Pub Date : 2021-09-01DOI: 10.1017/s1470542720000185
Michael T. Putnam
{"title":"A Contrastive Grammar of Brazilian Pomeranian. By Gertjan Postma. (Linguistik Aktuell 248). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2018. Pp. 312. Hardcover. $158.00.","authors":"Michael T. Putnam","doi":"10.1017/s1470542720000185","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1470542720000185","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"33 1","pages":"316 - 318"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/s1470542720000185","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46114217","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 : 2021-09-01DOI: 10.1017/S1470542719000217
Yulia Rodina, Marit Westergaard
In this paper, we investigate an ongoing change in the grammatical gender system of Norwegian. Previous research has shown that the feminine form of the indefinite article is quickly disappearing from several dialects, which has led to claims that the feminine gender is being lost from the language. We have carried out a study of the status of the feminine in possessives across five age groups of speakers of the Tromsø dialect. Our findings show that the prenominal possessives are affected by the change to the same extent as the indefinite article, while forms that have been argued not to be exponents of gender (the definite suffix and the postnominal possessive) are generally unaffected.
{"title":"Grammatical Gender and Declension Class in Language Change: A Study of the Loss of Feminine Gender in Norwegian","authors":"Yulia Rodina, Marit Westergaard","doi":"10.1017/S1470542719000217","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542719000217","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we investigate an ongoing change in the grammatical gender system of Norwegian. Previous research has shown that the feminine form of the indefinite article is quickly disappearing from several dialects, which has led to claims that the feminine gender is being lost from the language. We have carried out a study of the status of the feminine in possessives across five age groups of speakers of the Tromsø dialect. Our findings show that the prenominal possessives are affected by the change to the same extent as the indefinite article, while forms that have been argued not to be exponents of gender (the definite suffix and the postnominal possessive) are generally unaffected.","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"33 1","pages":"235 - 263"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S1470542719000217","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44368735","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 : 2021-06-01DOI: 10.1017/S147054272000015X
Gjert Kristoffersen
This article questions the prevalent account of North Germanic tonogenesis, which proposes that at the outset, Accent 2 was characterized by a double-peaked melody close to the one found in central Swedish today (Riad 1998, Kingston 2011). The spreading patterns observed in the data analyzed here are difficult to reconcile with this hypothesis. My analysis instead offers support in favor of the alternative hypothesis that the phonetic roots of the accentual contrast are to be found in a difference in timing between single peaks, specifically, peak delay in plurisyllabic domains, but not in mono-syllables due to lack of space. The variation observed in the single peak Dalarna varieties today, from robust timing differences in the south to absence or only partial implementation of the tonal contrast in the north, strongly suggests that the accentual contrast has been spreading northwards through incremental peak delay in Accent 2 words. I argue that this situation mirrors the initial stages in the development that, through additional peak delay, eventually resulted in a double-peaked Accent 2 melody in central Scandinavia. At the same time, the older single peak patterns are still retained in Dalarna and scattered around the geographical margins of Norway and Sweden.*
{"title":"Tonal Variation and Change in Dalarna Swedish","authors":"Gjert Kristoffersen","doi":"10.1017/S147054272000015X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S147054272000015X","url":null,"abstract":"This article questions the prevalent account of North Germanic tonogenesis, which proposes that at the outset, Accent 2 was characterized by a double-peaked melody close to the one found in central Swedish today (Riad 1998, Kingston 2011). The spreading patterns observed in the data analyzed here are difficult to reconcile with this hypothesis. My analysis instead offers support in favor of the alternative hypothesis that the phonetic roots of the accentual contrast are to be found in a difference in timing between single peaks, specifically, peak delay in plurisyllabic domains, but not in mono-syllables due to lack of space. The variation observed in the single peak Dalarna varieties today, from robust timing differences in the south to absence or only partial implementation of the tonal contrast in the north, strongly suggests that the accentual contrast has been spreading northwards through incremental peak delay in Accent 2 words. I argue that this situation mirrors the initial stages in the development that, through additional peak delay, eventually resulted in a double-peaked Accent 2 melody in central Scandinavia. At the same time, the older single peak patterns are still retained in Dalarna and scattered around the geographical margins of Norway and Sweden.*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"33 1","pages":"179 - 233"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S147054272000015X","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41807235","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 : 2021-06-01DOI: 10.1017/S1470542720000161
F. Gregersen, L. Cornips, Ditte Boeg Thomsen
This paper examines the acquisition of grammatical gender of indefinite and definite DPs in Danish. It investigates which grammatical contexts further acquisition and which slow it down, and whether distinguishing between monolinguals and bilinguals makes a difference. Danish has a two-way gender distinction (common and neuter), fusing gender with definiteness in the DP. In order to answer our research questions, we tested monolingual and bilingual Danish-speaking children (n=72) from different age groups using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, a Picture Description Task, and a Story Task. A generalized linear mixed effects regression analysis of the results showed that i) the children produced the Standard Danish determiner significantly more often with common than with neuter nouns; ii) the children produced significantly more Standard Danish gender marking in simple DPs than in complex DPs; iii) the children produced significantly more expressions with definite determiners realized as suffixes than with indefinite determiners expressed as prenominal articles in accordance with conventional norms; and iv) bilingual children produced significantly less Standard Danish gender marking than their monolingual peers, but ceiling effects in the monolingual group made it impossible to examine interactions between group and grammatical context.*
