The problem of an uncharacteristic frequency of causative constructions lassen+infinitive in 15th-century German texts about Vlad III Dracula

PONTE. 2019. Vol. 75. No. 3/1. P. 43–51.

Kashperskaya A. P., Erykina M. A.

The 15th-century German texts about Vlad III Dracula are both the result and the instrument of a political campaign. The connection between the original text and its further genre modifications can be traced through their shared features in vocabulary and grammatical constructions. A notable feature of the entire genre paradigm of data is the frequency of using the causative construction lassen+infinitive: none of 15th-century German texts of various genres demonstrate such an abundance of these constructions. This feature could be explained by the fact that the original German text was translated from Latin. The frequency of lassen+infinitive in the texts under research could have been a reflection of Latin syntactic features (subject-less clauses) in the language of the first German source, followed by further transfer of this feature into later German texts about Dracula of other genres (poem, chronicle, Volksbuch). Furthermore, it is possible to assume that the compilers of manuscripts, which served as an outline for further texts of different genres, distinguished, under the influence of Latin, between a simple active clause and a causative construction with a second agent as the subject. In general, the frequency of lassen+infinitive, uncharacteristic of German texts, can be explained by the uniqueness of the original "History of Dracula" and all texts that were derived from it. At the same time, the occurrence of this construction indicates links between these texts.

Keywords: german studies, Historical Linguistics