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Abstract
Constructions with singular agreement in coordinated subjects, such as Milch und Honig flieĀ§t
(milk and honey flows), show that number agreement in coordination in German does not
always follow the rule of plural agreement as formulated in reference grammars. Despite such
normative prescriptions, actual language use exhibits systematic variation between singular
and plural agreement.
This corpus-based study investigates number agreement of the finite verb with noun phrases
coordinated by the conjunction und (and) in subject position from the Early New High
German period to the present. Based on a diachronic corpus comprising texts ranging from the
1545 Luther Bible to works by Grimmelshausen, Goethe and Karl May, as well as more
recent Bible translations, the study analyzes both the distribution of singular and plural
agreement and the underlying conditioning factors.
Methodologically, the study combines different quantitative approaches, including binary
logistic regression models and decision tree analysis. The aim is to identify the relevant
predictors of agreement choice and to trace their diachronic development.
The results show that number agreement in coordination cannot be described as a simple shift
from singular to plural agreement. Instead, a change in the underlying mechanisms of
agreement can be observed: while earlier stages are predominantly governed by semantic and
local factors such as animacy, structural factors gain increasing importance in New High
German. In particular, determination emerges as a central predictor of agreement choice in
later stages.
The study thus demonstrates that the development of number agreement is best understood as
a reorganization of variation, in which earlier semantically driven principles are gradually
replaced by morphosyntactically motivated mechanisms. Furthermore, the findings suggest
that processes of normative codification since the 17th and 18th centuries may have
contributed to the stabilization of certain variants, without fully accounting for the observed
change.
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution 4.0 International