donn

See also: Donn and dónn

Central Franconian

Alternative forms

• don (northern Moselle Franconian, some rural dialects of Ripuarian)
• dunn (Kölsch), dun (southern Moselle Franconian)

Etymology

From Middle High German duon, from Old High German duon, West Central German variant of tuon, from Proto-West Germanic *dōn.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /don/

Verb

donn (third-person singular present deet, preterite and subjunctive dät, past participle jedon or jedonn) (many dialects of Ripuarian)

1. to do

   Ich donn hee de janze Ärbeet! ― I’m doing all the work here!

2. Used in the preterite with a following infinitive to form the paraphrastic preterite.

   Ich dät us der Finster luure. ― I looked out the window.

3. Used in the subjunctive with a following infinitive to form the conditional tense.

   Ich dät jo noch jet blieve, ävver meng Frau well heem.

   I would stay some more, but my wife wants to go home.

Usage notes

• The past participle has an open vowel /ɔ/, either long or short, but never /o/ as in the infinitive.
• Regular verbs whose stems end in -d or -t cannot form a synthetic preterite. With other regular verbs, the paraphrastic construction is preferred, but synthetic forms are possible in Ripuarian (unlike Moselle Franconian); thus alternatively: Ich luurten us der Finster. (“I looked out the window.”) With irregular verbs, to the contrary, the synthetic preterite is usually preferred. The paraphrastic construction is ruled out with auxiliaries and modals.
• Irrespective of this, the scope of the preterite as such is restricted as it is in colloquial Standard German. The past is predominantly expressed by the perfect tense. More southern dialects of Moselle Franconian (including Luxembourgish) preserve only a small number of preterite forms.

Descendants

• Hunsrik: dun
• Luxembourgish: doen, dinn (alternative standard, chiefly south-western areas), dunn, dongen (now dated, dialectal)