Rose Fisher and Deborah Adeyeye Present Research at WILA 2024

Due to hurricane Helene moving through the southern states, the 15th Workshop on Immigrant Languages in the Americas (WILA 15) went online last-minute instead of being held at the University of Georgia. Attendees made the best of the virtual format, delivering interesting and thought-provoking work. Two GGSA members participated and presented.

Rose Fisher‘s presentation was titled “Vowel Merger in Pennsylvania Dutch Definite Articles” and explored the merger going on between the definite articles der (masculine) and die (feminine/plural) in Pennsylvania Dutch. These articles are more merged among the Amish than among the Mennonites of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This merger impacts the gender and number marking paradigms of Pennsylvania Dutch which are currently in the midst of a widespread and very rapid paradigmatic shift. 

Deborah Adeyeye delivered her presentation titled “Integration in the mental lexicon: English verbal roots in Pennsylvania Dutch participles,” the result of ongoing work and collaboration with fellow GGSA member, Emmeline Wilson. They found inter- and intraspeaker variation in participle exponents on borrowed roots in the Ohio dialect of Pennsylvania Dutch, suggesting a lack of consensus on a specific participle allomorph. This lack of consensus indicates that the selection of participle allomorph, in at least this dialect of Pennsylvania Dutch, is currently being renegotiated at the intra- and interspeaker levels.

Both presentations took place via Zoom on Thursday, September 26th, 2024.

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