Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 3.145
November 24, 1993

1) Koydesh un khol (Khaim Bochner)
2) Verb-first order (Molly Diesing)
3) First-Verb Phrases and Talmud (Jeremy Stern)
4) Verb-first construction (Marnen Laibow-Koser)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Nov 24 10:01:53 1993
From: bochner@das.harvard.edu
Subject: koydesh un khol

Pe'rets Mett writes:
> Correct me if I am wrong, but my feeling is that the difference
> between koydesh and khol uses of words with otherwise similar
> meanings is rstricted to nouns, and in any event, the koydesh use is
> a word of Hebrew origin e.g. seyfer - bukh.

Well, as you've seen, in many dialects (though not yours)
leyenen/lezn is a counterexample.

Another one is is davnen/molyen zikh. "davnen" (etymology unknown,
as far as I know) is restricted to Jewish prayer. "molyen zikh" (or
"modlyen zikh"), from Slavic, is used for Christian prayer.
Curiously, according to Weinreich the loshn koydesh terms "tfile
ton" and "mispalel zayn" are not restricted.

Khaim

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Nov 24 12:26:23 1993
From: Molly Diesing <md20@cornell.edu>
Subject: Verb-first order

[Ellen Prince writes:]

> please, let us get a sense of proportion here. 'the rule', as you
> put it, is taken from a FIRST-YEAR TEXTBOOK. i am quite sure that
> weinreich never intended it to be construed as a complete
> description of the verb-first declarative construction.

Actually, it's not clear that `the rule' is even stated so rigidly
in the first-year textbook in question. Towards the end of the book,
Weinreich discusses conditionals introduced by complementizers like
`oyb' (which have the usual verb-second order), but also says that
other ways of forming conditionals will be introduced at a more
advanced stage (I don't have the book here in my office, so I can't
quote the exact wording). It's quite likely that the verb-first
conditional, which was the focus of Ellen's original query, is the
construction that he had in mind.  Even if Weinreich never got
around to writing that advanced lesson, as Ellen notes below,
conditionals of the V-first type (as well as the "consecutive"
verb-first clauses - Weinreich's term) CAN be found in many
non-poetic contexts. From my browsings in Sholem-Aleichem, I'd have
to say that it's not even particularly rare.

-Molly

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Nov 24 15:20:41 1993
From: Jeremy Stern <jstern@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Subject: First-Verb Phrases and Talmud

Just a side note on a side note:

Omar Reb Jacobs,

> I mention this, since this verb-first discourse feature appears to
> be characteristic of Jewish speech, as opposed to non-Jewish German
> speech.  (Thus, for example, in Matras's paper (in ZDL), where
> Jewish speech uses verb first to mark off some sort of discourse-
> type units, non-Jewish German speech from the same locale uses
> specific lexical markers: na und na, etc.)

Is there a connection the a connection between the verb-first
syntax of the Talmud and the same phenomenon in Yiddish?  That
might explain the parallel between Yiddish and the German described
by Neil Jacobs.  The best way to test this hypothesis would be to
examine other Jewish languages, such as Ladino, Judeo-Persian, and
Judeo-Greek.  On the other hand, Ashkenazic Jewry was much more of
a "talmudic" society.  That is, the Talmud played a much greater
role in Jewish learning in the Ashkenazic lands than elsewhere (at
least during the period when Yiddish took form; certainly most of
the Rishoynim were Sefardic).

Jeremy Stern

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Nov 24 15:24:13 1993
From: laibow@brick.purchase.edu 
Subject: Verb-first construction and some thoughts on romanization.

I'm sorry to clutter up this list with (perhaps irrelevant)
Daytshmerizmen (sp?), but the verb-first construction is frequently
used in German as a conditional:

Ich gehe in die Stadt. Es regnet. = I go into town. It rains. Gehe
ich in die Stadt, regnet es [or, I think, es regnet]. = If I go
into town, it rains.

Many (though not all) of the Yiddish uses of this construction that
I've seen seem to fall into the same class.

BTW, re spelling: "sch" could be interpreted as "s" + "ch", though
"ch" isn't often seen. It also introduces a needless letter. "kh",
"sh" and "zh" present even more of a problem: "k" + "h", etc. "ts"
could be Tsadi(k) or Tet Samekh (or Tav Sin...).  If we _really_
want an accurate romanization, how about "c" for "ts", "x" for
"kh", "q" for "sh" and "j" for "zh"? (1/2 ;> )

Just my $.02......
A freylekhn Thanksgiving! (?!?)

Shalom,
Marnen Laibow-Koser 

______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 3.145

Mendele has 2 rules:

	1. Provide a Subject: line.
	2. Sign your article.

Send submissions/responses to:

        mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu

Other business:

        nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu

Anonymous ftp archives available on:

        ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu
        in the directory pub/mendele/files