Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 3.329
April 24, 1994

1) Me tut fregn vs. me tut a freg (Bob Rothstein)
2) Zhibe - tikn toes (Moyshe Taube)
3) Auxilliary "ton" (Mikhl Herzog)
4) "Ton/tun" "tun/tin" (Mikhl Herzog)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat Apr 23 19:32:08 1994
From: rar@slavic.umass.edu
Subject: Me tut fregn vs. me tut a freg

Borrowing some concepts from the Russian linguists Peshkovskii and
Bondarko, we could say that the contrast:  _me tut fregn_ , _me tut a
freg_ and _me fregt_ belongs to the realm of "aspectuality."  This has to
do with the ability of a verb (in Yiddish or in any other language) to
show how an action or state proceeds in time or is distributed in time.
(This is different from "temporality," which has to do with locating an
action or state in time.)  When distinctions involving aspectuality are
obligatory in some language, we say that that language displays the
grammatical category of "aspect."  Thus, when speaking English, I have to
choose between "the sun shines [longer in the summer than in the winter]"
and "the sun is shining" [but this is New England, and it may not be
shining in five minutes]."  When asking my wife in Russian, "What did you
do today?", I have to choose between asking her "Chto ty delala?" (=
"What activities did you engage in?") and "Chto ty sdelala?" (= "What did
you accomplish?").

While the question of aspect distinctions in Yiddish is still open (our
Mendele colleague Howie Aronson had some interesting things to say on the
subject in a 1985 paper in _General Linguistics_), it's clear that
Yiddish does have a variety of ways of expressing aspectuality.  The
fullest treatment of this subject is in Mordkhe Schaechter's 1951 Vienna
dissertation, "Aktionen im Jiddischen," which was never published but is
available from University Microfilms in Ann Arbor.  For those who are not
single-minded enough to make their way through 140+ pages of academic
German, I provided a brief account of Schaechter's work in a review
article entitled "Yiddish Aspectology," published in _Studies in Yiddish
Linguistics_, ed. Paul Wexler (Tuebingen:  Niemeyer, 1990).

Returning to constructions with _tun/ton_:  It's true, as Khayem Bochner
points out, that the construction _me tut a freg_ has no formal parallel
in Slavic, but it does have a grammatical parallel in Slavic verbs with
the suffix -n- that mean a single act, e.g., Russian _kashlianut'_/Polish
_kaszlna,c'_ = Yiddish _a hust ton_ 'to give a [single] cough' vs.
_kashlet'/kaszlec'_ = Yiddish _hustn_ 'to cough [= be coughing]'.

The construction _men tut fregn_ , as Khayem also points out, has
provoked disagreement among Yiddish linguists.  In addition to Max
Weinreich, whom he quotes as equating _men tut fregn_ with _men fregt_,
the Soviet linguist A. Zaretski, in his _Yidishe gramatik_ (Vilna, 1929,
p. 120) calls the former construction archaic and says that it has no
special meaning ("keyn bazunder batayt") in the contemporary language.
He adds that it does have "a nuance of archaism, sometimes connected with
humor, irony." His colleague E. Falkovitsh, in his _Yidish:  fonetik,
grafik, leksik un gramatik_ (Moscow, 1940, pp. 209-10), devotes more
attention to the construction without ever explicitly commenting on its
meaning.  By presenting parallel texts from different writers, however,
he seems to be suggesting that the two versions are dialectal or
individual variants with no semantic difference. Zaretski writes that the
_ton_ + infinitive construction "is most widespread in a number of areas
in the Polish dialect.  One finds it, however, in writers from other
areas, both older and younger ones."  He points out that the construction
is quite old.

By contrast, both Yudel Mark, in his _Gramatik fun der yidisher
klal-shprakh_ (NY, 1978, p. 293), and Solomon A. Birnbaum, in his
_Yiddish:  a Survey and a Grammar_ (Toronto, 1979, p. 272), treat the
construction in question as an expression of "the habitual aspect"
(Birnbaum) or "der aspekt fun bashtendikayt" (Mark). Mark writes that it
"was characteristic of folk poetry, but literary poetry began to avoid
it.  It is also less frequently used in the spoken language than it was a
few generations ago. It has acquired the stamp of primitiveness
[_primitivkayt_]." Mark recommends that it not be overused, but views its
use as perfectly appropriate [_kosher_] in the contemporary standard
language for stylization or to stress habituality.  He points out that it
can be found in modern poetry, citing Sutzkever: Un feygl-gezang tut
farvign di beyner In tog fun nitsokhn, in tog fun geule.

Bob Rothstein

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Apr 24 06:34:32 1994
From: taube@HUM.HUJI.AC.IL
Subject: zhibe - tikn toes

For once I tried to offer help with first checking and -  a broch! I
confused in my memory Polish grzywa 'mane' and grzebien'' 'crest'.

Sorry,

Moyshe Taube

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Apr 24 10:58:55 1994
From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU
Subject: auxilliary "ton"

I have encountered only a single native speaker (from Kalisz in
western Poland) who quite regularly used the auxilliary "ton" in
narrative: "me tit nemen", etc.

Mikhl Herzog

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Apr 24 10:58:55 1994
From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU
Subject: "ton/tun" "tun/tin"

On the subject of the verb 'to do', there are distinct forms
that a bit difficult to keep apart, which may pattern as follows:

i) Infinitives "ton" (with komets alef) and "tun" (with vov) both
yield: "ikh tu, mir tuen, hobn geton". I don't think that the
komets alef variant has a regional variant "tun" (equivalent to
"zogn/zugn").

ii) The infinitive "tun" (with vov) has the expected regional
variant "ti:n": "ikh ti:, mir ti:en, hobn geti:n"

Mikhl Herzog

______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 3.329

A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly
updates.

Anonymous ftp archives available on:
          ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu
          in the directory pub/mendele/files

Archives available via gopher on:
        gopher.cic.net

Mendele has 2 rules:

	1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line.
	2. Sign your article.

To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to:

                   LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU

Send submissions/responses to:
        mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu

Other business:
        nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu