--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, g <st-george@...> wrote:
>
> > To my knowledge, south of that border, dative is preserved
everywhere,
> > north of it, it is mostly lost.
>
> In "platt" dialects? If so, maybe so, I don't know.
>
> > Also 'Einheitsplural' (-n or -t in verbs) is a northern thing.
Correct
> > me if I'm wrong.
>
> Gimme pls some examples. (Dat weess ik nit. I bin koa Fachmo net,
ich
> bin bloss wissbegierig. :-))
According to a short sketch of Platt grammar I have (but not here),
nouns are inflected like this:
m.sg.nom. 'der', oblique 'den'
f.sg. all cases 'de'
n.sg. all cases 'dat'
pl. all cases 'de'
which is pretty much the system, Dutch had until around 1930(?).
Loss of 'den' (substituted with 'de') made the case system collapse,
and merged m. and f.
Same book says western dialects have -(e)n in all persons in the pl.
of verbs (also like Dutch (and Western Middle English?)), those to
east have -(e)t (cf the bumper sticker "wi snackt platt").
And on the subject of collapse of inflectional systems: Apart from
the Scandinavian languages the only other examples I know of
languages which have lost all inflection for person and number in
the verb are those dialects of Latvian that are spoken on former
Livonian territory in the north of the country.
Torsten