Pub Date : 2021-09-09DOI: 10.1017/S0332586521000160
Kateryna Iefremenko, C. Schroeder, J. Kornfilt
Abstract Turkish expresses adverbial subordination predominantly by means of converb clauses. These are headed by nonfinite verbs, i.e. converbs, which have a converb suffix attached to the stem. The different converbs express different aspectual relations between the subordinate and the superordinate clause, and they can be modifying or non-modifying. We analyse data from speakers of Turkish as a heritage language in Germany and the U.S. as well as monolingual speakers of Turkish in Turkey. The data come from two age groups: adults and adolescents. We show that unlike in canonical Turkish, converbs in heritage Turkish can be multifunctional, meaning that they can express both simultaneity and causality, for example. Furthermore, we show that converbs in heritage Turkish can be both modifying and non-modifying. As possible factors which might be responsible for such variation, we discuss language contact, sociolinguistic differences between the speaker communities (Germany vs. the U.S.) and age of the speakers.
{"title":"Converbs in heritage Turkish: A contrastive approach","authors":"Kateryna Iefremenko, C. Schroeder, J. Kornfilt","doi":"10.1017/S0332586521000160","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0332586521000160","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Turkish expresses adverbial subordination predominantly by means of converb clauses. These are headed by nonfinite verbs, i.e. converbs, which have a converb suffix attached to the stem. The different converbs express different aspectual relations between the subordinate and the superordinate clause, and they can be modifying or non-modifying. We analyse data from speakers of Turkish as a heritage language in Germany and the U.S. as well as monolingual speakers of Turkish in Turkey. The data come from two age groups: adults and adolescents. We show that unlike in canonical Turkish, converbs in heritage Turkish can be multifunctional, meaning that they can express both simultaneity and causality, for example. Furthermore, we show that converbs in heritage Turkish can be both modifying and non-modifying. As possible factors which might be responsible for such variation, we discuss language contact, sociolinguistic differences between the speaker communities (Germany vs. the U.S.) and age of the speakers.","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49214688","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 : 2021-09-07DOI: 10.1017/s0332586521000196
Eva Klingvall
{"title":"Antonio Fábregas & Michael Putman : Passives and Middles in Mainland Scandinavian. Microvariation through Exponency. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2020. Pp. 240.","authors":"Eva Klingvall","doi":"10.1017/s0332586521000196","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0332586521000196","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44091990","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 : 2021-08-11DOI: 10.1017/s0332586521000172
Yvonne van Baal,David Natvig
This special issue of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics is dedicated to heritage languages and bilingualism. Heritage languages are naturalistically acquired languages, but not the dominant language in the broader society (Rothman 2009:156) and over the last two decades, there has been a growth in research to languages in this specific bilingual setting (see Montrul 2016, Polinsky 2018 for overviews). However, the study of bilingualism and language contact has contributed to our understanding of the formal and social nature of language long before the term ‘heritage language’ was used (especially Haugen 1953, Weinreich 1953). The field of heritage language linguistics contributes empirically and theoretically to discussions concerning language acquisition and maintenance throughout the lifespan, linguistic processes, and language variation and linguistic knowledge. For example, the different and varied input that heritage speakers receive affects their acquisition of linguistic representations and changes in language use over time may affect how speakers access those representations in comprehension and production of their heritage language (Putnam et al. 2019). Acquisition and maintenance are recurrent factors in explaining the often-observed differences between heritage speakers and monolingual homeland speakers of the language. In addition, the particular sociopolitical contexts in which heritage languages are spoken offer fertile ground for investigations into a wide range of social factors that affect language maintenance and shift (Wilkerson & Salmons 2008, Frey 2013, Aalberse et al. 2019), as well as language changes related to community-wide bilingualism (e.g. Haugen 1953, Nagy 2011). Finally, the study of heritage languages can provide insights for our formal linguistic theories (Benmamoun et al. 2013, Scontras et al. 2015, Lohndal et al. 2019), although this has only been pursued relatively recently. The Scandinavian heritage languages in the US have received renewed attention in the last decade (e.g. the chapters in Johannessen & Salmons 2015, Page & Putnam 2015). For this special issue, we welcomed manuscripts on both Nordic and nonNordic languages to represent the breadth of the field of heritage languages. In addition, we believe that including a large variety of languages into our studies advances the field by promoting opportunities for comparing and contrasting heritage
