Re: CHAT: Contractions in colloquial German (was: Re: articles)

Hi!

Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> writes:
>...
> > They don't say things like "Wo is'n der Teller? -- Ich hab'n
> > aufgegessen." or "Wo gehst'n hin?" in Aachen? How
> > widespread are the phenomena listed below then?
>
> I can't recall hearing that shortening of _ihn_.
Oh yes, it's common.  It should be noted that it may even become
homorganic -- my dialect is very fond of making contractions
homorganic.  For me it is:

  |Ich hab ihn aufgegessen.|
  [IC,hap_nm='?aU)fg@,gEsn=]

> As for _denn_, sorta. It's regularly reduced to [dn=],
Naah.  It's [n=].  Quite clearly. :-)

> and then the [d] drops after a [t], so _ist denn_ becomes
> [Istn=].
  [Isn=]

  |Was ist denn das?|
  ['vas,?Isn='das]

and very casually:
  ['vas=n'das]

> But _gehst du denn_ would normally stop at the [gestUdn=]
> stage, I think.
Again, I think it's regularly contracted to

  |Wo gehst Du denn hin?|
  [vo:,ge:st@n='hIn]

and even commonly:
  [vo:,ge:st_nn='hIn]

> Something like [in], [zi], [im], [i6], [s], in normal speech, with the vowels
> tending to schwa in rapid speech.
It depends greatly where the words occurs.  Only in very unstressed
position some of these contractions occur.  E.g. 'sie' in sentence
initial subject position would never be reduced to [z@].  But in
object position after the verb, it's regularly done.

> Yup. Also _'nem_.
Or [m=]:

   |Das hab ich einem Freund gegeben.|
   [das,habICm='fROYntg@,geb_nm=]

> > 'mer      | [m6]     | wir           | we
>
> Not on it's own, but for _-en wir_, like in _habmer_ for _haben wir_.
That's dialect, but feasible, yes.  I have [hamv6].

> > 'se       | [z@]     | sie           | she, You
>
> Yup. Particularly common with verb+Sie; _habense_=_haben Sie_ [habn=z@].
I have [hamz@]. :-)

> You don't have _'s_ for _das_? In Aachen they have it whenever possible (which
> is not to say they refrain from it when it's impossible!), and I've heard it or
> heard it reported from other bits of Germany and Switzerland too.
>
> (By "impossible" I mean when it creates initial consonantal clusters no sane
> human would want to associate with, as in _'s Schwimmen_ [sSvImn=].)
At least in my dialect, it's not too common to contract 'das'.  I
cannot think of any example just now.  Only after regularly contracted
preposition+article: 'für das' = 'fürs'.  Etc., but that's even
standard written language.

**Henrik