On the Dynamics of Article Use in Estonian Yiddish

Abstract

This contribution describes the variation in article use in contemporary Estonian Yiddish, a dialect belonging to the North Eastern Yiddish (NEY) group. The definite article in Yiddish will be considered together with case and gender. A striking feature in NEY dialects is the loss of neuter gender, accompanied by the emergence of mass gender, intermediate genders, and partial redistribution of former neuter nouns between feminine and masculine (if a noun is marked semantically or formally). Nouns without any marking belong to intermediate genders and show a great degree of regional variation in gender assignment. The indefinite article in the plural is zero, in the singular it has the same form for all genders and cases. Loss of neuter in NEY is paralleled by the merger of Dative and Accusative. Yiddish nouns (with few exceptions) do not take inflection; only personal pronouns, the definite article in singular and adjectives change in case. The use of Dative and Accusative forms for articles and personal pronouns varies throughout the NEY territory. The North of NEY (north-west of Lithuania, most of Latvia and Estonia) shows a stable distribution: Dative forms have been generalised for personal pronouns and Accusative forms for definite articles. In certain cases in a prepositional phrase, the definite article can be omitted, if the noun is not preceded by an adjective. In general, NEY shows greater syncretism in case-article-gender than Standard Yiddish. Estonian Yiddish (EY), a relatively young NEY dialect that has remained uninvestigated until recently, preserves the main morphological features of NEY (loss of neuter and merger of Dative and Accusative). Interestingly, EY demonstrates even more syncretism of the case-gender-article system. There are instances of the definite article omission in prepositional phrases containing adjectives, as well as indefinite article omissions. Adjective inflection -e is gradually taking over the adjective paradigm in oblique c