本期《北欧语言学杂志》特刊致力于传统语言和双语。传统语言是自然习得的语言，但不是更广泛社会中的主导语言(Rothman 2009:156)，在过去的二十年里，对这种特定双语环境下的语言的研究有所增长(参见Montrul 2016, Polinsky 2018的概述)。然而，早在“遗产语言”一词被使用之前，对双语和语言接触的研究就有助于我们理解语言的形式和社会性质(特别是Haugen 1953, Weinreich 1953)。遗产语言语言学在经验和理论上对语言的习得和维持、语言过程、语言变异和语言知识的讨论做出了贡献。例如，传统语言使用者接受的不同和不同的输入会影响他们对语言表征的习得，而随着时间的推移，语言使用的变化可能会影响说话者在理解和生产其传统语言时如何获取这些表征(Putnam et al. 2019)。习得和维持是解释传统语言使用者和母语使用者之间经常观察到的差异的反复因素。此外，使用传统语言的特定社会政治背景为研究影响语言维持和转变的各种社会因素(Wilkerson & Salmons 2008, Frey 2013, Aalberse et al. 2019)以及与社区范围内的双语相关的语言变化(例如Haugen 1953, Nagy 2011)提供了肥沃的土壤。最后，对传统语言的研究可以为我们的形式语言学理论提供见解(Benmamoun等人，2013年，Scontras等人，2015年，Lohndal等人，2019年)，尽管这是最近才开始进行的。在过去十年中，美国的斯堪的纳维亚传统语言重新受到关注(例如，Johannessen & Salmons 2015, Page & Putnam 2015)。在本期特刊中，我们欢迎北欧和非北欧语言的手稿，以代表遗产语言领域的广度。此外，我们相信，将各种语言纳入我们的研究中，通过增加比较和对比遗产的机会，可以推动这一领域的发展
{"title":"Introduction to the special issue on Heritage languages & Bilingualism","authors":"Yvonne van Baal,David Natvig","doi":"10.1017/s0332586521000172","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0332586521000172","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics is dedicated to heritage languages and bilingualism. Heritage languages are naturalistically acquired languages, but not the dominant language in the broader society (Rothman 2009:156) and over the last two decades, there has been a growth in research to languages in this specific bilingual setting (see Montrul 2016, Polinsky 2018 for overviews). However, the study of bilingualism and language contact has contributed to our understanding of the formal and social nature of language long before the term ‘heritage language’ was used (especially Haugen 1953, Weinreich 1953). The field of heritage language linguistics contributes empirically and theoretically to discussions concerning language acquisition and maintenance throughout the lifespan, linguistic processes, and language variation and linguistic knowledge. For example, the different and varied input that heritage speakers receive affects their acquisition of linguistic representations and changes in language use over time may affect how speakers access those representations in comprehension and production of their heritage language (Putnam et al. 2019). Acquisition and maintenance are recurrent factors in explaining the often-observed differences between heritage speakers and monolingual homeland speakers of the language. In addition, the particular sociopolitical contexts in which heritage languages are spoken offer fertile ground for investigations into a wide range of social factors that affect language maintenance and shift (Wilkerson & Salmons 2008, Frey 2013, Aalberse et al. 2019), as well as language changes related to community-wide bilingualism (e.g. Haugen 1953, Nagy 2011). Finally, the study of heritage languages can provide insights for our formal linguistic theories (Benmamoun et al. 2013, Scontras et al. 2015, Lohndal et al. 2019), although this has only been pursued relatively recently. The Scandinavian heritage languages in the US have received renewed attention in the last decade (e.g. the chapters in Johannessen & Salmons 2015, Page & Putnam 2015). For this special issue, we welcomed manuscripts on both Nordic and nonNordic languages to represent the breadth of the field of heritage languages. In addition, we believe that including a large variety of languages into our studies advances the field by promoting opportunities for comparing and contrasting heritage","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138541273","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 : 2021-08-09DOI: 10.1017/S0332586521000135
Kari Kinn
Abstract This article discusses definiteness marking in two possessive constructions that exhibit special patterns (split possession) for certain kinship nouns in Norwegian. It is shown that the special patterns, whereby the relevant nouns appear without a definite suffix, are retained by the majority speakers of American Norwegian (AmNo); some AmNo speakers use them even more extensively than homeland speakers, and only a minority do not use them. The forms without the suffix are analysed as a reflex of a poss feature that is a part of the featural make-up of certain kinship nouns (Julien 2005). I argue that the most conspicuous differences in distribution of this feature in the homeland vs. the heritage variety have emerged through a combination of decline in homeland Norwegian and retention and even extension in AmNo. The development in AmNo seems to be systematic and principled; it does not involve “loss” or incompleteness (e.g., Yager et al. 2015; Kupisch & Rothman 2016; Bayram et al. 2019).
摘要本文讨论了挪威语中某些亲属名词在两个所有格结构中所表现出的特殊模式(分属)的确定标记。研究表明，美国挪威语(AmNo)的多数使用者保留了相关名词不带确定后缀出现的特殊模式;一些说英语的人甚至比说母语的人更广泛地使用它们，只有少数人不使用它们。没有后缀的形式被分析为poss特征的反射，这是某些亲属名词特征构成的一部分(Julien 2005)。我认为，这一特征在家乡与遗产多样性分布上的最显著差异，是由于挪威家乡的衰落和挪威王国的保留甚至扩展的结合而出现的。AmNo的发展似乎是系统性和原则性的;它不涉及“丢失”或不完整(例如，Yager等人，2015;Kupisch & Rothman 2016;Bayram et al. 2019)。
{"title":"Split possession and definiteness marking in American Norwegian","authors":"Kari Kinn","doi":"10.1017/S0332586521000135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0332586521000135","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article discusses definiteness marking in two possessive constructions that exhibit special patterns (split possession) for certain kinship nouns in Norwegian. It is shown that the special patterns, whereby the relevant nouns appear without a definite suffix, are retained by the majority speakers of American Norwegian (AmNo); some AmNo speakers use them even more extensively than homeland speakers, and only a minority do not use them. The forms without the suffix are analysed as a reflex of a poss feature that is a part of the featural make-up of certain kinship nouns (Julien 2005). I argue that the most conspicuous differences in distribution of this feature in the homeland vs. the heritage variety have emerged through a combination of decline in homeland Norwegian and retention and even extension in AmNo. The development in AmNo seems to be systematic and principled; it does not involve “loss” or incompleteness (e.g., Yager et al. 2015; Kupisch & Rothman 2016; Bayram et al. 2019).","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49047092","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 : 2021-08-09DOI: 10.1017/S0332586521000020
J. Steensig, A. Hakulinen, T. Larsen
Abstract Sounds spoken on the inbreath have been shown to be common in the world’s languages, and in the Nordic languages ingressive speech seems to be especially frequent. The present study focuses on Finnish and Danish response particles spoken on the inbreath, by examining their uses in everyday talk-in-interaction in corpora of recorded interactions. The particles we examine and their non-ingressive counterparts can perform confirming and acknowledging actions. We analyze the particles as receipts to answers to questions, as responses to questions, as responses to assessments, and as responses to affiliation-seeking utterances. In these positions, the ingressive particles turn out to index that the content of the previous turn was already sufficiently established and, consequently, that there is nothing to add. In cases where an engaged response is called for, the particles are shown to have a disaffiliative potential.
{"title":"Indexing that something is sufficient: Interactional functions of ingressive particles in Finnish and Danish","authors":"J. Steensig, A. Hakulinen, T. Larsen","doi":"10.1017/S0332586521000020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0332586521000020","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Sounds spoken on the inbreath have been shown to be common in the world’s languages, and in the Nordic languages ingressive speech seems to be especially frequent. The present study focuses on Finnish and Danish response particles spoken on the inbreath, by examining their uses in everyday talk-in-interaction in corpora of recorded interactions. The particles we examine and their non-ingressive counterparts can perform confirming and acknowledging actions. We analyze the particles as receipts to answers to questions, as responses to questions, as responses to assessments, and as responses to affiliation-seeking utterances. In these positions, the ingressive particles turn out to index that the content of the previous turn was already sufficiently established and, consequently, that there is nothing to add. In cases where an engaged response is called for, the particles are shown to have a disaffiliative potential.","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41624759","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 : 2021-08-04DOI: 10.1017/S0332586521000111
Charlotte Gooskens, Sebastian Kürschner, V. V. van Heuven
Abstract We investigated the intelligibility of written Danish for Swedes, and in particular the role of inherited words compared to non-Germanic loanwords. To assess whether shared loanwords are easier to understand than inherited words, we conducted two experiments. First, we tested the intelligibility of isolated Danish words (inherited words and loanwords) among Swedes. Second, we constructed two versions of a reading test, one with a large percentage of loanwords and one with few loanwords. Our results show that it is easier for Swedish listeners to identify and understand Danish cognate loanwords than inherited words and that texts with many loanwords are easier to read than texts with few loanwords. We explain these results by the fact that (recent) loans in Swedish have diverged less and are therefore more similar to the Danish counterparts than inherited words.
{"title":"The role of loanwords in the intelligibility of written Danish among Swedes","authors":"Charlotte Gooskens, Sebastian Kürschner, V. V. van Heuven","doi":"10.1017/S0332586521000111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0332586521000111","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We investigated the intelligibility of written Danish for Swedes, and in particular the role of inherited words compared to non-Germanic loanwords. To assess whether shared loanwords are easier to understand than inherited words, we conducted two experiments. First, we tested the intelligibility of isolated Danish words (inherited words and loanwords) among Swedes. Second, we constructed two versions of a reading test, one with a large percentage of loanwords and one with few loanwords. Our results show that it is easier for Swedish listeners to identify and understand Danish cognate loanwords than inherited words and that texts with many loanwords are easier to read than texts with few loanwords. We explain these results by the fact that (recent) loans in Swedish have diverged less and are therefore more similar to the Danish counterparts than inherited words.","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45856224","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 : 2021-07-09DOI: 10.1017/S033258652100010X
Michael T. Putnam, Åshild Søfteland
Abstract Non-finite complementation strategies found in American Norwegian (AmNo) (made available by the Corpus of American Nordic Speech (CANS)) reveal unique and diverging patterns when compared to both standard and dialectal Norwegian and English. We argue in this paper that the majority of these divergent structures are the result of overextension (Rinke & Flores, 2014; Rinke et al., 2018; Putnam & Hoffman, 2021; Kupisch, 2014), where heritage language speakers produce structures that differ from both grammars in an attempt to generate forms that are distinct from the more dominant language. Our treatment of these nuanced structures in AmNo shows that this heritage grammar significantly restricts bare (or naked) TPs (Situations) serving as non-finite complements. To avoid bare TP-complements, AmNo has developed two distinct, yet related strategies, (1) reducing non-finite complements to vPs (Events), or (2) incorporating an additional element, a preposition, to ensure that the non-finite complement functions as the object of a preposition. We analyze this latter strategy as an instance of the emergence of structural salience (Polinsky, 2018) in the syntax of AmNo and suggest that this variation is best understood as a syntax–semantics interface phenomenon.
{"title":"Mismatches at the syntax-semantics interface: The case of non-finite complementation in American Norwegian","authors":"Michael T. Putnam, Åshild Søfteland","doi":"10.1017/S033258652100010X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S033258652100010X","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Non-finite complementation strategies found in American Norwegian (AmNo) (made available by the Corpus of American Nordic Speech (CANS)) reveal unique and diverging patterns when compared to both standard and dialectal Norwegian and English. We argue in this paper that the majority of these divergent structures are the result of overextension (Rinke & Flores, 2014; Rinke et al., 2018; Putnam & Hoffman, 2021; Kupisch, 2014), where heritage language speakers produce structures that differ from both grammars in an attempt to generate forms that are distinct from the more dominant language. Our treatment of these nuanced structures in AmNo shows that this heritage grammar significantly restricts bare (or naked) TPs (Situations) serving as non-finite complements. To avoid bare TP-complements, AmNo has developed two distinct, yet related strategies, (1) reducing non-finite complements to vPs (Events), or (2) incorporating an additional element, a preposition, to ensure that the non-finite complement functions as the object of a preposition. We analyze this latter strategy as an instance of the emergence of structural salience (Polinsky, 2018) in the syntax of AmNo and suggest that this variation is best understood as a syntax–semantics interface phenomenon.","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S033258652100010X","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45743494","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 : 2021-07-05DOI: 10.1017/S0332586521000056
A. Schüppert, J. Ziegler, Holger Juul, Charlotte Gooskens
Abstract It has been reported that speakers of Danish understand more Swedish than vice versa. One reason for this asymmetry might be that spoken Swedish is closer to written Danish than vice versa. We hypothesise that literate speakers of Danish use their orthographic knowledge of Danish to decode spoken Swedish. To test this hypothesis, first-language (L1) Danish speakers were confronted with spoken Swedish in a translation task. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were elicited to study the online brain responses during decoding operations. Results showed that ERPs to words whose Swedish pronunciation was inconsistent with the Danish spelling were significantly more negative-going than ERPs to words whose Swedish pronunciation was consistent with the Danish spelling between 750 ms and 900 ms after stimulus onset. Together with higher word-recognition scores for consistent items, our data provide strong evidence that online activation of L1 orthography enhances word recognition of spoken Swedish in literate speakers of Danish.
