Quantifying auxiliary tun to study seventeenth-century German metalinguistic reflection
10.6092/issn.2532-8816/8629
This paper discusses whether the quantitative analysis of auxiliary tun in the Erzehlungen aus den mittlern Zeiten (1624), the first German translation of the Italian short story collection Novellino, can help uncover new aspects of the metalinguistic reflection of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft. The Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft was the first German society that focussed on the improvement of the German language, and the Erzehlungen are a product of the “language work” of this society. In the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft East Central / Low German were seen as the model for a new standard literary German. The metalinguistic writings of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft voice this opinion explicitly when describing the rules for orthography, phonotactics and morphology but, as it was typical in the seventeenth-century, they don’t give any rule for syntactic correct structures. Therefore, the question whether the syntax of this newly founded literary German had to be regionally marked as well, can only be inferred by observing the syntactic properties of the texts that resulted from the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft’s “language work”. The quantitative analysis of auxiliary tun in the Erzehlungen will show that the use of this construction in the studied translation bears a Low German regional markedness. This quantitative linguistic analysis could thus shed some light on the question of which regional variety the first German “linguistic” society considered to be the model for syntactic correctness.
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Lucia Assenzi
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Quantifying auxiliary tun to study seventeenth-century German metalinguistic reflection
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2019-09-03
2018-10-15
2019-09-03
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Um. Dig.
Lucia Assenzi
2019/09/03
10.6092/issn.2532-8816/8629
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2532-8816
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Quantifying auxiliary tun to study seventeenth-century German metalinguistic reflection
https://umanisticadigitale.unibo.it/article/view/8629/9378
      Umanistica Digitale - ISSN:2532-8816 - n.6, 2019
L. Assenzi – Quantifying auxiliary tun to study seventeenth-century German metalinguistic
reflection
DOI: http://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2532-8816/8629


Quantifying auxiliary tun to study seventeenth-century
          German metalinguistic reflection

                                               Lucia Assenzi

                                      Università degli Studi di Torino
                                       lucia.assenzi@unito.it




       Abstract. This paper discusses whether the quantitative analysis of auxiliary tun in the
       Erzehlungen aus den mittlern Zeiten (1624), the first German translation of the Italian
       short story collection Novellino, can help uncover new aspects of the metalinguistic
       reflection of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft. The Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft was the first
       German society that focussed on the improvement of the German language, and the
       Erzehlungen are a product of the “language work” of this society. In the Fruchtbringende
       Gesellschaft East Central / Low German were seen as the model for a new standard literary
       German. The metalinguistic writings of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft voice this
       opinion explicitly when describing the rules for orthography, phonotactics and
       morphology but, as it was typical in the seventeenth-century, they don’t give any rule for
       syntactic correct structures. Therefore, the question whether the syntax of this newly
       founded literary German had to be regionally marked as well, can only be inferred by
       observing the syntactic properties of the texts that resulted from the Fruchtbringende
       Gesellschaft’s “language work”. The quantitative analysis of auxiliary tun in the
       Erzehlungen will show that the use of this construction in the studied translation bears a
       Low German regional markedness. This quantitative linguistic analysis could thus shed
       some light on the question of which regional variety the first German “linguistic” society
       considered to be the model for syntactic correctness.
       Nell’articolo si discuterà del fatto se l’analisi quantitativa di tun ausiliare nelle
       Erzehlungen aus den mittlern Zeiten (1624), la prima traduzione tedesca del Novellino,
       possa mettere in luce nuovi aspetti della riflessione metalinguistica della Fruchtbringende
       Gesellschaft. Questa fu la prima società in Germania a porre il rinnovamento della lingua
       tedesca tra i propri obiettivi principali. Le Erzehlungen sono proprio un prodotto del
       lavoro sulla lingua portato avanti da questa società. Nella Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft si
       propugnava l’esemplarità del tedesco centrale orientale / basso tedesco come base per la
       fondazione di una nuova lingua letteraria tedesca. Negli scritti metalinguistici della
       Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, questa opinione viene esplicitata nel trattare le regole
       ortografiche, fonotattiche e morfologiche della nuova lingua standard. Tuttavia, come era
       tipico nel Seicento, questi scritti tralasciano di trattare le regole per la corretta sintassi del
       tedesco. Per comprendere se l’esemplarità delle varianti regionali sopra menzionate fosse
       valida anche per la sintassi, non si può dunque ricorrere agli scritti teorici della società,


