Die niederdeutschen Mundarten des südwestfälischen Raumes Breckerfeld - Hagen - Iserlohn

PhD ceremony: Mr. F.L. Brandes, 14.30 uur, Aula Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen

Dissertation: Die niederdeutschen Mundarten des südwestfälischen Raumes Breckerfeld - Hagen - Iserlohn

Promotor(s): prof. H. Niebaum

Faculty: Arts

The doctoral thesis by Ludwig Brandes about the low German dialects in the South Westfalian region of Breckerfeld – Hagen – Iserlohn falls into four parts. Part 1 presents the goal and the method of research: the scientific preservation of the phonetical, formal and lexical characteristics and variances of the perishing dialects in the research region at the end of the twentieth century in the shape of an areal grammar on the basis of a direct interrogation in 107 places. These chapters are followed by a short survey of the research situation. Part 2 examines the Low German language in the research area and its South Westfalian surround-ings from 1500 to our own days from the socio-linguistic point of view, that means after the climax of Middle Low German up to the preprogrammed extinction of the Low German dialects in the research area. In the dialect-geographical part (part 3) the region undergoes, according to the isoglosses on 59 dialect maps, a micro- as well as a macro-subdivision along with evaluation and explanation of the dialect boundaries. The descriptive part (part 4) falls into phonology (part 4.1.) and morphology (part 4.2.). The phonology describes, from the phonemic/phonetic viewpoint, the momentary phonic situation in the six subdiatopes of the research area on the basis of the West Germanic phonemic systems (short vowels, long vowels, diphthongs, consonants) and ends with an arrangement of the phonemic subsystems in the different subdiatopes. Part 4.2. treats the conjugation of verbs (strong verbs, weak verbs and others) as well as the declension of nouns, adjectives and pronouns. The presentation of the cardinal and ordinal numbers forms the final chapter.