Would it be even possible to lose cases? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Would it be even possible to lose cases?
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akkadboy
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Message 17 of 35

12 October 2011 at 6:04pm | IP Logged

Марк wrote:

It's written about lose of genders, not cases.

My mistake, sorry. I looked for an article on Hasidic Yiddish I read a long time ago and picked the wrong one. Here is the one I wanted to find :

Gennady Estraikh wrote:

Contemporary Yiddish scholarship pays relatively little attention to ultra-Orthodox milieus. Particularly little is written about the literary and spoken language of the Satmar, Bobover and other Hasidic communities. As a result, even Bruce Mitchell’s rather pedestrian study “Language Politics and Language Survival: Yiddish Among the Haredim in Post-war Britain” (Peeters, 2006) can be welcomed as a breakthrough. He notices, in particular, “a total collapse of the gender and case system” in the contemporary Yiddish written and spoken by Hasidim.

Here are some examples I randomly picked on a Hasidic forum :
- אלעס איבער דאס איבערבוי פונעם סייט
ales iber dos iberboy funem sayt
All about the building of the website
(neutral nominative instead of dative, "iber dem" in klal Yiddish)

- מיכל פליישער איז פון די געבורט אן געווען
Mikhl Flaysher iz fun di geburt on geven...
Since he was born, M.F. was...
(feminine nominative instead of dative, "fun der geburt" in klal Yiddish)

- די פיס טריט פון דער איד
di fis trit fun der yid
the footsteps of the Jew
(masculine nominative instead of dative, "fun dem/funem yid" in klal Yiddish)

Edited by akkadboy on 12 October 2011 at 7:06pm
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Josquin
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Message 18 of 35

12 October 2011 at 7:03pm | IP Logged

tricycle wrote:

Quote:

I know that as English native speakers, when we can't think "on our feet" of the
correct German genitive, then we cop out and use "von" plus dative, but I can't think
that German native speakers would think like this.

This isn't a non-native speaker thing at all: the use of "von + dative" is quite normal and widespread as a genitive replacement in the spoken language. Even prepositions that are "supposed" to take the genitive are often used with the dative ("wegen dem Wetter" being more natural in conversation than the actually correct "wegen des Wetters").

For the 's' genitive examples you gave, I'd be far more likely to use the construction "das Haus von Klaus" but perhaps a native speaker should weigh in here.

Well, "von + dative" may be a popular construction in colloquial speech but you wouldn't find it in educated language or even in texts. You wouldn't usually find "das Haus von Klaus" in the newscasts or in a newspaper, but always "Klaus' Haus". So, I think it's quite a bit exaggerated to say that German is losing its genitive case.

Concerning prepositions: There are even some prepositions which normally dont't take the genitive case but the dative and which have been "taken over" by the genitive, e. g. "nahe des Flusses" instead of "nahe dem Fluss" ("near the river") and "entlang des Flusses" instead of "entlang dem Fluss" ("along the river"). These "wrong" genitive constructions are very popular and can be found all over the TV broadcasts and in newspapers.

In colloquial speech, it might even appear more adequate to use the "wrong" genitive because the correct dative would sound a bit scholarly and hyper-correct, just as in the case of "wegen dem" und "wegen des" where it's more usual to use "wegen dem" although it's officially grammatically incorrect.
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Марк
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Message 19 of 35

12 October 2011 at 7:20pm | IP Logged

Josquin wrote:

tricycle wrote:

Quote:

I know that as English native speakers, when
we can't think "on our feet" of the
correct German genitive, then we cop out and use "von" plus dative, but I can't think
that German native speakers would think like this.

This isn't a non-native speaker thing at all: the use of "von + dative" is quite normal
and widespread as a genitive replacement in the spoken language. Even prepositions that
are "supposed" to take the genitive are often used with the dative ("wegen dem Wetter"
being more natural in conversation than the actually correct "wegen des Wetters").

For the 's' genitive examples you gave, I'd be far more likely to use the construction
"das Haus von Klaus" but perhaps a native speaker should weigh in here.

Well, "von + dative" may be a popular construction in colloquial speech but you
wouldn't find it in educated language or even in texts. You wouldn't usually find "das
Haus von Klaus" in the newscasts or in a newspaper, but always "Klaus' Haus". So, I
think it's quite a bit exaggerated to say that German is losing its genitive case.

Concerning prepositions: There are even some prepositions which normally dont't take
the genitive case but the dative and which have been "taken over" by the genitive, e.
g. "nahe des Flusses" instead of "nahe dem Fluss" ("near the river") and "entlang des
Flusses" instead of "entlang dem Fluss" ("along the river"). These "wrong" genitive
constructions are very popular and can be found all over the TV broadcasts and in
newspapers.

In colloquial speech, it might even appear more adequate to use the "wrong" genitive
because the correct dative would sound a bit scholarly and hyper-correct, just as in
the case of "wegen dem" und "wegen des" where it's more usual to use "wegen dem"
although it's officially grammatically incorrect.

It means that the language is changing, and the standart norm is behind the actual
language.
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Josquin
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Message 20 of 35

12 October 2011 at 7:49pm | IP Logged

Марк wrote:

It means that the language is changing, and the standart norm is behind the actual
language.

Yeah, that's right. But my point was that the genitive in German isn't dying at all but still productive and widespread.
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Cainntear
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Message 21 of 35

12 October 2011 at 7:57pm | IP Logged

tricycle wrote:

Quote:

And here's where the notion of "non-native" gets messy. Remember that there's wide linguistic variation in Germany and a lot of "German" speakers aren't "Hochsdeutsch" speakers....
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Marc Frisch
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Message 22 of 35

12 October 2011 at 11:30pm | IP Logged

montmorency wrote:

What do you think is driving this change?

I don't know, but maybe constructions with the dative have been there in certain dialects for a long time and are now making their way to the standard language. Also, I have the impression that it seems to have become difficult for native speakers to decide whether the genitive or dative should be used (e.g. after prepositions like "während" or "wegen"), so it seems that the language has evolved (degenerated?) to a point where the underlying rules of the genitive/dative distinctions are no longer felt by the speakers and therefore is steering towards simplification.

montmorency wrote:

Presumably this form of the genitive will not be lost:

Karls Haus. Marias Buch.

Or what do you think?

I think that this might someday be replaced by "dem Karl sein Haus" and "der Maria ihr Buch", literally "the(dat) Mary her book", which is the most common construction where I'm from and sounds more natural to me than the construction "von+Dative" ("das Buch von Maria")
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Marc Frisch
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Message 23 of 35

12 October 2011 at 11:52pm | IP Logged

Josquin wrote:

I think I probably wouldn't use the genitive at all if it were not the standard in Hochdeutsch. I'm trying to imagine a conversation with members of my family and I can't come up with a single genitive construction that I might hear or say in such a context. Of course, this might be different in other regions of Germany (I'm from Saarland/Rheinland-Pfalz).

Constructions like "Klaus' Haus" sound somehow strange to me, because you can't hear the genitive-s.

Josquin wrote:

In colloquial speech, it might even appear more adequate to use the "wrong" genitive because the correct dative would sound a bit scholarly and hyper-correct, just as in the case of "wegen dem" und "wegen des" where it's more usual to use "wegen dem" although it's officially grammatically incorrect.

Exactly! "Wegen des" feels odd in colloquial speech. My guess is that in 10-20 years it will not only feel scholarly but archaic and gradually fall out of use.
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Iversen
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Message 24 of 35

13 October 2011 at 3:35pm | IP Logged

Danish has all but dropped the dative, and nobody seems to miss it.

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