Cliticization of definite articles to prepositions in Middle High
German – early stages of grammaticalization?
A qualitative study
The subject of this contribution is clitic forms
of preposition and definite article in Middle High German (AD
1050–1350). Given the fact that some of these contractions (e.g.
am, im, ins,
zum, zur) have, in varying
degrees, undergone grammaticalization and have been integrated into
the system of definiteness markers in contemporary Standard German
(Er fliegt zum Mond vs. *Er fliegt zu
dem Mond), it seems likely that the documented
instances of such Preposition Definite Article Clitics (PDCs) in MHG
constitute an early stage of grammaticalization. This contribution
addresses this question by means of a qualitative empirical
approach, using the korpus der mittelhochdeutschen
grammatik. The results show that the MHG forms anticipate
the later stage of the development in modern German.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction: German Verschmelzungsformen
- 2.Previous research on
Verschmelzungsformen
- 3.Grammaticalization of PDCs reconsidered
- 4.
Verschmelzungsformen in Middle High
German
- 4.1Summary of Documented Instances of PDCs in MHG
- 4.2Selection of corpus texts
- 4.3Compound spellings as precursors of PDCs?
- 4.4Analyses of PDCs in the selected MHG texts
- Zwiefaltener Benediktinerregel
- Parzival
- Würzburger Polizeisätze
- Von der Gnaden Überlast
- 5.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
Sources
-
References