Re: Categorial collapse

--- In cybalist@..., alexmoeller@... wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> To: <cybalist@...>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2002 6:30 PM
> Subject: [tied] Categorial collapse
>
> I hear people in North Germany say
> things like "mit der Trainer" (mit + nom.!, Bremen) and "mit
> die
> vielen Schäden" (for "mit den vielen Schäden", of a soccer
> team in
> the Ruhr area, interview in "Stern"). This doesn't happen in
> Southern
> Germany.
>
> [Moeller]
> I am not sure if in southern Germany is not a such way to
> speak. Even myself , I heard such things as " mit die
> Schauffel and similiars.. Someone will say, the people you
> heard, they simply have no clue of gramatik.This will be a
> simply explanation ,but not one for linguists.. Something
> makes the simple people who doesnt know too much about
> language to speak that way. Or the rules are not for folk, the
> folk makes, in time, the rules. Maybe is a general tendency to
> simplify the speech, I am not so sure about.

Yes, that is the standard explanation I also hear. A German girl from
Hamburg told me of an aquaintance who "couldn't tell the difference
between der, die and das" and found it very embarassing and a sign
that he was not very smart (Being a linguist I suspected what she
meant was that he didn't know the difference between acc. "den" and
dat. "dem"; that would be standard Low German). But on the other
hand, in Denmark, if someone can't tell the difference between "den"
(common gender) and "det" you can be sure he is from Western Jutland
(if he is not an immigrant). I could of course interpret that to mean
that people in Western Jutland are especially stupid and a lot of
people would agree, but how come that it is limited to one particular
area in Denmark? No one else does it in Denmark. I've never heard a
Swede or Norwegian or Fynbo or Sjællænder use wrong gender
(consistently), whether they were simple or not. Nor do the French.
Obviously something else is behind it.

BTW have you also heard someone say <für ihr> "for her"?

Torsten