writers and in schools. Despite this range of criteria, it has not been possible so far to verify the effectiveness of metalinguistic works on language use, except in isolated instances, particularly in the eighteenth century (Moulin-Fankhänel 1994:18). Prowatke shows that in the sixteenth century, c.29,000 copies of grammars and related works would have been available for schools and autodidactic teaching: "Die hohe Gesamtzahl läßt vermuten, daß die Autoren auch den beabsichtigten Adressatenkreis erreicht haben, wenngleich die ökonomische Lage des gemeinen mannes nicht gerade günstig war" (Prowatke 1988: 193). A different method is employed by Konopka (1996), Takada (1998) and Langer (2000a) in that the Wirkungsgrad of any grammarians needs to be established with regard to individual rules or at least individual grammatical areas. Konopka suggests that the degree of effectiveness of (syntactic) prescriptions has to be evaluated individually for each construction (Konopka 1996: 230), rather than making a sweeping claim for the effectiveness of a particular grammarian on the entire syntax of standard German. Furthermore, it is crucial, contra to Jellinek (1913/14) who concentrated on investigating early grammars with respect to each other, to compare the suggestions made by grammarians with the evidence of actual, contemporary language use. This is important to determine whether grammarians truly had a prescriptive influence, whether innovative or archaistic, or whether they merely formulated in rules what was actually current usage at the time (von Polenz 1994, Konopka 1996). In what follows, an overview of the impact of grammarians on the prestige variety of German as suggested in the literature, taking the sixteenth, 14

Although, it is, of course, helpful to have a comparatively early summary on grammars in Reichard (1747) (cf. Jellinek 1913/14 for works that have not survived or were never printed, e.g. the first complete grammar of German written by Melissus from between 1568-1572 which was never printed and has not survived (Jellinek 1913: 57)).

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seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries in turn, will be provided, given that they appear to constitute different stages of grammar writing.15 Whilst in the sixteenth century (Götz 1992), grammars and orthographies were primarily written as a guide for foreigners learning German (Albertus 1573, Ölinger 1573, cf. von Polenz 1991: 184) as well as providing basic guidance for schoolchildren, or as devices to enable the reading of protestant texts such as the bible and the Lutheran catechism (Ickelsamer 1534), the Sprachreflexion of the seventeenth century was mostly concerned with the (re-)creation of an ideal, grundrichtige and kunstmäßige German language that could compete with Latin and French (Takada 1998). It was in this century that the standard German language came to be viewed as a supra-regional language, not corresponding to any regional dialect but to the language used by the learned and upper classes (Schottel 1641 etc.). In the eighteenth century, this view of a prestige variety had manifested itself and the main discussion on language continued with a revision of its linguistic properties, based on the rationalist ideas of the Enlightenment (e.g. Gottsched 1759, cf. Konopka 1996). 3.2.1 Stage 1: The Sixteenth Century The sixteenth century experienced a major change with regard to the distribution and reception of writing. The use of German as a written language continued to increase at the expense of Latin and the general reflection on vernacular languages received further attention within the humanist framework of thinking (Götz 1992: 49). The invention of printing faciliated the rapid distribution of the ideas of the Reformation in the form of written texts, especially the new German bible translated by Luther.16 In addition, the sixteenth century saw the peasants' revolt (Bauernkrieg) when large numbers of Flugschriften and other texts became readily available to everyone. Both Luther and Müntzer used supraregional varieties based to a greater or lesser extent on ECG with additional EUG features as their means of communication, ensuring as far as possible that the texts would be comprehensible to as broad a readership as possible (cf. Schildt 1976, von Polenz 1991: chaps. 4.2 and 4.8). The first grammars date from the 1530s17 and "[können] wegen ihrer praktischen Zwecke besser S c h r e i b - und L e s e l e h r e n , wegen ihrer Beschränkung auf nur einen Teilbereich der Sprache auch O r t h o g r a p h i e 1 e h r e η genannt werden [...]" (von Polenz 1991: 182, cf. Müller 1882: 391, cited in Götz 1992: 49). In addition to these, grammatical issues were also 15

16

17

E.g. Jellinek (1913/14) divides the history of German grammar writing into pre-1573, 1573-1641, 1641-1748, after 1748, Adelung E.g. V. Ickelsamer, author of two orthographies / Leselehren, who had been a student of Luther's at Wittenberg. Luther is mentioned as a Sprachvorbild as early as 1534. As early as 1527 were the anonymous Schryffispiegel and Ickelsamer's "die rechte weis / auffs kürtzist lesen zu lernen" (2nd edition: 1534).

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dealt with in books "welche mehr mit der Ausbildung der Schriftsprache zusammenhängen, der deutschen Schreiberei dienen", and which were attached to Formular- oder Kanzleibüchlein (Müller 1882: 391, cited in Götz 1992: 49). Götz (1992) devotes her investigation to the latter type. In particular, she discusses Frangk (1531),18 an orthographia, Meichßner (1538), which deals largely with orthography but also contains sections on word classifications and word formation and the Schryfftspiegel (1527), an orthography with rules on punctuation and a chapter on homophones (Götz 1992: 325). Crucial for our discussion are the respective statements on a possible standard or prestige variety of German. We saw already in the previous chapter that by the sixteenth century the number of Schriftsprachen were basically reduced to the Common German 19 and ECG, and the orthographic manuals of the time, too, were striving for a reduction of written variants. In the sixteenth century the major Schriftsprachen continued to exist and were defended by the various grammars, e.g. ECG (Luther) by Frangk (1531), Clajus (1578), EUG (gemeine Teutsch) by Ickelsamer (1534) and H. Wolf (1578), and WUG (Swiss German, Calvinism) by Kolroß and Gesner (Hugo Moser 61969: 149). The Schryfftspiegel advises scribes to retain a high degree of competence in dialects and written varieties (Varietätenkompetenz) in order to be able to engage in supraregional communication. Crucially, no dialect is seen as superior to others in status, in contrast to Meichßner (1538) where regional dialects and features are rejected, without however, having a clear concept of a unified language variety (Götz 1992: 325, cf. also : 331). Frangk, on the other hand, claims "als der erste Theoretiker die Existenz einer einheitlichen hochdeutschen Sprache" (Jellinek 1913: 44, cf. Schildt 1976: 123f.), for whom the prestige Schriftsprache was not a "zu verwirklichendes Ideal" but a "geglaubte Realität" (Jellinek 1913: 46): Was nu hie gehandelt oder geschrieben / wird / von oberlendischer verstanden. Vnd wiewol diese sprach an jr selbs rechtfertig vnd klar / so ist sie doch in vil puncten vnd stücken / auch bey den hochdeutschen nicht einheitlich / Denn sie in keiner jegnit oder lande / so gantz lauter vnd rein gefurt / noch gehalden wird / das nicht weilands etwas straffwirdigs / oder misbreuchiges darin mitlieffi / vnd gespürt würde / Wie denn hirnach in Sonderheit zu mercken ist. (Frangk 1531: 94)20

Importantly, Frangk (1531) advocates the knowledge of dialectal variants for any writer, but in contrast to the Schryfftspiegel, he suggests that such a 18 19 20

On Frangk, cf. Eggers (1969:181ff.), Takada (1998: 21)). On the ambiguity of the term "gemeines Teutsch", cf. von Polenz (1994: 145f.). It does not become clear how Jellinek can reconcile his claim of "einheitliches" HG as apparently advocated by Frangk when Frangk himself claims that the oberlendische language is "auch bey den hochdeutschen nicht emhelich" [Frangk 1531: 94, my italics, NL], In Jellinek (1913: 45) the "Was nu ..." quotation below is cited without the crucial passage.

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knowledge is to be recommended in order to avoid these regionalisms, as they are undesirable usage and thus presuppose a prestige variety (cf. Götz 1992: 325f.): Nützlich vnd gut ists einem jdlichen, vieler Landsprachen mit jren misbreuchen zuwiesen, da mit man das vnrecht möge meiden. (Frangk 1531; cited in Jellinek 1913:45)

In his writing, we can already trace the preference for a supraregional variety: "einem idealiter einheitlichen, regionale Kennzeichen meidenden, soziologisch nur mittel- bis oberschichtig realisierbarem Deutsch" (Reichmann 1988: 174). Frangk (1531) provides model examples for the prestige variety of German: the imperial chancellery, the writings of Luther and the texts printed by Schonesberger in Augsburg (cf. Götz 1992: 331): Vnder welchen mir etwan / des tewem (hochlöblicher gedechtnis) keiser Maxilimilianus Cantzelej vnd dieser zeit / D. Luthers schreiben / neben des Johan Schonesbergers von Augsburg druck / die emendirsten vnnd reinisten zuhanden komensein/[...]. (Frangk 1531: 94)

We can therefore summarize as follows: the earliest works on German, dating from the second quarter of the sixteenth century, were mainly concerned with the teaching of spelling and reading. An ideal and superior type of German was not assumed to exist, with the notable exception of Frangk (1531), which corresponds to the general findings of ENHG, in that the "verticalisation" of the language varieties did not take place much before the seventeenth century (Reichmann 1990). As regards the degree of effectiveness of the earliest grammarians, Prowatke (1988: 191) states that actual influence is very difficult to be verified beyond doubt. In the latter part of the sixteenth century, the first relatively complete grammars of German were published in Latin and were mainly aimed at foreigners wanting to learn German (von Polenz 1991: 184; von Polenz 1994: 150). As with the earlier grammars, there is still no agreement over which type of German is to be recommended. In contrast, Ölinger (1573) is using his Straßburg German (Takada 1998: 21), whereas Clajus (1578) advocated his local ECG dialect. Albertus (1573) complains about the dialectal diversity of German and desires an "Einheit der Sprache." According to Jellinek (1913: 71), this is not to say that Albertus had conceived of a "streng einheitlichen Schriftsprache, die allen Dialekten gegenüber steht." In addition, two other types of grammars existed in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century: school grammars for the teaching of German and grammars as a manual for the study of rhetoric (Jellinek 1913: 63).

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3.2.2 Stage 2: The Seventeenth Century The seventeenth centuiy saw the increasing recognition of German as language of educated discourse. The interest in the German language as initiated by the Humanists was deepened in the seventeenth century, strengthening the national language in Germany just as much as in other European countries (Stedje 1989: 144). According to Reichmann (1990), the struggle to find the correct German (Sprachrichtigkeit) was not so much guided by the need to facilitate supraregional communication, since this was more or less given in the ENHG period where speakers had a substantial degree of competence of many dialects. Instead, the search for a perfect German was driven by the function of language as a marker of social identification, and this because of the social necessity of speaking and writing correctly and the "kultivierten Handhabung der Sprache nach allen Regeln der Kunst" (Reichmann 1990: 154; cf. von Polenz 1994: 134t). The seventeenth century was thus also a century of Variantenreduktion, driven by language societies, scholars, poeticians, poets, writers, translators and school reformers (von Polenz 1994: 136), i.e. a sociological elite, which interestingly does not resort specifically to the language of the ruling monarchs or nobility, in contrast to neighbouring European languages such as Czech, French and English (von Polenz 1991: 167). Furthermore German linguistic patriotism was strengthened when Luther's translations showed that German could be used to deliver God's word, thus suggesting that German as a language was equally powerful, functional and eligible for sophisticated communication as Latin (Takada 1998: 3). In 1680, the number of books in German matched the number of Latin books printed in Germany for the first time (von Polenz 1994: 20). Earlier milestones from the same century include Opitz's reform of German as a poetic language (1624), the Köthener Schulordnung which established German in the classroom, as inspired by Ratke (1612 & 1619), and the first complete grammar of German written in German by Kromayer (1618 (1619), cf. Schmidt-Wilpert 1985: 1556). At the beginning of the century, the debate was mainly concerned with the preference of German over other languages (notably Latin) in academic discourse, as the language of poetry and as a valid and important subject to be taught to children in schools, with the preferred variety being that of ECG or specifically Meißnisch (cf. Josten 1976). Ratke advocated the use of Hochdeutsch as a means of communication in the classroom and Opitz encouraged its use in poetry, although, at this stage, there is little dispute over the assumption that the geographical locus for the Hochdeutsch is in the ECG

