Die Konjunktiv-II-Bildung im Kontext von Partikelverben in den Basisdialekten Salzburgs

Abstract

Focusing on phrasal verbs such as einbringen ‘to harvest’ or abbringen ‘to dissuade’, the aim of the present exploratory apparent-time study is to uncover factors affecting the subjunctive II formation in the traditional base dialects of Salzburg (Austria). Depending on whether the subjunctive II formation is synthetic or periphrastic, phrasal verbs are formed in contact position (e. g., würde/täte abbringen ‘would dissuade’) or in distance position (e. g. brächte ab ‘would dissuade’) between particle and verb stem.

In order to examine which subjunctive II variants are used for 15 phrasal verbs in the traditional dialects of Salzburg, an indirect survey was carried out with 25 informants in six rural locations. These villages are spread across the three dialect areas (West-Central Bavarian, South-Central Bavarian, and South Bavarian) cutting through the federal state of Salzburg. Furthermore, the subjunctive II formation of the phrasal verbs is compared to that of the simple verbs (e. g., bringen ‘to bring’) corresponding to the derivational bases of the respective phrasal verbs investigated (e. g., einbringen or abbringen). In addition to linguistic and areal factors, sociolinguistic factors (age and gender) are taken into account.

Results show that the subjunctive II formation of phrasal verbs differs significantly from that of simple verbs: compared to the corresponding simple verbs, the informants used the phrasal verbs significantly more often with periphrastic variants. It is argued that this tendency is related to specific semantic-lexical and morpho-syntactic properties of phrasal verbs. Regarding the areal distribution, there are differences between the individual locations. These differences do not correlate with the traditional dialect regions but can be traced back to the socio-demographic characteristics of the locations (number of inhabitants, transport connections, tourism etc.). Moreover, age proves to be a relevant factor: there is a statistically significant difference in both, simple verbs and phrasal verbs, with the younger informants preferring the periphrastic variants.