Pub Date : 2021-02-24DOI: 10.1017/S0332586520000256
Eeva-Liisa Nyqvist, Sinikka Lahtinen
Abstract Swedish grammatical gender is challenging for Finnish-speaking learners of Swedish due to its abstract meaning, the complex nature of Swedish NPs and the low salience of the morphology used to mark gender. Our study compares the expression of gender in texts written in Swedish by Finnish-speaking 12- and 15-year-old immersion students with that of 16-year-old non-immersion students. The results show that NPs with gender agreement, i.e. those with several morphemes marking gender, are more difficult than NPs with only one marker. In all informant groups, uter is significantly easier than neuter, but uter is also overused, as approximately 75% of all Swedish nouns are uter in modern Swedish. Comparisons between different informant groups show that non-immersion students often reach a significantly higher level of accuracy than immersion students, which indicates that formal teaching has a positive effect.
{"title":"Grammatical gender in L2 Swedish in Finnish-speaking immersion students: A comparison with non-immersion students","authors":"Eeva-Liisa Nyqvist, Sinikka Lahtinen","doi":"10.1017/S0332586520000256","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0332586520000256","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Swedish grammatical gender is challenging for Finnish-speaking learners of Swedish due to its abstract meaning, the complex nature of Swedish NPs and the low salience of the morphology used to mark gender. Our study compares the expression of gender in texts written in Swedish by Finnish-speaking 12- and 15-year-old immersion students with that of 16-year-old non-immersion students. The results show that NPs with gender agreement, i.e. those with several morphemes marking gender, are more difficult than NPs with only one marker. In all informant groups, uter is significantly easier than neuter, but uter is also overused, as approximately 75% of all Swedish nouns are uter in modern Swedish. Comparisons between different informant groups show that non-immersion students often reach a significantly higher level of accuracy than immersion students, which indicates that formal teaching has a positive effect.","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":"44 1","pages":"281 - 303"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0332586520000256","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41718615","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 : 2021-02-22DOI: 10.1017/s0332586521000019
Ulla Vanhatalo, C. Lindholm, Tiina Onikki-Rantajääskö
The second issue of Volume 45 (autumn 2022) of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics will be a special issue devoted to Easy Language research. The issue will be edited by Camilla Lindholm, Tiina Onikki-Rantajääskö and Ulla Vanhatalo. The term EASY LANGUAGE (Germ. Leichte Sprache, Swe. lätt språk, Finn. selkokieli; earlier EASY-TO-READ LANGUAGE) refers to a modified variety of a natural language that has been adjusted so that it is easier to read and understand in terms of content, vocabulary and structure. Easy Language has been primarily targeted at people who have various difficulties in understanding standard forms of language, for example, due to learning disabilities or neurocognitive disorders. One can also see a connection between Easy Language and PLAIN LANGUAGE (see International Plain Language Federation, https://www.iplfederation.org/), both aiming at simplifying language. Although attempts to create understandable language have probably been around for a long time, the start of the Easy Language era in the European context can be dated back to the late 1960s, when the first easy-to-read Swedish materials were published. Significant milestones were reached in the 1990s, when the first recommendations for easy writing were published by The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA, https://www.ifla.org/) and Inclusion Europe. Since then, the target groups of Easy Language have been expanding, comprising people with various backgrounds and life situations. Ongoing changes in societies and legislation on accessibility are creating increasing need for Easy Language and research on the topic. Besides language studies, Easy Language is also of interest in many disciplines such as economics, health sciences, sociology and cognitive science. While Easy Languages have been used in Europe and especially in the Nordic countries for decades already, only little linguistic research has been done until the last few years. The development and use of Easy Languages have been built on experience gained from practical work done with the target groups (Wengelin 2015). More recently, especially interesting cases have been seen in Germany, where development and research are currently carried on a large scale (e.g. Bredel & Maaß 2016, Bock 2019, Maaß & Rink 2019, Hansen-Schirra & Maaß 2020). In this call for papers of NJL, we invite research papers which take a variety of linguistic approaches to Easy Language. First of all, we want to learn how Easy Nordic Journal of Linguistics (2021), page 1 of 2 doi:10.1017/S0332586521000019
{"title":"Easy Language research","authors":"Ulla Vanhatalo, C. Lindholm, Tiina Onikki-Rantajääskö","doi":"10.1017/s0332586521000019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0332586521000019","url":null,"abstract":"The second issue of Volume 45 (autumn 2022) of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics will be a special issue devoted to Easy Language research. The issue will be edited by Camilla Lindholm, Tiina Onikki-Rantajääskö and Ulla Vanhatalo. The term EASY LANGUAGE (Germ. Leichte Sprache, Swe. lätt språk, Finn. selkokieli; earlier EASY-TO-READ LANGUAGE) refers to a modified variety of a natural language that has been adjusted so that it is easier to read and understand in terms of content, vocabulary and structure. Easy Language has been primarily targeted at people who have various difficulties in understanding standard forms of language, for example, due to learning disabilities or neurocognitive disorders. One can also see a connection between Easy Language and