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area. Kromayer's school grammar (1619),21 too, was written in the ECG area (Weimar) and was based on Ratke's principles. It was aimed, however, at only the better students and with the purpose of providing a solid understanding of German grammar as a preparation for the Latin lessons, rather than to learn about German on its own merit. Wo nun sonderliche feine Ingenia fürhanden, an welchen man mercket, das sie zum studiren tüchtig, [...] mit denen gebühret sich, [...] das man auch die deutsch Grammatickam fìlrnehme vnd dadurch eine gute Bereitung zur lateinische Grammaticka mache, (as cited in Jellinek 1913: 96)

In the 1640s, a new stage in the history of German grammar began with the intense debate between grammarians over the status of various dialects, the correct localisation of Hochdeutsch on the map, the age and status of German as a divine language (Takada 1998: 8f., cf. Eco 1994, 1998). Given the international nature of the academic community of the time, it is no surprise that the discussions in German parallelled similar ones in England, France and Italy, in search, justification and identification of a prestige or standard variety of the national language. Grammars for foreigners and schools are still published but they recede in importance for the emerging standard language behind theoretical works which aim at teaching the "correct" German to adult Germans (Jellinek 1913: 112). Increasingly, theoretical writings and grammars were published with the aim of provoking academic discussion and of suggesting possible reforms of the prestige variety rather than to teach German to foreigners or native speakers: thus Schottel (1641) for example was not a grammar to teach German to laymen but provide a scientifically motivated identification of German as an artificial language (Kunstsprache, Takada 1998: 5). Apart from published work, discussions about 'correct' German were mainly carried out in language societies {Sprachgesellschaften·, cf. e.g. Eggers 1969: 195ff., Jones 1999, Kirkness 1998: 407f„ Otto 1972, von Polenz 1994: 112ff, Schildt 1976: 136, Tschirch 21975: 275, Stedje 1989: 144ff),22 of which the fructifying society (Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft) was the most successful in attracting membership from most influential grammarians, poets, and men of letters. The debate concentrated on two major issues:

21 22

Takada (1998: 4): Kromayer (1618). "Die Sprachgesellschaften hielten das Interesse an der deutschen Sprache wach und schufen zudem ein Forum, auf dem theoretische und praktische Probleme der deutschen Sprache fruchtbar diskutiert wurden." (Takada 1998: 4).

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i. the localisation of hochdeutsch : i.e. does the prestige language correspond to any real existing dialect of German? ii. the grammatical basis for hochdeutsch: i.e. should the prestige language follow current language use (anomaly) or should it be the artificial product of grammarians, strictly following pre-designed rules without exception (analogy)? The two issues are, of course, related, and are discussed at length and in great detail by scholars from Jellinek (1913/14) to Takada (1998). We see that a preference for language use facilitates the argument that a particular, already existing dialect (for example Meißnisch), should become or be seen to be the prestige variety, whereas the adoption of the viewpoint that the prestige variety should radically and without exception follow grammatical rules (which no dialect does) would necessarily result in the postulation that the prestige language would need to be artificially (re-)created by the efforts of grammarians. In practice, this meant that the anomaly-thesis, i.e. adopting an existing dialect, was defended mostly by poets and men of letters from the ECG area where the analogy-thesis, i.e. the creation of a new, artificial German, was supported by grammarians from Northern Germany.23 The two positions were adopted respectively by Schottel / Harsdörffer (analogy) and Duke Ludwig of Anhalt-Köthen and Gueintz24 and were debated in the early 1640s over the publications of Gueintz' Deutsche Sprachlehre Entwurf (Kothen, 1641) and Schottel's Teutsche Sprachkunst (Braunschweig, 1641). For Schottel, the Hochsprache had to be grundrichtig, in other words, assuming that the original German, dating back from Babel, was of divine origin, it would have been grammatically perfect, therefore entirely rule-governed and without exception.25 Schottel believed, therefore, that any exception found in the grammar of current German, i.e. any German dialect including Meißnisch, was a deviation and thus a corruption of the divine language. German was not based on a given dialect: Die Hochteutsche Sprache ist kein Dialectus / auch nicht die Niederteusche Sprache / sonderen haben jhre Dialectos. (Schottel 1663: 152)

Furthermore, one should not copy the language of the inferior classes (Pöbel); rather the language has to be changed into an "art-form", by way of grammarians' intervention:

23

Grammarians from Southern Germany did not play a major role in the debate and only re-emerged on the national platform in the eighteenth century (Jellinek 1913: 112).

24

"Sprachen k ö n n e n wir nicht machen, sie sindt schon." (Gueintz, as cited i n Jellinek 1913: 160).

25

Cf. Takada (1998: 44-48) for an overview of the development of Schottel's argumentation.

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[die rechte Art] miiße nicht in sich ungewiß / gestückelt / unerkant und nur aus dem Maule des Pöbels genom[m]en sein; Sonderen sie müsse zuvor nohtwendiglich in eine gewisse Kunstform gebracht [...]. (Schottel 1651 : n.p.)

Thus by applying analogical processes, i.e. restoring regular paradigms, since regularity and correctness were inherent to German even in its corrupted form, Schottel believed that he was able to recreate the original state of the language and thus the old Haubtsprache (Takada 1998: 48): what other language could possibly be chosen to be the prestige variety of his day? Jellinek is sceptical about the degree of success of Schottel's efforts at recreating the standard language,. He argues that whilst Schottel's suggestions with regard to orthography were partially successful, his grammatical prescriptions were largely ignored by the Central German literary language (Jellinek 1913: 184). Wolff, on the other hand, attributes crucial influence to Schottel and Harsdörffer, adherents of the 'analogical' school of thought, in the eventual transition from Meißnisch to a supraregional Hochdeutsch (Wolff 1990: 133). Takada concludes that the analogians' influence was met with varying success, partly because even by 1640, they still lacked the terminology to refer accurately and unambiguously to the most important aspect of norming, the analogy in morphemic word structures (Takada 1998: 28; cf. Konopka for a similar argument for eighteenth-century grammarians) and that their degree of influence needs to be evaluated with regard to individual aspects of the grammar. Unsurprisingly, the grammarians' influence was greatest in the area of orthography where, as Takada observed in several, primarily Protestant, printing centres the suggestions of the theoreticians were followed (Takada 1998: 135). Die neue Unterscheidung zwischen i-/j- und «-/ν- und die Schreibung au/eu statt aw/ew, die alle Grammatiker nach 1641 gefordert hatten, werden in der [...] Lutherbibel in den 50er bis 60er Jahren [of the seventeenth century] konsequent eingeführt, und die alten Schreibungen [...] finden [...] nur noch sehr selten Gebrauch. Die neuen Schreibungen finden also E i n g a n g i n d i e a l l g e m e i n e S p r a c h w i r k l i c h k e i t . (Takada 1998:135)

This view of the attested effectiveness of grammarians in the area of orthography rejects earlier claims that orthographical innovation did not influence actual writing. Such claims include those by V. Moser (1929: 29), who argued that grammarians' success did not extent "über ihren Wirkungskreis hinaus"26 or von Polenz who stated that whilst the general tendencies of development did indeed correspond to the descriptions and prescriptions of grammarians and orthography teachers, but that this was due to 26

Takada (1998: 135) illustrates that Schottel's suggestions had their greatest success rate in his home town Wolfenbüttel.

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the fact that the prescription followed contemporary language use (von Polenz 1994: 245; cf. also 1994: 166fif). As regards morphology, in particular word formation, the grammarians desired to 'repair' irregular paradigms to demonstrate the Gleichrangigkeit or even superiority of German as opposed to Latin (Takada 1998: 297). Prominent examples concern the prescription of monosyllabicity for imperatives (*samml!, rechnl), e-restitution in both nominal endings (dem Baume, unseren, schönest) and in the verbal paradigm (ich sagte, ich sage, also the hypercorrect ich sähe, as advocated in particular by Stieler 1691; cf. Takada 1998: 207f.), as well as outlawing the phonetic 'corruption' of ent- to emp- and semantically 'obscure' compounds (Störenfried should really be Friedenstör er). Takada (1998: 217f., also the source from where the aforementioned examples were taken), illustrates that the degree of success of grammarians' intervention differed across topics. There were some cases where the grammarians were successful (e.g. the distinction between -lich and -ig (Takada 1998: 153ff.), whilst in other cases where prescriptions proved unsuccessful (e.g. the Fugenzeichen in Schiff(e)sbruch, Erdenfall and Bücherlade (Schottel 1641: 137f.) as discussed in Takada 1998: 145Í). In the field of syntax, the main characteristics of German were, according to seventeenth century grammarians, the sentence frame 27 and the verbal compound28 (cf. Konopka 1996 for striking parallels with the debate in the eighteenth century). It is here where the rigorous compliance with the principle of language regularity (Sprach-richtigkeitsprinzip) is strongly criticized in cases where comprehension is made difficult by the excessive complexity of sentences. This is recognised by Schottel, Stieler and Bödiker who warn of the excessive use of the sentence frame, i.e. where the finite verb and the lexical verb are separated by a very long Mittelfeld (cf. Stieler 1691: 203, as cited in Takada 1998: 230). The principle of language clarity (Sprachdeutlichkeitsprinzip), which means that a text ought to be maximally comprehensible, is adopted by many grammarians. This allows for exceptions (rightwardextraposition / Ausklammerung) to grammatical rules (e.g. sentence frame with obligatory verb-final position) and in turn endorses violations of the Sprachrichtigkeitsprinzip. Allowing for violations of the sentence frame faciliated comprehension of longer and more complex sentences. This practice consequently found its way more easily into language use and the notoriously opulent hypotaxes of Baroque written German. However, as pointed out by Konopka (1996) for a similar grammatical discussion in the eighteenth century, the fact that rightward extraposition of constituents was part of ENHG language use does not necessarily mean that this syntactic property was a 27

28

The Satzrahmen was mentioned as early Albenis (1573: 105) and Clajus (1578: 255f.), cf. Takada (1998: 228). Cf. Takada (1998: 233ff).

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successful innovation by contemporary grammarians. Instead, Konopka argued that this shows that the apparent success of grammarians was often due to their ability to describe, rather than prescribe contemporary language use. The only area of syntax where, according to Takada's research (1998: 262), grammarians can be claimed to have been innovative and successful involves "[e]inige Typen der drei- und viergliedrigen Verbalkomplexe als morphosyntaktische Äquivalente der lateinischen Flexionsformen", i.e. constructions that did not exist in the language before. According to von Polenz (1994: 149), the seventeenth century was the period of the grammarians and teachers of orthography, whose influence on linguistic norms was not so much due to innovation but rather to the fixation, justification and didactically driven distribution of already existing linguistic conventions of prestigious language users. Takada (1998) adopts a less pessimistic view and suggests on the basis of his very detailed and comprehensive study that grammarians did have a degree of success in their suggestions for grammatical and orthographical norms, albeit with variation across topics. Given the nature of the standard language, which indisputedly underwent a major development in the seventeenth century, and which became a non-localisable written idiom, used only by educated speakers, it is not implausible to suggest that grammarians did have an influence on its design, especially since they were in influential professional positions as teachers, lecturers, librarians etc. (von Polenz 1994: 169). Since the standard language was learned in school, at university or by the means of a letter-writing manual (Briefsteller) rather than being acquired as a native language, intervention by the teacher would have been successful. The cautious remarks by Jellinek (1913/14) and V. Moser (1929), but also more recently by von Polenz (1994) on the degree of successful intervention by prescriptive grammarians appear justified because of the nature of the topic. Unless we were to find explicit references to a changed written style or language by a speaker, based on a particular grammar, the only way to get into a position from which we can make some claims of effectiveness is to compare in parallel the language use and the prescriptive statements of the same time. Takada (1998) investigated a large number of grammatical aspects from the seventeenth century, Konopka (1996) looked at the syntax of the eighteenth century: This book, however, concentrates on stigmatized language constructions, in particular examining certain morpho-syntactic structures throughout the ENHG period. 3.2.3 Stage 3: The Eighteenth Century The situation in the eighteenth century moved towards a consolidation of standard German as outlined in the previous century. Von Polenz (1994: 168) sees this period as the stage when grammarians did actually have a measurable

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impact on the standard language. Discussions about correct German were still current but although Meißnisch was still cited as ideal German, what Schottel had already said in the seventeenth century, namely that the educated speakers of Meißen spoke 'zierlich' whilst the speech of common folk of the area was not to be copied, had become widely accepted: Die rechte Meißnische Ausrede / wie sie zu Leipzig / Merseburg / Wittenberg Dresden üblich / ist lieblich und wohllautend [...] Wie breit und verzogen aber Meisnische Dialectus auf dem Lande und unter den Bauren sey / ist nicht unbewust. (Schottel 1663: 159)

Morhof reflects the development rather neatly when he claims that Northern Germans (Niedersachsen), who had to learn the language "mit Mühe / und meistenteils aus Büchern" (1700: Vorrede,15f.) write the best Meißnisch, since they avoid the (non-standard) Upper German regionalisms:29 Wer nun ein reinliches Teutsches Carmen schreiben will / der muß den lieblichsten Dialectum, wie der Meißnische ist / ihm vorsetzen / unter welchen aber die andern Oberländer schwerlich zu bringen sind / denn ihre Idiotismi lauffen allezeit mit unter. Meines erachtens soll ein Niedersachse die beste Art im schreiben an sich nehmen / wen[n] er in den Hochteutschen Idiotismis etwas geübet ist. (Morhof 1700: 436f.)

