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Constructions in Contact: Constructional perspectives on contact phenomena in Germanic languages
Edited by Hans C. Boas and Steffen Höder
[Constructional Approaches to Language 24] 2018
► pp. 73–113

Towards a constructional analysis of the progressive aspect in Texas German

This paper provides a constructional analysis of progressive aspect in Texas German (TxG) in present, indicative, active, non-negative sentences. TxG speakers used the present tense (progressive), am-progressive, tun-progressive, and the adverb jetzt to translate English sentences containing the present tense progressive be + -ing into TxG. This paper compares translation elicitation data from TxG speakers from Gillespie County from Gilbert’s (1972) Linguistic Atlas of Texas German, Guion (1996), and the present-day Texas German Dialect Project. It demonstrates that there is still a range of constructions available to TxGs to express progressivity, with the present tense being the most commonly used construction, followed by the temporal adverb jetzt (38%), the am-progressive (7%), and the tun-progressive (4%).

Keywords: Texas German, German progressive, am-progressive, tun periphrasis, contact language varieties, speech islands, Construction Grammar
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The progressive aspect in English and German
    • 2.1Progressive aspect
    • 2.2The progressive aspect in English, Standard German, and dialectal German
  • 3.A Construction Grammar approach to progressive aspect
  • 4.Progressive marking in Texas German
    • 4.1The present tense (progressive) construction with an optional adverb
      • 4.1.1The present tense (progressive) construction in Gilbert (1972), Guion (1996), and the TGDA
      • 4.1.2A TxG pres(prog) construction
    • 4.2The am-progressive
      • 4.2.1The am-progressive in Gilbert (1972), Guion (1996), and the TGDA
      • 4.2.2A TxG am-progressive construction
    • 4.3The tun-progressive
      • 4.3.1The tun-construction in Gilbert (1972), Guion (1996), and the TGDA
      • 4.3.2A TxG tun-progressive construction
  • 5.Summary and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 12 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.24.03ble
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