Stability and convergence in case marking

In Modern Low German, there are signs for a newly emerging dative case under Standard German influence. The present paper analyzes this case of potential convergence, concentrating on definite articles of neuter gender. Methodologically, a new corpus of spontaneous speech is used, alongside the established Zwirner corpus from the middle of the last century. It turns out that full forms of the definite article are rather stable – they retain the old Low German two-way case system and thus defy convergence. Reduced forms, on the other hand, do converge towards Standard German. Here, distinct dative forms are dominant. This is in line with older findings about the decline of the old dative case in Middle Low German.