DOCSLIB.ORG

Retsensiooni Alus

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

Linguistica Uralica XLVIII Reviews 2013 1 MONUMENTAL WORKS CROWN A LIFELONG SCHOLARLY CAREER TIIT-REIN VIITSO 75 degree for his comparative study of the phonology of Finnic languages. This study was re-published with additions in his book ”Liivi keel ja läänemeresoome keele - maastikud ” (2008; The Livonian language and Finnic linguistic landscapes ). The more than 300 publications by Tiit-Rein Viitso include also articles on several other Uralic languages , such as Nenets (1970), Khanty (1980), and Sami (1985). He has been interested in princi - ples of classifying languages, as well relations between the Uralic, Indo-Euro - pean, and other language families of the Old World. Since his school days Viitso has been interested in Native American languages. Later, as an experienced linguist, he published some studies of Penutian languages (1971) and the clas - sification of Athabaskan languages (1976). Viitso has been a valuable contributor to various Estonian encyclopedias; he has prepared surveys of the world’s languages Tiit-Rein Viitso’s scholarly career began in and language groups, provided linguistic the early 1960s when modern trends in maps of different continents with his linguistics reached Estonia . Viitso started own improvements, etc. to explore the possibilities for providing Tiit-Rein Viitso’s first job was at more accurate descriptions of the minor the computing centre of the University Finnic languages. Phonological systems of Tartu where he worked in 1965— became his favourite research area. Viit- 1973. One of his favourite activites has so’s first article described phonology of been to suggest and to apply formal the Luutsa-Liivtšülä subdialect of Votic linguistic models for accurate presenta - (ESA VII); it was published already in tion of phonological and morphological 1961 when he graduated from university. structures. Apart from phonology, he In fact, the phonology of Finnic languages has played a significant role in working became his lifelong research interest. In out the description of the morphological 1966 he defended his candidate thesis on structure of Estonian and other Finnic the expression plane of northern Veps, languages. In 19 76 Viitso published an where the glossematic approach was used. article on the system of Estonian inflec - In 1983 Viitso was awarded a doctoral tional classes (in KK). The Viitso’s model 73 Linguistica Uralica XLVIII Reviews 2013 1 of classifactory morphology was used by the many-faceted meaning and signifi - his students to prepare morphological cance that a linguist may have for a descriptions of other Finnic languages. For small people. Apart from scholarly study example, Aime Kährik use d it in her of the Livonian language, Tiit-Rein Viit- thesis dealing with Veps inflectional so has been active in the development morphology (1980) and Jaan Õispuu in his of standard Livonian; he has edited thesis on Karelian inflectional morphology Livonian-language books and taught the (1985). Livonian language to the young gener - In addition to in-depth studies of the ation of Livonians. structure of the Finnic languages, Viitso Viitso has been actively involved has for a long time been interested in the in the management of research and earliest history of the Finnic languages. language matters as chairman of the He has studied early contacts of Finnic Mother Tongue Society of Estonia in the languages (1983), the oldest Finnic loan - 1990s and his decades-long work as words (1982), traces of the ancient Amber editor of Linguistica Uralica . On the Road in the contemporary languages occasion of Paul Ariste’s centenary in (1994 ; for an extensive overview of 2005 the Estonian Academy of Sciences Viitso’s work see Paul Alvre in ESA 44— valued Tiit-Rein Viitso’s contribution to 45 (2000)). Proceeding from the Finnic the study of the Finno-Ugric languages background, Viitso wrote the hitherto by awarding him the first Paul Ariste most detailed description of the devel - medal . Similarly to Paul Ariste, Tiit-Rein opment of the Estonian language (see Viitso can be characterized by openness Estonian Language (Linguistica Uralica. to what is extraordinary in language, Supplementary Series / Volume 1 2003)). the wish to highlight unique linguistic Tiit-Rein Viitso’s own roots are in Vi- features. In 2011 Viitso was awarded rumaa . Votes used to be the eastern neigh - the Wiedemann Prize, which is the bours of this large northern Estonian most prestigious linguistic award in the county. Viitso’s graduation thesis, which Republic of Estonia. he defended at the University of Tartu in In recent years Tiit-Rein Viitso’s 1961 , focused on nautical vocabulary in research activities have been crowned the Votic language . In fact, Viitso has with remarkable monumental works. ascribed great importance to the living The year 2008 witnessed the book of the environment of Finnic peoples inhabiting Livonian language and Finnic linguistic the coasts of the Gulf of Finland and the landscapes, which brings together Viit- Gulf of Livonia as manifested in their so’s research papers and also includes a language. bibliography of his scholarly work . The Viitso has also studied the language year 2012 saw the publication of the of his home region. His article about the most comprehensive Livonian dictio - languages of Virumaa (1996) provides a nary ever published (T.