Article use in Upper German – a ‘radical’ stage of grammaticalization?


 Despite an increasing interest in German dialect syntax, the study of article use in Upper German (Alemannic and
 Bavarian) remains a desideratum. This is true in particular for Austrian varieties. The present study focusses on article
 variation and change in Austrian Upper German and discusses the status of article grammaticalization. To that effect, ‘radical’
 cases of article use in Upper German are analysed, i.e. cases considered incorrect in standard German: the use of indefinite
 articles before mass nouns, of definite articles before proper nouns, and of indefinite articles in the plural. These phenomena
 are investigated by means of a comprehensive dialect survey (3,599 dialect translations by 163 dialect speakers from 40 research
 locations). The analysis examines inner-linguistic factors (lexis, semantics, syntax) as well as extra-linguistic factors (dialect
 areas, age group). The findings reveal a surprisingly high variability and a relatively advanced stage of grammaticalization in
 some areas, especially Central Bavarian dialects.