's Bachmanns Anna und de Schmidte Karl' Grammar and Sociopragmatics of Unofficial Personal Names in German Dialects

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Antje Dammel
• Subject Area: Individual Linguistics, Historical Linguistics ; Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics
• Term: from 2018 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 405468658

The proposed project systematically explores the grammatical structures and sociopragmatic variation of unofficial personal names in German dialects, a topic, for which only rudimentary research exists. Unofficial personal names define as combinations of first names and family names respectively unofficial surnames such as 'der Müller Peter', 's Meiers Rita' or 'Schulten Hein'. They are preferably used in close social networks of rural communities to refer to absent referents.These names are characterised by extensive constructional variation, both between dialects as well as within the individual system of one dialect. Neither the geographical differentiation nor the structural and sociopragmatic aspects conditioning this variation are so far explored sufficiently.The structure of the onymic constructions is of interest from the perspectives of both historical linguistics and grammatical theory in several respects. For once, they are the last preserve of the genitive case within German dialects. Therefore, their areal variation forms an important still image of the gradual reduction of the genitive. Also, the grammaticalization of the definite article preceding personal names can be observed and analyzed by means of dialectal names.On the other hand, synchronically, the variants represent different intermediate stages between syntactic phrases and compounds, thereby revealing products of transition between syntax and derivation, e.g. 's Müllers Peter' vs. 'der Müllers Peter' vs. 'der Müller Peter'. So far, such transitions have been only described historically for written documents. With dialectal names, prosodic features of spoken language such as main stress (der ‘Müller Peter vs. s Müllers ‘Peter) can be incorporated in a comprehensive study.Constructional variation within the stems of particular dialects is also to be considered sociopragmatically, exploring social distinctions sedimenting in the use of these forms: the sociopragmatic conditioning of different constructions mirrors social relations, e.g. social proximity and distance. So far, it can be said that such distinctions especially occur when referring to female persons in distinct stages of their lives (e.g. genitive phrases referring to young women as inalienable possession). To explore this variation, direct survey methods as well as indirect ones using secondary data (such as dialect grammars) are combined in a mixed methods approach. The interviews also integrate and test formats from social sciences such as focus groups. The analyses follow a bottom-up approach, drawing generalizations from the collected data and testing theoretical assumptions in a second step. It is important that the subject is treated as soon as possible, since it can be said for many of these dialectal systems (as of other rural dialect features), that they are already reduced to the active repertoire of older speakers deeply rooted in their place of residence.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants