Der s-Plural im Alemannischen.

Abstract

It is commonly agreed that the plural -s has become a part of Standard German inflection, yet in dialects such as Alemannic it is often seen as an intruder. We challenge this view based on data from a written survey amongst speakers of Swiss German dialects. Our analysis of pluralised loanwords (e. g. Mango) and abbreviations (e. g. WG ‘flat share’) shows a strong effect of both speakers’ age and grammatical gender that points towards a progressive integration of the plural -s into the dialectal system.
 While masculine and neuter nouns can express number syntagmatically (using articles that differ in singular and plural), feminine nouns rely heavily on suffixes (as the definite article is d’ in both cases). A comparison of the -s plural with traditional dialectal plurals shows clear advantages for -s plurals in both cue strength (output) and scope (input) of the plural schema. We argue that it is due to this that feminine nouns show a significantly higher percentage of -s plurals compared with masculine and neuter nouns in speakers aged 25 and above. The difference disappears for younger speakers while the overall number of -s plurals increases drastically. Combined, we have an apparent time scenario that shows how the -s plural is first borrowed with nouns that rely on overt plural markers, and later spreads to most loans and other words with non-native structure.

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“…Additionally, a frequency effect might be at play with Thema constituting the most frequent among the five items (6/7, see Table 1). As for the potential competition between - ene and - s plurals in loanwords, our finding may be interpreted as contradicting Klein and Kopf (2019). Apart from their smaller sample and the data collection mode, this might, however, be explained by intralinguistic features (for instance, Klein and Kopf [2019:45-46] reported high between-item variation with two particular lexemes exhibiting comparatively high - ene proportions, and they did not integrate abstract nouns).…”

“…As for the potential competition between - ene and - s plurals in loanwords, our finding may be interpreted as contradicting Klein and Kopf (2019). Apart from their smaller sample and the data collection mode, this might, however, be explained by intralinguistic features (for instance, Klein and Kopf [2019:45-46] reported high between-item variation with two particular lexemes exhibiting comparatively high - ene proportions, and they did not integrate abstract nouns). To gain further insights though, a more detailed examination of a series of similar loanwords would be needed 7…”

“…The diffusion of - ene plurals has been described as the most profound current change in Alemannic inflection (Nübling, 2008:318). Klein and Kopf (2019) presented an interesting adaption of a model by Köpcke (1988, 1993), according to which the potential for - ene plurals to spread can be explained by their high saliency (e.g., compared to zero plurals), their frequent applicability, and their reservation for plural marking (i.e., the - ene suffix does not appear in the singular as a contrast category). Further, Klein and Kopf (2019:35) discussed its importance for feminine plurals because they cannot rely on syntagmatic support from the article (in German, die - f.sg and die - f/m/n/.pl are formally identical).…”

“…Catillaz offered an interesting explanation for this finding, concluding that speakers living closer to Bern might view the - ene suffix as a typical Bernese marker, and hence refrain from using it in order to distance themselves linguistically from their urban neighbors. In a more recent study on loanwords and abbreviations, Klein and Kopf (2019), based on online survey data, suggested that - s plurals might replace - ene plurals even before they could be widely established 2 . At the same time, they pointed out the need for studies on native Swiss German nouns rather than loanwords, especially in cases where competition between - ene and - s plurals is possible (2019:46).…”

“…In a more recent study on loanwords and abbreviations, Klein and Kopf (2019), based on online survey data, suggested that - s plurals might replace - ene plurals even before they could be widely established 2 . At the same time, they pointed out the need for studies on native Swiss German nouns rather than loanwords, especially in cases where competition between - ene and - s plurals is possible (2019:46). Outside Switzerland, some anecdotal instances have been documented, such as in Northern Bavarian (Rowley, 1997:158-160) and Highest Alemannic in Austria (DiÖ, 2022).…”