Thus there is a clear shift towards the present day situation where the Hochdeutsch of Northern German is considered to be closest to the prescribed form. A further development in the Sprachreflexion of the eighteenth century is the re-emergence of Southern German grammarians (e.g. Aichinger, Braun, Dornblüth, also Parnassus Boicus) in the grammatical discussion from about 1720 (Jellinek 1913: 210). The outstanding figure in the debate is, however, Gottsched, professor in Leipzig, who was seen as the oracle on grammatical questions and was very influential not just in the Protestant ECG area but also in the Catholic south (Konopka 1996: 234).30 The ideal language can normally be found in the language of the court, preferably in the centre of the country, and Gottsched clearly refers to Dresden in this context (von Polenz 1994: 160) but he also states that there is no area where 'pure Hochdeutsch' is spoken, despite the fact that Meißnisch should still considered superior. Spoken language is subject to fluctuation and variation. Therefore one should also make use of the language of the best scribes when setting down the rules of language since one is more careful with the language in writing than in speech

" Cf. also Jellinek (1913: 216f). 30 "Die Wirksamkeit der ostmitteldt. und norddt. Sprachideologen und Grammatikographen ist konkret im konservativen Süden zu beobachten, wo seit der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts [...] die stark ostmitteldeutsch orientierten Sprachnormen widerstrebend, aber bald konsequent und erfolgreich übernommen wurden." (von Polenz 1994: 169).

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(Jellinek 1913: 236, cf. also Wolff 1990: 143). With regard to theoretical issues of language, the Sprachreflexion of the eighteenth century is clearly influenced by the thinking of the Enlightenment, where Eindeutigkeit und Deutlichkeit play a vital role in the discussion about the ideal and correct German (Reichmann 1994): Die Forderungen der Sprachtheoretiker wie Gottsched, Justi und Braun nach einfacher Schreibart sind zunächst in der rationalistischen Deutlichkeitsauffassung begründet. Deren Ausgangsposition zufolge gibt allein schon die logische Wortstellung die Verbindung der Gedanken wieder, der ein "objektiver" Zusammenhang mit Sachebenen zugrunde liegt. Der gelungene Kommunikationsprozeß wird dabei nur als Folge der richtigen Darstellung der Wirklichkeit gesehen. Sprachliche Verknüpfiingsmittel erscheinen daher mehr oder weniger als überflüssig, [...]. (Konopka 1996: 230) Konopka (1996) investigated eighteenth century grammarians with regard to their debate on the syntax of standard German. He found the degree to which a given rule became successfully established in the language use was crucially dependent on the availability of grammatical terminology that enabled the grammarian to distinguish subtly between apparent exceptions to a rule. Those theoreticians that failed to describe current language use adequately failed to establish a successful rule, just as those grammarians that insisted on the exceptionlessness of specific applications (Konopka 1996: 226f). In contrast, those grammarians with a higher degree of 'descriptivity' appear to have been more influential: Aichinger, Basedow und Hemmer lassen im allgemeinen mehr Stellungsmöglichkeiten zu und beschäftigen sich stärker mit den pragmatischen Faktoren der Wortstellungsvariation. Sie beschreiben somit den Sprachgebrauch genauer als andere Sprachtheoretiker. (Konopka 1996:228) Thus the likelihood of success is crucially dependent on being flexible enough to reflect and describe the irregularities of actual language use in one's own rule system. For example, allowing the use of rightward extraposition from the sentence frame, an issue already discussed in the previous century, is clearly based on the desire to facilitate sentence comprehension as extraposition typically occurs with long constituents, which could be seen as more difficult to process. Extraposition thus serves to ease the burden on the memory of the reader or hearer, but, strictly speaking, it is a violation of the sentence frame, as the verbal compound in the right bracket does not occupy the sentence-final position. It is this acknowledgement of more pragmatic aspects of sentence processing that made grammarians such as Aichinger, Basedow and Hemmer comparatively successful as they satisfied one of the most important conditions

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of effectiveness, namely the taking into account of communicative aspects of language use (Konopka 1996: 235). Consequently, those who advocated a more stringent adherence to complex grammatical rules had less influence on language use. Theoretical linguists who demanded complex sentences and the application of sentence frame for all sentences were found to have had little success in influencing language use. In contrast, those grammarians who prescribed a less complex syntax and allowed for extraposition (out of the sentence frame), were found to be more successful (Konopka 1996: 231). Finally, the influence of a grammarian is not merely based on the merits of his published work but also on his position in society. The relative importance of Gottsched, who, according to Jellinek (1913: 229) was not a grammarian as such and "[a]ls Grammatikograph im eigentlichen Sinne [...] nicht sehr originell" (von Polenz 1994: 158), was mainly based on his importance as a poetician and his interest and success in public and institutional activities (von Polenz 1994: 158). In general, the social status of any grammarian was sometimes more important that his perceptiveness as regards linguistic aspects (Konopka 1996: 232). To summarize the link between the development of standard German and the influence of prescriptive grammarians, it can certainly be said that the period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries saw the emergence of a heated debate between grammarians on the design, origin and current geographical localization of 'correct' German. The supraregional varieties of German which later formed the linguistic foundation of standard German, were still identified with a particular geographical area in the sixteenth century but came to be associated with specific sections of society, namely the language of the educated middle and upper classes, through a process of verticalisation (Reichmann 1988) of the language varieties of ENHG. Meißnisch lost its pre-eminence as a prestige dialect and was replaced by a supraregional language constructed through the efforts of grammarians, literary experts and other persons interested in linguistic issues. The central issues concerning language design were the invention of rules that admitted no exceptions as well as, particularly in the eighteenth century, the rationalist ideas of language clarity and one-toone correspondence between linguistic concepts and reality. Whilst this general account is more or less accepted by the more recent research literature, the actual impact of the grammarians on specific details of the written language remain difficult to assess precisely. Takada (1998) shows how grammarians in the seventeenth century influenced language use in areas such as orthography and word-formation, as well as syntax, albeit with varying degrees of success.31 31

Crucially, it is not always easy to determine why some issues were readily accepted in language use whilst others were not. The most straightforward suggestion, pragmatic considerations, lead towards

Polynegation and Double Perfect

123

With regard to syntactic aspects, Nitta's (1996) results on a change of language use are very clear, showing a reduction of extraposition towards a fixation of the sentence frame in the ENHG period, independent of metalinguistic comments. As Konopka (1996) shows, this had the effect of increasing the density of the texts with the results that they were generally more difficult to understand. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Konopka's two groups of grammarians had different degrees of success with their suggestions for reform, since one group advocated a linguistic system which was helpful to the reader. Nonetheless, it is difficult to see to what extent those grammarians whose rules copied actual language use more closely did indeed postulate a new, better language model (Sprachvorbild) rather than providing very good or accurate descriptions of tendencies that were already taking place in the language. If reasons for syntactic change can be of a pragmatic nature as Konopka suggests then, surely, these factors may have led to a change in the language of invidual writers, even without interference from prescriptive grammarians. The main result of the two major studies on the effectiveness of prescriptive grammarians which included a corpus of language use for comparison (i.e. Konopka 1996 and Takada 1998) is that effectiveness can vary with regard to individual features and generalizations can rarely be verified or substantiated. This serves to justify the method adopted in this monograph, namely to pick out relatively few features (in our case: three) but to use large corpora of texts which reflect both metalinguistic comments (Sprachreflexion) and language use {Sprachgebrauch) to provide a picture of development that is as accurate as possible. It should be added in this context that neither Takada (1998) nor Konopka (1996) deal in any greater detail with either auxiliary tun, polynegation or double perfect.32 In the next section, the constructions of polynegation and double perfect will be briefly introduced as they will be used as complementary evidence for the theory that the stigmatization of grammatical construction was based on prescriptive intervention but also that the stigmatizing processes were independent of each other and occurred in discrete stages.

3.3 Polynegation and Double Perfect In the following section, the phenomena of polynegation and double perfect will be briefly reviewed to introduce two further constructions that can be compared with auxiliary tun in that they, too, are syntactic constructions which

32

the issue of descriptivity, i.e. a successful grammarians is one who is very accurate at describing current language use, rather than predicting or prescribing new forms. Takada (1998) very briefly refers to the auxiliary tun (: 234f.) and double perfect (: 25 If).

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are ungrammatical in standard German despite a long and continuing existence in historical and modern German dialects. 3.3.1 Polynegation 3.3.1.1 Introduction Polynegation is a phenomenon that is found throughout but by no means restricted to the West Germanic language family.33 It refers to those negated sentences that involve more than one negative element, as e.g. grammaticalised in modern standard French: (76)

Je ne parle pas français negl neg2

=

"I do not speak French"

where both ne and pas have come to be obligatory negative elements (cf. Price 1998: 252ff.), and is common in many WGmc. dialects today (cf. Haegeman 1995 for West Flemish). Polynegation generally refers to sentences with more than one negative element and an overall negative reading of the sentence. In modern standard German, the construction is not accepted. Admoni (1990: 104) reports some cases of polynegative sentences but explains that these occur only to demonstrate a particular logical or emotional markedness. Usually the presence of two negative elements will result in a positive reading of a sentence: (77)

Ich spreche nicht kein Französisch = negl neg2

"I do speak French"

The modern standard German rule of two negatives making a positive, which can also be found in other WGmc. languages (e.g. modern standard Dutch and modern standard English), is commonly assumed to have been caused by the prescriptive influence of the grammarians of the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries,34 who claimed, on the basis of prepositional logic that negative + negative = positive. Schmidt (82000 : 372) dates the change to affirmative reading to the eighteenth century at the earliest. 33 34

For accounts and analyses of polynegation cf. e.g. Haegeman (1995) amongst a wealth of literature. Behaghel (1923-32: 83fF.) argues that it results from Latin influence, as early as the MHG period (i.e. when there were no prescriptive grammarians as they are defined in this book). Similarly Dal (1966: 164): "Die in der heutigen Schriftsprache geltende Regel, daß zwei Negationen im selben Satz sich aufheben, ist von der lateinischen Grammatik auf die deutsche übertragen." Wells refines this statements in that he argues that it was Latin school grammars which had an influence on the negation in modern standard German: Ihr Schwund [der Polynegation] in der mod. Standardsprache könnte den Einfluß lat. Schulgrammatiken auf die dt. Grammatiken widerspiegeln. (Wells 1990: 281)

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The position of purists on this construction is somewhat mixed. The influential Wustmann (31903: 265) carefully reports that polynegation used to be a common property of German and was used by such respectable writers as Lessing, Schiller and Goethe. In fact, Wustmann (31903: 266) states his regret that the Latin model has replaced the old German rule but he concludes that since this is now the norm, the old way cannot be accepted. Restricting ourselves to the case of German, it is in this respect that polynegation becomes an obvious choice for comparison with auxiliary tun in that it may be possible to establish whether the stigmatization of auxiliary tun and polynegation temporarily coincide, whether the same grammarians argue against both or one of the constructions and whether the reasons for ruling out the two constructions from the standard language can be matched. As Austen (1984) showed for eModE and Pensel (1976) for ENHG, several types of polynegation can be distinguished. For our purposes it will be sufficient to review the history of negation in German and to compare the ENHG situation with the comments made by contemporary grammarians to examine to what extent it can be claimed that the grammarians had any influence on the stigmatization of this construction and thus an influence on the design of the standard language as such. As illustrated above, the presence of a second negative element in modern standard German results in a positive reading of the proposition of the sentence, in correspondence with the truth paradigm of formal logic: (78a) (78b)

Der Mann hat keinen Hund nicht geschlagen. "Der Hund wurde geschlagen" Die Geschichte ist nicht ««wahr. "?Die Geschichte ist wahr."