-R. Viits o, vivid picture of dialect diversity of this V. Ernštreit s, Līvõkīel-ēstikīel- region. Recently, he suggested a new leţkīel sõnārōntõz ), which shows intimate insight into the linguistic development familiarity with highly different facets of Virumaa (see LU XLVIII 2012). of Livonian lifestyle and the Livonian However, his main focus has been language. Viitso has been instrumental in on Livonians as a coastal people. The the project of Finno-Ugric prosody; the year 1973 witnessed the beginning of book ”Livonian Prosody” (MSFOu 255 his lifework in the documentation and 2008) has come out in the framework of study of the Livonian language, which this project . Also, Viitso prepared about has continued to this day. Apparently, fifty distribution maps with comments for among Viitso’s many other languages the linguistic atlas of the Finnic languages Livonian is the language that he has ”Atlas Linguarum Fennicarum” (ALFE studied from the most varied perspec - I—III 2004— 2010). These examples show tives, from speech sounds to vocabulary. his comprehensive in-depth knowledge of His field work with Livonians highlights the Finnic languages and the traditional 74 Linguistica Uralica XLVIII Reviews 2013 1 lifestyle of Finnic peoples. Tiit-Rein Viitso 285— 286) , etc . Comparative presentation also acted as the editor of the second part of multiple phonological developments of ALFE . highlights more general tendencies in In the linguistic atlas of the Finnic Finnic languages, such as secondary languages, the linguistic maps prepared emergence of h, on the one hand, and its by Tiit-Rein Viitso and his explanations loss, on the other, secondary consonantal stand out by richness of historical phono - palatalization with concurrent depalatal - logical and morphological information. ization, which gave rise even to prosodic For example, the distribution maps for changes, as well as various secondary the word family lähde ; allikas ’source, developments in stops, sibilants, and wellspring’ are provided with a full affricates, where occasionally one can find phonological reconstruction of the forms similar tendencies in different peripheral in different languages that stemmed from areas of the Finnic languages, for example, the base form *läktek (see ALFE I 402— in Livonian and South Estonian , and Kare - 403); it highlights primacy of South lian and Veps. Estonian sound changes . Viitso presented In addition to the study of phono - also several other synonymous words logical and morphological developments, with a restricted distribution, such as Tiit-Rein Viitso has also been interested eläke in northern Finnish dialects, hete in in meanings and their shades. Since his Finnish and Karelian, uhring , urting in student papers he has been interested in Veps, ovaat in Courland Livonian (its the sea, coastal lifestyle, and fishing. The Salaca Livonian equivalent is avat ; cf. comprehensive Livonian dictionary lists the Latvian avots ’source, wellspring ’ < hundreds of words related to the sea and *avantas ). fishing, which Viitso has been able to Also, Tiit-Rein Viitso presented in record from coastal Livonians . Their ALFE a comprehensive survey of how Estonian equivalents show interesting comitative suffixes emerged from adpo - parallels that Viitso has found in the sitions in several Finnic languages. The dialects of Virumaa, his home region. respective case endings developed in the Finnic peoples have always lived close to southern group of the Finnic languages waterbodies, be they large bays and lakes from different adverbialized case forms or small rivers. For a linguist , observation of the *kansa- stem and in the eastern of flowing water and coastal dwellers has Finnic languages from various forms of always implied understanding language the *kerta- stem (see ALFE I 439— 443). change and the wish to document what Suffixed forms of these stems show is passing by and to explain it to other different shades of meaning; however, people. Tiit-Rein Viitso has achieved the Finnic languages reveal a notewor - success in his endeavour in several ways, thy general tendency of grammatization including the training of young researchers of comitative and
Recommended publications
  • Saami and Scandinavians in the Viking