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     Umanistica Digitale - ISSN:2532-8816 - n.6, 2019

       bensì occorre dedurlo direttamente dalle proprietà sintattiche dei testi frutto del lavoro
       sulla lingua della Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft. L’analisi quantitativa della perifrasi con tun
       ha mostrato che l’uso di tale struttura nelle Erzehlungen è marcato come basso tedesco,
       contribuendo così a determinare quale variante regionale fosse ritenuta il modello di
       correttezza sintattica dalla Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft.



       Introduction

This paper was first presented at the conference Bridging Gaps, Creating Links: The Qualitative-
Quantitative Interface in the Study of Literature held in Padua (Italy) in June 2018. This
conference provided an enriching discussion on the contribution of quantitative study of
linguistic data to a better understanding of literary features, such as an author’s writing style or
process. Understanding these literary features allows for clear identification of recurring or
shifting topics in a literary text, comparison of different versions of the same work and
discovery of the true authorship of a literary text published anonymously or under a
pseudonym. Many of the presentations at the conference focused on the relationship between
language and literature and on the power of quantitative linguistics tools to provide
information about the nature of literature.
This paper aims to show that quantitative study of linguistic data not only uncovers the literary
properties of a text but also some cultural and historical aspects of the text that would
otherwise go unnoticed. The case study analyses the use, distribution and frequency of the tun
periphrasis in the Erzehlungen aus den mittlern Zeiten (1624) [5]; [7], the first German
translation of the Italian collection of short stories, Libro di Novelle, et di bel Parlar Gentile
(1572) [2], known today as Novellino. Quantifying and observing the distribution of this
particular phenomenon reveals some aspects of the seventeenth-century German metalinguistic
reflection, particularly in connection with the learned society and linguistic academy
Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, or, the “fruit-bearing society” (FG).
Furthermore, this paper discusses the many difficulties faced when dealing with linguistic data
from historical texts; the data are often less than ideal both for the low token frequency of the
analysed phenomenon and for the unsatisfactory state of the study of many linguistic structures
typical of earlier language stages. However, dealing with nonideal linguistic data sets is still
worthwhile. A quantitative-based approach mixed with a qualitative evaluation of the data
obtained through linguistic analysis still advances knowledge of the chosen linguistic
phenomenon and of the language stage and text under observation.
To scholars who do not specialize in the history of German language and linguistics, the link
between the chosen text, the chosen linguistic phenomenon and the question of metalinguistic
reflection in seventeenth-century Germany is far from obvious. Therefore, this paper provides
necessary background information on the German language and the foundation of the first
language academies in the seventeenth century, as well as the characteristics of the tun
periphrasis.




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                                                                                   reflection


       Language reflection in seventeenth-century Germany

Like many other European countries in the early modern age, the vast German-speaking area of
the seventeenth-century Holy Roman Empire had yet to define a unitary literary language with
a shared set of grammatical rules. This originated mainly from the lack of true political unity in
the Empire, which was composed of many sovereign states with different cultural centres.
These included Saxony’s chancellery, the Habsburg court in Vienna and the most important
seventeenth-century German printing centres (Leipzig, Jena, Wittenberg, Frankfurt am Main
and Nuremberg)1. The lack of political and confessional unity was one of the most important
causes of the enduring linguistic fragmentation, since each area of the Empire clung to its
traditional written dialect as a means of reasserting political and confessional independence (see
[4]; [18], 129).
The prestige of German as a literary language was undermined in the seventeenth century by
intellectuals’ and learned noblemen’s preferences for ancient or foreign languages in many fields
of knowledge and culture. German competed with Latin in the fields of science, literature,
philosophy and theology, as well as in the Empire’s central administration. It also competed
with French, the most fashionable language of the cultivated elite (see [12], 422). Many
German intellectuals neglected their native language, adding to the linguistic fragmentation of
the Empire and resulting in sparse literary production in German. Indeed, the German literary
production of the seventeenth had little impact on the European panorama and could not
compete with the leading European vernaculars (and literatures).
As a reaction against this situation, many seventeenth-century German societies and academies
were founded in which the cultivation of the native language assumed an important, if not
central, role. The first attempts at defining a common German language began with the aim of
establishing a language capable of supporting the production of scientific and literary texts in
German that could rival the quality of those in French, Spanish and Italian [6].
The first society that focused on the cultivation of German was the FG, one of the most
important centres of linguistic reflection in the first half of the seventeenth century. The FG
was founded in Weimar in 1617 by a group of learned intellectuals and noblemen from
modern-day Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. 2 Even though the FG presented itself as an
open platform for intellectuals from all Christian confessions and admitted Catholics as

