The case of [nən]
-
Evelyn Ziegler
Abstract
In recent years a new form has emerged in the paradigm of the indefinite article, the so-called “extended short form” nen (Vogel 2006) as in: Ich hab’ nen Mann gesehen. As little is known about the origin of this form (when was it used first, by whom, and in what contexts?), this paper will trace the history of nen using several corpora of colloquial German that cover language use in the 1960s, 1970s and 2000s (Pfeffer-Corpus, Freiburger-Corpus, Dialogstrukturen-Corpus, Emergency-Call-Corpus). Quantitative analyses reveal distinct patterns of variation, which indicate a language change that originated among young speakers in the 1990s. Furthermore, the findings show that the norms of colloquial German have clearly changed during the last 50 years. Explicit forms, which dominated language use in the 1960s and 1970s have been replaced by short forms (including the “extended short form” nen). It can be concluded that standard norm awareness was high in the 1960s, whereas today speakers exhibit low norm awareness and evaluate colloquial, supra-regional variants positively, even in formal contexts.
Abstract
In recent years a new form has emerged in the paradigm of the indefinite article, the so-called “extended short form” nen (Vogel 2006) as in: Ich hab’ nen Mann gesehen. As little is known about the origin of this form (when was it used first, by whom, and in what contexts?), this paper will trace the history of nen using several corpora of colloquial German that cover language use in the 1960s, 1970s and 2000s (Pfeffer-Corpus, Freiburger-Corpus, Dialogstrukturen-Corpus, Emergency-Call-Corpus). Quantitative analyses reveal distinct patterns of variation, which indicate a language change that originated among young speakers in the 1990s. Furthermore, the findings show that the norms of colloquial German have clearly changed during the last 50 years. Explicit forms, which dominated language use in the 1960s and 1970s have been replaced by short forms (including the “extended short form” nen). It can be concluded that standard norm awareness was high in the 1960s, whereas today speakers exhibit low norm awareness and evaluate colloquial, supra-regional variants positively, even in formal contexts.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- Where is syntactic variation? 1
- Phonological variation in Catalan and Alemannic from a typological perspective 27
- Language ideologies and language attitudes 45
- Late language acquisition and identity construction 57
- The variation of gender agreement on numerals in the Alpine space 69
- ‘Standard usage’ 83
- Code alternation patterns in bilingual family conversations 117
- A variationist approach to syntactic change 129
- Children’s switching/shifting competence in role-playing 145
- The Present Perfect in Cypriot Greek revisited 159
- Chain shifts revisited 173
- And the beat goes on 187
- Migrant teenagers’ acquisition of sociolinguistic variation 201
- The sociophonology and sociophonetics of Scottish Standard English (r) 215
- Stance and code-switching 229
- A town between dialects 247
- Variation of sibilants in Belarusian-Russian mixed speech 267
- The case of [nən] 281
- Index 295
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- Where is syntactic variation? 1
- Phonological variation in Catalan and Alemannic from a typological perspective 27
- Language ideologies and language attitudes 45
- Late language acquisition and identity construction 57
- The variation of gender agreement on numerals in the Alpine space 69
- ‘Standard usage’ 83
- Code alternation patterns in bilingual family conversations 117
- A variationist approach to syntactic change 129
- Children’s switching/shifting competence in role-playing 145
- The Present Perfect in Cypriot Greek revisited 159
- Chain shifts revisited 173
- And the beat goes on 187
- Migrant teenagers’ acquisition of sociolinguistic variation 201
- The sociophonology and sociophonetics of Scottish Standard English (r) 215
- Stance and code-switching 229
- A town between dialects 247
- Variation of sibilants in Belarusian-Russian mixed speech 267
- The case of [nən] 281
- Index 295