    Saami and Scandinavians in the Viking

    Jurij K. Kusmenko Sámi and Scandinavians in the Viking Age Introduction Though we do not know exactly when Scandinavians and Sámi contact started, it is clear that in the time of the formation of the Scandinavian heathen culture and of the Scandinavian languages the Scandinavians and the Sámi were neighbors. Archeologists and historians continue to argue about the place of the original southern boarder of the Sámi on the Scandinavian peninsula and about the place of the most narrow cultural contact, but nobody doubts that the cultural contact between the Sámi and the Scandinavians before and during the Viking Age was very close. Such close contact could not but have left traces in the Sámi culture and in the Sámi languages. This influence concerned not only material culture but even folklore and religion, especially in the area of the Southern Sámi. We find here even names of gods borrowed from the Scandinavian tradition. Swedish and Norwegian missionaries mentioned such Southern Sámi gods such as Radien (cf. norw., sw. rå, rådare) , Veralden Olmai (<Veraldar goð, Frey), Ruona (Rana) (< Rán), Horagalles (< Þórkarl), Ruotta (Rota). In Lule Sámi we find no Scandinavian gods but Scandinavian names of gods such as Storjunkare (big ruler) and Lilljunkare (small ruler). In the Sámi languages we find about three thousand loan words from the Scandinavian languages and many of them were borrowed in the common Scandinavian period (550-1050), that is before and during the Viking Age (Qvigstad 1893; Sammallahti 1998, 128-129). The known Swedish Lapponist Wiklund said in 1898 »[...] Lapska innehåller nämligen en mycket stor mängd låneord från de nordiska språken, av vilka låneord de äldsta ovillkorligen måste vara lånade redan i urnordisk tid, dvs under tiden före ca 700 år efter Kristus.
  • Locality, Neutrality, and Contrast: a New Resolution to the Votic Paradox

    Locality, Neutrality, and Contrast: a New Resolution to the Votic Paradox

    Locality, neutrality, and contrast: A new resolution to the Votic paradox Daniel Currie Hall, Saint Mary’s University nels 48 • háskóli íslands • október 2017 Outline 1 Introduction 2 The paradox illustrated 3 Theoretical questions 4 The contrastive status of /i/ 5 Proposal: A new resolution to the paradox 6 Consequences 1 Introduction 1.1 The language Votic (also Vod, Votian; endonym Vaďďa tšeeli or Vađđa ceeli; iso-639 code vot): Finland • Uralic ▶ Finno-Ugric ▶ Finnic ▶ Votic Helsinki • Spoken in western Russia (four villages in Leningrad ࢫ Oblast; Kuznetsova et al. 2015: 135) Gulf of Finland ࢝ · St. Petersburg ·· ࢫ Villages with Votic speakers • “The total number of Votic speakers now could be6to Tallinn 10” (Heinsoo & Kuusk 2011: 172). • “At present, Votic is almost never used as a means of Estonia Russia communication” (Kuznetsova et al. 2015: 137). Figure 1: Location of Votic 1.2 The paradox The Votic paradox, identified by Blumenfeld & Toivonen (2016): • /i/ is transparent to vowel place harmony (as in Finnish). ☛ This suggests that /i/ is not specified for place. • But /i/ conditions a front allophone of /l/. ☛ This suggests that /i/ is specified for place. Blumenfeld & Toivonen’s solution: • Place is specified on /i/, but it is not contrastive. • Non-contrastive features are ‘weak,’ and sometimes ignored (Calabrese 1995; Nevins 2010; Rhodes 2010). • Harmony applies only to contrastive specifications. • /l/ allophony is sensitive to all specifications. My proposal: • Place is contrastive on /i/ in Votic… • …but it is marked by a different feature from the one that participates in vowel harmony. d. c. hall locality, neutrality, and contrast nels 48 2 The paradox illustrated 2.1 Harmony Front–back vowel pairs participate in place harmony, which propagates from left to right: (1) Front stem + elative /-ssA/ (Ahlqvist 1856; Ariste 1968) a.
  • Estonian Yiddish and Its Contacts with Coterritorial Languages