1 The full list of all German printing centres of the seventeenth century by number of
  published books can be found on the website of The Union Catalogue of Books Printed in
  German Speaking Countries in the 17th Century (VD 17):
  http://www.vd17.de/files/pdf/VD17_Druckorte_2012-12-31.pdf.
2 Other societies with a focus on language were the Aufrichtige Tannengesellschaft, founded in
  1633 in Strasbourg; the Teutschgesinnte Genossenschaft, founded in 1643 (probably in
  Hamburg); the Pegnesische Blumenorden, founded in 1644 in Nuremberg; the
  Elbschwanenorden, founded in 1658 in Wedel an der Elbe; and the Deutsche Gesellschaft,
  founded in 1697 in Leipzig (see [18]; [19], 150f.).

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members, 96.2% of the members were Protestants (see [5], vol. 2, 30). Until 1650, the FG
operated in Köthen, and its activities revolved around the work and personality of the reformed
Prince Ludwig von Anhalt-Köthen, the first president of the society, who actively encouraged
the members of the FG to cultivate German through writing, translating and creating
metalinguistic works (see [13], 116). Although many opinions were voiced regarding the ideal
German standard, the official stance of the society was dictated by its president, who also
reviewed all works by members of the FG before publication to make sure that they followed
the German standard as established by the FG.
The multifaceted metalinguistic reflection in seventeenth-century Germany was a complex
matter marked by various currents of thought about the ideal standard for German. 3 One of
the most debated questions at the time was whether a regional variety of German should be the
model for the new literary German standard and, if so, which one. Because of the political and
confessional fragmentation of the Empire, affirming the language of one cultural elite from one
area of the empire and loyal to one confession meant affirming the cultural supremacy of that
elite, that area and that confession (see [4], 184). This cultural elite would have enough prestige
to guide the country not only to linguistic unity but also to national unity.
According to the FG, as dictated by Prince Ludwig, the model for correct language usage was
East Central German. This choice was obvious; the founders of this society came from East
Central Germany. However, Prince Ludwig and his followers had no intention of imposing the
dialect commonly spoken in this region, which was too uncultivated to become the new
standard (see [16], 74). Additionally, using words from a small region’s dialect would have
limited understanding outside of that region. Instead, the FG affirmed the dialect of German
spoken and written by the cultivated elite of the region that, like other traditional written
dialects, was vastly superregional in word choice. However, the East Central German written
dialect and all other traditional superregional dialects differed from one another in their
orthography as well as morphological and phonotactical aspects.
The linguistic reflection of this period thoroughly discussed orthographic, phonotactic and
morphological rules that clearly differed from one written dialect to another. The grammar and
metalinguistics works that were published in these years, however, did not provide clear
instructions about syntax [3]. The FG never explicitly defined what was syntactically correct or
whether the correct syntactic use was regionally marked. Therefore, these concepts can only be
understood indirectly by studying the syntactic properties of the literary texts that were the
product of the FG’s language work. This is exactly what this paper proposes to do: analysing
the tun periphrasis in the Erzehlungen to determine the syntactic regional markedness of the
text. Through this method, a better understanding of a non-literary features is gained, in this
case, by shedding light on the FG’s position on syntax and regional features in the first half of
the seventeenth century.




3   For a comprehensive discussion, see [12]; [15].

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    L. Assenzi – Quantifying auxiliary tun to study seventeenth-century German metalinguistic
                                                                                   reflection


        The Erzehlungen and the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft

As mentioned above, this study was conducted on the Erzehlungen [7], the first German
translation of the Italian collection of short stories known today as Novellino. This translation
was completed in March 1624 by eight translators—seven women and one man. Each of them
translated a different amount of the 100 short stories of Novellino into German. One member
of this group, Prince Ludwig the Young, was also a member of the FG (the society did not
admit women). All of the translators were part of the Anhalt family and completed the
Erzehlungen at the court in Köthen, likely under the guidance of Prince Ludwig.
Other elements of the Erzehlungen place this translation as part of the language work of the
FG, as demonstrated through analysis of the translating technique and the writing style of the
translators and matching this technique and style to the norms for linguistic work and
improvement discussed in the FG at the time. Translating played a large role in the linguistic
reflection of this society since it was seen as the perfect stylistic exercise, an ideal way to
improve one’s writing style and thus to enhance the expressivity and literary fineness of the
German language while importing new topics and genres that could renovate German
literature.
The text of the Erzehlungen is particularly suited for evaluation of what the FG considered to
be syntactically correct, because its manuscript was reviewed by a ninth person who amended
grammatical, lexical and syntactic errors. Since this ninth person was most likely Prince
Ludwig, the corrections made to the syntax of the Erzehlungen show what syntactic structures
he (and therefore, by extension, the official stance of the FG) considered to be correct. This is,
in fact, the only way to know more about the syntactic correctness proposed by the FG, since,
as mentioned above, syntax is not discussed in their theoretical works.


        Auxiliary tun in New High German and Early New High
        German

The tun periphrasis is the use of the verb tun as a dummy auxiliary followed by an infinitive (er
tat lesen) instead of a synthetic verb form (er las) (see [8], 181). Tun is the German cognate of
the English ‘to do’. Thus, the tun periphrasis is the German cousin of the English construction,
‘do’ plus an infinitive (sie tat das Buch schreiben/she did write the book), at least formally.
Unlike ‘do’, auxiliary tun cannot be phonologically stressed in this construction and is not used
to emphasize the action described by the verb, as is the case in English (see [17], 86).
Therefore, the meaning of sie tat das Buch schreiben is not equivalent to that of the English
sentence she did write the book; the German sentence does not mean that “she actually, really
wrote the book”. Instead, it simply states, in a neutral way, that “she wrote the book”. 4 Sie tat
das Buch schreiben is identical in meaning to the sentence Sie schrieb das Buch with the synthetic


4   For further and more precise discussion on the differences between tun and do, see [21].


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preterite verb form schrieb.5
Since the meaning of tun and an infinitive coincides with corresponding sentences using a
synthetic verb form, the use of auxiliary tun stands under great normative pressure in today’s
New High German. Using tun and an infinitive instead of a synthetic verb form (as in 1,
below) is seen as a semantically redundant, low-prestige construction; it is considered to be
low-register language, typical to the spoken language of lower social classes. This construction is
a dialectal phenomenon (see [8], 182) and should be avoided in the written language as well as
in the middle- or high-register spoken language. The tun construction is only allowed when it
has a clear purpose and leads to topicalization of the infinite lexical verb in a declarative main
clause as in 1, below (see [1], 41):
                       ?/*
                 1.          Sie tut ein Buch lesen.
                 2.    Bücher lesen tut sie gern.6
The stigmatisation of auxiliary tun in German prose began with the first prescriptive grammars
of the eighteenth century.7 However, in the language stage discussed in this paper, Early New
High German (ca. 1350-1650), the tun periphrasis was used in written texts of all genres and
registers throughout the whole German-speaking area. Auxiliary tun is still present in all
German dialects, with a different clause type and tense/mood dependent distribution that has
remained constant throughout the centuries. 8 Therefore, by considering these clause type,
tense/mood variables in the distribution of auxiliary tun in the different German dialects and
comparing them to the use of auxiliary tun in a text, we can determine the regional markedness
of the tun periphrasis in the analysed text.
What is proposed in this paper is a pilot study. As is often the case when working on diachronic
linguistics, the data obtained by analysing texts from earlier language stages are seldom ideal.
The low number of occurrences of auxiliary tun in the Erzehlungen present challenges to this
analysis. Additionally, the study of this phenomenon, its characteristics in today’s language and
its historical evolution is far from exhaustive. Auxiliary tun has gained the attention of just a
few scholars ([9], [10], [11], [17]), perhaps as a result of the stigmatization of this phenomenon

