Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.164 December 25, 1996 1) Slavic influences on Yiddish syntax (Arnie Kuzmack) 2) Slavic influences on Yiddish syntax (Ellen Prince) 3) Yiddish palindromes (Khane-Faygl Turtletaub) 4) Yiddish palindromes (Al Grand) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 13:57:18 -0500 (EST) From: kuzmack@cpcug.org Subject: Slavic influences on Yiddish syntax As another card-carrying non-academic, I am not sure exactly what is technically included in syntax, but the original assertion was that Slavic languages had given Yiddish vocabulary but had not influenced its grammatical structure. Here are two things that strike me as possbile examples to the contrary: 1. The use of zikh for first and second persons as well as third. 2. The near disappearance of perfect tenses in Yiddish. Arnie Kuzmack 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 01:10:01 EST From: ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Slavic influences on Yiddish syntax meylekh viswanath (6.160) asks two questions that may be on other people's minds as well: first, the simple one: 'infl' is the node that dominates things like tense. short for 'inflection' -- but involving those inflections (and not just inflections) that pertain to the finite verb. sorry for not explaining it before. the second one, why do we say that german and dutch and old yiddish are 'subject-object-verb' but that the verb moves into 2nd position in the main clause and NOT that they're 'subject-verb-object' but that the verb moves to the end in subordinate clauses? well, you _could_, but you'd also need a bunch of _other_ rules as well, to get everything in the right place: 1. you'd still need a verb-second constraint since the finite verb in main clauses has to be in 2nd position, which may or may not be after the subject: [* = impossible, ungrammatical] old yiddish: aun di zelbn hiidsn kliidr tet er an and the same heathen clothing put he on *aun di zelbn hiidsn kliidr er tet an 'and the same heathen clothing he put on' [bovo 263] german: auf diesem gebiet habe ich keine erfahrung *auf diesem gebiet ich habe keine erfahrung 'in this field i have no experience' 2. consider main clauses with compound tenses or complex verbs -- it's only the finite part that is in 2nd position -- the rest of the 'verb stuff' is at the end, following the objects, etc: old yiddish: der duzig HUT dir laiidr diin brudr tsu tut GISLAGN the hat HAS you-dative alas your brother to death HIT 'that one alas killed your brother' [bovo 238] [see 1st example above for clause-final separable prefix: ...TET...AN 'put on'] german: viele deutsche revolutionaere SIND in den jahren 1848 und 1849 nach amerika GEKOMMEN. 'many german revolutionaries came to america in the years 1848 and 1849' wir ZIEHEN diese methode der alten VOR 'we prefer these methods to the old ones' [vorziehen 'prefer'] (sorry for the ponderous examples! i don't know either of these languages and so can't make up nice simple ones but have to take what i find.) anyway, it's an 'occam's razor' thing -- if you say it's subject-obj- verb plus the verb-2nd constraint, you account for ALL the facts; if you say it's subj-verb-obj, you still need the verb-2nd constraint, _plus_ you need to stipulate a _lot_ of other rules to get it right. by the way, the first person that noticed this, at least in modern terms, was a guy jan koster working on dutch, barely 25 years ago. i guess it takes a few centuries for some finding, however elegant it may be, to make it into the language-instruction textbooks. ;) ellen prince 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 22:02:32 +0100 From: doctorkf@gte.net Subject: Yiddish palindromes Far "palindrome" volt ikh forgeleygt "hin un krik vort" farshteyt zikh far a vort vi "bob" (beans), un "hin un krik zats" far a zats vos m'ken im leynen di zelbe "hin un krik," l'moshl "bobe ze bob." Khane-Faygl Turtletaub 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 07:44:09 -0500 From: savoyid@aol.com Subject: Yiddish palindromes In regard to my recent request for Yiddish palindromes, it occurs to me that I didn't indicate whether I was thinking of transliterated palindromes or oysyes. The answer, of course, is that I'm interested in both. But since we have not yet entered the new era wherein oysyes can be transmitted electronically, I'd be grateful to have palindromes in oysyes sent to my postal address: Al Grand 933 Lawrence Court North Bellmore, NY 11710 And speaking of "new eras" here is a gem of a palindrome that addresses itself to that topic and which verges on the inspirational: "Are we not drawn onwards, we Jews, drawn onward to new era?" Al Grand ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.164