Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.172 December 29, 1996 1) Slavic influence on Yiddish syntax (Bob Rothstein) 2) Slavic influence on Yiddish syntax (Ellen Prince) 3) Question intonation (Arn Abramson) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 00:02:14 -0500 (EST) From: rar@slavic.umass.edu Subject: Slavic influence on Yiddish syntax (non-technical) Those Mendelyaner who chose not to follow the linguistic discussion about Slavic and Yiddish syntax missed (at least) two important general points made by Ellen Prince and others. The first is that not every phenomenon that is present in Yiddish and Slavic, but not in German, is necessarily due to Slavic influence. Before jumping to conclusions one needs to look at older Yiddish (before massive contact with Slavic) and also at the developments in other Germanic languages and dialects. The second point is that outside influences (e.g., of Slavic on Yiddish) may come in the form of encouraging developments that were already inherent in the influenced language. This seems to be at least part of the story of the development of verbal pre- fixation in Yiddish. (For some more details, see my "Yiddish Aspectology," a review article occasioned by the 1986 publication of Mordkhe Schaechter's groundbreaking 1951 dissertation, _Aktionen im Jiddischen_, in _Studies in Yiddish Linguistics_, ed. Paul Wexler [Tubingen, 1990].) P.S. On "Slavic" vs. "Slavonic": The former is the preferred version in the United States; the latter, in the United Kingdom and, I believe, in Canada. Thus the _Slavic and East European Journal_ is published in the US, while the _Slavonic and East European Review_ appears in England, and the origin of _Canadian Slavonic Papers_ should be obvious. One odd subregularity: the earliest written Slavic is referred to as "Old Church Slavonic" by Harvard-trained Slavists (and their students, and their students' students) but as "Old Church Slavic" by Yale-trained Slavists (and their students, and their students' students). Bob Rothstein 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 15:16:25 EST From: ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Slavic influence on Yiddish syntax thanks to joachim neugroschel for correcting my error that german was like english with respect to 'sequence of tenses' -- _very_ interesting to me to learn that it is not! question to joachim or other german speakers: how would you say the following in german?: when i was a child, i always knew when i was going to get sick. i thought you wouldn't come back. (but you came back!) also, what do you think of this line from remarque's _all quiet on the western front_ in the original german and in (singer's) yiddish translation? my german isn't even good enough to be called 'terrible' ;) but it looks as tho the german has a past tense where yiddish has the present tense, no? does this sound stilted in the spoken language? 'wir mussten erkennen, dass unser alter ehrlicher WAR als das ihre...' (impropylaeen-verlag, berlin, 1929, p. 18) 'mir hobn gemuzt aynzen, az in undzer elter IZ men erlekher, vi in zeyern.' (kleckin, warsaw, 1929, p. 23) 'we had to recognize that our generation WAS more to be trusted than theirs.' (little brown & co, boston, 1929, p.10) re joachim's point about the verb-second constraint in the interrogative, several comments are in order. first, i believe that both german and yiddish have a 'verb-first' order in the interrogative -- the verb-second constraint is strictly for declaratives. second, the position of _tsi_ 'if/whether' in yiddish is generally construed as the same position as the other question words, e.g. _ver_ 'who', _vos_ 'what', etc, a position that is outside the clause proper and that doesn't count as 'initial field'. (in modern syntax, it's called the 'complementizer' position.) e.g.: tsi redt er rusish? 'does he speak russian?' ver redt rusish? 'who speaks russian?' farvos redt er rusish?... 'why is he speaking russian?' the 'out of the clause' position is more easily observable if we look at indirect questions, which are declaratives and which (in yiddish) obey the verb-second constraint: ikh veys nit tsi er redt rusish. 'i don't know if/who/why...' ver es redt rusish. farvos er redt rusish. ikh veys nit tsi dort redt er rusish. 'i don't know if/who/why...there' ver dort redt rusish. farvos dort redt er rusish. (this is more or less the same position that other 'complementizers' occupy, e.g. ikh hof AZ er vet kumen 'i hope he comes', ...KEDEY er zol kenen zen '...so that he can see', dos bukh VOS ikh leyen 'the book i'm reading', a simen AZ ikh bin a nar 'a sign that i'm a fool'.) so again i think the only influence of slavic here is lexical -- yiddish borrowed the polish yes/no question word _tsi_ -- but it fit it in to its germanic syntax. re reflexives, i'm grateful to meyer-leyb wolf for pointing out that polish doesn't use a reflexive for _er hot zikh gekoyft a hoyz_ -- _kupil sobie dom_. wow, _sobie_ sure _looks_ reflexive to me -- but what do i know? (do you or does anyone know what IS the 3rd pers singular reflexive form in polish? it's really unusual for a language to have _any_ reflexive forms and not use them for the 3rd person, which is why i'm particularly interested.) ellen prince 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 17:52:53 -0400 From: abramson@uconnvm.uconn.edu Subject: Question intonation The several participants in the discussion over the possible Slavic influence on Yiddish syntax have been very interesting and informative. With all respect to Joachim Neugroschel's prowess as a translator, I am puzzled by his statements on intonation [6.168]. He says, "A connected issue is the inflection of a question: In an English question, the voice always goes up; 'Where are you going?' but in German the voice rises only if there is no interrogative word." Actually, we have statistical data on the matter for spoken English which indicate that the situation is similar to what he describes for German. Questions like "Where are you going?" and "What is he doing?" are likely to have a falling intonation at the end unless certain special affects are being conveyed. For example, "What is he doing" at a higher voice register with a rise in pitch at the end may indicate that the speaker didn't quite hear what had just been said. Without an interrogative word, e.g., "You're coming?," a sentence can be said with a rising pitch to show that it is not a statement. Superficially, one might say that it is a question, but, if so, it is a question conveying surprise or skepticism or the like. Of course, if it is worded "Are you coming?," an ordinary downward pitch movement, as for a statement, is quite normal; nevertheless, here too one can use a rising inflection, perhaps coupled with an overall higher voice register, to signal various attitudes of the speaker. Joachim also says about Yiddish, "In Yiddish, the voice seems to go up at the end of every question, but I wonder if there are regional differences." I must say that my own experience with a scattering of native speakers does not support his assertion. That is, except for the detailed shapes of the intonation contours, the "rules" may be be rather similar to the ones I have outlined for English. I hasten to add that his question about regional dialects is reasonabale and relevant, as it is for any language. Indeed, it is easy to observe intonational differences between American and British English. Perhaps Mikhl Herzog's data base contains information on varieities of intonation contours over the territory of Yiddish. Arn Abramson ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.172