Description of the pronominal system of modern Vilamovicean (original) (raw)
The present paper is dedicated to the documentation of an underdocumented and nearly extinct Germanic language spoken in Poland, called Vilamovicean or Wymysiöeryś, and provides a detailed description of the pronominal morphology of this tongue. Employing the original evidence collected during their extensive field research, the authors present the declensional patterns of all the types of pronouns (personal, demonstrative, indefinite, anaphoric, relative, interrogative and possessive pronouns) and compare them with the pronominal system of Classical Vilamovicean, which was attested to at the beginning of the 20 th century. The authors conclude that although a vast majority of the classical pronouns and their declensional forms are still well-maintained, several changes are likewise evident. Namely, the genitive case has been lost; some pronouns have vanished while others modified their usage; certain pronominal forms have suffered a Polish and/ or German influence; original analytic pronominal expressions underwent a further grammaticalization process; and new case endings have emerged due to analogical adjustments.
Th e present paper provides a detailed analysis of the declensional morphology of the Vilamovicean nominal system. Th e author describes all the declensional patterns of masculine, feminine and neuter nouns that are available in this language in the 21 st century, and compares them to the situation attested to before the period of the Second World War. Th e evidence demonstrates that the Vilamovicean declensional system of nouns has undergone certain important changes over the last 100 years. While the regular case marking has essentially been maintained, various novel by-forms have emerged and in some instances even substituted the respective old patterns. Th e majority of changes seem to aff ect masculine nouns, while the feminine and, especially, neuter substantives are less aff ected by morphological modifi cations. Th e author concludes that the modern variants found in the shape of plural and singular forms are imposed both by the gender of a noun and its phonetic properties.
Vilamovicean - a Germanic-Slavic mixed language? Studies in Polish Linguistics 10/2 (2015): 57–85
The present article analyzes the Vilamovicean language within the framework of language contact. The author studies various sociolinguistic, lexical and grammatical features and properties, which are typical of mixed languages, and which can be found in Vilamovicean. The evidence suggests that Vilamovicean can be defined as a mixed German(ic)-Polish language, relatively advanced on the cline(s) of mixing. Although Vilamovicean originated as an exemplary member of the German(ic) family -and although the bulk of its components are still German(ic) -due to prolonged and intense contact with Polish, the ethnolect became similar to this Slavic language.
Journal of Linguistics/Jazykovedný casopis
The paper focuses on analyzing the relationship among word order positions of pronominal enclitics in the history of Czech. Specifically, we look at the Wackernagel’s position and the contact position and we try to decide whether these two positions compete, as usually taken for granted, or whether there is a certain kind of cooperation between them. The results show that the positions do not compete, at least not in the majority of cases. We used a corpus-based on selected books of the first edition of the Old Czech Bible and Kralice Bible for the analysis.
The Polish component in the Vilamovicean language. GLOSSOS 12:1-38.
The present paper offers a detailed discussion of the relationship between Vilamovicean (a Germanic minority language, spoken in the westernmost part of Galicia, in Poland) and Polish. The author enumerates and explains all the possible influences Vilamovicean has experienced from the dominant Polish language, be they phonetic, lexical, or properly grammatical (such as functional, morphological and syntactical changes). The author concludes that the impact of the Polish tongue on Vilamovicean is well marked both quantitatively (as the number of loans is high) and qualitatively (considering the borrowings are very diverse and span all the levels and sections of the language).
Revisiting the Wackernagelposition. The Evolution of the Cimbrian Pronominal System
The present contribution reconstructs the development of the personal object pronouns of Cimbrian, a German dialect spoken in Northern Italy which evolved many centuries in close contact with northern Italy’s Romance dialects. With reference to their functional status and their clausal position we discover that Cimbrian’s object pronouns started from a German model and have over time become closer to a Romance one. In the older Cimbrian texts, these elements are clearly recognizable as full phrases (XP), occupying the traditional Wackernagelposition; in modern writings they behave as heads (X°) and appear only in an ‘adverbal’ position, i.e. enclitic to the finite verb, similarly to the syntax of Romance object pronouns. The fact that they cannot be realized as proclitic to the finite verb – like the Romance ones – shows however that the original Germanic syntax limits the influence of that Romance. Attempting to explain this phenomenon, this current study suggests revisiting the st...
d r a s o n Der Aufsatz präsentiert eine detaillierte Analyse von zwei innovativen verbalen Tempora, die im Wilmesaurischen (eine germanische Sprache, die in Polen gesprochen wird) gefun-den wurden: die so genannte " neue Zukunft " oder " Futur III " und das " neue Konjunktiv Perfekt " oder " Konjunktiv Perfekt III ". Der Autor diskutiert die morphosyntaktischen und semantischen Eigenschaften der zwei Tempora, erklärt ihre Beziehung zu ähnlichen Kon-struktionen in der wilmesaurischen Sprache und geht auf die mögliche Geschichte ihrer Entstehung ein: beide Formationen könnten durch die Analogie der Konstruktionen im Polnischen entstanden sein. This article provides a detailed analysis of two innovative verbal tenses currently found in Vilamovicean (a Germanic language spoken in Poland): the so-called " new Future " or " Future III " and " new Conjunctive Perfect " or " Conjunctive Perfect III ". The author discusses the morphosyntactic and semantic characteristics of the two grams, explains their relation to similar constructions available in the Vilamovicean language and posits the most likely scenario of their origin, showing that both formations might have emerged by imitating equivalent expressions in Polish.
