Abstract
The present study shows that Wisconsin Heritage German licenses complementizer agreement for second person singular, with inflectional affixes developed through the reanalysis of phonetically-derived hiatus effects. Most frequently attested in speakers with direct ancestry to Franconian-speaking regions, this phenomenon is restricted to second person singular, consistent with the input varieties at time of immigration. Analyzed diachronically, complementizer agreement is shown to progress through a linguistic cycle involving the reanalysis and subsequent compensatory reinforcement of subject pronouns, with Wisconsin Heritage German exhibiting the earliest stage of this cycle.
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Munich/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- The vulnerability of the C-layer: introductory notes on German complementizers in contact
- Complementizers in the German-language Sprachinsel of Deutschpilsen/Nagybörzsöny (Hungary)
- Language contact and variation patterns in Walser German subordination
- The syntax of subordination in Cimbrian and the rationale behind language contact
- On asymmetric pro-drop in Mòcheno. Pinning down the role of contact in the maintenance of a root-embedded asymmetry
- From C-oriented cliticization to verbal agreement in Kansas Bukovina Bohemian
- Complementizer agreement in eastern Wisconsin: (Central) Franconian features in an American heritage language community
- On the variability of Texas German wo as a complementizer
- How interrogative pronouns can become relative pronouns: the case of was in Misionero German
- Complex complementizers and the structural relation with weak T. New (morpho)syntactic data from a Pomeranian language island in Brazil
- Annual Index Volume 67 (2014)
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- The vulnerability of the C-layer: introductory notes on German complementizers in contact
- Complementizers in the German-language Sprachinsel of Deutschpilsen/Nagybörzsöny (Hungary)
- Language contact and variation patterns in Walser German subordination
- The syntax of subordination in Cimbrian and the rationale behind language contact
- On asymmetric pro-drop in Mòcheno. Pinning down the role of contact in the maintenance of a root-embedded asymmetry
- From C-oriented cliticization to verbal agreement in Kansas Bukovina Bohemian
- Complementizer agreement in eastern Wisconsin: (Central) Franconian features in an American heritage language community
- On the variability of Texas German wo as a complementizer
- How interrogative pronouns can become relative pronouns: the case of was in Misionero German
- Complex complementizers and the structural relation with weak T. New (morpho)syntactic data from a Pomeranian language island in Brazil
- Annual Index Volume 67 (2014)