{"title":"Online activation of L1 Danish orthography enhances spoken word recognition of Swedish","authors":"A. Schüppert, J. Ziegler, Holger Juul, Charlotte Gooskens","doi":"10.1017/S0332586521000056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0332586521000056","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract It has been reported that speakers of Danish understand more Swedish than vice versa. One reason for this asymmetry might be that spoken Swedish is closer to written Danish than vice versa. We hypothesise that literate speakers of Danish use their orthographic knowledge of Danish to decode spoken Swedish. To test this hypothesis, first-language (L1) Danish speakers were confronted with spoken Swedish in a translation task. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were elicited to study the online brain responses during decoding operations. Results showed that ERPs to words whose Swedish pronunciation was inconsistent with the Danish spelling were significantly more negative-going than ERPs to words whose Swedish pronunciation was consistent with the Danish spelling between 750 ms and 900 ms after stimulus onset. Together with higher word-recognition scores for consistent items, our data provide strong evidence that online activation of L1 orthography enhances word recognition of spoken Swedish in literate speakers of Danish.","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0332586521000056","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47552739","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 : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.1017/S0332586521000068
N. Hilton, Charlotte Gooskens, A. Schüppert, Chaoju Tang
Abstract Are some languages universally seen as beautiful? And if so, what are the linguistic traits that make some languages sound more pleasing than others? This paper addresses these two questions. We do so with results from two listener experiments that use speech samples from a bilingual Danish–Swedish speaker in a matched guise test, where the listeners are ‘previously unexposed’ students from central China. Our results indicate that listeners from Central China with no previous exposure find Swedish more pleasing sounding than Danish. This finding provides evidence that there could be features of language that sound more beautiful to listeners cross-culturally. In a follow-up experiment we remove the intonation contours of the speech to see whether this prosodic trait plays a role for evaluations. The results show that the difference in evaluations between Swedish and Danish disappears when both speech samples are monotonised. We discuss the importance of our findings for language attitudes research.
{"title":"Is Swedish more beautiful than Danish? Matched guise investigations with unknown languages","authors":"N. Hilton, Charlotte Gooskens, A. Schüppert, Chaoju Tang","doi":"10.1017/S0332586521000068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0332586521000068","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Are some languages universally seen as beautiful? And if so, what are the linguistic traits that make some languages sound more pleasing than others? This paper addresses these two questions. We do so with results from two listener experiments that use speech samples from a bilingual Danish–Swedish speaker in a matched guise test, where the listeners are ‘previously unexposed’ students from central China. Our results indicate that listeners from Central China with no previous exposure find Swedish more pleasing sounding than Danish. This finding provides evidence that there could be features of language that sound more beautiful to listeners cross-culturally. In a follow-up experiment we remove the intonation contours of the speech to see whether this prosodic trait plays a role for evaluations. The results show that the difference in evaluations between Swedish and Danish disappears when both speech samples are monotonised. We discuss the importance of our findings for language attitudes research.","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0332586521000068","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43344042","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 : 2021-06-17DOI: 10.1017/S0332586521000081
M. Velnić, M. Anderssen
Abstract This study investigates how givenness and pronominality affect the dative alternation in Norwegian. Previous studies have found givenness to influence the Double Object Dative (DOD) but not the Prepositional Dative (PD). Thirty-one Norwegian native speakers completed a speeded acceptability judgment task, in which given objects were expressed by definite DPs or pronouns, and either preceded or followed the new referent. DODs were found to be highly sensitive to givenness. Surprisingly, PDs also showed contextual dependency. Referring expressions affected the two structures differently: reaction times were faster with pronouns in DODs and slower in PDs. This suggests that the alternates have different processing biases, with the former preferring pronouns and the latter DPs. The results are further considered in relation to the notion of harmonic alignment, as PDs, in which the typically animate recipient is always the second object, and will thus consistently represent a suboptimal and non-harmonious order when givenness is adhered to.
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