Examples as in (78b) are used by speakers of German only to achieve a marked pragmatic effect. This may be the reason why the interpretation of (78b), which like (78a) simply involves the presence of two negative elements,35 does not simply appear to be a straight positive. Rather, it seems that there is a difference of interpretation between "Die Geschichte ist nicht unwahr." and "Die Geschichte ist wahr." despite the fact their truth-conditional semantics are identical. The presence of the two negative elements in (78b) provide a pragmatic spin on the interpretation of the sentence to the effect that the speaker expresses some uncertainty of the truth of the sentence. Crucially, however, this variation in interpretation does not have the effect of affirming or emphasizing the negation, as it is the case in polynegative sentence as e.g. in OE: 35

It will be ignored here that one of the negative elements is morphologically bound. Cf. Lenz (1995) for an extensive discussion of the semantics of un-.

126

(79)

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

on nanum men nyton nane are, no men did they show no mercy "they defnitely showed no mercy to any men" (Mitchell & Robinson: 102)

and ENHG: (80)

und sol kain herr kain ligen gut noch kain hus von kainem [man] und kainer [trau] ze Nuwkilch erben in kainem weg. (Alemannic, in Hildebrand 1889, cited Wells 1990: 281)

Whilst it cannot therefore be said that polynegation does not exist in modern standard German, it only occurs in positive readings and thus is of a different nature than its historical counterparts 36 and its non-standard modern dialects (Dal 1966: 165). 3.3.1.2 Polynegation in Earlier Stages of German 3.3.1.2.1 Old and Middle High German In his study on ENHG negation, Pensel (1976: 296ff.) distinguishes between two groups of Negationstypen ·. Type 1 is formed with {nicht} either in isolation or in combination with another negative element, whilst type 2 consists of {en},37 again either in isolation or in conjunction with another negative element. Evidence from OHG and MHG shows that type 2 is older than type 1. In the earliest records, isolated en (ne), whilst still the dominant rule, soon became complemented by the accusative noun neowiht, niwiht, "no-one, no body", (cf. modern German nicht) to enforce the negative reading of the clause (Dal 1966: 164). This enforcing function of neowiht becomes weaker during the OHG period as it becomes more common: Die bereits im Althochdeutschen aus dem negierten Substantiv niawicht entstandene Negationsform niht beginnt jetzt zu einer gebräuchlichen Komponente des Elementarsatz mit der negierten Beziehung zwischen Subjekt und Prädikat zu werden, aber die alte abgeschwächte Negation ne bleibt in vielen Fällen bestehen,

36

37

Notice, however, that Behaghel (1924: 83ff.) gives a very early example of neg + neg = pos.: Mhd.: Altd. Museum 2 , 2 2 3 nicht nymmer hab ich die Zuversicht nach lobelicher wirde. - nymmer bicht nicht, Daß Verneinung des Hauptsatzes mit Verneinung des Nebensatzes zur Bejahung wird, ist schon seit dem 15. Jahrh. zu belegen: Dekam. 420, 27 ich spriche nit, das es nicht sünde sei, [...] An early variant of /en/ is /ne/.

127

Polynegation and Double Perfect

auch bei den Satzgliedern mit verallgemeinernder Semantik und bei den Hauptgliedem des Satzes. (Admoni 1990: 102f.)

The co-occurrence of en and niht with singular negative reading is shown e.g. in sine kundes niht besceiden baz der guoten (Ni, 14, 2)

(cited in Admoni 1990: 102f) By the end of the OHG period, negation with nicht had become the rule (Dal 1966: 164). Its use in co-occurrence with en (as in er enist niht guot, or er

enklaget niht, Priebsch & Collinson 1934: 305f.) continues to increase in the MHG period and ultimately replaces the original negative marker e«,38 which, however, does not die out completely before the ENHG period (cf. Pensel 1976). Priebsch & Collinson (1934: 305f.) summarize that the "history of the negative in German is, in effect, that of the replacement of the Indo-European particle ne [...] by the fuller word niht, which at first merely reinforced it." Despite the fact that the combination of ne + niht ceased to exist in late MHG, polynegation nonetheless continued to thrive, in the combinations of ne + kein, niemand etc. (Pensel's 1976 type 1) and niht + kein, niemand etc. (Pensel's

1976 type 2). In addition, it was commonplace to have more than two negative elements in a clause with the negative reading being enforced (Dal 1966: 165): (80a)

hin gehört bî minen tagen nie selbes niht gesagen (Iw 547-8).

(80b)

ichn gehörte nie solhes niht gesagen.

(Admoni 1990: 103f.) (Dal 1966: 165)

although it is sometimes difficult to interpret the negative elements, as Admoni (1990: 103f.) points out since iht and dehein continue to occur with positive reading ("something" and "someone" resp.).39 A variant of this type involves the combination of niht with a direct object, i.e. a full NP, as in MHG niht ein bone / ein brot / ein har or N H G nicht die Bohne, keinen blassen

Schimmer,

where the original semantics of the NP have virtually disappeared, cf. the following ENHG examples:40

38 39

40

"Ums Jahr 1300 ist ne auf hochdeutschem Gebiet so gut wie verschwunden" (Dal 1966: 164f). Die Zahl der Negationen im Satz läflt sich oft schwer feststellen, da solche Formen wie iht und dehein sowohl bejahend als verneinend gebraucht werden. (Admoni 1990: 103f.) This is of course what happened to pas "step" in modern French negation. In spoken French, the development goes even further as the original negative marker ne tends to be left out. Je ne parle pas français. => Je parle pas français. The result is that pas, originally retaining its internal semantics of "step" and used only to emphasize the negation has become the sole negative marker!

128 (81a) (81b)

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

das befinden wir nit eynen tropflen sie wissen nicht ein schwitz drumb (Philipp 1980: 128)

The type of polynegation that concerns us here, however, does not refer to these idiomatic uses but rather relates to the presence of two elements, both of which have negative reading as part of their own semantics. 3.3.1.2.2 Early New High German According to Wells (1990: 221), polynegation (Doppelnegation) is not found in Latin, is a feature of German dialects today and is considered ungrammatical in standard German. It can also be found in Luther's translation of the bible: Vulgata: 'pullum ... super quem nemo adhuc hominum sedit' => Lutherbibel: 'ein Füllen [...] auff welchem nie kein Mensch gesessen ist'. (Wells 1990: 221) The decrease of ne in favour of a continuing grammaticalisation of nicht as the sentential negative marker continues in ENHG. This does not mean to say, however, that polynegation as such is decreasing, too. Rather, kein loses its positive reading of "somebody" and insteads becomes a negative polarity item (NPI), with its semantics restricted to "nobody". It is by means of this change of the lexical semantics of kein that the overall use of polynegation decreases. Instead, single nicht establishes itself as the main form of sentential negation; it can only be left out with constituent negation as in: (82) Du solt keyn erbeyt thun sein.

(Admoni 1990: 141)

This construction continues to be attested in all text types in the sixteenth century but subsequently decreases in the written language (Ebert 1993: 320). Interestingly, however, Dal (1966) and Behaghel (1923-32) found examples of polynegation from higher register literature well past the ENHG period: (83) Wiel. 22, 56 er wiss gerade so Viel, als Niemand ohne seinen Schaden nicht wissen kann, F.A. Wolff, Liter. Analekten 2, 504 nichts nicht lobenswürdiges sah ich, Gotthelf, Novellensch. 7, 41 ich habe nicht Nichts. (Behaghel 1923-32: 84f.) (84) wem niemand nicht gefällt (Logau); wie er spricht, spricht dir niemand nicht (Lessing); nirgends keine Seele war zu sehen (G[oetheJ); mit der Zeit will niemand nicht davon wissen (G.); das disputiert ihm niemand nicht (Schüller]). (Dal 1966: 164)

129

Polynegation and Double Perfect

Pensel (1976) found examples in the eighteenth century and Philipp (1980: 128f.) claims that polynegation enforcing the negative content is found until well into the seventeenth century and even 20th century purists acknowledge the use of polynegation by respectable figures such as Lessing and Goethe (Schulze/ Wustmann 1943). Wells' observation that polynegation was restricted with regard to text type ("sie war einst in mittelalterlicher Verwaltung- und Kanzlei-Texten", Wells 1990: 281), is not borne out by Ebert's findings nor Pensel's (1976) results, where polynegation is attested across all text types. In this, the construction parallels the ^«-periphrasis. Furthermore the two features can be compared in that neither was very frequent in ENHG. It was shown above that in most texts in Corpus 1, there were not more than a few attestations of auxiliary tun. As regards polynegation, I refer to the only two quantitative studies on its distribution in ENHG: Bulach (1962) and Pensel (1976), both of which found very few examples of polynegation compared to the absolute number of negated sentences. Admoni (Admoni 1990: 187) cites the results by Bulach (1962: 271f.) who found only 11 instances (1.6%) of polynegation in a corpus of 607 negative sentences in seventeenth century. The corresponding figure for the sixteenth century was higher, with 2.1% involving polynegation. Admoni sees this decrease from 1.6% to 2.1% as a "Verstärkung der Tendenz zur mononegativen Gestaltung des Satzes" (Admoni 1990: 187). Pensel (1976) Pensel's (1976) research will receive special attention here, as it is the only study that extensively and exclusively dealt with the distribution of ENHG negation. Pensel compared two time periods: 1470-1530 (35 texts of between 7 and 135 pages) and 1670-1730 (17 texts of between 52 and 250 pages). For the earlier period he counted instances of twelve (sub-)types of negation across six text types (travel description, chronicles, pamphlets, technical prose and popular literature) and five dialect areas (Low German, West Central German, East Central German, West Upper German and East Upper German). As regards the period of 1470-1530, Pensel found that his type 1 (nicht on its own) accounted for by far the most negative sentences in all dialect areas, with more than 95% in three regions (ECG, WUG, EUG):

type \ region 1

nicht

1 . 1 nicht

2 en 2.1 en

+

2 . 2 en +

+ neg

neg nicht

LG 65.1 0.7 5.4 14.8 14.0

WCG 78.7 1.4 1.4 5.9 12.6

ECG 97.7 2.3 0 0 0

values s percentages; table adapted from Pensel (1976: 310)

WUG 95.4 3.4 0 0.2 0.9

EUG 96.9 1.4 0.5 0.2 0.9

130

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

The striking feature of this table is that in ECG, much cited as a Sprachvorbild for the standard language in the late ENHG period, the negation construction is closest to the modern German, with type 2 non-existent, whilst the only nonHigh German variety in the table, LG, achieves the lowest values for type 1 and 1.1. The results present a similar picture when grouped according to text type. Pamphlets are closest to the situation in modern standard German, with 96% of all negated sentences being of type 1 (100% in three of the five dialect areas). There is some significant variation within dialects (the most extreme is in ECG between pamphlet (100% type 1) and travel descriptions (55,8% type 1), but in general the tendency is towards uniformity across text type whilst variation across dialect areas still exist (Pensel 1976: 306). For our purposes, it is of course most important that, in High German, polynegation occurs in less than 5% of the negated sentences of Pensel's corpus already by this early period and thus can only be considered to be a marginal construction, which, if at all, is slightly regionally marked as North Western German, which might be ascribed to an influence or encouraging co-existence from MLG. For the second period from 1670-1730, Pensel excerpted 17 texts from four text types (letters, novels, educating literature, and technical literature) and four dialect areas (ECG, WCG, WUG, and EUG). Unsurprisingly, the development towards the situation in modern standard negation continued and only 7 of 875 negated sentences did not belong to type 1 (nicht on its own), six of which were of the type nicht + kein as in:

(85) es gereuet mich aber die Stunde kein Heller noch nicht, den ich da alle gemacht habe. (ECG, cited in Pensel 1976: 315) There were no significant regional or text type specific imbalances with regard to the distribution of the seven non-type 1 negations (Pensel 1976: 316). type \ region 1 nicht

WCG 99.7

ECG 98.7

WUG 99.2

EUG 100

1.1 nicht + neg

0.3

1.3

0.8

0

figures ε percentages; table adapted from Pensel (1976: 318)

Pensel (1976: 316) concludes that by and large, the modern use of sentential negation had been fully established by 1700, a result which stood in contrast to the DWB and some grammars which paint a misleading picture by their numerous citations of polynegative examples from specific text types after 1700 (Pensel 1976: 320). He therefore claims that the frequent citations of late examples in dictionaries are isolated incidences or represent deliberately stilted

Polynegation and Double Perfect

131

or archaizing language, given that his results clearly show polynegative tendencies to have virtually disappeared in early ENHG. In this context, it is interesting to note that pamphlets were the first text type with 100% "modern usage" of negation, which could be interpreted as suggesting that pamphlets were closest to the spoken language or most susceptible to new language forms. In his final section, Pensel (1976: 324f.) reports that contemporary grammars of the ENHG period refrained from making any specific comments on good or bad usage of negation. It was only with Gottsched in the mid-eighteenth century that the stigmatization of polynegation took place, thus at a time, when, according to Pensel's own findings, the construction had already died out. However, as will be shown below, in Corpus 2 there are a few comments on the interpretation and usage of polynegation by ENHG grammarians from as early as the sixteenth century which will shed some light on its status as a linguistic construction. To summarize, polynegation existed in a variety of combinations of two or more negative elements at least from early MHG, commonly involving a form of en and / or nicht. Whilst the construction is still found in modern dialects, it is ungrammatical in modern standard German. The construction became rarer in the late MHG period and virtually ceased to exist in all but North Western German by the sixteenth century. At the end of the seventeenth century, as shown by Pensel (1976), very little written evidence can be found, although isolated examples are still found in prose and verse of later centuries. The construction is similar to the ¿««-periphrasis as they are both syntactic constructions and both are comparatively young; neither was frequent at any stage of their development and both failed to become part of the modern standard language despite their continuing existence in modern dialects of German. Furthermore both constructions are frequently cited as having been stigmatized as "bad German" by prescriptive grammarians in the period between the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Before we look at the statements that the early grammarians of the ENHG actually made, I shall turn to a third syntactic construction which is not grammatical in standard German either, despite a long existence in many, especially southern dialects of German: the so-called double perfect (Doppelperfekt). 3.3.2 Double Perfect A well-documented feature of Southern German is the fact that the synthetic past tense, the Imperfekt or Präteritum has disappeared from the spoken language (cf. Ebert 1993: 388f.). This Präteritumschwund or loss of the preterite was attested as early as the fifteenth century (Lindgren 1957, cited in Ludwig 1967) and was well established in UG by 1530. Jörg (1976) (cited in Betten 1987: 117) dates the origin even earlier to the spoken language of the

132

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

fourteenth century, whereas Behaghel (1923-32: 272) claims that the double perfect was rare in MHG but more frequent in the fifteenth century. There was a revival of increasing Präteritum usage in the late seventeenth century which Lindgren relates to the establishment and spreading of the CG-based Schriftsprache where the preterite had never disappeared. Nonetheless, the loss of the preterite is the major development in the German tense system which was particularly strong in a geographical line south of Trier, Frankfurt, Dresden and South-East Silesia (Betten 1987: 117f.). For more recent times, Dal (1966: 135) claims that in Southern Germany, the preterite has been completetely replaced by the perfect tense. Lindgren argues that the loss of the preterite was caused or at least facilitated by, the apocope of schwa in the verbal paradigm of UG which led to the coalescence ("lautlicher Zusammenfall", Betten 1987: 117) of simple present and preterite in weak verbs, which therefore could not be distinguished anymore: preterite ich sagte du sagtest er sagte wir sagten ihr sagtet sie sagten

preterite after apocope ich sagt-0 —

er sagt-0 —

—

present tense ich sage du sagst er sagt wir sagen ihr sagt sie sagen

The table shows that the schwa-apocope need not have been the only factor that led to the change of the UG tense system, as it led to homophony of only one form (3sg.) but it could certainly have had a strong influence.41 The loss of the function of the preterite was compensated by both the perfect and the present tenses (Lindgren 1957, cited in Ludwig 1967: 121). Crucially, the perfect tense has become the default choice to express the past tense in Southern German (cf. Dal 1966: 135).42 The gap that is left in the paradigm by the shift of the perfect to the preterite slot was filled by the original Plusquamperfekt (past perfect), with a new form, the Doppelperfekt (or überkomponiertes Perfekt (Wells 1990, Schmidt 82000), neues Plusquamperfekt (Trost 1980), Doppelumschreibung (Philipp 1980),

41 42

Cf. Betten (1987), Ludwig (1967), Trost (1980) for a detailed discussion. The literature often refers to Northern German as a variety that by and large preserved the preterite in spoken language. My personal observations do not conform with this: Sentences as in ?? Gestern kaufte ich einen Liter Milch, are rarely if ever heard even in Northern Germany.

133

Polynegation and Double Perfect

doppelte Perfektform (Ebert 1993)) filling the slot of the past perfect, i.e. expressing events that began in the past and ended in the past:43

old system new system

now present er isst present

up to now pres. perfect er hat gegessen pluperfect

er isst

er hat / hatte gegessen

before preterite er aß pres. perfect er hat gegessen

up to before pluperfect er hatte gegessen Doppelperfekt

er hat / hatte gegessen gehabt.

This double perfect is formed with two auxiliaries of either sein or haben (depending on lexical selection of the main verb): (86) 'haben ' (flekt.) + Prät. Part. +

•gehabtM

er habí von seim weib ererbt gehabt (Zimmersche Chronik, 2,33) hab ichs schon zum Tafenhofer geschickt gehabt (Paumgartner, Briefwechsel 110). (Philipp 1980: 121f.) The double perfect was well established in the ENHG period ("Die überkomponierten Formen vom Typ ich habe gegessen gehabt sind im sechszehnten Jahrhundert gut bezeugt" (Wells (1990: 264)) and, although its function seems to be the expression of time before the past, it has been suggested that the participle form could be viewed more generally as aspectual particle, expressing "completion of action" ("einen stärkeren Grad von Abgeschlossenheit", Wells (1990: 264); "meist mit Bezug auf Abgeschlossenheit bzw. Vorvergangenheit", Ebert (1993: 390); cf. also Takada (1998: 251, 254)). There appear to have been some text-type specific sensitivities in that the double perfect occurs more readily in those texts which suggest a closer proximity to the spoken language.45 The figures for the frequency of the perfect are highest and closest to each other in dialogues and Volksbüchern (Betten (1987: 119), referring to Semenjuk (1981) who investigated six text types of the period 1470-1530). As regards the stylistic status of the double perfect, which like the auxiliary tun and polynegation is not grammatical in standard German, there is nothing to be found in the literature with the exception of Wells (1990: 264) who claims that the stylistic value of 43 44 43

Cf. also Behaghel (1924: 272) and Dal (1966: 135). This is of course not completely accurate as some verbs selectoem as their auxiliary! This result links up with earlier investigations by Ludwig (1967) who claims that loss of the preterite was seen to have orgininated in oral narrative. "Der Bereich, in dem der süddeutsche Präteritumschwund sich hauptsächlich vollzogen und in dem er die stärksten Auswirkungen gehabt haben muss, ist also die mündlich vorgetragene Erzählung" (Ludwig 1967: 120).

134

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

"überkomponierte Formen" is not clear in the sixteenth century. Wells cites Gottsched as the sole representative of Sprachreflexion to condemn the use of the double perfect. We will see below that Gottsched's condemnation is not always copied by his contemporary grammarians nor was it stigmatized by earlier grammarians such as Schottel. In this section, two syntactic constructions were introduced: polynegation and double perfect which both share the fate of the auxiliary tun in that they were well-established features of ENHG syntax and continue to survive until the present day in modern dialects but which are ungrammatical in standard German. This raises the following questions in respect of all three constructions: why did they become ungrammatical or unacceptable in standard German, was the same reason behind the stigmatization of all three construction or did different reasons apply, and crucially, to what extent did contemporary grammarians have a major impact on the stigmatization of these constructions?

Evidence from Corpus 2 3 .4 Syntactic Stigmatization by Prescriptive Grammarians Introduction and Corpus Presentation In part I of this book, it was shown that the distribution of auxiliary tun in ENHG was even throughout the period, across all text types and in all dialect areas: it occurred in ca. 50% of all texts. Whilst this result is striking enough given the situation in modern standard German, it was also found in sections 2.8 and 2.9 that there is no decrease of the frequency of the construction in the last century of the ENHG period, the seventeenth century, nor was it less frequent or even infrequent in the ECG texts of the time, despite the fact that ECG was the most frequently cited Sprachvorbild in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In particular the language model is identified as Meißnisch, although there are several references to other ECG varieties, notably Silesian (the dialect of Martin Opitz). Reference to Meißnisch as a particularly "zierliche", good and esteemed language variety are found from the fifteenth century onwards (Josten 1976: 20). Interestingly, 66% of all ECG seventeenth century texts contained auxiliary tun and thus the lack of auxiliary tun in modern standard German cannot be explained by resorting to the linguistic properties of the foremost regional Sprachvorbild. Similarly, auxiliary tun is found with other linguistic models, i.e. texts from EUG {gemeines Teutsch) (as well as all other dialect areas), Luther, Opitz, and texts from chancelleries (cf. Josten 1976 for a survey of all

Syntactic Stigmatization by Prescriptive Grammarians

135

known Sprachvorbilder from the ENHG period). As was shown above, the conclusion is that the sociolinguistic stigmatization of auxiliary tun as nonstandard in modern times cannot be based on a distributional restriction of either space, time or text type. Whilst it is not surprising that the construction never received full grammatical status as a marker for a particular function, the discussion of the functional distribution in part I showed that tun could have been easily accommodated in the grammar of standard German, and indeed this would have been the expected development on the basis of its distribution in ENHG and in modern German dialects. Nonetheless, the present situation is that auxiliary tun is ungrammatical in standard German and its use is sociolinguistically marked as 'sub-standard', rather than merely the more neutral 'regional' or 'colloquial.' To explain this state of affairs, the final part of this monograph will look at evidence from early grammarians in order to find an explanation for the 'missing tun. ' During the ENHG period, the first grammars on and in German were written, according to the general trend in order to attribute more importance to publishing in the vernacular. Ickelsamer, who published a reading manual with a chapter on etymology, pointed out that a grammar of German must not be written on the basis of Latin, furthermore, it should not simply contain lists of paradigms, as this kind of knowledge would already have been acquired by the native speaker: [...] den verstand der Büchstaben / vnd des lesens / auch der Teiitschen sprach art / sampt der selben worter / Eytmologia vnnd außlegung / die nit alles kinderwerck lere / das in der Lateinischen Grammatic ist / Darzu sag ich / das der vns noch lang sein Teütsche Grammatic geben oder beschribe[n] hat / der ein Lateinische für sich imbt / vn[d] verteütscht sie / wie ich jr etwa wol gesehefn] / dan[n] der schafft mit vil arbeyt wenig nutz / & die teütsche[n] leren will / wie sie sagen vnd reden solle[n] / der Hans / des Hansens etc. Ich schreib / ich hab geschriben etc. Das lernefn] die kinder besser von der muter / dann auß der Grammatic /[...]. (Ickelsamer 1534:1 )

The grammarians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (or, following Jellinek 1913/14 and Takada 1998: pre- and post 1640) can be roughly divided into describers and prescribers. At the beginning of grammar writing, the authors were mostly concerned with teaching what they considered as German to foreigners, and apart of the division between Ober- and Niderlendisch, the dialects were considered to be of even status:46

46

Although, as shown above, ECG and EUG were of special importance as Schriftsprachen since the fifteenth century.

