Periphrastic 'do'

[Yng]

After yet another thread where somebody goes 'hey, did you know that English's periphrastic 'do' comes from Welsh, lol?' and me yet again explaining that that's highly unlikely if anything, I decided to ask what the enlightened folk of the ZBB what their own theories were.

Also, I've heard that other Germanic languages also use the periphrastic 'do' in a similar way, although to a lesser degree and mostly dialectally. How true is this and in what contexts do they use them?

Do we know when the periphrastic 'do' came into common currency? From a quick scan of a bit of Hamlet, I find one example of 'do' for emphasis, several examples of questions/negatives using inversion and no 'do' for interrogatives or negatives, which suggests it was a bit after Shakespeare's time, since his language, at least for commoners, is supposedly very contemporary.

[Colzie]

I've got nothing on it coming into existence, but as for other languages, my historical linguistics professor mentioned that (at least some varieties of) Swiss German make use of it. He seemed to think there was little or no distinction between it and English, but I sort of doubt that.

Any Swiss German speakers want to confirm this?

[roninbodhisattva]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure constructions with 'do' cognates are pretty common in German dialects, right? I don't know about Scandinavian languages, but it's probably some kind of drift in Germanic?

[Yng]

It's always possible that it was used originally solely for emphasis in positive statements, shifted to emphatic use in negatives and interrogatives and then became the unmarked form, I suppose.

[roninbodhisattva]

For those of you interested in this and who can read German, here's a paper on the phenomenon in German:

Die tun–Periphrase im Deutschen - Christian Schwarz, 2004

[linguoboy]

I've got nothing on it coming into existence, but as for other languages, my historical linguistics professor mentioned that (at least some varieties of) Swiss German make use of it. He seemed to think there was little or no distinction between it and English, but I sort of doubt that.

I don't know much about Swiss-German, but I'm acquainted with do-support from a closely-related dialect, Südbadisch. (It's classed as Low Alemannic whereas Swiss-German is either High Alemannic or Highest Alemannic, depending on how far south you are.) Here it's frequently used to form a periphrastic subjunctive, e.g. "Är sait, ass är däi kumme." "He says he's coming" [but I have my doubts]. (As far as I can tell, due and haa [i.e. tun and haben] are the only verbs left with present subjunctive inflections in the dialect.)

[Kai_DaiGoji]

After yet another thread where somebody goes 'hey, did you know that English's periphrastic 'do' comes from Welsh, lol?' and me yet again explaining that that's highly unlikely if anything, I decided to ask what the enlightened folk of the ZBB what their own theories were.

Also, I've heard that other Germanic languages also use the periphrastic 'do' in a similar way, although to a lesser degree and mostly dialectally. How true is this and in what contexts do they use them?

Do we know when the periphrastic 'do' came into common currency? From a quick scan of a bit of Hamlet, I find one example of 'do' for emphasis, several examples of questions/negatives using inversion and no 'do' for interrogatives or negatives, which suggests it was a bit after Shakespeare's time, since his language, at least for commoners, is supposedly very contemporary.

I did read a book once that argued both for the Celtic influence on "do" and that the Germanic languages were influenced by a Semitic (specifically Phoenician) substrate. It was a fun, if not necessarily academically sound, read.

[caedes]

I've got nothing on it coming into existence, but as for other languages, my historical linguistics professor mentioned that (at least some varieties of) Swiss German make use of it. He seemed to think there was little or no distinction between it and English, but I sort of doubt that.

I don't know much about Swiss-German, but I'm acquainted with do-support from a closely-related dialect, Südbadisch. (It's classed as Low Alemannic whereas Swiss-German is either High Alemannic or Highest Alemannic, depending on how far south you are.) Here it's frequently used to form a periphrastic subjunctive, e.g. "Är sait, ass är däi kumme." "He says he's coming" [but I have my doubts]. (As far as I can tell, due and haa [i.e. tun and haben] are the only verbs left with present subjunctive inflections in the dialect.)

Same in (at least Low) Swabian and my South Franconian dialect. It's "Der sait (Swabian) / sächt (Franconian) r dääd komma" here.

Btw, which Low Alemannic dialect is that exactly?

[linguoboy]

Btw, which Low Alemannic dialect is that exactly?

Südbadisch? Er...it's the dialect of South Baden. (I han früehner z Friburg im Brisgau gwohnd.)

[alice]

I did read a book once that argued both for the Celtic influence on "do" and that the Germanic languages were influenced by a Semitic (specifically Phoenician) substrate. It was a fun, if not necessarily academically sound, read.

Semitic? Vasco-Caucasian, surely!

[caedes]

Btw, which Low Alemannic dialect is that exactly?

Südbadisch? Er...it's the dialect of South Baden. (I han früehner z Friburg im Brisgau gwohnd.)

Thus Oberrheinalemannisch. The problem with "Südbadisch" is that it's used for both High and, in your case, Low Alemannic dialects, usually sperated into Seealemanisch and Oberrheinalemannisch, the latter containing your dialect. That's why I asked.