5   The discussion on the semantic value of tun in this construction is still open in the scientific
    literature. The interpretations of tun as an aspectual marker of habituality, imperfectivity or
    progressivity proposed by some scholars (see [1], [9], [11]) still lack sufficient demonstration and are
    often proved wrong by the empiric analysis of texts containing auxiliary tun. The author agrees with
    Erb ([8], 196) and Langer ([17], 55) who affirm that auxiliary tun carries no aspectual value and is
    not a specific mood or tense marker, but that it is rather a kind of semantic empty, ‘dummy auxiliary’
    (see [17], 97).
6 Both examples are taken from [8], 185.
7 The banishing of auxiliary tun from poetry began earlier, at the beginning of the
  seventeenth century, and extended to prose at the end of the seventeenth century, but it’s
  not until the eighteenth century that a sociolinguistic stigmatisation existed for the tun
  periphrasis (see [17], 65ff.).
8 This argument will be discussed more extensively while analysing the frequency of auxiliary
  tun in the Erzehlungen.

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    L. Assenzi – Quantifying auxiliary tun to study seventeenth-century German metalinguistic
                                                                                   reflection

in today’s New High German.


       Auxiliary tun in the Erzehlungen

Auxiliary tun was studied throughout the text of the Erzehlungen, which is comprised of 100
short stories (ca. 40,000 words). The text was transcribed from the manuscript [7], compared
with its critical edition [20] and annotated manually. At first, only 115 clauses containing a tun
periphrasis were found in the Erzehlungen, a low number for a text of this length. However,
considering only the clauses in which auxiliary tun appeared and comparing them with the
total number of clauses in the text would not accurately determine the frequency of this
construction. Although the literature stated that the tun periphrasis could potentially substitute
for every verb in any tense or mood (see [11], 140), a closer look at the occurrences of auxiliary
tun in the Erzehlungen revealed an interesting fact. The tun periphrasis occurred exclusively in
the indicative present (1), preterite (2) and future (3) tenses in main clauses (MC) and in the
indicative present (4), preterite (5) and subjunctive preterite (6) tenses in subordinate clauses
(SC).
                3.   die vbrigen 4 groschen thue ich zu meinem eigenen außgaben anwenden.
                     [7], 5r
                4.   Hierauf thet Herr Jacob den engster ergreiffen. [7], 62v
                5.   Wan du nun das alter erreichet, wirstu nicht der natur sondern der
                     vernunft nach […] leben thun. [7], 103r
                6.   Es wird eww rem nachfolger wolgedeÿen wan er sich selbsten recht lösen
                     thut. [7], 104r
                7.   eines tages begab sichs, das er vber einen schönen brunnen ruhen thete.
                     [7], 63v
                8.   wan dieses ein ritter were, oder ich ihn nicht kennen thete, were ich…
                     [7], 56r
All clauses containing a synthetic verb form in these moods and tenses were isolated to assess
the actual frequency of auxiliary tun, which was still low. The tun periphrasis was present in
only 4.03% of all clauses containing a verb that could potentially be substituted by auxiliary
tun and an infinitive (see Table 1).
When the frequency analysis was split by tense and clause type, however, the precise
quantitative analysis of the phenomenon revealed some features that would have otherwise
remained unnoticed due to the low frequency of auxiliary tun in the text. As seen in Table 1,
the use of this construction in the Erzehlungen was very limited in main clauses, remaining at
an overall frequency of <0.5% of all clauses containing a verb capable of being rendered
through a tun periphrasis. The 4% frequency that resulted from the analysis of main clauses in
the future tense was insignificant due to the low token number of clauses in that tense.


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However, the frequency of auxiliary tun increased substantially in subordinate clauses (SC);
nearly 10% of all verbal complexes could have potentially been rendered through a tun
periphrasis in the indicative mood, and 25% could have been rendered in the subjunctive
preterite. What seemed at first to be a rare phenomenon was revealed as a c onstruction whose
frequency reached significant quantities, depending on the clause type and on the mood of the
verbal complex.