136

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

Der Meichssner nimpt auch das öy / der Schlesier aber das ay / für ag odder age / Als wenn der Meichssner spricht / die möyt söyt / der wöyn zöyl vnd nöyl etc. / Sagt der Schlesier / die mayt sayt / der wayn zayl vnd nayl etc. für / Die magt sagt / der wagenn zagel vnnd nagel etc. Die Dörintzer vnd Hartzlender / darumb das sie zwüschen den Ober vnnd Nidderlendem wohnenn / halten sie sich auch jnn der spracher beider setis / das ist / halp vnd halp / jnn ettlichen buchstaben vnd Worten mit der Oberlenndischen spräche stymmen / jnn ettlichen aber zu der Nidderlenndischen treten / als hie / vnd an der gleichen rede gemerckt wird / Es spricht der Oberlender / Bezal mir mein wein / vnd gehe mir aus meinem hause. Der Döring / Zal mir myn wyn / vnd geh mir vss mym huse. Der Niderlender / Tal my myn wyn / vnd ga my vt mym huss. (Frangk 1531: 106)47 Teutsche Sprach wird getheilet Inn Oberländisch / hue spectant dialecti inuviem intelligibiles, quibus utuntur { Rhenani. } { Franci. } { Misnenses. } Hi Ptolom: dicuntur { Silesij. } Ingueones Inwöner, qui { Turingi. } in contentis meditullium, { Norici. Suevi. } longius à mari concesserunt, { Austriaci. } qui et Wisteuones, die weiteste { Septemcastrenses. } Wöner, die sich wol herein in { Baioarij. } das Land begeben. { Tirolenses et omnes illi montani. } { Helvetij, etc } Niderlendisch teutsch es subdiuiditur in { {Haßi. { Superiorem nobisque {Westphali. Vbij. { propiorem linguam qua {Belgae citeriores. { utuntur {Saxonae superiores. { {Marchiaci. { {Pruteni. { {Pomerani. { Inferiorem, qua utuntur omnes populi, qui ad maris littora propius { haeserunt, quas historici Wigeuones vocant, id est Woge vel { Wogewöner, nam fluetus maris nobis Wogen significant, atque horum idiomata et dialecti incult adhuc et uicini sunt primae origini. (Albertus 1573: 38f.)

47

Frangk (1531: 108) is, however, also critical of some dialects: Die Francken vnd Schwartzwälder / haben jnn jrem schreibenn wie auch im reden / diesen sonderlichen misbrauch / das sie das m furs w [...] setzen / vnd jre nachbarn die Vogtlender / das b fürs w. Die Beyer das tsth wie gemeldt / furs k odder c. Des gleichen die Schweitzer ettwann das 1 fürs r verwechseln / als / Ko mir bollen ken s. tsthristels kilschen gan / fur / Ja / wir wollenm gen S. Cristoffels kirchen gehen. Vnd bis sey jtzundt hie zu einer Warnung des vbrigen gnug. [...]

Syntactic Stigmatization by Prescriptive Grammarians

137

The division between Upper German and Low German is thus a division of geography, rather than that of prestige. After 1600, the discussion about the correct pronunciation centres on the elevation of Meißnisch to the prestige dialect. Ratke (1619) adds a sociolinguistic dimension in that non-Meißnisch is the language of peasants, and consequently, the teachers in schools should use Meißnisch as the language of instruction: Zur Wortsprechung gehöret die Ausrede, da er [der Lehrer] der reinen Meißnischen Sprach aufs genauest sich befleißigen soll, [...]. Und hier soll er durch Entgegensetzung der falschen bäuerischen Aussprechung die Schüler zur reinen Sprache gewöhnen. (Ratke 1619: 92) At this stage, there was little clarity concerning the exact properties of the prestige variety and many authors contented themselves with a long list of politically important institutions which they considered to be representing the desirable written variety, even though the list contained a variety of different styles: Mein zwar in dieser wichtigen Sach gering vnd einfältig Iudicium oder Vrtheil zufeilen / halte ich dafür / daß diser zeit bey der Rö. Key. Majest. Hoffe / den Nider: Ober: vnd Vorderösterreichischen Landen / deßgleichen dem hochlöblichen Key. Cammergericht zu Speier / so dann bey Churfilrst. Meintzischer / Churfiirstlicher Pfalzgräfischer / Churfiirstlicher Sächsischer vnnd Churfiirstlicher Brandenburgischer / Fürstlicher Wirtenbergischer / Fürstlicher Marggräfischer Badischer / der löblichefn] Statt Augspurg / Nüre[n]berg / Vlm / Franckfort / Worm[m]s / Straßburg / rc. vnnd dergleichen Cantzleyen / im schreibe[n] die rechte Teutsche Spraach gebraucht werde. Wie dann auch die Reichsabscheid / deß Key. Cammergerichts Ordnung / viel Teutsche Bücher in Rechten / vnd die Formular / sampt etlichen Geschichtschreiben / als Flauius Iosephus, Titus Livius, Sleidanus, & c. in Teutsche Spraach gebracht / solcher massen beschrieben seynd. Mag derowegen meines geringfilgige[n] bedünckens schliessen: daß im reden vnnd schreiben Teutscher sprach / wie die bey allerhöchst: höchst: hoch: vnnd wohlgedachten Cantzleyen geschrieben / vn[d] in nechst=gemelten Bücher gedruckt gefunden wirdt / dieser zeit nachzufolgen seye. (Sattler 1631: 7) Somewhat surprisingly, Sattler ends this statement by saying that, in the end, everyone is right in choosing their own way of writing: Es wirdt aber hierzu niemand verbunden : sonder es stehet zu eines jeden freyen willen / im reden vnnd schreiben Teutscher Sprach / zu folgen wem er will. (Sattler 1631: 7)

138

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

Similarly liberal attitudes 48 of accepting the parallel existence of different dialects are also shown e.g. by Zesen: [...] denn wer einen guten Reim wil machen / der muß vor allen dingen die Mundart dessen Landes / wo er ist / in acht nehmen: Ist er in Meissen / so braucht er die Meissnische / ist er in der Schlesie / so braucht er die Schlesische Mundart [...] (Zesen 1641: 45) It is no coincidence that Zesen cites Silesian and Meißnisch ("welche die rechte Hochdeutsche," Zesen 1641: 45) in this context, as these two ECG varieties have by now become the only challengers for the claim to be hochdeutsch.49 As shown above, after 1640 the grammarians added more philosophical considerations to the discussion on the origin, status, linguistic properties and regional identity of the emerging German standard. In particular, it was thought that the duties of grammarians extended beyond the description of the current usage (of a particular prestige variety, in most cases Meißnisch) to the active (re-)creation or restitution (Takada 1998) of a previously existing form of German, namely the German after Babel. Thus whilst Schottel admits in his earlier writing that language use is an important aspect to identify the correct German Die Schreibekunst / [...] muß sich nach der gewonheit richten: Und nach dem bekanten Spruche ist der Gebrauch / ein rechter Lehrmeister der Sprachen. (Schottel 1641: 2) he reduces the relevance of language use to cases where the Sprachgebrauch does not violate a rule of the grammar: Derselbiger Gebrauch / dem ein Haubtgesetz / oder ein Grund der Sprachen entgegen laufft / ist kein Gebrauch / sonder eine mißbräuchliche Verfälschung. (Schottel 1641: 3) This new task of creating the grammar of Hochdeutsch established early grammarians as important factors in the development of the standard language as an artificial written idiom. The result of this shift of the standard language from being regionally identifiable to being a prestige variety that was spoken

48

49

Cf.: "Das mir nimals sei in sin kommen / imanden etwas / als einen notwendigen Lersaz / auf zu dringen / von dem er keines weges im schreiben dürfte abschreiten: sondern ich laße einem ¡glichen seine Freiheit." Beilin (1657; Vorbericht: 27). Notice the limited choice offered by the NUG writer Harsdörffer: Welche ausrede und also nachgehende welche Schreibart die reinste und richtigste seye / wollen wir nicht entscheiden / sondern lassen es die Meisner und Schlesier ausfechten. (Harsdörffer 1648-50: 7)

Syntactic Stigmatization by Prescriptive Grammarians

139

nowhere and everywhere (e.g. Beilin 166150, Hanmann (Opitz) 2 1658 51 ) was a further condemnation of the use of any regional constructions. Furthermore, the prestige language was seen to be superior not only to (other) dialects but also to the language of speakers of lower social prestige: Solcher massen hat Cicero sich wenig gekehret daran / was man in den Badstuben und Kohlmärkten zu Rom gepläudert: auch wird Virgilius nicht groß geachtet haben / was ein Bawerhans hinter der Viehe / für Wort gebrauchet haben möchte. Demnach wir Teutschen / unsere Muttersprache also und derogestallt / wie sie von mancherley Landarten gebraucht und von unwissenden hunderterley weise gehandhabt wird / wolten abmessen und rechtfertigen. (Schottel 1641: 4; my italics, NL) [die rechte Art] müße nicht in sich ungewiß / gestückelt / unerkant und nur aus dem Maule des Pöbels genom[n]nen sein; Sonderen sie müsse zuvor nohtwendiglich in eine gewisse Kunstform gebracht [...]. (Schottel 1643: n.p.) Derer Wörter / so nur bey den bauren und gemeinen Pöfel im brauche / zumal in einem wichtigen wercke / da nicht etwan bauren oder sonst ihres gleichen eingeführet werden / sol ein Poët sich nicht gebrauchen. (Tscherning 1659: 43) Thus whilst the everyday language required no training or education, the ability to use Hochdeutsch could only be achieved by studying: Der altages Gebrauch wird von wiegen an eingeflößet und durch sich selbst erlernet; Die Sprache aber mit nichten als durch erfoderten fleiß und Nachsinnen. (Schottel 1643: n.p.) So viel uns der Rede zu dem gemeinen Leben von nöhten ist / können wir mit zuwachsenden Jahren von den Ammen erlernen / und wer sich in seinem Stande darmit vergnüget / den gehet unsre Sache nicht an / nnd [sie/] -wird er reden wie etwann der Bauer hinter dem Pflug singet / der sich aber deßwegen mit keinem Capellmeister vergleichen darff. Eines solchen ungehörigen Richters Beurtheilung / wollen wir folgende keines Weges untergeben haben / sondern uns auf mehr verständiger Oburtheil beziehen. Der Alltagsmann kan nicht hohe Worte fuhren / weil er keine hohe Sachen zubehandlen hat / verstehet selbe nicht und handelt bescheidenlich / wann er dergleichen sonder Verachtung an seinem Orte beruhen lässet. (Harsdörffer 1648-50:17)

30

31

Jdoch aber weil fast kein Ort zu finden / da die Hochdeudsche Sprache durchgähend rein geredet würd: Dan fast allenthalben (was gemeine Läute belanget) auch bei den Hochdeudschen / sich ein Mangel befindet / entweder in der Ausrede / oder in der Wortfügung / u.a.m. wie denjenigen bekant ist / die die Hochdeudschenländer durchreiset haben; (Beilin 1661 : Forrede) Durch die gemeine Sprache verstehe ich nicht eine solche / welche vom Pöbel ins gemein geredet wird: Sondern / welche an keinem und doch fast allen Orten zufinden. (Hanmann/Opitz 21658: 163f.)

