Persistent features – Corpus-based evidence for reallocation processes in German

This study aims at tracing a reallocation process of a grammatical feature alongside the dialect-standard axis with the aid of corpus linguistics methods; more precisely with an integrative application of quantitative and qualitative approaches. The phenomenon under investigation is articles without the definiteness marker d- in German, usually ascribed to the Bavarian dialect area. Analyses show, however, that this apparently dialectal feature diffuses to other communication settings closer to the intended standard language use. This process is accompanied by a refunctionalisation of reduced article forms, indicating the relevance of language-internal relations for reallocation of grammatical features. The methodical approach should be easily applicable to other variants and – as many European languages show a diaglossic repertoire – relevant to other languages as well.