Re: Latin - English derivatives, German

From: g
Message: 24187
Date: 2003-07-05

>(e.g. habe... machen können, and not gekonnt, habe... sprechen
>lassen, and not gelassen).

the rule of the building of the Perfekt tense with a double infinitive.
(Thus, one gets rid of the ge- prefix of the participle. BTW, in
Bavarian, this ge- prefix in the participle in many cases disappears, or
is reduced to a mere [k] or [g].) But these aren't recent and col-
loquial or slangy tendencies: the double infinitive is both
popular/regional and high style Hochdeutsch.

> >Hardly comparable. The use of Präteritum will rather be a
> >sign of some social status (higher education) and... region.
>
>Who said this?

I said this.

>I did not try to make comparisons on this basis.

I know.

>I do not find it to be a good basis.

I merely wished to point out that certain grammar & style
peculiarities, nolens-volens, are indicative of regional and/or
social aspects of the environment of the speaker. Extremely
few people (usually actors and radio-TV anchor people)
speak such a neutral Hochdeutsch that one isn't able to
distinguish the persons dialectal background.

>Eva

George