The role of English in Pennsylvania German development: best supporting actress?

Janet M. Fuller

21 citations0/0 files storedOpenSIUC (Southern Illinois University Carbondale)

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Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity Linguistic and Sociocultural Studies Linguistic Variation and Morphology

Abstract

THE PRESENT STUDY addresses the interaction between internal and exter- nal factors in language change in bilingual settings.The data for this research come from Pennsylvania German, and the two features examined are variation in past participle forms and restrictions on separable prefix verbs.These particular structures have not been discussed in previous research and provide a new perspective on the interaction among factors in language change.Two patterns of interaction between internal and external forces in diachronic processes will be discussed here.1First, surface ambiguity may become more salient in language contact situations, and this promotes internally motivated linguistic change.Second, the tendency toward transparency in form-function mapping may lead to a preference for semantically transparent loanwords over more complex native elements.In the case of Pennsylvania German, the end effect is the appearance of the structural convergence toward English, but with evidence that the changes are constrained by internal factors.CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC MAINTENANCE AND CHANGE Research among both secular and sectarian speakers of Pennsylvania German (e.g., Huffines 1989, 1992, 1993) has shown that while the language is dying out among the secular speakers, it continues to be usedand to change-among the sectarian or "Plain" speakers.These Plain speakers are Amish and Mennonites who live in communities throughout the eastern and midwestern United States and in settlements as far south as Florida and as far west as Texas.Plain Pennsylvania German (referred to here merely as Pennsylvania German or PG) has had unusual longevity for an immigrant language in the United States and has far outlived the pattern that is reported for many minority languages of language shift by the third generation.PG has not, however, emerged unscathed; the dialects of German brought to the United States have been leveled, mixed, simplified, and peppered with English.As will be discussed in the next section, the

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References

1995Language Contact and Change: Spanish in Los Angeles 1967The Origins and Development of the English Language 1989Codeswitching: anthropological and sociolinguistic perspectives 1990Language and Ethnicity in Minority Sociolinguistic Perspective 1990Investigating obsolescence : Studies in language contraction and death. Edited by Nancy C. Dorian Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pp. xiv, 445. Cloth $59.50.1989Case usage among the Pennsylvania German sectarians and nonsectarians 2013The Dialects of Modern German 1996When cultural maintenance means linguistic convergence: Pennsylvania German evidence for the Matrix Language Turnover hypothesis

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2000Morpheme types in a matrix language turnover: The introduction of system morphemes from English into Pennsylvania German

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