Pub Date : 2023-02-08DOI: 10.1017/S1470542722000083
D. Minkova, Z. Zhou
What is the lexicon’s role in licensing the selection of phonologically-marked structures in Old English verse? Specifically, what is its role in the avoidance of certain nominal compounds in verse, even though the same compounds are used apparently freely in prose (Terasawa 1994)? Using a simulation of the Old English lexicon, we offer a statistical analysis of the poetic use of nominal compounds compared to the availability of relevant prosodic structures in the ambient language. In the process, we unify Terasawa’s separate constraints and demonstrate a new way of addressing the complex interplay between Old English prosody and the structure of Old English alliterative meter. Our results endorse Terasawa’s position: We find that the dispreference for nominal compounds of the XX-LX type is a general but noncategorical property of Old English. We attribute their highly restricted usage in verse to the demands of poetic diction and their incompatibility with the metrical templates that scops and scribes replicate. Additionally, while syllable weight factors into metrical organization, it does so less for stress placement, which remains morphologically grounded; this asymmetry in the ranking value of weight between poetry and prose is considered briefly in the context of the Old English monastic scribal training.
{"title":"Nominal Compounds in Old English Meter and Prosody","authors":"D. Minkova, Z. Zhou","doi":"10.1017/S1470542722000083","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542722000083","url":null,"abstract":"What is the lexicon’s role in licensing the selection of phonologically-marked structures in Old English verse? Specifically, what is its role in the avoidance of certain nominal compounds in verse, even though the same compounds are used apparently freely in prose (Terasawa 1994)? Using a simulation of the Old English lexicon, we offer a statistical analysis of the poetic use of nominal compounds compared to the availability of relevant prosodic structures in the ambient language. In the process, we unify Terasawa’s separate constraints and demonstrate a new way of addressing the complex interplay between Old English prosody and the structure of Old English alliterative meter. Our results endorse Terasawa’s position: We find that the dispreference for nominal compounds of the XX-LX type is a general but noncategorical property of Old English. We attribute their highly restricted usage in verse to the demands of poetic diction and their incompatibility with the metrical templates that scops and scribes replicate. Additionally, while syllable weight factors into metrical organization, it does so less for stress placement, which remains morphologically grounded; this asymmetry in the ranking value of weight between poetry and prose is considered briefly in the context of the Old English monastic scribal training.","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"35 1","pages":"69 - 95"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49206112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-08DOI: 10.1017/S1470542722000071
Robbert De Troij, S. Grondelaers, D. Speelman
Abstract In this article, we report a large-scale corpus study aimed at tackling the (controversial) question to what extent the European national varieties of Dutch, that is, Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch, exhibit morpho-syntactic differences. Instead of relying on a manual selection of cases of morphosyntactic variation, we first marshal large bilingual parallel corpora and machine translation software to identify semiautomatically, in an extensively data-driven fashion, loci of variation from various “corners” of Dutch grammar. We then gauge the distribution of con-structional alternatives in a nationally as well as stylistically stratified corpus for a representative selection of twenty alternation patterns. We find that natiolectal variation in the grammar of Dutch is far more prevalent than often assumed, especially in less edited text types, and that it shows up in inflection phenomena, lexically conditioned syntactic variation, and pure word order permutations. Another key finding is that many cases of synchronic probabilistic asymmetries reflect a diachronic difference between the two varieties: Netherlandic Dutch often tends to be ahead in cases of ongoing grammatical change, with Belgian Dutch holding on somewhat longer to obsolescent features of the grammar.*
