On variation in the positioning of the progressive marker am in non-standard German: Kölsch (Colognese) and Pennsylvania Dutch

Abstract

Progressive constructions involving the progressive marker am are considered to be highly colloquial in standard German but are standard in regional varieties of German such as Kölsch (Colognese) and Pennsylvania Dutch. It was argued in Bhatt and Schmidt (1993) that in Kölsch the progressive particle am is the head of a head-final Aspect Phrase. The progressive particle in Pennsylvania Dutch has not been discussed in generative literature. Based on Bhatt and Schmidt’s arguments, it will be argued here that in Pennsylvania Dutch the progressive marker am is the head of a head-initial Aspect Phrase, despite a possible conflict with the Final-Over-Final Constraint (FOFC) proposed in Biberauer et al. (2007, 2010).

Keywords

• progressive
• German
• Pennsylvania Dutch
• Kölsch