                      MC            MC            MC        SC      SC       SC
                      Ind. Pres.    Ind. Pret.    Ind.      Ind.    Ind.     Subj
                                                  Fut.      Pres.   Pret.    .
                                                                             Pret.
       Synth.         2099          1788          24        174     491      51      2737
       Tun + Inf.     1             9             1         18      69       17      115
                      0.48%         0.50%         4%        9.38%   12.32%   25%     4.03%
Table 1: Distribution of auxiliary tun in the Erzehlungen


A qualitative analysis explained why this was relevant to the study of the regional markedness of
the text’s syntax. Currently, no study exists concerning the distribution of auxiliary tun in
different regions in Early New High German, so the few clues existing in the literature were
used to examine the regional use of auxiliary tun. Dialects tend to be conservative, as seen in
the distribution of auxiliary tun in German dialects today. According to the literature, the
prevalent use of auxiliary tun in subordinate clauses was typical for Lower German dialects,
whereas Middle and Upper German dialects tended to use the tun periphrasis more often,
especially in main clauses (see [8], 193). Data from today’s dialects can be compared with other
information clues found in the sparse studies of auxiliary tun in Early New High German texts.
For example, the study conducted by Fischer [11] stated that seventeenth-century authors like
the pedagogue Wolfgang Ratke, who was born in the northern part of Germany, used auxiliary
tun almost exclusively in subordinate clauses (see [10], 136). This confirmed the
conservativeness of Lower German dialects in the use and distribution of tun and also
confirmed that the nearly exclusive use of auxiliary tun in the Erzehlungen marked its syntax as
having a Lower German tendency. This was consistent with what is known about the origin of
the translators from Anhalt. Although it is now in a region that speaks East Central German, in
the seventeenth century, Anhalt was at the southern border of the region that spoke Lower
German. This border moved constantly north in the following centuries (see [22], 9).
Observing the corrections and changes made to the text’s manuscript by the translators and the
reviewer of the Erzehlungen also provided hints of their acceptability judgements. These
changes made a considerable effort to correct spelling errors, improve text coherence and word
choice and avoid unnecessary repetitions. Syntactic aspects were seldom corrected. Analysis of
the handwritten version of the Erzehlungen revealed that no instance of auxiliary tun was ever
modified, except in the following example (1), where the tun periphrasis (lieben thue) was
struck through, leaving only the corresponding synthetic verb form (liebe). However, this


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    L. Assenzi – Quantifying auxiliary tun to study seventeenth-century German metalinguistic
                                                                                   reflection

correction was made only to avoid a repetition of tun, since the verb appeared as a full verb
meaning ‘to do, to make’ in the following infinitive clause:
                 9.   Liebe Königin vnd ehegemahl, ihr möget wol wißen, das ich euch vber alle
                      menschen auf der welt hertzlich lieben thue, auch bereit bin, was euch
                      gefellet gerne zu thun. [7], 154v


In summary, the use of the tun periphrasis in the Erzehlungen was restricted almost exclusively
to subordinate clauses, a Lower German syntactic tendency. Additionally, the occurrences of
auxiliary tun were never corrected in the manuscript (except to avoid repetition). These
observations revealed that the use of auxiliary tun in the analysed text was seen as correct both
by the translators and the reviewer.
Since Erzehlungen was translated in the spirit of the FG’s language work, and since their
reviewer was the president of the society, Prince Ludwig, the syntactic tendencies of the text
and changes made to the text followed the tendencies of the accepted exemplary dialect. This
confirmed that the northern East Central/southern Lower German regional dialect was
exemplary not only for orthography, morphology and phonotatics, as stated in the theoretical
works nearest to the official stance of the FG,9 but also for syntax.10
Another aspect of auxiliary tun was uncovered by a thorough quantitative analysis of this
construction by taking the variable of the translators into account. Since syntax did not play a
significant role in the grammars written in the seventeenth century, the translators of the
Erzehlungen most likely had no particular or conscious knowledge of syntax, either. It is highly
probable that they used syntactic structures instinctively. This supposition was corroborated by
observing the use of auxiliary tun by each translator (Table 2).



