Re: Official German spelling update

On Tue, 16 Jul 2024, Stefan Ram wrote:

  In 2009, Melanie Löber wondered, "Could 'viel' have been
  inflected more in the past, so that "vielen Dank" represents
  a fossilized form from earlier times?".
 
|Now one could assume that "viel" was possibly inflected more
|in the past and gradually lost its inflectional forms.
|According to our sources, however, the opposite is the case:
|both Hermann Paul's "Mittelhochdeutschen Grammatik" and the
|"Deutschen Wörterbuch" of the Grimm Brothers assume that
|"viel" (or the Middle High German vil) was originally used as
|a noun that entailed a partitive genitive. As you can see
|from the following examples, this usage persisted well beyond
|Middle High German.
|
|Examples
|[...]
|
|However, why the inflected forms are used in certain
|constructions and the uninflected forms in others does not lie
|in German grammar itself, but in language use, i.e., all
|speakers and writers of German decide together which usage
|prevails. And in the case of "vielen Dank", they have evidently
|decided in favor of the inflected form of "viel" in deviation
|from the general rule.

I think this is the situation. You cannot express „viel Dank“ and wish
„vieles Glück“ but only vice versa „vielen Dank“ and „viel Glück“.  And with
infinitives used as nouns you often have the freedom to use either. Example
(Qoh. 12:12; various translations):

  Viel Predigen macht den Leib müde. (Luther 1545)
  Viel Studieren macht den Leib müde. (Luther 1912, 2017)
  Viel Studieren ermüdet den Leib. (EÜ 1980, 2016)
  Das viele Grübeln kann dich bis zur Erschöpfung ermüden. (GNB)
  Das viele Studieren ... (several others, modern)

I have not found "Vieles Studieren ..." but it would have been idiomatic as well.

I see hardly any difference in meaning. "das viele Studieren" may mean an
exactly specified endeavour of which the reader is warned; whereas "viel
Studieren" and "vieles Studieren" warns of any action involving intensive
studies, but that is not a clear-cut distinction.

--
Helmut Richter