PLAIN LANGUAGE (see International Plain Language Federation, https://www.iplfederation.org/), both aiming at simplifying language. Although attempts to create understandable language have probably been around for a long time, the start of the Easy Language era in the European context can be dated back to the late 1960s, when the first easy-to-read Swedish materials were published. Significant milestones were reached in the 1990s, when the first recommendations for easy writing were published by The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA, https://www.ifla.org/) and Inclusion Europe. Since then, the target groups of Easy Language have been expanding, comprising people with various backgrounds and life situations. Ongoing changes in societies and legislation on accessibility are creating increasing need for Easy Language and research on the topic. Besides language studies, Easy Language is also of interest in many disciplines such as economics, health sciences, sociology and cognitive science. While Easy Languages have been used in Europe and especially in the Nordic countries for decades already, only little linguistic research has been done until the last few years. The development and use of Easy Languages have been built on experience gained from practical work done with the target groups (Wengelin 2015). More recently, especially interesting cases have been seen in Germany, where development and research are currently carried on a large scale (e.g. Bredel & Maaß 2016, Bock 2019, Maaß & Rink 2019, Hansen-Schirra & Maaß 2020). In this call for papers of NJL, we invite research papers which take a variety of linguistic approaches to Easy Language. First of all, we want to learn how Easy Nordic Journal of Linguistics (2021), page 1 of 2 doi:10.1017/S0332586521000019","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":"44 1","pages":"1 - 2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/s0332586521000019","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41600441","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 : 2020-12-23DOI: 10.1017/S0332586520000244
Minna Jaakola
Abstract This article examines evidentiality in the frame of inferential adverbs in written interaction from the perspective of Finnish, a language that does not have evidentiality as a grammatical category. The analysis focuses on six adverbs, such as käsittääkseni ‘as far as I understand’ and tietääkseni ‘to my knowledge, as far as I know’. Evidentiality and epistemic modality intertwine in their semantics, as these adverbs represent a writer’s access to information, but also indicate her evaluation of its reliability. First, this article offers a description of the interactional functions of these adverbs such as marking a writer’s opinion in contrasts, expressing slight hedging in order to anticipate corrections, to allow space for other opinions, or to create irony. Second, in the framework of cognitive grammar, the analysis focuses on the meaning of the evidential verb+kseni construction and the effect of different verb stems on it. These adverbs share similar functions in texts, which is due to their flexible constructional meaning. While varying from lexeme to lexeme, specific evidential and epistemic dimensions can either be foregrounded and relevant in a situation or remain backgrounded and not activated.
{"title":"Marking one’s own viewpoint: The Finnish evidential verb+kseni ‘as far as I understand’ construction","authors":"Minna Jaakola","doi":"10.1017/S0332586520000244","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0332586520000244","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines evidentiality in the frame of inferential adverbs in written interaction from the perspective of Finnish, a language that does not have evidentiality as a grammatical category. The analysis focuses on six adverbs, such as käsittääkseni ‘as far as I understand’ and tietääkseni ‘to my knowledge, as far as I know’. Evidentiality and epistemic modality intertwine in their semantics, as these adverbs represent a writer’s access to information, but also indicate her evaluation of its reliability. First, this article offers a description of the interactional functions of these adverbs such as marking a writer’s opinion in contrasts, expressing slight hedging in order to anticipate corrections, to allow space for other opinions, or to create irony. Second, in the framework of cognitive grammar, the analysis focuses on the meaning of the evidential verb+kseni construction and the effect of different verb stems on it. These adverbs share similar functions in texts, which is due to their flexible constructional meaning. While varying from lexeme to lexeme, specific evidential and epistemic dimensions can either be foregrounded and relevant in a situation or remain backgrounded and not activated.","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":"44 1","pages":"255 - 280"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0332586520000244","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41493528","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 : 2020-12-11DOI: 10.1017/S0332586520000207
Ingrid Bondevik, Dave Kush, Terje Lohndal
Abstract Finite adjunct clauses are often assumed to be among the strongest islands for filler–gap dependency creation cross-linguistically, but Kush, Lohndal & Sprouse (2019) found experimental evidence suggesting that finite conditional om-adjunct clauses are not islands for topicalization in Norwegian. To investigate the generality of these findings, we ran three acceptability judgment experiments testing topicalization out of three adjunct clause types: om ‘if’, når ‘when’ and fordi ‘because’ in Norwegian. Largely replicating Kush et al. (2019), we find evidence for the absence of strong island effects with topicalization from om-adjuncts in all three experiments. We find island effects for når- and fordi-adjuncts, but the size of the effects and the underlying judgment distributions that produce those effects differ greatly by island type. Our results suggest that the syntactic category ‘adjunct’ may not constitute a suitably fine-grained grouping to explain variation in island effects.