    Estonian Yiddish and Its Contacts with Coterritorial Languages

    DISSERT ATIONES LINGUISTICAE UNIVERSITATIS TARTUENSIS 1 ESTONIAN YIDDISH AND ITS CONTACTS WITH COTERRITORIAL LANGUAGES ANNA VERSCHIK TARTU 2000 DISSERTATIONES LINGUISTICAE UNIVERSITATIS TARTUENSIS DISSERTATIONES LINGUISTICAE UNIVERSITATIS TARTUENSIS 1 ESTONIAN YIDDISH AND ITS CONTACTS WITH COTERRITORIAL LANGUAGES Eesti jidiš ja selle kontaktid Eestis kõneldavate keeltega ANNA VERSCHIK TARTU UNIVERSITY PRESS Department of Estonian and Finno-Ugric Linguistics, Faculty of Philosophy, University o f Tartu, Tartu, Estonia Dissertation is accepted for the commencement of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in general linguistics) on December 22, 1999 by the Doctoral Committee of the Department of Estonian and Finno-Ugric Linguistics, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Tartu Supervisor: Prof. Tapani Harviainen (University of Helsinki) Opponents: Professor Neil Jacobs, Ohio State University, USA Dr. Kristiina Ross, assistant director for research, Institute of the Estonian Language, Tallinn Commencement: March 14, 2000 © Anna Verschik, 2000 Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastuse trükikoda Tiigi 78, Tartu 50410 Tellimus nr. 53 ...Yes, Ashkenazi Jews can live without Yiddish but I fail to see what the benefits thereof might be. (May God preserve us from having to live without all the things we could live without). J. Fishman (1985a: 216) [In Estland] gibt es heutzutage unter den Germanisten keinen Forscher, der sich ernst für das Jiddische interesiere, so daß die lokale jiddische Mundart vielleicht verschwinden wird, ohne daß man sie für die Wissen­ schaftfixiert
  • Language Attrition and Death: Livonian in Its Terminal Phase

    Language Attrition and Death: Livonian in Its Terminal Phase

    1 Christopher Moseley LANGUAGE ATTRITION AND DEATH: LIVONIAN IN ITS TERMINAL PHASE Thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London March 1993 ProQuest Number: 10046089 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10046089 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 INTRODUCTION This study of the present state of the Livonian language, a Baltic-Finnic tongue spoken by a few elderly people formerly resident in a dozen fishing villages on the coast of Latvia, consists of four main parts. Part One gives an outline of the known history of the Livonian language, the history of research into it, and of its own relations with its closest geographical neighbour, Latvian, a linguistically unrelated Indo-European language. A state of Latvian/Livonian bilingualism has existed for virtually all of the Livonians' (or Livs') recorded history, and certainly for the past two centuries. Part Two consists of a Descriptive Grammar of the present- day Livonian language as recorded in an extensive corpus provided by one speaker.
  • Toimetav Õpetaja

    Toimetav Õpetaja

    TOIMETAV ÕPETAJA Peeter Olesk Järgnevat võib võtta ka kui jutustust põhimõttel “asümptootiline narratiiv”. Narratiivil on mitu tähendust, millest siia on valitud järgmine: asjade ja sündmuste ning inimeste kirjeldus olulisemate episoodide kaupa selle järgi, missugused seosed tekivad nende suhtes kirjeldajal. See ei tähenda, nagu oleks selline narratiiv läbinisti isiklik. Ta on objektiveeriv ja objektiveeritav sedamööda, kuidas lugeja hakkab kirjeldaja käitumist taipama. Asümptootiline on selline narratiiv, mis püüab jõuda ainele võimalikult lähedale, sellega kokku siiski langemata. Geo- meetrias on asümptootiline näiteks Descartes’i (1596–1650) leht (Feuille de Descartes), kolmandat järku joon, teatud kuupvõrrandi graafik. Niisugune on secco-tehnikas meie korteri esikus, teosta- jaks 2003. aastal Toomas Kanter (1951). Kirjanduses leiab mi- dagi selletaolist Friedebert Tuglaselt (1886–1971), kelle novelli- kogu Unelmate maa: Tõe ja kujutluse päevik (1942) alustab kat- ketetsükkel “Kujutluspäevikust” (1936–1939, 1941). Selle esi- mene osa kirjeldab rongi, mis kihutab vikerkaare alla, sinna ometi jõudmata. Selline motiiv ei pruugi olla tingimata traagiline ega isegi elee- giline nagu Ernst Ennol (1875–1934) luuletuses “Rändaja õhtu- laul” (1910). Ta võib olla ka irooniline nagu Aleksander Suu- mani (1927–2003) pealkirjata luuletuses aastast 1963, mille vii- mane värss ütleb väga aforistlikult: “ja minek on lõpmatu eemal- dumine”. Ta võib olla koguni pööraselt pillerkaaritav nagu Artur Alliksaarel (1923–1966) tsüklis “Tikutõmbeid kottpimedas gale- riis”, mille keskel algab üks osa värsiga “Olen meri, millel puudub Lugu on kirjutatud ajakirja Akadeemia 200. numbri ilmumise puhul. 2557 Toimetav õpetaja Peeter Olesk äär”. Igal juhul nimetaksin ma vormildasa asümptootilise narra- oma kodus raamaturiiuli ees.2 Menning polnud vaid Lui Oleski tiivi näitena esseed kui katset öelda tundmused tõest välja, olemata eakaaslane, ta oli ka perekonnasõber.
  • The Reforming of the Southern Finnic Language Area

    The Reforming of the Southern Finnic Language Area

    Karl PAJUSALU (Tartu) The reforming of the Southern Finnic language area This article focuses on recent changes in the southern group of Finnic languages. The present state of these languages, the establishment of written standards, and ways to modernise the languages are observed. The Southern Finnic group comprises Livonian, Vote, and Estonian, including South Estonian. Historically these languages share a number of common features and mutual influences. However, the destiny of these languages has been rather different over the past centuries. Standard Estonian, which evolved on the basis of the North Estonian dialects, became the state language of the Republic of Estonia. The South Es- tonian or Tartu written language fell into disuse at the end of the 19th century. Present-day Estonia is witnessing the emergence of some new regional stand- ards, especially in South Estonia. The Livonian language became extinct in Old Livonia, that is, in North Latvia, as early as the middle of the 19th century and has by now ceased to exist as an everyday language even in the coastal villages of Courland. Nevertheless, there now exists a written standard for Livonian, and modern ways to use Livonian have been created. Also, the traditional area of Vote on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland is declining, and the last bilin- gual Vote-Russian speakers are to be found only in a few villages in the Lenin- grad oblast in Russia. At the same time there are young people with Vote roots who try to use the language of their ancestors in modern situations. At present the historical diversity of the language group under discussion is severely threat- ened, although some endeavours and also possible methods for protecting and developing these small languages are to be observed nowadays.
  • A New Resource for Finnic Languages: the Outcomes of the Ingrian Documentation Project

    A New Resource for Finnic Languages: the Outcomes of the Ingrian Documentation Project

    FEDOR ROZHANSKIY University of Tartu & Institute for Linguistic Studies RAS ELENA MARKUS University of Tartu & Institute of Linguistics RAS A new resource for Finnic languages: The outcomes of the Ingrian documentation project Abstract The report introduces a new digital resource on minor Finnic languages. This resource is the main outcome of the project “Documentation of Ingrian: collecting and analyzing fieldwork data and digitizing legacy materials” carried out by Fedor Rozhanskiy and Elena Markus at the University of Tartu in 2011–2013. The collected materials cover several minor Finnic languages with a special focus on varieties spoken in Western Ingria: the Soikkola, Lower Luga, and Heva dialects of Ingrian, the Lower Luga varieties of Votic, and Ingrian Finnish. The re­ source contains (a) legacy recordings of different genres made by previous researchers in 1968–2012; (b) new audio and video materials recorded mostly in 2011–2013 by the project partici­ pants; (c) transcriptions and translations into Russian and English synchronized with sound and video using the ELAN software. Altogether the resource presents 510 hours of audio recordings, 21 hours of video recordings, and 15 hours of ELAN annota­ tions. All media files in the resource are provided with detailed metadata specifying the place and time of the recording, sociolin­ guistic data about the speaker, the contents of the recording, and the access rights. The resource is available on the websites of the Endangered Languages Archive (London, UK) and the Archive of Estonian Dialects and Kindred Languages of the University of Tartu (Estonia). Multi lingual Finnic. Language contact and change. 303–326.
  • The Grown-Up Siblings: History and Functions of Western Uralic *Kse