                          MC        MC         MC         SC        SC         SC        Tot.
                          Ind.      Ind.       Ind.       Ind.      Ind.       Subj.
                          Pres.     Pret.      Fut.       Pres.     Pret.      Pret.
Ludwig the Synth          71        717        10         72        195        16        1081
Young von

9  For example, Christian Gueintz’s Deutscher Sprachlehre Entwurf (1634) [13] and Deutsche
   Rechtschreibung (1645) [14] were reviewed and substantially modified by the president of the FG,
   Ludwig von Anhalt-Köthen. They can rightly be considered an official product of the FG’s
   metalinguistic reflection (see [18],26; [15],110).
10 This result is consistent with the comprehensive analysis of the morphology and syntax of the
   Erzehlungen conducted in the author’s dissertation, which will hopefully be published soon. This
   dissertation uncovered this same southern Lower German/northern East Central German markedness
   in a series of other linguistic phenomena, such as the Ablautpattern of some irregular verbs, adjective
   declension and position of the finite verb in subordinate clauses containing an analytic predicate.



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    Umanistica Digitale - ISSN:2532-8816 - n.6, 2019


Anhalt-
Köthen
            tun +    0        5        0         6       25     3        39    3.48%
            Inf.
                     0%       0.69%    0%        7.69%   11.36% 15.79%
Amoena     Synth     48       285      11        32      81     11       468
Amalia von
Anhalt-
Köthen
            tun +    0        1        0         3       10     4        18    3.70%
            Inf.
                     0%       0.35%    0%        8.57%   10.99% 26.67%
Loysa       Synth    30       259      2         24      64     6        385
Amoena
von
Anhalt-
Köthen
            tun +    0        0        1         7       14     2        24    5.87%
            Inf.
                     0%       0%       33.33% 22.58% 17.95% 25.00%
Eleonora    Synth    21       181      0         17      44     9        272
Maria von
Anhalt-
Bernburg
            tun +    1        3        0         1       7      4        16    5.56%
            Inf.
                     4.55%    1.63%    -         5.56%   13.73% 30.77%
Kunigunde Synth      18       164      1         17      50     4        254
Juliana von
Anhalt-
Dessau
            tun +    0        0        0         1       10     4        15    5.58%
            Inf.
                     0%       0%       0%        5.56%   16.67% 50.00%
Anna       Synth     9        106      0         7       33     2        157
Sophia von



                                            36
    L. Assenzi – Quantifying auxiliary tun to study seventeenth-century German metalinguistic
                                                                                   reflection


Anhalt-
Bernburg
               tun +      0          0         0          0          1       0       1      0.63%
               Inf.
                          0%         0%        -          0%         2.94%   0%
Sibylle        Synth      12         76        0          5          24      3       120
Elisabeth
von
Anhalt-
Bernburg
               tun +      0          0         0          0          2       0       2      1.64%
               Inf.
                          0%         0%        -          0%         7.69%   0%
Eleonora       Synth      0          13        0          0          2       0       15
Dorothea
von
Anhalt-
Dessau
               tun +      0          0         0          0          0       0       0      0.00%
               Inf.
                          -          0%        -          -          0%      -
Tot.           Synth      209        1788      24         174        491     51      2737
               tun +      1          9         1          18         69      17      115    4.03%
               Inf.
                          0.48%      0.50%     4.00%      9.38%      12.32% 25.00%
Table 2: The use of auxiliary tun in the Erzehlungen by each translator


Some substantial challenges were present when analysing this data due to the fact that the
contribution of each translator was uneven: the son of the FG’s president, Prince Ludwig the
Young, authored 40% of the text alone, followed by his mother Amoena Amalia (ca. 18%) and
his sister Loysa Amoena (ca. 14%). In the text translated by each of these three, enough
examples of auxiliary tun were found to show that each one of them had a strong preference for
the use of the tun periphrasis in subordinate clauses. In line with the general tendency of the
Erzehlungen, they each used this construction more frequently as a periphrasis for verbs in the
subjunctive mood.
The other translators, Prince Ludwig’s nieces of Anhalt-Dessau and Anhalt-Bernburg,