{"title":"The Acquisition of Grammatical Gender of Determiners in Danish Monolingual and Bilingual Children: An Experimental Study","authors":"F. Gregersen, L. Cornips, Ditte Boeg Thomsen","doi":"10.1017/S1470542720000161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542720000161","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the acquisition of grammatical gender of indefinite and definite DPs in Danish. It investigates which grammatical contexts further acquisition and which slow it down, and whether distinguishing between monolinguals and bilinguals makes a difference. Danish has a two-way gender distinction (common and neuter), fusing gender with definiteness in the DP. In order to answer our research questions, we tested monolingual and bilingual Danish-speaking children (n=72) from different age groups using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, a Picture Description Task, and a Story Task. A generalized linear mixed effects regression analysis of the results showed that i) the children produced the Standard Danish determiner significantly more often with common than with neuter nouns; ii) the children produced significantly more Standard Danish gender marking in simple DPs than in complex DPs; iii) the children produced significantly more expressions with definite determiners realized as suffixes than with indefinite determiners expressed as prenominal articles in accordance with conventional norms; and iv) bilingual children produced significantly less Standard Danish gender marking than their monolingual peers, but ceiling effects in the monolingual group made it impossible to examine interactions between group and grammatical context.*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"33 1","pages":"147 - 178"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S1470542720000161","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46182283","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 : 2021-03-01DOI: 10.1017/S1470542720000070
T. Opsahl
This paper examines grammatical gender from the sociolinguistic perspective. The question pursued is to what extent exponents of grammatical gender are tied indexically to identity categories. Building on literature and corpus data, I claim that within the Norwegian context, grammatical gender is associated with sociolinguistic dimensions such as the urban/rural distinction, political views, class, ethnicity. The traditional three-gender system is being replaced by a two-gender system in several dialects, resulting in the loss of the feminine gender. Indexical values associated with the feminine gender features are still valid, though, and some forms take on new pragmatic functions. Once grammatical gender is viewed through a sociolinguistic lens, with the agency of speakers being recognized, it becomes clear that it may not be fully understood without taking into account the context of interaction at a micro-level, and the sociohistorical characteristics of—for instance—regions with language contact at a macro-level.*
{"title":"Dead, but Won’t Lie Down? Grammatical Gender among Norwegians","authors":"T. Opsahl","doi":"10.1017/S1470542720000070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542720000070","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines grammatical gender from the sociolinguistic perspective. The question pursued is to what extent exponents of grammatical gender are tied indexically to identity categories. Building on literature and corpus data, I claim that within the Norwegian context, grammatical gender is associated with sociolinguistic dimensions such as the urban/rural distinction, political views, class, ethnicity. The traditional three-gender system is being replaced by a two-gender system in several dialects, resulting in the loss of the feminine gender. Indexical values associated with the feminine gender features are still valid, though, and some forms take on new pragmatic functions. Once grammatical gender is viewed through a sociolinguistic lens, with the agency of speakers being recognized, it becomes clear that it may not be fully understood without taking into account the context of interaction at a micro-level, and the sociohistorical characteristics of—for instance—regions with language contact at a macro-level.*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"33 1","pages":"122 - 146"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S1470542720000070","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46923505","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 : 2021-03-01DOI: 10.1017/S1470542720000057
Terje Lohndal, Marit Westergaard
This paper discusses grammatical gender in Norwegian by bringing together data from first language acquisition, Norwegian heritage language, and dialect change. In all these contexts, gender is often claimed to be a vulnerable category, arguably due to the relative non-transparency of gender assignment. Furthermore, the feminine gender is in the process of being lost in many Norwegian dialects, as feminine agreement forms (for example, the indefinite article) are merged with the masculine. The definite suffix, in contrast, is quite stable, as it is acquired early and does not undergo attrition/change. We argue that the combined data provide evidence that gender and declension class are separate phenomena, and we outline a possible formal analysis to account for the findings.*
{"title":"Grammatical Gender: Acquisition, Attrition, and Change","authors":"Terje Lohndal, Marit Westergaard","doi":"10.1017/S1470542720000057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542720000057","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses grammatical gender in Norwegian by bringing together data from first language acquisition, Norwegian heritage language, and dialect change. In all these contexts, gender is often claimed to be a vulnerable category, arguably due to the relative non-transparency of gender assignment. Furthermore, the feminine gender is in the process of being lost in many Norwegian dialects, as feminine agreement forms (for example, the indefinite article) are merged with the masculine. The definite suffix, in contrast, is quite stable, as it is acquired early and does not undergo attrition/change. We argue that the combined data provide evidence that gender and declension class are separate phenomena, and we outline a possible formal analysis to account for the findings.*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"33 1","pages":"95 - 121"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S1470542720000057","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44276797","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}