    The Grown-Up Siblings: History and Functions of Western Uralic *Kse

    Rigina Ajanki University of Helsinki The grown-up siblings: history and functions of Western Uralic *kse In this paper, it is claimed that the case suffix *kse, known as translative, dates back to the Finnic-Mordvin proto language, where it functioned as a functive� It is illustrated using synchronic data from Finnic-Mordvin languages that the functions of *kse do not display an inherent feature of directionality ‘into’, or in other terms, lative� It is even possible that the suffix was neutral with respect to time stability, as it is in contemporary Erzya� Further, it is assumed that since the Northern Finnic languages have acquired a new stative case, the functive labelled essive *nA, formerly applied as an intralocal case, the functions of *kse have changed in these languages: *kse has become mainly the marker of a transformative, with an inherent feature of dynamicity� 1� Introduction 5�1� Translative with 2� Typological background: stative copula in Finnish: *kse as a functive similatives and functives 3� Translatives in the case systems 5�2� Finnish ditransitive of Finnic-Mordvin languages constructions displaying 3�1� The Finnish case translative-essive variation system revisited 5�3� Erzya and Finnish expressions 3�2� Functives as of order in translative non-verbal predicates 6� The developmental path 4� The emergence of *kse of translative *kse as a case suffix 7� The emergence of essive 5� The functions of *kse and its consequences for in contemporary the functions of *kse Finnic-Mordvin languages 1. Introduction The translative
  • Eesti Keele Ajaloo Uurimine

    Eesti Keele Ajaloo Uurimine

    EESTI KEELE AJALOO UURIMINE KARL PAJUSALU 1. Valdkonna piiritlus Keeleajalugu peetakse sageli keele vanimate hääliku-, grammatiliste ja sõna- vormide rekonstrueerimiseks sugulaskeelte, murrete jm kaudandmete põh- jal. Selline arusaamine keeleajaloost pärineb 19. sajandi võrdlev-ajaloolisest keeleuurimisest. Selle järgi oleks keeleajalugu üksnes teataval viisil keele esiajaloo uurimine. Järgnev ülevaade püüab käsitleda eesti keele ajalugu siiski laiemalt, seda nii ajalises kui ka metoodilises perspektiivis. Esitan sissevaate sellesse, kuidas on uuritud eesti keele muutumist keele oletatavatest ajaloo- listest eelvormidest kuni tänapäeva eesti keele dünaamikani. Püüan iseloo- mustada ka keele muutumise uurimismeetodite muutumist. Võtan vaatluse alla eesti keele diakroonilise uurimise üldiselt, sh ka grammatikaliseerumise, keele dünaamika jms uurimise. Kuna eraldi ülevaa- de on juba tehtud eesti kirjakeele ajaloo uurimisest, jätan vaid 16.-20. sajan- di kirjakeele arengu põhiliselt vaatluse alt välja, riivates seda ala ainult nii- võrd, kuivõrd see tuleb esile eesti keele struktuuri muutumist käsitlevates töödes. Eesti keele ajaloo uurimisloost puuduvad seni süstemaatilised ülevaated. Reet Kasik on küll oma eesti keele uurimise ajaloo monograafias (Kasik 1999) esitanud ka andmeid keeleajaloolistest uurimustest. Eesti keele ajaloo uurimise metoodilisi probleeme on varem vaaginud Huno Rätsep (1987). Eesti keele diakroonilise uurimise võimalused ja väljavaated tõusid mõnel korral arutlusaineks ka ajakirjas Keel ja Kirjandus aastatel 1998-2000
  • The Role of Consonants in Vowel Harmony

    The Role of Consonants in Vowel Harmony

    1 Chapter 2: The role of consonants in vowel harmony 2 Gunnar Ólafur Hansson To appear in The Oxford Handbook of Vowel 3 University of British Columbia Harmony, ed. by Nancy Ritter and Harry van 4 [email protected] der Hulst. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 5 NON-FINAL DRAFT (April 3, 2021) 6 2.1 Introduction 7 Vowel harmony is defined as a phonological process, or co-occurrence restriction, that requires 8 the vowels within some domain, such as the word, to share some property. Generally speaking, 9 consonants are thus taken to be irrelevant and inert in the manifestation of vowel harmony 10 patterns. Other things being equal, then, a consonant will neither undergo nor trigger assimilation 11 in the harmonic property, nor will intervening consonants affect (e.g. block) enforcement of the 12 harmony relation between a preceding and a following vowel. 13 This chapter examines the diverse ways in which indiviDual vowel harmony systems may 14 deviate from this default state of affairs. Consonants can be implicated in vowel harmony 15 systems in a variety of ways, and such cross-over effects can have implications for phonological 16 theory, informing theories of representation (e.g. distinctive feature theory, feature geometry, 17 underspecification theory) and of the formal mechanisms that are understood to be involved in 18 assimilation (e.g. feature spreading vs. agreement/copying, relations between segments vs. 19 syllable nuclei). 20 I begin by considering the possibility that consonants may themselves be undergoers of 21 vowel harmony, albeit only in a passive, allophonic sense (§2.2).
  • Book of Abstracts

    Book of Abstracts

    Congressus Duodecimus Internationalis Fenno-Ugristarum, Oulu 2015 Book of Abstracts Edited by Harri Mantila Jari Sivonen Sisko Brunni Kaisa Leinonen Santeri Palviainen University of Oulu, 2015 Oulun yliopisto, 2015 Photographs: © Oulun kaupunki ja Oulun yliopisto ISBN: 978-952-62-0851-0 Juvenes Print This book of abstracts contains all the abstracts of CIFU XII presentations that were accepted. Chapter 1 includes the abstracts of the plenary presentations, chapter 2 the abstracts of the general session papers and chapter 3 the abstracts of the papers submitted to the symposia. The abstracts are presented in alphabetical order by authors' last names except the plenary abstracts, which are in the order of their presentation in the Congress. The abstracts are in English. Titles in the language of presentation are given in brackets. We have retained the transliteration of the names from Cyrillic to Latin script as it was in the original papers. Table of Contents 1 Plenary presentations 7 2 Section presentations 19 3 Symposia 199 Symp. 1. Change of Finnic languages in a multilinguistic environment .......................................................................... 201 Symp. 2. Multilingual practices and code-switching in Finno-Ugric communities .......................................................................... 215 Symp. 3. From spoken Baltic-Finnic vernaculars to their national standardizations and new literary languages – cancelled ...... 233 Symp. 4. The syntax of Samoyedic and Ob-Ugric languages ...... 233 Symp. 5. The development
  • Non-Autonomous Accusative Case in Estonian*

    Non-Autonomous Accusative Case in Estonian*

    Non-autonomous accusative case in Estonian* Mark Norris In Estonian, some objects of verbs show an alternation in case-marking that seems to be conditioned by morphological number: genitive when singular, nominative when plural. According to traditional descriptions (Erelt et al. 1993, 2000) and some recent research (Miljan & Cann 2013), these objects are genitive/nominative syntactically and morphologically. This paper argues against this approach, proposing instead that these cases are the morphological realization of a non-autonomous syntactic ac- cusative case, on the basis of two novel arguments. First, although isolated words in the language have no unique accusative form, the pseudopartitive construction does exhibit a unique form in would-be accusative contexts. Second, the genitive form of the inanimate relative pronoun (mille) can be replaced by nominative/unmarked mis, but only when it is in an object position. Though it has been proposed in the liter- ature that Estonian has an accusative case (Hiietam 2003, 2005, Caha 2009), neither of these arguments has been discussed, and they provide compelling morphosyntac- tic evidence in favor of the proposal. Possible paths to an analysis of the accusative’s pervasive syncretism are discussed in the amework of Distributed Morphology. It is proposed that an analysis making use of Impoverishment is superior to one with- out. The investigation here constitutes an additional case study in the divide between syntactic case and morphological case (Deal 2016, Goddard 1982, Legate 2008, 2014, Spencer 2006). Keywords: Estonian, case, syncretism, pseudopartitives, Impoverishment 1 Introduction In Estonian, some objects of verbs show an alternation in case-marking that seems to be conditioned by morphological number.