Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.160 December 9, 1993 1) Inverted word order (Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Dec 8 12:09:55 1993 From: Roslyn Kalifowicz-Waletzky <0005943838@mcimail.com> Subject: Inverted word order Shleyme Axelrod described the verb argument well when he wrote: >The issue now appears to be definitional, so why not drop it? There is >unlikely to be agreement between the two sides on exactly what is meant >by "rule", "exception", "license"--perhaps even by "all", "always" and >"never". There is certainly a lot of confusion here about this issue and the present stalemate I think is only aggravating things for more than just the neophytes on Mendele. Let's see if we could straighten it out before we drop it. In the "Synopsis of Grammar" of College Yiddish on P. 330, Weinreich names the word order he describes in Lessons 1 and 11 as "normal word order". That's the primary rule of the inflected verb being in second position that the Berman brothers are talking about. But the issue here is that there are alternate correct word order constructions besides questions and imperatives in Yiddish which Weinreich unfortunately does not make explicit in College Yiddish. It's understandable that he avoided discussing such constructions in a primer on the fundamentals of Yiddish. What's unfortunate is that when he does present inverted word order (the name this feature has been given) in non-interrogative or imperative sentences on P.122, it is most unclear and unspecific. Khaim keeps on correctly citing the consecutive word order presentation on p.122, and even lesson 15's samples of such correct constructions, but the point is not coming across because Weinreich, the Master for everyone today, didn't make it explicit there. People around YIVO have always complained about problems in College Yiddish, and here is one of them. First off, the problem is that when he discusses consecutive word order, he presents 2 cases simultaneously--the double independent clause sentence and the single clause sentence. His only reference to sentences with the verb in the initial position is found in the example sentence, i.e., "hob ikh gevart oyf im" but the explanatory paragraph talks only about the second clause in the above double-claused sentences. Furthermore, citing 3 variations of the question "bistu gekumen" (which automatically has inverted word order anyway) on that page doesn't clarify when the question "bistu gekumen?" means "You came?" and when "Bistu gekumen?" means "So you came?" since both Yiddish sentences look exactly alike. Giving the English translation of inverted word order, namely, "So I waited for him." is not enough to understand how and why the sentences are constructed the way they are in the sample reading of Lesson 15. For literal minded people, I guess Weinreich needed to have said clearly that here is another legitimate example of inverted worder order along with questions and imperatives. My goal here is really not to tear down College Yiddish, which I love, but citing P.122 as a place where it is clearly explained doesn't really work. The real problem in the discussion here may be that the nature of colloquial and narrative speech are not understood. These have their own features and markings. These markings are not incorrect or ungrammatical or even manifestations of poetic license, away from "regulations". They are different, not better or worse, from normal word order and they serve important functions for a variety of narrative and rhetorical strategies. That is, they have their own grammar just as questions and imperatives do and that grammar is part of the whole picture of Yiddish syntax. Sentences with the verb in initial position is one of the prominent features of colloquial and narrative speech. Der poshetster folksmenmentsh uses it thousands of times every day. If you call it "an exemption from grammatical rules", then you don't understand it, native speaker or not. Native speakers don't have to understand it. They just have to produce it. And the ability to produce it requires what Weinreich could not teach in College Yiddish, and that is intonation. As long as he kept to discussions of normal word order, intonation can be fudged along. The teacher in class easily provides the examples. When it came to questions, Weinreich later wrote an article about the the rise-fall intonation feature of Yiddish questions, but avoided discussing the issue in that chapter I think because he could not yet render or demonstate it in a textbook. That's what he left for the teacher and the street where Yiddish intonation patterns abounded in the late 1940s. Imperative intonation is similar to English's. So that's an easy one. But the intonation of inverted word order is the other ingredient in these constructions and impossible to explain in a textbook then. What throws the Bermans is the fact that the sample sentences here and other texts are being read and and not heard. Intonation is what carries it and what renders the preceding sentence as a modifier of the verb in such sentences we are talking about-- what lets it make sense. The role of intonation is even clearer when we find a group of such verb-first sentences in the middle of a narrative. As Khaim quoted Yudl Mark, "Keynmol shtelt men nit stam azoy dem beygevdikn teyl fun verb oyfn same ershtn ort. Faran in dem shtendik a gevise kavone ...Reyshis-kol trefn mir es -- bay a lebendikn dertseyln ..." You need the live narrator because (s)he will provide the music/ intonation part of the structure of that narrative. Why the Bermans are "tuning out" the music native speakers have in their head when they see such sentences within their appropriate context, eyn got veyst. If the Bermans think that these constructions are only literary, then how about certain forms of the conditional? Weinreich speaks only of regular word order construction in his discussion of the conditional. But how about this everyday conversation, Mame: Moyshe, Dovid vil geyn in te'ater un ikh hob nisht keyn gelt. Tate: Vil er geyn, zol er aleyn batsoln. Ain't nothin' literary about this conversation. When you look at the sentence "Hobn es di tsvey brider gekoyft." out of context, your conclusion should be that this is a sentence from a story, from a narrative, either someone is telling of some actual event or telling a story. Just because it has been cited in a book doesn't make it only literary. S'iz dokh a folksmayse!!! That story begins with "A mol is geven..." An oral telling that's been written down. As for the claim that "to" (tes komets aleph), is implied in such sentences. That is not correct despite the fact that "to" is also translated in Enlish as "so". What is implied in inverted word order construction is the word "iz". Quite often you will hear a speaker insert this word at the beginning of such sentences and sometimes not. But "iz" is what is always implied. As for asking native speakers directly about their speech, Ellen's and Bob's postings remind me of a great story I'll share with everyone. At some gathering of linguists for the discussion on the standardization of Yiddish and the issue of the choice pronounciations of the word "ikh", someone turned around to the great linguist and Galitsyaner Birnbaum and said to him, "But you use "yakh?" Birnbaum, with mouth agape, in a room with so many Litvaks, fiercely protested, "Yakh zug yakh? Yakh zug nisht yakh." My point is you can't directly ask even a great linguist about his own speech, shoyn opgeret fun a folksmentsh. Weinreich didn't have time to show all the syntactic possibilities available to "dem lebedikn dertsyeler", but just because he didn't get to it in his prolific but short 41 years doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Even Mordkhe Schaechter didn't get to write about inverted word order in his "Yiddish Tsvey". For those not willing to try reading the Yiddish scholarly writings on this issue cited by Khaim, an excellent English language analysis of this is available in the article by Josh Waletzky called "Topicalization in Yiddish" in "The Field Of Yiddish", Vol.4. I should note that one of Josh's many informants for what was then a senior thesis at Harvard was Abe Igelfeld, then down the road at M.I.T. My husband long ago left linguistics for film directing so this is no plug for his career. I wish I could get him to come on here himself. He says that the prime source for material on this issue is Zaretsky's writings (available at YIVO). Jason and Hal Berman: We have some printouts from the "Topicalization" article. I'll be happy to send you a copy if you e-mail me your snail-mail address. Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.159 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. 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