|
Abstract: The present investigation takes as its starting point the observation that an ongoing analogical change seems to affect German verb morphology or, more precisely, the imperative singular form of a group of verbs known as "starke Verben mit e/i-Wechsel" (‘strong verbs with e/igradation’). The imperative singular of these verbs and the second and third person singular are traditionally formed with a stem vowel alternation from the infinitive e to i, e.g. geben ‘give’ > gib! ‘give!’, du gibst ‘you give’, er/sie/es gibt ‘he/she/it gives’. This stem vowel alternation appears to be increasingly replaced in the imperative singular by a regular formation with the stem vowel e. However, the replacement process does not seem to affect the entire verb class to the same extent; while the traditional irregular imperative singular form of verbs like melken (milk!) and bergen (birg!) puzzle native speakers of German, the irregular variants of verbs like geben and nehmen are not questioned to the same extent.
The present dissertation offers an extensive investigation of the assumed analogical change in the imperative singular of the strong verbs with e/i-gradation. In three corpus studies, it tests whether and which frequency effects and other variables can explain the direction and the trajectory of the change and why only the imperative singular form of these verbs is affected by analogical levelling, while the irregular formation is preserved in the second and third person singular present indicative. The prevailing explanation of frequency effects in analogical change on the basis of the cognitive entrenchment of forms is put to the test in an experimental study, in which reading times of the competing traditional and analogical imperative singular variants in verbs of different frequency are measured. Thus, in the analysis of the ongoing change in the paradigm of German strong verbs with e/i-gradation, the present investigation draws on methods and findings from different fields of linguistics, among them in particular cognitive and psycholinguistics, historical linguistics and variationist sociolinguistics. Ultimately, it endeavours to explore the explanatory potential and the limitations of the frequency-based approach with regard to phenomena of ongoing language change. To this end, it often contrasts several frequency measures in a search for the most appropriate variable in a given context
|
