On the areal and syntactic distribution of indefinite-partitive pronouns in German: methodological advances and empirical results within the project 'Syntax of Hessian Dialects' (SyHD)

It is uncontroversial by now that not only phonetic/phonological and morphological variation exhibits spatial structures, but that the same is true for syntactic variation. This finding appears to be confirmed by the different means of expression of partitive-anaphoric reference in the varieties of the Continental West Germanic dialect continuum. Pronouns with – among others – partitive function such as French en and Italian ne are well-known from Romance languages and, within Germanic, from Dutch (partitive/quantitative er < ODu/OLF iro, MDu er/re). However, German dialects as well show a wide range of syntactic means to express pronominal partitivity and a lot of interesting (micro-)variation within the respective systems. The older system of partitive genitive pronouns inherited from Middle High German lives on in mostly phonetically reduced enclitic forms like (d)(ə)r(ə), s(ə)n, əs (< OHG MHG iro/ir(e), sîn, es), but it finds itself under strong pressure from various – diachronically innovative – alternative strategies to refer to indeterminate partial quantities, such as Low/Northern and Standard German we(l)k-/welch-, Southeastern (Bavarian) ein- and the Southwestern (Alemannic) 0-system. In recent dialects, relic areas of genitive pronouns can be found primarily in a strip between West Central German and East Franconian, but also in the very south of the German-speaking area (High/Highest Alemannic and South Bavarian). The German state of Hesse – understood primarily as an administrative unit and thus being neutral with regards to traditional dialect classifications based predominantly on phonetic/phonological criteria – comprises all three main German dialect areas (Low, Central and Upper German) in the form of core and/or transitional zones. Large parts of Hesse represent one of the remaining core areas of partitive genitive pronouns. Due to its central position, the area is considerably influenced by the above-mentioned expanding circumjacent patterns of pronominal partitivity. Transition zones with mixed systems of coexisting types, already attested for subdialects of Central Hessian (gen./0) and East Franconian (gen./ein-) among others (cf. e.g. Glaser 1993, 1995, 2008), are of special interest for (diachronic) investigation. Focusing on the phenomenon of pronominal partitivity, this article presents methods and first results within the current DFG-funded research project ‘Syntax of Hessian Dialects’ (SyHD, www.syhd.info), which is a cooperation between the universities of Frankfurt, Marburg and Vienna and follows the experiences of data collection of the ‘Syntactic Atlas of the Dutch Dialects’ (SAND, Meertens Institute Amsterdam) and the ‘Syntactic Atlas of Swiss German Dialects’ (SADS, University of Zurich).