{"title":"Variation in adjunct islands: The case of Norwegian","authors":"Ingrid Bondevik, Dave Kush, Terje Lohndal","doi":"10.1017/S0332586520000207","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0332586520000207","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Finite adjunct clauses are often assumed to be among the strongest islands for filler–gap dependency creation cross-linguistically, but Kush, Lohndal & Sprouse (2019) found experimental evidence suggesting that finite conditional om-adjunct clauses are not islands for topicalization in Norwegian. To investigate the generality of these findings, we ran three acceptability judgment experiments testing topicalization out of three adjunct clause types: om ‘if’, når ‘when’ and fordi ‘because’ in Norwegian. Largely replicating Kush et al. (2019), we find evidence for the absence of strong island effects with topicalization from om-adjuncts in all three experiments. We find island effects for når- and fordi-adjuncts, but the size of the effects and the underlying judgment distributions that produce those effects differ greatly by island type. Our results suggest that the syntactic category ‘adjunct’ may not constitute a suitably fine-grained grouping to explain variation in island effects.","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":"19 3-4","pages":"223 - 254"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0332586520000207","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41287436","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 : 2020-12-01DOI: 10.1017/S0332586520000177
Kristin Melum Eide, T. A. Afarli
Abstract This article explores intraindividual microvariation in dialect syntax. We argue that in many cases the speaker has internalized a different (sub)grammar for each dialectal variety, in line with the hypothesis of universal bilingualism and parallel grammars argued for by Roeper (1999 et seq.). We discuss the question of how we can distinguish parallel grammars from optionality within one grammar, suggesting that the identification of correlating contextual factors might be a promising criterion. However, we also explore a more subtle type of variation, namely cases where a standard variety influences a potentially more vulnerable non-standard variety in a way that makes it exceedingly difficult for the language user and even for a trained linguist to discern what is what. We discuss whether or not these properties should be analysed as properties of another subgrammar (the standard grammar) or as fully integrated (albeit acquired) properties of the non-standard dialect.
摘要本文探讨了方言句法个体内部的微观变化。我们认为，在许多情况下，说话者已经为每个方言变体内化了不同的（子）语法，这符合Roeper（1999 et seq.）提出的普遍双语和平行语法的假设，这表明识别相关的上下文因素可能是一个很有前途的标准。然而，我们也探索了一种更微妙的变体类型，即标准变体影响潜在的更脆弱的非标准变体的情况，这使得语言使用者甚至受过训练的语言学家都很难辨别什么是什么。我们讨论了这些性质是否应该作为另一个子语法（标准语法）的性质来分析，或者作为非标准方言的完全集成（尽管是后天获得的）性质来分析。
{"title":"Dialects, registers and intraindividual variation: Outside the scope of generative frameworks?","authors":"Kristin Melum Eide, T. A. Afarli","doi":"10.1017/S0332586520000177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0332586520000177","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article explores intraindividual microvariation in dialect syntax. We argue that in many cases the speaker has internalized a different (sub)grammar for each dialectal variety, in line with the hypothesis of universal bilingualism and parallel grammars argued for by Roeper (1999 et seq.). We discuss the question of how we can distinguish parallel grammars from optionality within one grammar, suggesting that the identification of correlating contextual factors might be a promising criterion. However, we also explore a more subtle type of variation, namely cases where a standard variety influences a potentially more vulnerable non-standard variety in a way that makes it exceedingly difficult for the language user and even for a trained linguist to discern what is what. We discuss whether or not these properties should be analysed as properties of another subgrammar (the standard grammar) or as fully integrated (albeit acquired) properties of the non-standard dialect.","PeriodicalId":43203,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Linguistics","volume":"43 1","pages":"233 - 248"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0332586520000177","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44693082","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 : 2020-12-01DOI: 10.1017/S0332586520000189
Kristin Melum Eide, Andrew Weir
This thematic issue of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics focuses on morphosyntactic variation within the individual language user. The phenomenon of intraspeaker (micro)variation raises questions which arguably go to the heart of linguistic theory, especially in formal/generative perspective. Chomsky famously argued that ‘[l]inguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech community’ (Chomsky 1965:3). Significant progress in formal/generative linguistics has been made on the basis of this idealization, but it has always been clear that it is an idealization. A great number of language users are bior multidialectal: that is, their linguistic competence encompasses two or more closely related systems which might pretheoretically be seen as ‘variants of the same language’. And the great majority of (perhaps all) language users can (consciously or unconsciously) alter their register use depending on context, a choice which can manifest in sociolinguistic variables such as the realization of phonemes and lexical choice, and also – crucially – differing morphosyntactic structures. Chomsky (2000:59) has stated that ‘everyone grows up in a multilingual environment’ and that ‘[w]hatever the language faculty is it can assume many different states in parallel’. Sociolinguists have of course been concerned with investigating intraspeaker variability at least since the pioneering studies of Labov (e.g. Labov 1969), but such intraspeaker optionality and variation has received somewhat less attention from linguists in the formal or generative tradition. By now, 55 years after ‘Aspects’, the generative framework has advanced to the extent that more complicated cases of language competence and performance could and should receive more attention and, ideally, a formal description within one and the same model. The papers in this volume aim to provide empirical investigations of the phenomenon, formulate relevant generalizations, and ultimately contribute to our understanding of what such a model should look like. The Scandinavian countries, and Norway in particular, are especially interesting testing grounds for the investigation of morphosyntactic variation in the individual,
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