140

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

During the seventeenth century this view became increasingly accepted and with the acknowledgment that Hochdeutsch was a written language, used only by educated speakers, the status of Meißnisch as a superior dialect faded, although it continued to be cited as a prestige dialect by Gottsched and Adelung: Die rechte Meißnische Ausrede / wie sie zu Leipzig / Merseburg / Wittenberg / Dresden üblich / ist lieblich und wohllautend [...] Wie breit und verzogen aber Meisnische Dialectus auf dem Lande und unter den Bauren sey / ist nicht unbewust. (Schottel 1663: 159) Die Orthographia aber / weil man darzu mehr befiignuß gehabt / hat man durchgehende geändert / und eine gute Meißnische zu substituiren / sich äusserte angelegen seyn lassen / in deme eine unrichtige Schreiberey einen nicht geringen Ubelstand bringt / und absonderlich einen Oberländer / [...] sehr verdrießlich fallet. Zwar ist es eine Sache worinnen man leicht Verstössen kan / indeme die Meißner selbst / welche doch sehr darüber halten / in vielen Dingen bey sich nicht einig sind / und ist zu verwundern / daß sich biß dato noch keiner gefunden / welcher eine vollständige und richtige Orthographie geschrieben / [...]. (Morhof 1700, Vorrede: 15f.) Der Meißner Außrede ist die zierlichste / aber / sie haben auch einige Arten / die nicht nachzuahmen sind. (Morhof 1700: 435) Dennoch aber / so ist die Meißnische Mund=Art nicht eine Regel der Hochdeutschen Sprache; sondern nur ein Dialectus in der Oberländischen Sprachtheilung. Sie kömmt der Hochdeutschen Sprache sehr nahe; sie hat aber auch viel unzierliche Sonderheiten in der Außrede / und etliche unbrauchbare Wörter / die in der Hochdeutschen keine Statt finden. [...] In Summa: der gemeine Mann redet nirgend Hochdeutsch; die Gelahrte / geschickte / gereiste Leute aber auch ausser Meißen. (Bödiker 21701: 21 lf.)

Whilst these considerations on the localisation of Hochdeutsch were the focus of the most important debate on the development of standard German in the seventeenth century, this does not pertain to the specific problem of locating the reason for thefaw-stigmatization.The evidence from Corpus 1 showed that the construction was not regionally marked in any way, it occurred in Meißnisch just as much as in other dialects and it was not affected by the discussion of language purism which aimed at cleansing German of any foreign imports especially from Latin and French (cf. Jones 1995, 1999), since tun was a genuine construction of German. In some ways, it could have been expected that periphrastic tun would have been endorsed and protected by prescriptive grammarians as a grammatical feature that was particular to West Germanic languages and thus could serve as a demarcation from the infiltration of Romance languages.

Syntactic Stigmatization by Prescriptive Grammarians

141

Therefore, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the general discussions on the design, age and regional identity do not shed any light on the reason for the stigmatization of tun. In the eighteenth century, the standard language had been established as a given fact and although debates continued on the special status of ECG, it was commonly agreed that standard German was the language of educated speakers and clearly to be distinguished from the language of the lower classes. Crucially, standard German was seen to be linguistically superior to other varieties, i.e. it was more expressive, clearer and more efficient, tying in very clearly with the general theoretical concepts of the Age of the Enlightenment. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries motto "speak as you write" {Lautnormprinzip, Leseaussprache, cf. von Polenz 1991: 184, 186) had been extended to "in writing avoid ambiguity and redundancy." Since both the overall distribution of tun in ENHG as well as the general discussions on language between the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries do not provide an explanation for the ungrammaticality of tun in standard German, the following two sections will be dedicated to specific comments made by prescriptive grammarians on syntactic stigmatization, in particular with reference to polynegation, double perfect, and, of course the tunperiphrasis. Whilst what the three construction have in common is that they are ungrammatical in modern standard German, their distribution in ENHG was somewhat diverse. Whereas tun occurred in about 50% of all texts, polynegation was much rarer in general, whilst double perfect was regionally marked as Southern German.52 The grammarians' comments will be surveyed against the background of the following questions: • • • • • • •

is the construction mentioned at all? is the construction frequently mentioned? is there a correlation between comment and von Polenz' 'important grammarians'?53 are the comments always negative? are the comments restricted to specific types of metalinguistic texts? do the comments occur in chronological clusters? are the comments independent of each other or is there an element of plagiarism ?

The corpus of grammatical works (Corpus 2) consists of 139 texts, dating from 1531 to 1849 with the vast majority concentrating on the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The texts was selceted from the corpora listed in Josten 32 33

As it is today, although I have heard in as far north as Schleswig-Holstein. Not all of which are represented in the corpus.

142

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

(1976), Moulin-Fankhänel (1994, 1997), Konopka (1996), and Takada (1998). Since the aim of the research was possibly to re-assess the importance or influence of certain grammarians, no specific effort has been made to pre-select specific works. The texts were, in the vast majority, surveyed from original prints, with only some grammars being available or accessible in modern editions. The corpus consists of books from the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, the Germanistisches

Seminar Heidelberg (Lehrstuhl O.

Reichmann)

and the Herzog-August Bibliothek (HAB) Wolfenbüttel. As regards the HAB, the complete catalogue entries for Sprachwissenschaft and Grammatica were examined, provided that the texts was either written in a West Germanic language or pertained to a West Germanic language. Ten text types were applied to categorize the primary literature as follows: Text Type Grammatica Poetica Rhetorica Orthographia Dictionary Epistolographia Reading manual Phrase book54 Language Philosophy55 Others56

No. of texts 70 10 8 5 17 9 3 8 20 2

The overwhelming over-representation of grammars is clearly justified as the aim of this book is to identify the influence of grammarians on the stigmatization of tun. The grammars are both monolingual and multilingual, discussing one or more of the following languages: Latin, German, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Hebrew, Lithuanian, Bohemian (Czech), Rotwelsch. A number of L2 grammars (Fremdsprachengrammatiken) were included to shed any light on whether the three constructions were taught to foreigners and if so, until when. Similarly, L2 grammars of English may provide answers to the question of how the author would handle the doperiphrasis of English in his explanation to the German reader. Altogether, the grammars were examined with regard to any reference to either tun, polynegation or double perfect. Furthermore, in most cases the texts were scanned for instances of usage of auxiliary tun to establish to what extent grammarians were sensitive to it and thus to establish whether the 34 55

56

For want of a better term. German: Gesprächspiele. Any kind of theoretical discussion that pertains to language, admittedly grouping a diverse range of texts under this heading. In particular: on printer's manual and one writing manual (Schönschrift).

Syntactic Stigmatization by Prescriptive Grammarians

143

stigmatization is likely to have been introduced whenever the majority of grammarians ceased to use it. The following table is ordered chronologically and gives the following information of the name of author and text, date of publication, and text type providing information of the language the text is written in as well as the language that the text is discussing:57 (G = German, L = Latin, F = French, S = Spanish, I = Italian, E = English, H = Hebrew, Ν = Dutch) total number of texts: η = 139; ten text types (η = 152):58 Year of Title Text Type Author Publi(languages) cation Frangk 1531 Ein Cantzley / vnd Titel btichlin / Da G orthographia of rinnen gelernt wird / wie man / G Sendebriefe förmlich schreiben Anon 3 1534 Qvinqve Linguarum L dictionary of L, G, F, S, I Ickelsamer 1534 Ein Teutsche Grammatica G reading manual and orthographia of G Stimmer 1549 Fundamentbuechele G writing manual of G, L alphabets 1558 Conivgasions, regles et instrvctions Mevrier F, Ν reading manual of F, I, S, Ν 1561 Teütsch Spraach G, L dictionary of Maaler G Anon 4 1569 A shorte introduction E grammatica of L Albertus

1573

Ölinger

1574

Clajus

1578

Anon 7

1587

Manucci

1592

Lentulus 1

1594

57 58

Teutsch Grammatick oder Sprach- L grammatica of G kunst Vnderricht der Hoch Teutschen L grammatica of G Spraach "die deutsche Grammatik" L grammatica of G Dictionarium Lateinisch / Frant- L, G, F dictionary zösisch vn[n] Teutsch / füir die and list of phrases Welschen / so Teutsch / vnd Teusche of L, G, F [sie] Frantzösisch wollen lehmen Pvrae, Elegantes et Copiosae Latinae L phraseology of G, Lingvae Phrases, Germanicae & I,F Gallicae factae Grammatica Italica L grammatica of I, F, G

Le: a German grammar written in English would be represented as "E grammatica of G." Some texts belong to two categories.

144

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

Anon 8

1601

Anon 9

1601

Hutter

1602

Klatowsky

1603

Morellus

1603

Maye, Le

1606

Thomas

1606

Anon 6

1607

Heyden

Sattler la Barlaymont

Ratke 1

Hulsius

Dictionariolvm cvm Colloqvis L grammatica of L, Alliqvot quatuor linguarum Latiné, G, F, I with list of Germanicé, Gallicè, & Italicè phrases Rotwelsche Grammatica G grammatica of Rotwelsch Öffentlich Außschreiben G language philosophy on history and importance of German Ein Büchlein in Behmischer vnd G grammatica of Deutscher Sprach Bohemian and Bohemian grammatica of G Collqvia Familiaria [...] Gemeine G phraseology of F tägliche Gespräch / Denen so die Frantzösische Sprach begeren zu lernen The Dutch Schoole Master E grammatica and phraseology of Ν Dictionarium L grammatica of E

Dictionarium Latinvm, Gallicvm, et L dictionary of L, Germanicvm: Vna cvm formulis F,G loquendi f...] 1607 Formvlae Colloqvium pverilium pro L grammatica of G, tyronibus, per sebaldvm Heiden L, F Norimbergensem conscriptae 1607 Teutsche Orthographey G orthographia of G 1608 Der New Barlaymont / Oder Gemein G phraseology of F gespräch / Teudsch vn[d] Frantzösisch F phraseology of G beschrieben 1612 Außschreiben / Eines Ehrnvesten G language philoRaths dero Stadt Madgeburgk [...] sophy on teaching methodology 1614 Dictionaire Francois - Allemand F dictionary of G

Anchinoandrius

1616

Grammatica Italica

G grammatica of I

Henisch

1616

Teütsche Sprach vnd Weißheit

L dictionary of G

Ritter Kromayer

1616 1618

Helwig

1619

Grammatica Germanica Nova L grammatica of G Deutsche Grammatica / Zum newen G grammatica of G Methodo / der Jugend zum besten / zugerichtet Sprachkuenste G grammatica of G, L, H

145

Syntactic Stigmatization by Prescriptive Grammarians

Scheraeus

1619

Sprachenschule

Ratke 2

1619

Faye, de la

1620

Faye, de la

1621

Sumaran

1623

Despauterius

1626

Spalt

1626

Wolffstim

1627

Holstenius 1

1628

Holstenius 2

1628

Bartholomaeus

1629

Bachman

1630

Olearius

1630

Sattler lb

1631

Hornschuch

1634

G language philosophy on etymology "Die neue Lehrart" G language philosophy on teaching methodology Miroir des Action [...] nützliche G, F phraseology of Gespräch G, F Institutiones Lingua Gallicae: Oder G grammatica of F Gründliche Vnterweisung der Französischen Sprachen Newes Sprachbuch G grammatica and phraseology of F, I, S Ninivitae Vniversa Grammatica F, L language philosophy on universal grammar Grammaticae Gallicae F grammatica of L with German comments Nova et Compendiosissima ratio G, L language on informandae pueritiae à primis philosophy teaching metholiterarum dology Eine Vnglaubliche Jedoch gewisse / G grammatica of L bewährt vnd männiglich für Augen gestellte MANIERA Clärliche Anzeig oder Bedeutung / G language philoWas vnd wieviel ein Jedweder in sophy on learning a divino methodo Glaumiana language Langbegehrte Proben vnnd Specimina G grammatica of L Der Lateinischen Sprach in kurzer Zeit zu fassen vnd zuerlernen Vertheidigung der in Spanien G language philogefundenen Ianuae Lingvarum sophy on use of catholic grammars Deutsche Sprachkunst. Aus den G grammatica of G allergewissesten / der Vemunfft vn[d] gemeinen brauch Deutsch zu reden gemässen / gründen genommen Teutsche Orthographey / Vnd Phra- G orthographia of seologey G Orthotypographia printer's manual

