The Origin of Inflectives
Pic. 1: Inflective? |
Certainly even inflectives are concerned with the question of origin. Inflectives as e.g. *freu* recall above all comic strips. In this context they are principally used as onomatopoetica to present indirectly those sounds and tones that cannot be realised on paper, e.g. knarr, zisch, klapper. Besides those so-called "onpos" there are also other words occurring in comic strips: Those that go with facial expression and gestures and others that have the ability to present the whole plot in one word, e.g. kick, kuppel, schalt (for a motorbike that went off fast). Can these words be called the first inflectives? Whereas Teuber (1998) places the origin of inflectives long before the rise of comic strips, Schlobinski (2001) considers these roots of the words as the decisive beginning of the inflectives. Referring to Teuber, inflectives have already existed since 1782, when Johann Christoph Adelung dealt with knall. Schlobinski, in contrast, considers this discussion and possibly even other proofs of inflectives as singular phenomena. In his opinion comic strips are the decisive source of origin of inflectives. 
Pic. 2: MM-Inflective |
Schlobinski found the first possible proof for this in the "Mickey Mouse newspaper" comic strip from 23rd May 1931. This was a comic series in a paper (CLICK, s. pic. 1). As it is an English comic strip, the infinitive corresponds to the nominal form (to click, klicken vs. click das Klicken). The first Mickey Mouse in German language however, shows definite inflectives. Moreover, picture 2 could present an untranslated form, as poch (p.13), schnapp (p.18) and knarr (p.30) are without doubt German language inflectives (as far as comic strips are concerned see Dolle-Weinkauff 1990).Besides comic strips, inflectives can also be found in other media-genres. The first to mention in this context are Fanzines which are principally known in the sports-, game- and music sector. They are often magazines and collections of notes for free, written by fans for fans. Their quality ranges from black-and-white copies to multicoloured prints. This depends on the number of copies and the proceeds from advertising and possibly sale. As Fanzines are most often made out by adolescents, the occurrence of inflectives is not at all surprising. Further proofs of inflectives were found by Schlobinski in the following papers: - Bild Zeitung, 3rd July 2000 (Schumi: Stotter, stotter, raus!)
- DIE ZEIT, 8th May 2000 (zwinker, zwinker)
Moreover, inflectives occurred in SMS-communication (drueck) as well as in radio-advertising (spring 2000; geifer, gier, schleckschleck). These proofs and even further ones indicate that nowadays inflectives should no longer be considered as singular phenomena. As adolescents permanently make use of slang, inflectives have become part of the colloquial language (Dolle-Weinkauff 1990: 71). In this context it is important to mention that the proofs found were merely simple inflectives, whereas more complex inflective-constructions seem to be rather specific for chat-communication. What are inflectives? A short explanation Further proofs (chat-communication)
References Dolle-Weinkauff, Bernd (1990). Comics. Geschichte einer populären Literaturform in Deutschland seit 1945. Weinheim/Basel. Schlobinski, Peter (2001). "*knuddel – zurueckknuddel – dich ganzdollknuddel*. Inflektive und Inflektivkonstruktionen im Deutschen". In: Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik, No. 29.2. P. 192-218. Teuber, Oliver (1998). "fasel beschreib erwähn – Der Inflektiv als Wortform des Deutschen". In: Germanistische Linguistik, No. 141-142. P. 7-26.
 Torsten Siever
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generated: 12/15/2005
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updated: 6/24/2009
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