Typology

A short typological characterization Similarly to High German and other Low German dialects, the varieties discussed here belong to fusion languages, which are characterised by the inflection, e.g. conjugation of a verb by time or person; declination of a noun by number or case, etc. In Low German dialects, word order in the main clause is usually with the predicate in the second place (most frequently S-V-O, sometimes O-V-S), similarly to the cognate Germanic languages. Word order changes in the subordinate clause, but the syntax of mixed dialect danziger missingsch allowed to create the word order similar to that in Yiddish (i.e. the auxiliary verb precedes the main verb), e.g. wenn ich es dir werd sagen (Łopuszańska 2008a: 190Łopuszańska 2008a / komentarz/comment/r /
Łopuszańska, Grażyna 2008a. „Danziger Stadtsprache”, w: Marek Nekula & Verena Bauer & Albrecht Greule (red.) Deutsch in multilingualen Stadtzentren Mittel- und Osteuropas. Wien: Praesens-Verl.
).
Some of the dialects lack the ge- prefix in the past participle, e.g. hẹ is met allã hụnã hist (LGer.), Er ist mit allen Hunden gehetzt (Ger.), 'he is being chased by all the dogs' (Steinke 1914: 51Steinke 1914 / komentarz/comment/r /
Steinke, Florian 1914. „Sprachproben aus Niekosken, Kreis Czernikau (Provinz Posen)”, Jahrbuch des Vereins für niederdeutsche Sprachforschung XL: 48-54.
); Vo frisch Luf u frisch Bodde is no kain dood bläwe (LGer.), An frischer Luft und frischer Butter ist noch keiner gestorben (Ger.), ‘no one ever died from fresh air or fresh butter' (Laude 1995: 391Laude 1995 / komentarz/comment/r /
Laude, Robert 1995. Hinterpommersches Wörterbuch des Persantegebietes. Köln: Böhlau.
), the feature that distinguishes them from High German dialects. This feature, which appears frequently in the whole of the Low German area, is not shared by West Prussian dialect (e.g. Dat kömmt, hebb ech bi mie gedacht, ‘the time will come for this, I thought to myself’, Schemionek 1881: 53Schemionek 1881 / komentarz/comment/r /
Schemionek, August 1881. Ausdrücke und Redensarten der Elbingschen Mundart. Danzig: Bertling.
); its grammatical description was published by Dorr (1877: XVII-XVIII). In addition, in West Prussian, unlike in some other Low German dialects, suffix –en is used in the second person plural instead of –t (Dorr 1877: XVII-XVIIIDorr 1877 / komentarz/comment/r /
[Dorr, Robert?] 1877. „Der plattdeutsche Dialekt der Provinz Preußen”, w: [William] Shakespeare, De lostgen Wiewer von Windsor. Liegnitz: Nehring.
).