Meyfart

1634

Teutsche Rhetorica

G rhetorica of G

146

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

Schottel 2

1641

Mancherley fürnehmer Leute Judicia G language philoVrtheil / vnd Meynungn Vber Die sophy on use of erste Sprachen=Thtir Catholic grammars Linguarum Cognatio L language philosophy in general Kurtze Anleitunge wie Anmutige / G epistolographia Teutsche Briefe / nach heutigem of G Gebrauch / recht / zierlich / artig und kurtz zu stellen Art vnd Weise Kurtze Brieflein zu G epistolographia schreiben of G Teutsche Sprachkunst G grammatica of G

Gueintz

1641

Deutscher Sprachlehre Entwurf

Zesen 1

1641

Comenius

1642

Rist

1642

Rayot

1643

Schottel 4

1643

Zesen 2

1643

Harsdörffer

1644

Deutsches Helicons Erster und Ander G poetica of G Theil/Oder Unterricht/ Gueldene SprachenThuer (Ianua Lin- L rhetorica with G / guarum) L dictionary Baptistae Armati, Vatis Thalosi. G language philoRettung der Edlen Teutschen Haupt- sophy on purism sprache Le Souhait des Alemans F grammatica of G G grammatica of F Der Teutschen Sprache Einleitung / G grammatica of G Zu richtiger gewisheit und grundmeßigem vermügen der Teutschen Haubtsprache Hooch=Deutsche Spraachübung Oder G poetica of G unvergreifileiches Bedenken Über die Hooch=deutsche Hauptspraache Frauenzimmer Gesprechspiele G phraseology of G

Schill

1644

Rivinus

1635

Hayne

1639

Anon 5

1640

Brehmen

1640

G grammatica of G

Seidel

Der Teutschen Sprach Ehren = Krantz G language philosophy on status of German 1645 Prosodia Germanica Oder buch von G poetica of G der Deudschen Poeterey 1645 Lobrede der Teutschen Poeterey / G poetica of G Abgefasset und in Nürnberg 1647 Kinder-Donat G grammatica of L

Butschky

1648

Guentzel

1648 1648

Hanmann/Opitz Klaj

Harsdörffer

Der Hochdeutsche Schlüssel / Zur G rhetorica and Schreibrichtigkeit oder Recht- epistolographia of G schreibung Haubtschlüssel G dictionary of I Poetischer Trichter

G poetica of G

Syntactic Stigmatization by Prescriptive Grammarians

147

Newe außgeputzte Sprachposaun

G language philosophy on purism Kunst=Spiegel / Darinnen die Hoch- G language philoteutsche Sprache nach ihrem merk- sophy on history of würdigen Uhraltertuhm / ersprieß- German lichen Wachstuhm Vralter Fußsteig G language philosophy on war between grammatical categories ABC- und Lesebüchlein G reading manual of G Frantzösischer Sprache Weg=weiser / G grammatica of F Oder Newe vnd eigentliche anleitung Grammatico Italico - Latino - Ger- L grammatica of G, manica I Neue Lateinische Grammatica G grammatica of L

Schorer

1648

Arnold (B)

1649

ßuno

1650

Buno

1650

Knobloch

1650

Lentulus 2

1650

Buno

1651

Schottel 3

1651

Calivisius

1652

Girbert

1653

Bellin 1

1657

Butschky 2

1659

Tscherning

1659

Hexham

1660

Overheide 1

1660

Bellin 2

1661

Schottel 1

1663

Erweiterte Hoch=Deutsche Kanzelley / Darinnen: nach vorgestelter Recht= Schreibung / Brif= und Tittelsäzzung Unvorgreiffliches Bedencken über etliche mißbräuche in der deutschen Schreib= und Sprach=Kunst / insonderheit der edlen Poeterey A Copious Englisg And Netherduytch E dictionary and Dictionarie grammatica of Ν Vermehrte Teutsche Schreib=Kunst / G grammatica of G in Drey Teil. Syntaxis Praepositionum Teutoni- G grammatica of G carum, Oder Deudscher Forwörter kunstmaßige Fügung Ausführliche Arbeit G grammatica of G

Overheide 2

1665

Schreibkunst

Kindeimann 1

1666

Der Deutsche Redner

Teutsche Sprachkunst / Vielfältig vermehret und verbessert Musici, Chronologi & Mathematici Enchiridion Lexici Latino - Germanici Die deutsche Grammatica oder Sprachkunst Hochdeudsche Rechtschreibung

G grammatica of G L dictionary of G G grammatica of G G orthographia of G G grammatica and epistolographia of G G poetica of G

G grammatica and epistolographia of G G rhetorica of G

148

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

Poelmann

1671

Pudor

1672

Comenius

1673

Habichthorst

1678

Francisci

1679

Kindermann 2

1680

Prasch

1680

Stieler

1681

Anon 1 Adolphi

1682 1685

Offelen

1686

Hickes

1689

Riemer

1689

Stieler

1691

Grüneberg

1694

Stübel

1694

ANS

1696

Langjahr

1697

Neuer hoochdeutscher Donat / Zum G grammatica of G Grund gelegt der neuen hoochdeutschen Grammatik Der Teutschen Sprache Grund- G grammatica and richtigkeit poetica of G Janua Linguarum L rhetorica with G / L dictionary Wohlgegründete Bedenckschrift über G language philodie Zesische Sonderbahre Ahrt Hoch- sophy on Zesen deutsch zu schreiben Die Neu=Aufgerichtete Liebs=- G epistolographia Cammer / Darinn Allerhand höflich= of G verliebte Send=Schreiben Teutscher Wolredner Auf allerhand G rhetorica of G Begebenheiten in Stats= und Hauswesen gerichtet Gründliche Anzeige / Von Fürtreff- G poetica of G lichkeit und Verbesserung Teutscher Poesie Teutsche Sekretariat=Kunst G grammatica and epistolographia for bureaucrats Grammaire Allemande F grammatica of G Erster Versuch / Einer kurtz = G grammatica of verfasseten Anleitung / Zur Lettischen Lettish Sprache A double grammar for Germans to G grammatica of E learn English E grammatica of G Institutiones Grammaticae Anglo- L grammatica of Saxonicae Old English, Icelandic, Gothic Neu-aufgehender Stern=Redner / nach G rhetorica of G dem Regenten=Redner erleuchtet Der Teutschen Sprache Stammbaum G dictionary of G Verbesserter Donatus, sam[m]t einer G grammatica of L ausführlichen Praesation von der alten Grammatiquen grossen Unrichtigkeit Latinismus in Nue: [...] Das ist: Die G grammatica of L gantze kurtz = gefasste Lateinische Sprach = Kunst Grammatica Nova Anglicana L grammatica of E Kurtzgefaßte Doch Gründliche An- G grammatica of G leitung Zu Leichter Erlernung der Teutschen Sprache

Syntactic Stigmatization by Prescriptive Grammarians

Morhof

1700

Bödiker

1701

149

Unterricht von der Teutschen Sprache G grammatica of G

Bödiker

Neu-vermehrte Grund=Sätze Der G grammatica of G Deutschen Sprachen 1703 Grammatica alla Moda, Tedesco - I grammatica of G Italiano G grammatica of I 1703 Die allerneueste Art Höfflich und G epistolographia Galant zu Schreiben / Oder of G Auserlesene Brieffe / 1704 Excertiationem Academicam [...] Von G language philoUnbilliger Verachtung Der Plat= sophy on Low Teutschen Sprache German 1705 vollkommene Teutsch = Englische G grammatica of E Grammatica 1706 Gründliche Anleitung zu Teutschen G epistolographia Briefen of G 1708 Der Deutschen Sprache unter- G language philoschiedene Alter und nach und nach sophy on age of zunehmendes Wachsthum German 1715 A Royal Compleat Grammar G grammatica of E E grammatica of G 1715 Einleitung zu gründlicher Erkäntniß G grammatica of G einer ieden / insonderheit aber Der Teutschen Sprache 1715 Einleitung zu der rechten / reinen und G poetica of G galanten Teutschen Poesie 1729 Grund=Sätze der Teutschen Sprache G grammatica of G

Litzel

1730

Der Undeutsche Catholik

Steinbach

1734

Egenolff

1735

Vollständiges Deutsches Buch Historie der Teutschen Sprache

Frisch

1741

Teutsch=Lateinisches Wörter=Buch

Anon 2

1745

Teutsche Grammatica

Chrysander

1750

Jüdisch = Teutsche Grammatik

Aichinger

1754

Versuch einer teutschen Sprachlehre

Dornbliith

1755

Peyton

1758

Basedow

1759

Observationes oder Gründliche An- G grammatica of G merckungen Neu-eingerichtete Grundsätze der G grammatica of E Englischen Sprache Neue Lehrart und Übung in der G grammatica of G Regelmässigkeit

Erberg Menantes

Aepinus

Tiessen Bohse (Talander) Gryphius

Koenig Longolius

Wahll

G grammatica and poetica of G Wörter= G dictionary of G G language philosophy on the history of German G / L dictionary of G/L G grammatica of G G grammatica of Yiddish G grammatica of G

150

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

Gottsched 1

1759

Kern der Deutschen Sprachkunst

Gottsched 2

1762

JJM

1763

Lambert

1764

Peucer

1765

Arnold (A)

1768

Vollständigere und neuerläuterte G grammatica of G Deutsche Sprachkunst Allgemeine Sprachkunst G grammatica of many languages Neues Organon G language philosophy on function oflanguage Anfangs-Gründe der Teutschen Ora- G rhetorica of G torie Grammatica Anglicana G grammatica of E

G grammatica of G

Hemmer

1780

Kein der deutschen Sprachkunst

Moritz 1

1782

Deutsche Sprachlehre flir die Damen G grammatica of G

Moritz 2

1784

Englische Sprach für die Deutschen

Ebers

1794

Adelung

1801

Campe Heyse

1810 1849

G grammatica of G

G grammatica of E Englische Sprachlehre für die Deut- G grammatica of E schen Versuch eines vollständigen gram- G dictionary of G matisch=kritischen Wörterbuches der Hochdeutschen Mundart Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache G dictionary of G Handwörterbuch der deutschen G dictionary of G Sprache

Evidence from Corpus 2 3 .5 The Stigmatization of Polynegation and Double Perfect 3.5.1. Introduction and Overview The following table presents a brief summary of the statements that were found in Corpus 2 on Sprachvorbild, the auxiliary tun, and polynegation / double perfect. Note that not all texts from Corpus 2 are entered here, as some do not make reference to any of the three grammatical constructions nor to the general concept of Sprachvorbild.

With regard to language models, the table by and large confirms the findings of Josten (1976) and Jellinek (1913/14) findings, namely that the dominant geographical language model is Meißnisch which is cited from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, with the occasional reference to Silesian. As regards the personale Autoritätsprinzip

(Josten 1976: 103ff), Opitz and especially

Luther are seen as representing a desirable German. Institutions that are mentioned are the imperial and other chancelleries, the law court at Speyer, the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, the court residence of the monarch or ruler. Furthermore, the language of gute teutsche Bücher and that of educated

Stigmatization of Polynegation and Double Perfect

151

speakers are advocated. In contrast, speakers are advised, especially from the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth century, to avoid all regionalisms, dialects and Alltagssprache in general. These language models match those that were found by the secondary literature and thus it can be seen as a verification of the proposition that the texts in Corpus 2 represent an appropriately representative cross-section of the linguistic literature of the ENHG period. The comments on tun and polynegation / double perfect will be discussed in greater detail further below but a mere glance at the table shows that the first cluster of a stigmatization of tun appears from 1640 onwards. Comments that outlaw polynegation or claim that two negative elements cause affirmation are not attested before 1754 whilst negative statements on the use of double perfect are found from 1681 onwards.

The Stigmatization of Auxiliary Tun

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