Besser wie als. The acceptance of 'wie' as a comparative particle in German.

Ermans, M.M.L.J.R.

Besser wie als. The acceptance of 'wie' as a comparative particle in German.

Files

Ermans, MMLJR 3003647.pdf (1.31 MB)

Authors

Ermans, M.M.L.J.R.

Issue Date

2016-08-21

Language

en

URI

http://theses.ubn.ru.nl/handle/123456789/3808

Abstract

The Standard German prescriptive rule dictates the use of the particle als ‘than’ in comparisons of inequality and the use of the particle wie ‘as’ in comparisons of equality. However, in substandard varieties of German wie is commonly used in both types of comparison constructions. The use of comparative-wie dates back to the eighteenth century and has since then increased in its areal distribution and frequency of occurrence. Nevertheless, comparative-wie is socially negatively stigmatized, indicating that speakers are highly conscious of the norm violation. The combination of these factors suggests that there might be a process of language change at hand whereby the equative particle replaces the comparative particle. To explore the possibility of wie becoming an accepted comparative particle in Standard German, the current research focuses on how both variants of comparative constructions (standard and substandard) are processed by native speakers by means of a sentence matching task.

Supervisor

Hoop, H. de

Foolen, A.P.

Faculty

Faculteit der Letteren