Variation oder Wandel? Der Fall von selbst und selber

As with many languages, the Germanic languages have intensifiers to mark reflexive structures. In standard German, this is usually done with the particle selbst or with a “stilistic variant” (Siemund 2000: 10) selber. The coexistence of both forms is regarded as a free variation in which selbst is the form preferred by the standard (e. g. Gast 2006: 70; Hole 2002: FN 1). However, it turns out that selber is already established in higher registers and that there seems to be an apparently free variation of the two forms selbst/selber in contemporary German. This article examines to what extent this case of a semantic-syntactic overabundance actually represents free variation or to what extent systemic and functional differentiations of both forms can be recognized. As will be shown, there are indeed individual speakers who exhibit a functional differentiation of both forms. Another key issue of this paper is the methodological question of how ambiguous structures can be recorded in text corpora or speaker surveys.