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     Umanistica Digitale - ISSN:2532-8816 - n.6, 2019

translated a smaller amount of the text. Because their contribution was smaller, formulating any
statistically founded statement on their language use was difficult, if not impossible. However,
four out of eleven total occurrences of auxiliary tun used in main clauses appeared in the text
translated by Eleonora Maria von Anhalt-Bernburg, the fourth translator, whose total
contribution was around 10%. In other words, more than a third of all uses of the tun
periphrasis in main clauses were written by a single translator who produced just one tenth of
the total text length. Although the low token number by the less active translators made this
observation statistically insignificant, a regional influence was seen in Eleonora Maria’s
tendency to use auxiliary tun more frequently in main clauses than was observable in the text of
the other translators. Eleonora Maria didn’t grow up in Anhalt, but in northern Bavaria, and
moved back to her family residence in Bernburg when she was twenty-one years old. 11 The use
of the tun periphrasis in main clauses was typical for Upper German dialects, and her more
frequent use of this construction in declarative clauses could stem from the influence of the
language spoken at the court of Amberg in Northern Bavaria, where she was born and raised. If
that were the case (a more extensive study on the use of this construction by Eleonora Maria as
well as by the other translators is needed), it would confirm the hypothesis that each member
of the translating group used syntax subjectively and instinctively.


        Conclusions

Only a comprehensive, corpus-based analysis of the use and distribution of auxiliary tun in the
history of the German language could confirm or discard the suppositions formulated in this
study, and many questions posed here will remain open to discussion for the time being.
However, a tentative interpretation is better than no interpretation at all. If analysis of the
language of historical texts is stopped for lack of data with which to compare results, many
interesting diachronic linguistic phenomena would be unexplored. This would be
counterproductive for the advancement of the knowledge of said phenomena. Quantitative
methods help these difficult cases. Even if corpus-based analysis is lacking with which to
compare the data on auxiliary tun, precisely quantifying the occurrences of this structure in a
text still yields objective results that can be described and qualitatively interpreted while also
making new, accurate information on the tun periphrasis available for future research.
The quantitative analysis of auxiliary tun in the Erzehlungen made it possible to demonstrate
the Low German regional markedness of the tun periphrasis in the language use of the eight
German translators. All translators used auxiliary tun almost exclusively in subordinate clauses,
consistent with a Low German tendency. This regional markedness did not result from a
conscious attempt to use a Low German syntax but was rather a natural reflex of the regional
provenience of the eight translators, whose families came from and partly resided in Anhalt.
Today, this region lies in the East Central German speaking area, but it was at the
southernmost border of the Low German speaking zone in the seventeenth century.


11 This was also the case with her two younger sisters, Sybille Elisabeth and Anna Sophia, who translated
   a text portion that was too small (less than 4% each) for any consideration.


                                                  38
    L. Assenzi – Quantifying auxiliary tun to study seventeenth-century German metalinguistic
                                                                                   reflection

The regional markedness of the text revealed the language reflection of the FG. As mentioned
above, the Erzehlungen were produced in close connection with the activities of the FG, so that
this first translation of the Novellino can be rightly considered a product of the FG’s language
work. Since none of the theoretical linguistic works of the FG mentioned rules for correct
syntactic use, the only way to prove whether the exemplarity of northern East Central German
proposed in the FG’s grammars for orthography and morphology was also valid for syntax was
to analyse the regional syntactic markedness of the texts written in connection with this
society’s language reflection. In this case, the use of auxiliary tun in the Erzehlungen was
influenced by a Low German tendency. Additionally, auxiliary tun was never corrected in the
manuscript of the Erzehlungen. This was particularly informative because the reviewer of the
Erzehlungen manuscript was the FG’s president, Prince Ludwig. The fact that the foremost
authority of the FG did not correct the use of the tun periphrasis in the text proved that the use
of auxiliary tun in the Erzehlungen satisfied the standards of linguistic correctness advocated by
the FG.
Thus, by uncovering the Low German markedness of the distribution of auxiliary tun in the
Erzehlungen, the quantitative analysis of this phenomenon confirmed that this German variety
was seen by the FG as exemplary in regard to syntax as well as orthography and morphology, as
stated in the society’s metalinguistic reflection writings.
Further studies are necessary to prove this hypothesis. For instance, a corpus-based analysis of
auxiliary tun in Early New High German prose is needed to corroborate the Low German
markedness of the exclusive occurrence of the tun periphrasis in subordinate clauses, as well as
more extensive studies of this phenomenon in the writings of the FG’s members. Until this new
research emerges, this study has shown the usefulness of a mixed quantitative-qualitative
approach in the study of a text’s linguistic properties and their interaction with the cultural
context of the text, even in a complicated case like that of the Erzehlungen, with a non-ideal
data set.


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