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

Quoting Carsten Becker <naranoieati@...>:

> Hej!
>
> On Monday 31 January 2005 21:17, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
>  > Quoting Carsten Becker <naranoieati@BECKERSCARSTEN.DE
> <mailto:naranoieati@...>>:
>  > > (1) _'n_ appended to a verb can also mean "ihn" (him)
>  > > in my ideolect (_'ne_ in the regional dialect) or also
>  > > "denn" ... but this is another story.
>  >
>  > Cool! I can't recall hearing this in German, but my
>  > Swedish lect does, on the surface, the same thing; it
>  > suffixes _-'_ to a verb for "him".
[snip]
>
> 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_.

As for _denn_, sorta. It's regularly reduced to [dn=], and then the [d] drops
after a [t], so _ist denn_ becomes [Istn=]. But _gehst du denn_ would normally
stop at the [gestUdn=] stage, I think.

> FWIW, in my dialect the 3sg pronouns are shortened to the
> following:
>
>  ihn        (him)          => 'n(e)   [n=]/[n@]
>  sie        (she, her)     => 'se     [z@]
>  ihm        (to him)       => 'm      [m=]
>  ihr        (to her)       => 'er     [6]
>  es         (it)           => 's      [s]
Now, my German friends in Aachen may have been enunciating extra clearly when
speaking with a foreigner, but I'd say they did not normally reduce them alot.
Something like [in], [zi], [im], [i6], [s], in normal speech, with the vowels
tending to schwa in rapid speech.

> Since I called this thread "Contractions in colloquial
> German", here's a list of other contractions I could
> observe myself and my environment to use. I think most of
> these contractions are commonly found in many regions:
Comments as to what I'm familiar with:

>   Colloq  | Pronctn  | Std. Language |   Translation
> ----------+----------+---------------+-----------------
> 'n*       | [(?)n=]  | den, ein, ihn,| the, a, him,
>           |          | denn          | filling word in
>           |          |               | questions
All but _ihn_, with _denn_ only after [d].

>           |          |               |
>    'ne    | [n@]     | eine          | a
>    'nen   | [n@n]    | einen         | to a
>    'ner   | [n6]     | einer         | to a
Yup. Also _'nem_.

> 'm        | [(?)m=]  | den, ihn      | the, him
You mean for _dem_ and _ihm_, don't you?

Only _dem_>_-m_ with prepositions.

> 'mer      | [m6]     | wir           | we
Not on it's own, but for _-en wir_, like in _habmer_ for _haben wir_.

Also _-me_ [m@].

> 'wer      | [v6]     | wir           | we
Yup.

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

> -ste ...? | [st@]    | -st du ...?   | d'ya ...?
Yup. Also _-stu_ [stU].

> 'er       | [6]      | er, der       | he, the
Only for _er_.

> 's        | [s]      | es            | it
Yup. It's literally everywhere!

> ----------+----------+---------------+-----------------
> rauf*     | [RAU)f]  | hin-/herauf   | up
> runter*   | ["RUnt6] | hin-/herunter | down
> rein*     | [RAI)n]  | hin-/herein   | in
> raus      | [RAU)s]  | her-/hinaus   | out
> rüber*    | ["Ryb6]  | hin-/herüber  | across
> jetz'     | [jEts)]  | jetzt         | now
> nix       | [nIks)]  | nichts        | nothin'
> nich      | [nIC]    | nicht         | n't
The lot of them.

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=].)

                                                              Andreas

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