How interrogative pronouns can become relative pronouns: The case of was in Misionero German

Michael T. Putnam, Lara Schwarz

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Misionero German (MG), a variety of heritage German spoken in the Misiones Province of Argentina, allows the interrogative pronoun was 'what' to function as a relative pronoun in similar and analogous contexts to those found in Brazilian Portuguese. We argue that this shift in the grammar is the result of replica grammaticalization, likely due to extreme contact with Brazilian Portuguese over the course of the last century.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)613-625
Number of pages13
JournalSTUF - Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung
Volume67
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 1 2014

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language

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