{"title":"Natiolectal Variation in Dutch Morphosyntax: A Large-Scale, Data-Driven Perspective","authors":"Robbert De Troij, S. Grondelaers, D. Speelman","doi":"10.1017/S1470542722000071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542722000071","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this article, we report a large-scale corpus study aimed at tackling the (controversial) question to what extent the European national varieties of Dutch, that is, Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch, exhibit morpho-syntactic differences. Instead of relying on a manual selection of cases of morphosyntactic variation, we first marshal large bilingual parallel corpora and machine translation software to identify semiautomatically, in an extensively data-driven fashion, loci of variation from various “corners” of Dutch grammar. We then gauge the distribution of con-structional alternatives in a nationally as well as stylistically stratified corpus for a representative selection of twenty alternation patterns. We find that natiolectal variation in the grammar of Dutch is far more prevalent than often assumed, especially in less edited text types, and that it shows up in inflection phenomena, lexically conditioned syntactic variation, and pure word order permutations. Another key finding is that many cases of synchronic probabilistic asymmetries reflect a diachronic difference between the two varieties: Netherlandic Dutch often tends to be ahead in cases of ongoing grammatical change, with Belgian Dutch holding on somewhat longer to obsolescent features of the grammar.*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"35 1","pages":"1 - 68"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49303352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-14DOI: 10.1017/S1470542722000010
L. Schäfer
The variation of the two past tense auxiliaries (HAVE and BE) is a well-studied phenomenon in European languages, especially in the West Germanic varieties. So far, however, the situation in Eastern Yiddish has not been examined. This paper focuses on auxiliary selection in these Yiddish dialects based on data from the Language and Culture Archive of Ashkenazic Jewry, which were collected in the 1960s. Like most of the current works on this topic, the following analysis uses and discusses Sorace’s (1993, 2000) Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy, which allows to examine the Yiddish structures in light of historical and diatopic evidence from other Germanic varieties, particularly German and Dutch. The main focus is on intransitive verbs that show a high degree of variation—state verbs, controlled and uncontrolled motional process verbs, and change-of-state verbs. However, the Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy also has weaknesses, as is demonstrated in the following.*
{"title":"Auxiliary Selection in Yiddish Dialects","authors":"L. Schäfer","doi":"10.1017/S1470542722000010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542722000010","url":null,"abstract":"The variation of the two past tense auxiliaries (HAVE and BE) is a well-studied phenomenon in European languages, especially in the West Germanic varieties. So far, however, the situation in Eastern Yiddish has not been examined. This paper focuses on auxiliary selection in these Yiddish dialects based on data from the Language and Culture Archive of Ashkenazic Jewry, which were collected in the 1960s. Like most of the current works on this topic, the following analysis uses and discusses Sorace’s (1993, 2000) Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy, which allows to examine the Yiddish structures in light of historical and diatopic evidence from other Germanic varieties, particularly German and Dutch. The main focus is on intransitive verbs that show a high degree of variation—state verbs, controlled and uncontrolled motional process verbs, and change-of-state verbs. However, the Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy also has weaknesses, as is demonstrated in the following.*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"34 1","pages":"341 - 384"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48416821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-14DOI: 10.1017/S1470542722000022
James M. Stratton, John D. Sundquist
The present study uses variationist sociolinguistic methods to examine the intensifier system in Oslo Norwegian. Results indicate that both linguistic and social factors influence intensifier use. Predicative adjectives were intensified more frequently than attributive adjectives, women used intensifiers more frequently than men, and younger speakers had higher intensification rates than older speakers. Apparent time analyses also reveal a change in progress toward the use of skikkelig ‘proper’, a change led predominantly by young women. Although veldig ‘very’ was the most frequently used intensifier, its use decreases in apparent time, whereas skikkelig increases in frequency among younger speakers. The development of the intensifier skikkelig appears to follow a common pathway of change from adjective to manner adjunct to degree adverb, as well as from appropriateness to intensification. Comparisons with work on English, German, and Norwegian reveal several crosslinguistic tendencies about the linguistic and social conditioning of intensifiers. This study provides the first variationist sociolinguistic analysis of intensifiers in Oslo Norwegian; it provides support for several crosslinguistic claims about intensifier use; and it contributes to the visibility of variationist sociolinguistic work in the study of Norwegian variation and change.
