Re: Question about German

On Thu, 17 May 2001, Henrik Theiling wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Irina Rempt <ira@...> writes:
> > On Wed, 16 May 2001, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> >
> > > I think in Dutch, these are avoided, however.  I was told that
> > > `helder + (d)er' is not permitted to result in *`helderder', but
> > > instead, `lichter' seems to be used.  The former would be
> > > considered children's language.
> >
> > Who told you that, and why? It's not true.
>
> Hmm, students in Groningen told me when I actually said it. :-)
>
> So you would, like in the German example, also judge `helderder'
> perfectly ok?
>
I think that the ban on helderder wwas caused by that phenonoment where
words begint to appear strange when you look close at them. There are
some 'jokes' in Dutch with the 'der' suffix - for instance the 'funny'
superlative of 'beter' - 'beterder', sometimes rendered as
'beterderder'. I can readily imagine that native speakers when asked
about 'helderder' start thinking, get confused, and take the easy way
out.

It's one of the banes of fieldwork, that when you start asking people
about their language, they get confused and give plain wrong answers.

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.valdyas.org

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