Kristian Berg

Das Passiv im Niederdeutschen: Wer wird geholfen?

The Low German passive has been relatively seldom investigated, but case syncretism has given rise to an interesting situation that merits investigation. The active voice in contemporary Low German marks out nominal groups more rarely and less finely than does Standard German. This leads to a situation in which fundamentally different constructions can be expected to express the passive, constructions similar to those of English, such as Er wurde geholfen. These, together with related hypotheses, are examined here using a questionnaire and taking diachronic evidence into consideration. The article shows that the influence of Standard German has led to an overforming of syntactic structures, since other, system-internal, explanations can be largely excluded. The period in which the transfer has occurred can also be established – the first half of the twentieth century.

> zurück zur homepage

> zurück zum Gesamtinhaltsverzeichnis