本研究使用变异社会语言学的方法来研究奥斯陆挪威语的强化语系统。结果表明,语言和社会因素都会影响强化语的使用。谓语形容词比定语形容词更频繁地强化,女性比男性更频繁地使用强化词,年轻的说话者比年长的说话者有更高的强化率。表观时间分析还揭示了滑雪“正确”使用的变化,这种变化主要由年轻女性主导。虽然veldig ' very '是最常用的加强语气,但它的使用时间明显减少,而在年轻人中,skikkelig的使用频率增加。强化词skikkelig的发展似乎遵循着从形容词到方式副词再到程度副词,从适当到强化的共同变化路径。与英语、德语和挪威语的研究比较,揭示了强化语在语言和社会条件下的几种跨语言倾向。本研究首次从社会语言学角度对奥斯陆挪威语的强化语进行了变异分析;它为一些关于加强语使用的跨语言主张提供了支持;它有助于在研究挪威语的变异和变化的变异主义社会语言学工作的可见性。
{"title":"A Variationist Sociolinguistic Analysis of Intensifiers in Oslo Norwegian","authors":"James M. Stratton, John D. Sundquist","doi":"10.1017/S1470542722000022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542722000022","url":null,"abstract":"The present study uses variationist sociolinguistic methods to examine the intensifier system in Oslo Norwegian. Results indicate that both linguistic and social factors influence intensifier use. Predicative adjectives were intensified more frequently than attributive adjectives, women used intensifiers more frequently than men, and younger speakers had higher intensification rates than older speakers. Apparent time analyses also reveal a change in progress toward the use of skikkelig ‘proper’, a change led predominantly by young women. Although veldig ‘very’ was the most frequently used intensifier, its use decreases in apparent time, whereas skikkelig increases in frequency among younger speakers. The development of the intensifier skikkelig appears to follow a common pathway of change from adjective to manner adjunct to degree adverb, as well as from appropriateness to intensification. Comparisons with work on English, German, and Norwegian reveal several crosslinguistic tendencies about the linguistic and social conditioning of intensifiers. This study provides the first variationist sociolinguistic analysis of intensifiers in Oslo Norwegian; it provides support for several crosslinguistic claims about intensifier use; and it contributes to the visibility of variationist sociolinguistic work in the study of Norwegian variation and change.","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"34 1","pages":"385 - 419"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43460230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1017/S1470542721000222
Alfred Lameli
This study presents a micro-typological description of German dialects, focusing on the structure of 13,492 tokens of monosyllables, across 182 locations within Germany. Based on data from the Phonetischer Atlas der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, systematic geographical differences in both the segmental and prosodic organization of syllables are explored. The analysis reveals a North–South contrast in the organization of syllable structure. While the North tends toward more simple CVC syllables, the South tends toward the clustering of obstruents. An analysis of sonority dispersion reveals that in southern German, final demisyllables tend to follow more closely the sonority scale. Based on Markov chain models, the study reveals geographical differences in transition probabilities between the segments within monosyllables in German dialects.*
{"title":"Syllable Structure Spatially Distributed: Patterns of Monosyllables in German Dialects","authors":"Alfred Lameli","doi":"10.1017/S1470542721000222","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542721000222","url":null,"abstract":"This study presents a micro-typological description of German dialects, focusing on the structure of 13,492 tokens of monosyllables, across 182 locations within Germany. Based on data from the Phonetischer Atlas der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, systematic geographical differences in both the segmental and prosodic organization of syllables are explored. The analysis reveals a North–South contrast in the organization of syllable structure. While the North tends toward more simple CVC syllables, the South tends toward the clustering of obstruents. An analysis of sonority dispersion reveals that in southern German, final demisyllables tend to follow more closely the sonority scale. Based on Markov chain models, the study reveals geographical differences in transition probabilities between the segments within monosyllables in German dialects.*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"34 1","pages":"241 - 287"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49363328","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1017/S1470542721000234
Laurence Voeltzel
This paper focuses on Faroese preaspiration, a phenomenon observed in Western Nordic and in some Eastern Nordic dialects, where fortis stops are preceded by a glottal frication noise in specific contexts. After observing all environments where the mechanism is triggered, I provide phonological representations of the phenomena based on Government Phonology 2.0. In this model, the segmental structures contain melody but also space, which allows for intersegmental relations such as lengthening, even without adding new morphological material. As preaspiration depends on the vowel preceding the fortis stop—more precisely, on its vocalic quality and length—I propose analyzing preaspiration as a spreading of the fortis consonant toward the vowel on the left. In doing so, I provide a unified analysis of all environments in which preaspiration occurs.*
{"title":"Faroese Preaspiration: A Nucleus/Onset Interaction Analysis","authors":"Laurence Voeltzel","doi":"10.1017/S1470542721000234","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542721000234","url":null,"abstract":"This paper focuses on Faroese preaspiration, a phenomenon observed in Western Nordic and in some Eastern Nordic dialects, where fortis stops are preceded by a glottal frication noise in specific contexts. After observing all environments where the mechanism is triggered, I provide phonological representations of the phenomena based on Government Phonology 2.0. In this model, the segmental structures contain melody but also space, which allows for intersegmental relations such as lengthening, even without adding new morphological material. As preaspiration depends on the vowel preceding the fortis stop—more precisely, on its vocalic quality and length—I propose analyzing preaspiration as a spreading of the fortis consonant toward the vowel on the left. In doing so, I provide a unified analysis of all environments in which preaspiration occurs.*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"34 1","pages":"288 - 339"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44490795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}