Die Syntax von Pronominaladverbien in den Dialekten des Deutschen: Eine Untersuchung zu Preposition Stranding und verwandten Phanomenen (review)

This monograph, whose title can be translated as The syntax of pronominal adverbials in the dialects of German: An investigation of preposition stranding and related phenomena, is a slightly revised version of Fleischer’s dissertation of the same title submitted in late 2001. It consists of three parts. After the preface and a brief introduction to the structure and contents of this monograph, ‘Teil 1: Pronominaladverbien in der Standardsprache’ (13–33, two chapters) sketches the empirical basis of pronominal adverbials in standard German. The core part of the book, more than just in terms of length, is ‘Teil 2: Dialektgeographischer Teil’ (34–383, ten chapters), a very thorough discussion of dialectal variation and presentation of the relevant data of pronominal adverbials in different (geographical) regions of the German-speaking parts of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (as well as varieties spoken in Poland plus some Danish and Dutch dialects). The final part, ‘Teil 3: Analyse’ (384–411, three chapters), attempts a generative analysis.

German possesses a number of so-called pronominal adverbs—bimorphemic words consisting of a prefix (da(r) ‘there’, wo(r) ‘where’, hier ‘here’) and a preposition (virtually any of twenty-one different ones), such as daran ‘at it’, womit, ‘whereby, wherewith, with what’, or hierfür ‘therefor, for this purpose’. These elements manifest interesting variation in their use (not all forms are used equally in all German-speaking areas) and form (some dialects split them or double them, for example). Part 1 presents the form and function of pronominal adverbials and offers some tests for the determination of pronominality in the standard language. The heart of the study concerns dialect-geographical variation, an immensely illuminating data collection (beyond a discussion of existing research). The study includes variation in the form of the preposition (such as darafter/darachter and dahinter in some western Central German dialects as opposed to darachter instead of dahinter in western Lower German for ‘behind (it)’), variation in (non)reduction of vowels (e.g. da(r)-, dә(r)-, dɐ(r)-, dɵ(r)-, or dr̩ -) and variation in use (interrogative, relative, and so on). In the core of the study, F addresses in detail intriguing patterns of splitting (da weiss ich nichts von lit ‘there know I nothing of’) or doubling pronominal adverbials (both long-distance doubling as in da weiss ich nichts davon and close doubling as in dadavon weiss ich nichts). Part 2 is rounded off with the author’s interpretation of areal correlations and interactions of the different constructions investigated.

The wealth of dialectal data F collects and presents in this book is tremendous and as such is extremely useful to any linguist working on pronominal adverbials in German (dialects). Likewise, anyone investigating syntactic issues in German dialects on other topics as well will get a lot out of this study from an empirical perspective; in particular, how to go about collecting data and what kind of (geographical) dialect boundaries to expect. The theoretical aspirations of the author, however, fall short in Part 3. Still, aside from the disappointing finale, this is an important study on variation in German pronominal adverbials.