Abstract
AbstractThis contribution focuses on the use of geben ‘give’ as a put verb in Upper German dialects in Austria from a historical and a recent perspective. On the basis of comprehensive historical and contemporary data from German varieties and Slavic languages our analyses provide evidence for the central hypothesis that this phenomenon traces back to language contact with Czech as already suggested by various scholars in the 19th century. This assumption is also supported by the fact that Czech dát ‘give’ in put function has been accounted for since the Old Czech period as well as by its high frequency in both formal and informal Czech written texts. Moreover, our data analyses show that geben ‘give’ as a put verb has been and is still areally distributed along and spreading from the contact area of Czech and Upper German varieties.
Highlights
It is well known that basic GIVE1 verbs are a fruitful source for various grammaticalization and lexicalization pathways in the languages of the world
The results indicate that the use of GIVE verbs as basic PUT verbs is essentially a Central European phenomenon and possibly restricted to languages and varieties used in the area of the former Habsburg Empire
The phenomenon in focus is the verb geben ‘give’ in its function as a PUT verb in German and in a language that according to the relevant research literature is currently classified as a PUT-less language
Summary
It is well known that basic GIVE1 verbs are a fruitful source for various grammaticalization and lexicalization pathways in the languages of the world (for an overview cf. Newman, 1996; Heine & Kuteva, 2002). In case of non-solid objects, different specifying verbs are used in Standard German to refer to PUT actions: schütten and gießen ‘pour’ describe acts, in which the agent causes liquid to flow into a new container (cf [10–11]). It is the intensity and the level of energy necessary to perform the act that differentiates between the more intense and faster act of schütten ‘pour’ and the more careful and slower act of gießen ‘pour’. Schütten pour.INF (11) Wasser auf die Blumen gießen water.ACC onto the flowers.ACC pour.INF ‘to water the flowers (lit.: to pour water onto the flowers)’ These specifying verbs are a selection of those frequently used in Standard German in order to express basic acts of placement. Due to the length and specific aims of this paper, these factors will not and cannot be elaborated on in more detail
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