Balto-Slavic personal pronouns and their accentuation
Baltistica, 2013
Balto-Slavic personal pronouns and their accentuation This is the topic of Mate Kapović's dissertation (2006). Since the author refers to my work at various places in his study, it seems appropriate to specify the main points of agreement and disagreement between us. I shall not go into all the details. I am glad to see that Kapović has adopted my principal view that Indo-European lengthened grade vowels are circumflex, not acute, in Balto-Slavic, e.g. Lith. akmuõ 'stone', duktė̃ 'daughter', Latvian âbuõls 'apple', SCr. aorist dònijeh 'I brought', ùmrijeh 'I died', zàklēh 'I swore', root nouns such as Czech čár and čára 'magic', sám 'alone', also Latvian gùovs 'cow'. He has also accepted my view that the Lith. acc.pl. ending of the o-stems-us has adopted the acute of stems in a laryngeal (2006: 165, fn. 499), though he does not mention the loss of *H before final *-m in the acc.sg. forms which provided the motivation for this analogical development (e.g. Kortlandt 2005b: 153f.). Other points where Kapović has accepted my views are the Balto-Slavic development of *eu to *ou before vowels (2006: 124, cf. Kortlandt 1979: 57) and the reconstruction of PIE 2nd sg. dative *tub h i (2006: 156, cf. Kortlandt 2005a: 7). It is remarkable that he does not accept the parallel 1st sg. dative *miǵ h i, Latin mihī, cf. Oscan sífeí 'sibī', with an *i which is directly reflected in Polish mnie and Czech mně. The major difference between Kapović's reconstructions and mine is the huge number of doublets which he assumes for his proto-languages (2006: 91, 113, 158), e.g. 1st sg. PIE *eǵ, *eǵHóm, *eǵóh2, BSl. *ēź, *èś, *ēźàn, Slavic *ja, *jãzъ, dat. PIE *méǵ h i, *mey, *moy, BSl. *mùni, *mèni, *mey, acc. PIE *mé, *mē, *me, *mē, 2nd sg. PIE *tú, *tū, BSl. *tū, *tù, dat. PIE *túb h i, *téb h i, *tey, *toy, BSl. *tèbi, *tùbi, *tey, Slavic *tebẹ̀ , *tobẹ̀ , *ti, acc. PIE *twé, *twē, *te, *tē, 1st pl. PIE *wéy, *més, BSl. *mès, *mēś, gen. PIE *nos, *nōs, BSl. *nōśon, *nōśōn, *nōns, dat. PIE *nos, *nōs, BSl. *nōḿas, *nōns, acc. PIE *nsmé, *nos, *nōs, 2nd pl. gen. PIE *wos, *wōs, BSl. *wōśon, *wōśōn, *wōns, dat. PIE *wos, *wōs, BSl. *wōḿas, *wōns, acc. PIE *uswé, *usmé, *wos, *wōs, 1st du. PIE *wé, *wē, 2nd du. PIE *yú, *yū. It is reasonable to assume that much of this variation is secondary and must not be dated back to the proto-language. When the analyst finds it difficult to choose between alternative reconstructions, this is no valid reason for assuming that both are ancient. The history of Indo-European pronouns is full of secondary lengthenings and shortenings in the separate languages, as Kapović admits himself (2006: 147ff.), so there is no reason to date such variation back to any specific prehistoric stage, least of all Proto-Indo-European. Thus, I reject Kapović's reconstruction of Slavic 1st sg. *ja̋ beside *jãzъ and analogical *jã (for Štokavian, South Čakavian, Kajkavian, Slovak, Polish and Slovincian) and *jazъ (for Slovene, North Čakavian and Kajkavian) and reconstruct only *jàzъ, as attested in Slovene and neighboring Croatian dialects, with loss of-z and secondary lengthening in Serbo-Croatian and West Slavic dialects. Note that the phonetic reflex of *jãzъ is attested nowhere in Slavic and that the variants jà, jȁ are only attested beside jàz, jȁz (Kapović 2006: 34). The form *jàzъ evidently represents PIE *ʔeǵHom with initial stress (unlike Vedic ahám). For East Baltic I reconstruct *eś and for Prussian as < *eś (cf. 2000: 126), both with secondary shortening (as in Armenian es). My reconstruction of the 1st sg. pronoun is as follows: