scholarly journals Der s-Plural im Alemannischen.

2019 ◽  
Vol 98 (5) ◽  
pp. 31-49
Author(s):  
Andreas Klein ◽  
Kristin Kopf
Keyword(s):  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Native Structure ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
German Dialects ◽  
The Difference

It is commonly agreed that the plural -s has become a part of Standard German inflection, yet in dialects such as Alemannic it is often seen as an intruder. We challenge this view based on data from a written survey amongst speakers of Swiss German dialects. Our analysis of pluralised loanwords (e. g. Mango) and abbreviations (e. g. WG ‘flat share’) shows a strong effect of both speakers’ age and grammatical gender that points towards a progressive integration of the plural -s into the dialectal system. While masculine and neuter nouns can express number syntagmatically (using articles that differ in singular and plural), feminine nouns rely heavily on suffixes (as the definite article is d’ in both cases). A comparison of the -s plural with traditional dialectal plurals shows clear advantages for -s plurals in both cue strength (output) and scope (input) of the plural schema. We argue that it is due to this that feminine nouns show a significantly higher percentage of -s plurals compared with masculine and neuter nouns in speakers aged 25 and above. The difference disappears for younger speakers while the overall number of -s plurals increases drastically. Combined, we have an apparent time scenario that shows how the -s plural is first borrowed with nouns that rely on overt plural markers, and later spreads to most loans and other words with non-native structure.

scholarly journals Der onymische Artikel im Schweizerdeutschen in seiner Funktion als Genusmarker

2021 ◽  
Vol 107 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-222
Author(s):  
Melanie Bösiger
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Preceding Article ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
German Dialects ◽  
Biological Gender

In Swiss German dialects first names are commonly used with a preceding article. Historically, the function of these so-called onymic articles was to show the name’s case. They first arose when inflection of first names had been omitted and case was thus no longer expressed in suffixes. The data gathered in 2016 in an online survey for the research project “Das Anna und ihr Hund” indicate that today the function of reflecting the case is hardly relevant. However, it is important to the speakers to emphasize the nameʼs grammatical gender. The three grammatical genders in (Swiss) German are feminine, masculine, and neuter. Typically, the ono­nymic articles’ grammatical gender corresponds to their referents’ biological gender, i. e. feminine articles for women’s names, masculine articles for men’s names. But sometimes neuter articles are used with female or, less often, with male names. Therefore, the same first name can have different grammatical genders that are indicated with an onymic article, e. g. d Anna (f.) or s Anna (n.). The choice of the article depends on the speaker, the situation, the referent, and other factors. Based on these observations, it is argued that marking grammatical gender is the onymic article’s main function and marking case is secondary.

scholarly journals The Processing of Spanish Article–Noun Gender Agreement by Monolingual and Bilingual Toddlers

2020 ◽  
pp. 002383092097705
Author(s):  
Monika Molnar ◽  
José Alemán Bañón ◽  
Simona Mancini ◽  
Sendy Caffarra
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Gender Agreement

We assessed monolingual Spanish and bilingual Spanish-Basque toddlers’ sensitivity to gender agreement in correct vs. incorrect Spanish noun phrases (definite article + noun), using a spontaneous preference listening paradigm. Monolingual Spanish-learning toddlers exhibited a tendency to listen longer to the grammatically correct phrases (e.g., la casa; “the house”), as opposed to the incorrect ones (e.g., * el casa). This listening preference toward correct phrases is in line with earlier results obtained from French monolingual 18-month-olds (van Heugten & Christophe, 2015). Bilingual toddlers in the current study, however, tended to listen longer to the incorrect phrases. Basque was not a source of interference in the bilingual toddler’s input as Basque does not instantiate grammatical gender agreement. Overall, our results suggest that both monolingual and bilingual toddlers can distinguish between the correct and incorrect phrases by 18 months of age; however, monolinguals and bilinguals allocate their attention differently when processing grammatically incorrect forms.

Perceptual salience and analogical change: evidence from vowel lengthening in modern Swiss German dialects

1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Relation ◽  
Short Vowel ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
Perceptual Salience ◽  
German Dialects ◽  
Morphological Theory ◽  
Vowel Lengthening

In the light of current morphological theory, this paper examines the analogical levelling of long/short vowel oppositions in certain inflectional and derivational alternations in a number of modern Swiss German dialects. The regular occurrence of levelling is shown to depend on the extent to which the alternation in question is ‘perceptually salient’ (Chapman 1994). That is, if the semantic relation between base and derivative is transparent and the derivative is uniformly marked, analogical levelling occurs regularly. On the basis of this evidence it is argued that all morphological alternations, both inflectional and derivational, are listed in the lexicon and that each one is assigned a different status according to its degree of perceptual salience.

scholarly journals Iodination of insulin in aqueous and organic solvents

1969 ◽  
Vol 115 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Massaglia ◽  
U. Rosa ◽  
G. Rialdi ◽  
C. A. Rossi
Keyword(s):  
Ethylene Glycol ◽  
Organic Solvents ◽  
Molecular Conformation ◽  
Aqueous Media ◽  
Native Structure ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Polar Environment ◽  
Polar Area ◽  
The Difference ◽  
A Chain

1. The iodination of insulin was studied under various experimental conditions in aqueous media and in some organic solvents, by measuring separately the uptake of iodine by the four tyrosyl groups and the relative amounts of monoiodotyrosine and di-iodotyrosine that are formed. In aqueous media from pH1 to pH9 the iodination occurs predominantly on the tyrosyl groups of the A chain. Some organic solvents increase the iodine uptake of the B-chain tyrosyl groups. Their efficacy in promoting iodination of Tyr-B-16 and Tyr-B-26 is in the order: ethylene glycol and propylene glycol≃methanol and ethanol>dioxan>8m-urea. 2. It is suggested that each of the four tyrosyl groups in insulin has a different environment: Tyr-A-14 is fully exposed to the solvent; Tyr-A-19 is sterically influenced by the environmental structure, possibly by the vicinity of a disulphide interchain bond; Tyr-B-16 is embedded into a non-polar area whose stability is virtually independent of the molecular conformation; Tyr-B-26 is probably in a situation similar to Tyr-B-16 with the difference that its non-polar environment depends on the preservation of the native structure.

Analyzing rhythmic convergence between two Swiss German dialects

2019 ◽  
Vol 145 (3) ◽  
pp. 1929-1929
Author(s):  
Elisa Pellegrino ◽  
Volker Dellwo
Keyword(s):  
Swiss German ◽  
German Dialects

scholarly journals /s/-Lenition and the Preservation of Plurality in Modern Occitan

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-73
Author(s):  
Laurel MacKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Using Data

This paper examines the variable weakening and deletion of /s/ in the Languedocian variety of Modern Occitan, with particular attention to how it has affected the system of plural marking in noun phrases. Using data from linguistic atlases, I demonstrate that /s/-lenition in this variety involves a stage of vocalization to [j]. I find that, where /s/ on the definite article has vocalized to [j], the immediately-preceding vowel of the definite article has undergone concomitant raising to [e]. This raising appears to preserve the difference between singular and plural despite the plural’s weakening /s/. I argue that these results support Labov’s (1994) hypothesis that the meaning of a weakening element may be transferred to a stable, co-occurrent one.

scholarly journals Accessing grammatical gender in German: The impact of gender-marking regularities

2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNETTE HOHLFELD
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Times ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Online Experiment ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
The Impact

The present study investigated whether German speakers compute grammatical gender on the basis of gender-marking regularities. To this purpose two experiments were run. In Experiment 1, participants had to assign the definite article to German nouns in an online task; in the second experiment, participants were confronted with German nouns as well as nonwords in an untimed gender assignment task. In the online experiment, which required the repetition of a visually presented noun with its corresponding definite article as fast as possible, reaction times show that the assignment of the definite determiner to a noun is not facilitated by gender-marking regularities. In an offline gender assignment task, however, participants profited from gender cues during gender assignment to nonwords.

The inflectional behavior of English-origin adjectives in French

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
VALÉRIE SAUGERA
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Variation ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Word Class ◽  
The Difference

ABSTRACTWhen adjectives of English origin are pluralized in French, they follow one of three patterns: they receive inflection, reject inflection, or accept both forms. Curiously, these patterns of morphological variation have never been analyzed. This study identifies inflection-inhibiting constraints for a closed corpus of French dictionary-attested English adjectives and reveals that uninflected and variable adjectives do violate the standard native rule of adjective agreement, yet the constraints that block inflection are French-derived. A second feature of these adjectival anglicisms is that the nominal counterpart, if it exists, always receives native inflection (des jeans baggy vs. des baggys). The difference in word class, and specifically the feature of grammatical gender, may account for the contrastive behavior.

scholarly journals Sprachgebrauch und Spracheinstellungen in der Deutschschweiz. Pfarrpersonen als sprachbewusste Sprecherinnen und Sprecher im Fokus

2017 ◽  
Vol 85 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Oberholzer
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Language Awareness ◽  
Specific Group ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
German Dialects ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Real Language ◽  
High Degree

The relation between Swiss German dialects and Standard German has been subject to public and scholarly debates for over 100 years. Among the most frequently discussed points are the appropriateness of spoken Standard German in different contexts and the attitudes of Swiss people towards the two varieties. This paper summarises the results of a completed research project (Oberholzer in Vorb.), which surveyed language use and language attitudes in Swit-zerland for a specific group of speakers: pastors and priests working in German-speaking Switzerland. The paper shows how pastors and priests make use of the diglossic situation and the possibility to code-switch in Sunday services. The use of Standard German emerges as an important communicative resource in German-speaking Switzerland. In addition, real language use and intended language use match to a high degree; this shows the degree of language awareness of this particular group in a diglossic situation. Furthermore, a relatively new approach – the assumption that several mental models of High German coexist – helps to show differentiated language attitudes and to contradict some of the most common stereotypes regarding Standard German in German-speaking Switzerland. The attitudes towards Standard German in this study are significantly more positive than those observed in previous studies.

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