DOCSLIB.ORG

URALIC OSMO IKOLA and AULIS J. JOKI Linguistics Like All Scholarly

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
URALIC OSMO IKOLA and AULIS J. JOKI Linguistics Like All Scholarly URALIC OSMO IKOLA and AULIS J. JOKI Linguistics like all scholarly work is a matter of international interest. Thus in a paper like this one could treat Western Europe as a whole without any boundaries between countries. But in this respect there does not even exist a boundary between Western Europe on one hand and Eastern Europe or America on the other. But the starting point is geographical. We have chosen the alternative of dealing separately with the linguistic work done in different Western European countries. This choice has some disadvantages but, nevertheless, this arrangement seems to be the most appropriate. Although the linguistic discussion does not respect the boundaries of countries, there are certain principal trends, certain focuses within Uralic linguistics in each country. Since Uralic linguistics in the Soviet Union (Estonia included) and Hungary is out- side the present topic, Finland has quantitatively an indisputable leadership among the countries to be covered. Therefore we will start with Finland. The other countries where Uralic linguistics is carried on to a considerable extent will follow in geographi- cal order. After that the remaining countries will be briefly treated in an analogous order. FINLAND Organization of the Work Chairs at universities. At the University of Helsinki a chair for Finnish language and literature was established in 1850 (the first professor was M. A. Castrón) and one for Finno-Ugric linguistics in 1892. At present there are five full professorships in the field: two for Finnish, one especially for Finnish onomastics, one for Balto-Finnic languages, and one for Finno-Ugric linguistics. Since World War I professors of Finnish have been E. N. Setálá, M. Rapóla, L. Hakulinen, P. Virtaranta, and Terho Itkonen (Virtaranta and Itkonen hold office at present). During the same period professors of Finno-Ugric linguistics have been Y. Wichmann, Y. H. Toivonen, P. Ravila, E. Itkonen and, at present, A.J. Joki. From 1938 L. Kettunen was professor of Balto-Finnic languages, and his successor is L. Posti. V.Nissilá has been professor of Finnish, especially onomastics, since 1969. Further, there is a professor of Finnish, R. E. Nirvi. 1694 OSMO IKOLA AND AULIS J. JOKI The second largest academic center for Uralic linguistics is the University of Turku. Since the foundation of this university (1920) there has been a professorship for Finnish and related languages. At this time there is one for Finnish and one for Finno- Ugric linguistics. Professors for Finnish and related languages have been H. Ojansuu, M. Rapola, N. Ikola, P. Ravila, and O. Ikola, who is professor of Finnish at present. M. Liimola has been professor of Finno-Ugric linguistics since 1964. In addition to the Finnish university there is a Swedish university in Turku, too, bearing the name Abo Academy. Since 1964 it has had a professor of Finnish language and literature, G. Karlsson. Besides the three universities mentioned so far, there are three new universities in Finland, and each of them has a chair for Finnish. At the Institute of Paedagogics of Jyvaskyla A. Penttila was professor of Finnish beginning 1936. In 1966 the Institute was made a university, and in the next year H. Leskinen succeeded Penttila as professor of Finnish. At the University of Tampere, P. Siro has been professor of Finnish since 1965. At the University of Oulu, P. Saukkonen was appointed professor of Finnish in 1967. Most of the Finnish universities have one or two associate professors of Finnish, and each of them has a department of Finnish. Additionally, the universities of Helsinki and Turku have departments of Finno-Ugric linguistics. Institutes and archives. The most central of the many institutes and archives in the field of Finnish linguistics is the Dictionary Foundation (Sanakirjasaatio) in Helsinki. It was founded in 1916 and its principal task is to compile a complete dictionary of spoken Finnish dialects. At the same time the collection serves scholars as a dialect archive. At present, there are about six million slips with information on dialect expressions. The departments of Finnish in Turku and Jyvaskyla have microfilm copies of this collection. At present, T. Tuomi is the leader of the Dictionary Founda- tion. Beside the dialect dictionary, a dictionary of Old Literary Finnish is being prepared at the Dictionary Foundation, under the direction of M. Rapola. Since 1915 there has existed an organization for the collection and research of Finnish proper nouns, the present name of which is the Finnish Name Archive (Suomen nimiarkisto). The collection of place names contains at this time nearly one and a half million slips. V. Nissila is the director of the Archive. The Research Institute for Languages and Cultures Related to Finnish (Tutkimus- laitos Suomen suku) was established by E.N. Setala in 1930. Its primary aim is to compile an etymological dictionary of Finnish. Four volumes have appeared thus far (Toivonen, Itkonen, and Joki 1955-69). In addition, the Institute has also published in facsimile the Finnish-Swedish-Latin dictionary of Christfrid Ganander (1937-40), which was completed in 1787 but remained in manuscript until 1937. E. Itkonen is the head of the Institute. The most important linguistic task of the Department of Finnish at the University of Helsinki is the collection of morphological material from Finnish dialects. This URALIC 1695 work was started in 1967 under the direction of Terho Itkonen. At the Department of Finnish at the University of Turku, since 1967, syntactic material has been collected from Finnish dialects and prepared for computer work. This work is led by O. Ikola. The development of tape recorders has enabled us to record speech more effectively than before. For this aim a Finnish Record Archive (Suomert kielen nauhoitearkisto) was established in Helsinki in 1959, under the direction of P. Virtaranta. The goal is to record some thirty hours in each of the approximately 500 Finnish-speaking parishes in Finland. In 1969 more than a half of this task had been accomplished, in total about 11,200 hours of tape. In addition to the recordings of Finnish there are record- ings of about 1,200 hours of other Uralic languages. In addition, the Department of Finnish at the University of Turku has a considerable tape archive of Finnish dialects. There are approximately 2,500 hours of dialect recordings, primarily from Southwest Finland. Societies and periodicals. The Finno-Ugric Society (Société Finno-ougrienne/Suoma- lais-ugrilainen Seura, founded in Helsinki, 1883) has done very important work in sending out scholars to different Uralic peoples. During several decades many lin- guists have worked preparing collections of materials for press, compiling dictionaries, etc., financed by the Society. The most important series of publications of the Finno- Ugric Society are the following: Journal de la Société Finno-ougrienne (Suomalais- ugrilaisen Seuran aikakauskirja), Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrienne (Suomalais- ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia), Lexica Societatis Fenno-JJgricae, Hilfsmittel fur das Studium der finnisch-ugrischen Sprachen. Further, the journal Finnisch-ugrische For- schungen is closely associated with the Finno-Ugric Society. This journal contains papers written in the major world languages, while in the publication series mentioned above the use of Finnish is also allowed. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura (The Finnish Literature Society, founded in Helsinki, 1831) is chiefly confined to the study of Finnish and Balto-Finnic linguistics, literature, and ethnology. Its series of publications Suomi has come out since 1841, mostly in Finnish with summaries in other languages. Another series of publications of the Society is Studia Fennica, which contains papers and studies written in French, English, or German. The Tietolipas series includes studies and academic textbooks on linguistic and related subjects. Kotikielen Seura (The Native Language Society, founded in Helsinki, 1876) publishes the review Virittàjâ which contains papers written in Finnish, but with summaries in other languages. Suomen Kielen Seura (The Finnish Language Society, founded in Turku, 1929) publishes a yearbook, Sananjalka. The articles are in Finnish with summaries in other languages. Comparative and General Uralic Linguistics General remarks. Before World War I a great deal of linguistic fieldwork was done. 1696 OSMO IKOLA AND AULIS J. JOKI Numerous Finnish scholars travelled among peoples speaking Finno-Ugric or Samoyed languages and collected material, especially from languages spoken in Russia. When after the Russian revolution such expeditions were no longer possible, with few exceptions, energies were concentrated on the preparation of these collections for the press. As a result, many scholarly dictionaries and dialect texts were completed and others are still under preparation. The publication of linguistic material has left its mark on the research work in the last decades. Another feature has been characteristic of Uralic linguistics in Finland between the two World Wars, and to some extent after World War II. In the beginning of the century and in the 1920s the Neogrammarian school dominated Uralic linguistics in Finland. One of the consequences was that scholars were more interested in historical phonology and etymology than in other areas, e.g. syntax, which were more or less neglected. Of course, the Neogrammarian school deserves great credit for creating a safe methodological base for linguistic research. Only after World War II did struc- tural linguistics gain more influence in Uralic linguistics in Finland. A pure struc- turalist linguistics never attained a very strong position in Finland, but influenced by this school, most linguists at present scrupulously consider the structure of the lan- guage. Even syntax is vividly studied. The synchronic study of language has made considerable progress. In the field of transformation theory some work has been done, but this theory has not become very popular in Finland thus far. Certainly, sporadic transformational explanations have been used in studies that are not completely trans- formational.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Izhorians: a Disappearing Ethnic Group Indigenous to the Leningrad Region
    Acta Baltico-Slavica, 43 Warszawa 2019 DOI: 10.11649/abs.2019.010 Elena Fell Tomsk Polytechnic University Tomsk [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7606-7696 Izhorians: A disappearing ethnic group indigenous to the Leningrad region This review article presents a concise overview of selected research findings rela- ted to various issues concerning the study of Izhorians, including works by A. I. Kir′ianen, A. V. Labudin and A. A. Samodurov (Кирьянен et al., 2017); A. I. Kir′ianen, (Кирьянен, 2016); N. Kuznetsova, E. Markus and M. Muslimov (Kuznetsova, Markus, & Muslimov, 2015); M. Muslimov (Муслимов, 2005); A. P. Chush′′ialova (Чушъялова, 2010); F. I. Rozhanskiĭ and E. B. Markus (Рожанский & Маркус, 2013); and V. I. Mirenkov (Миренков, 2000). The evolution of the term Izhorians The earliest confirmed record of Izhorians (also known as Ingrians), a Finno-Ugrian ethnic group native to the Leningrad region,1 appears in thirteenth-century Russian 1 Whilst the city of Leningrad became the city of Saint Petersburg in 1991, reverting to its pre-So- viet name, the Leningrad region (also known as the Leningrad oblast) retained its Soviet name after the collapse of the USSR. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 PL License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/pl/), which permits redistribution, commercial and non- -commercial, provided that the article is properly cited. © The Author(s) 2019. Publisher: Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences [Wydawca: Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk] Elena Fell Izhorians: A disappearing ethnic group indigenous to the Leningrad region chronicles, where, according to Chistiakov (Чистяков, 2006), “Izhora” people were mentioned as early as 1228.
    [Show full text]
  • Inhalt Des 41. Bandes
    INHALT DES 41. BANDES ORIGINALIA Bíró, Bernadett: From nouns into nominalizers and even further – Gram- maticalization processes in Northern Mansi .................................... 1 Bíró, Bernadett – Katalin Sipöcz: Ditransitivity in the Mansi language from typological perspective ........................................................... 25 Budzisch, Josefina: Locative, existential and possessive sentences in Selkup dialects ................................................................................ 45 Däbritz, Chris Lasse: Zur Markierung von Numerus an Nomina in den samojedischen Sprachen – Synchronie und mögliche Implikationen für die Rekonstruktion des Protosamojedischen und des Proto- uralischen ........................................................................................ 63 de Smit, Merlijn: Insular Etymologies: Indo-European and substrate coastal terminology on Finnic and Saami ........................................ 103 Gusev, Valentin: On the etymology of auditive in Samoyedic .............. 131 Harder, Anja: Grammaticalization of spatial expressions in Central and Southern Selkup .............................................................................. 153 Kahrs, Ulrike: Historische Ereignisse als Konstituente der kollektiven Identität: der Multan-Fall und seine Bedeutung für die udmurtische Identität ........................................................................................... 175 Rozhanskiy, Fedor – Elena Markus: Negation in Soikkola Ingrian ....... 189 Wegener, Hannah: On annotating
    [Show full text]
  • The Baltic Sea Region the Baltic Sea Region
    TTHEHE BBALALTTICIC SSEAEA RREGIONEGION Cultures,Cultures, Politics,Politics, SocietiesSocieties EditorEditor WitoldWitold MaciejewskiMaciejewski A Baltic University Publication Language and 15 multilingual societies Sven Gustavsson 1. Language families and language groups In the Baltic area two language families have been in contact since prehistorical times, the Indo-European and the Uralic language families. Indo-European is represented by three linguistic branches, the Germanic, Baltic and Slavic groups, and Uralic by the Balto- Fennic branch and the Saami language(s). In addition, relatively early settlers in the area are the Tatars in Belarus (Belorussia, Byelorussia), Lithuania and Poland, and the Karaims in Lithuania and Poland who have partly kept their languages (of the Turko-Tataric language family) and the Roma (Gypsies) who speak various dialects of Romani or Romanes (an Indo- Iranian language). An enumeration gives an overview of great linguistic diversity in a relatively small area but this is not the full picture. The overview may be both simplified and complicated. Many of the languages mentioned above are small. Only Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, German, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian, Belarusian (Belorussian, Byelorusian, Belarusian), Ukrainian and Polish count more than a million speakers, and these languages are the only ones able to fulfil the role of national languages. All the other languages are minority lan- guages, spoken by as few as 50–60 people up to as many as a hundred thousand. Some of them are near extinction, such as Votian, Livonian, Ingrian, the South Saami, and Lower Sorbian. 2. Language and dialect In defining a language it is never easy to draw a borderline between dialect and language.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • Elena Markus (Tartu), Fedor Rozhanskiy (Moscow) The
    Elena Markus (Tartu), Fedor Rozhanskiy (Moscow) The development of a mixed language in the multilingual environment 1 (evidence from the Kukkuzi dialect) The Lower Luga area in the Leningrad region of Russia presents a vivid example of multilingualism. It is inhabited by speakers of three cognate Finnic languages: Votic, Ingrian, and Ingrian Finnish. This specific multilingual environment gives rise to a whole range of interesting phenomena, one of which is contact or mixed languages. A famous example of this kind is the Kukkuzi dialect, which was traditionally classified as a dialect of Votic. In fact, many scholars argued this affiliation and treated Kukkuzi as a mixed Votic-Ingrian language ([Suhonen 1985], [Муслимов 2005]). Although the Kukkuzi dialect was claimed extinct in some publications ([Adler 1966]), we were lucky to collect some modern Kukkuzi data. The analysis presented in this paper is based on a specially elaborated questionnaire (150 sentences) that was offered to the speakers of different Finnic dialects for translation from Russian into their native language. Using this questionnaire we compared data from the Lower Luga Votic, the Kukkuzi dialect, the Lower Luga Ingrian, and the Soikkola Ingrian. Also, we used published materials (first of all [Ariste 1968], [Vadja keele sõnaraamat 1990-2010]) to include data from the extinct Central Votic. The five Finnic dialects were analyzed using 40 binary features, divided into three approximately equal groups: phonetic, grammatical, and lexical. The results of the comparison gave the following distribution of features among the dialects: (Group1) Features that are present in both Ingrian dialects and the Kukkuzi dialect, but absent from the Votic dialects.
    [Show full text]
  • Inhalt Des 35. Bandes
    INHALT DES 35. BANDES ORIGINALIA Blokland, Rogier: Borrowability of pronouns: evidence from Uralic .. 1 Fenyvesi, Anna: Hungarian Minorities in Romania, Slovakia and Serbia: Schoolchildren’s Attitudes to their Languages (minority vs. majority languages vs. EFL) and Teaching these Languages in School ............ 35 Keevallik, Leelo: Pragmatics of the Estonian heritage speakers in Sweden 55 Markus, Elena – Rozhanskiy, Fedor: Votic or Ingrian: new evidence on the Kukkuzi variety ............................................................................... 77 Tamm, Anne: Partitive objects and the partitive evidential marker -vat in Estonian express incomplete evidence .............................................. 97 Venken, Sarah: The Afterlife of ‘The Seven Brothers’. Traces of Aleksis Kivi’s Seitsemän Veljestä in Finnish culture ...................................... 141 DISKUSSION UND KRITIK Hasselblatt, Cornelius: Rezension Ulrike Kahrs, Monika Schötschel: Literatursoziologische Entwicklungen bei Wolgafinnen und Permiern (1985-2008). Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovač 2011. 261 Seiten (Poetica. Schriften zur Literaturwissenschaft 113) ........................................ 167 ESSAY Laakso, Johanna: Language contact in space and time: Perspectives and pitfalls in diachronic contact linguistics ............................................ 173 BERICHTE, MITTEILUNGEN, NACHRICHTEN Bentlin, Mirkko: „Finnische Sprache und Literatur im europäischem Kontext – Historische Perspektiven und aktuelle Herausforderungen“, Greifswald, 6. – 7.10.2011 ............................................................
    [Show full text]
  • (ESTONIAN, FINNISH, INGRIAN, VOTIC) Sound Symbolism Of
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Journals from University of Tartu ESUKA – JEFUL 2015, 6–1: 55–74 SOUND SYMBOLISM OF EXPRESSIVE VERBS IN FINNIC LANGUAGES (ESTONIAN, FINNISH, INGRIAN, VOTIC) Sound symbolism of expressive verbs in Finnic languages Heinike Heinsoo and Eva Saar University of Tartu Heinike Heinsoo, Eva Saar Abstract. This article will study language, using the contrastive-descriptive method, as a phonetic imitation of the world around us, and will concentrate on the verb vocabu- lary, based on sound imitation and natural sound imitation, characteristic of the Finnic languages spoken in the region of the Gulf of Finland, i.e. Estonian, Finnish, Ingrian and Votic, with a special focus on verbs expressing sounds produced by inanimate sound generators/sources. The investigation clarifi es the differences between expressive verbs and general vocabulary in terms of phonetic composition, and describes derivation patterns of expressive verbs. In comparisons of the four related languages, the theory of sound symbolism has not been confi rmed. It is almost impossible to fi nd identical expressive lexemes (stems) carrying the same (collocative) meaning in all four closely related languages. Keywords: Finnic languages, expressiveness, sound symbolism, verb derivation DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/jeful.2015.6.1.04 1. Introduction: onomatopoetic words, imitatives, expressive words Finnic languages are extremely rich in onomatopoetic-descriptive vocabulary, and closely related languages resort to similar devices to form such words (phonetic composition differs from the standard vocab- ulary, verb stem model). Traditionally, onomatopoetic-descriptive words are divided into two categories: onomatopoetic words and descriptive words (ISK: 178).
    [Show full text]
  • Phonetic Realization and Phonemic Categorization of Reduced Vowels In
    This is the accepted manuscript version of an article published by S. Karger AG in Phonetica/2019/76/2-3/201-233 (Special Issue “Constancy and variation in speech), DOI: 10.1159/000494927, and available on www.karger.com/Article/FullText/10.1159/000494927. Phonetic realisation and phonemic categorisation of the final reduced corner vowels in the Finnic languages of Ingria Natalia Kuznetsova1,2*, Vasilisa Verkhodanova3 1 Institute for Linguistic Studies, Dept. of the Languages of Russia, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia; 2 Universita degli studi di Torino, Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature straniere e Culture moderne, Turin, Italy; 3 Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Campus Fryslân, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands Individual variability in sound change was explored at three stages of final vowel reduction and loss in the endangered Finnic varieties of Ingria (subdialects of Ingrian, Votic, Ingrian Finnish). A correlation between the realisation of reduced vowels and their phonemic categorisation by speakers was studied. Correlated results showed that if V was pronounced >70%, its started loss was not yet perceived, apart for certain frequent elements, but after >70% of loss V was not perceived any more. A split of 50/50 between V and loss in production correlated to the same split in categorisation. At the beginning of sound change, the production is, therefore, more innovative, but after reanalysis the categorisation becomes more innovative and leads the change. Vowel ‘a’ was the most innovative in terms of loss, ‘u/o’ the most conservative, and ‘i’ in the middle, while the consonantal palatalisation was more salient than labialisation. These differences are grounded in their acoustics, articulation and perception.
    [Show full text]
  • Dialectal Variation in Votic: Jõgõperä Vs
    ESUKA – JEFUL 2015, 6–1: 23–39 DIALECTAL VARIATION IN VOTIC: JÕGÕPERÄ VS. LUUDITSA Dialectal variation in Votic Fedor Rozhanskiy and Elena Markus University of Tartu and Institute of Linguistics of Russian Academy of Sciences Fedor Rozhanskiy, Elena Markus Abstract. This paper provides a comparison of two varieties of the Votic language. Based on fi eld materials collected between 2001 and 2012 from the last speakers of Votic, we compiled a list of the most important phonetic and grammatical features that distinguish between Jõgõperä and Luuditsa varieties. The ten features are: the degree of apocope, the initial h, merging of allative and adessive cases, secondary geminates, illative singular forms, genitive and partitive plural markers, imperfect forms, the active participle marker, conditional markers, and negative pronominal forms. The analysis has shown that many differences can be explained by the infl uence of the neighbour- ing Ingrian language. There are more contact induced changes in the Luuditsa variety, which is probably the result of more intensive contacts with the Ingrian population in this village. The contemporary Luuditsa variety is a vivid example demonstrating that language change in the Lower Luga area was driven by convergent developments in no lesser degree than by divergent processes. Keywords: Votic, dialectal variation, language contacts, phonetics, morphology DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/jeful.2015.6.1.02 1. Introduction Although the Votic language can hardly be characterised as poorly described, there is rather little data on Votic dialectology. Traditionally, Votic was divided into four dialects: Krevin, Eastern Votic, Western Votic and Kukkuzi Votic (Adler and Leppik 1990: 60), however, this classification was questioned by contemporary researchers.
    [Show full text]
  • Areal Relations of Indo-European Loanwords in Finnic Dialects
    ESUKA – JEFUL 2014, 5–2: 71–89 AREAL RELATIONS OF INDO-EUROPEAN LOANWORDS IN FINNIC DIALECTS Vilja Oja Institute of the Estonian Language Abstract. The areas of the distribution of Indo-European loanwords in Finnic dialects are described on many lexical maps of the Atlas Linguarum Fennicarum and the Atlas Linguarum Europae. The maps of those atlases offer an opportunity to follow the post-formational contacts of the languages. The analysis of the spread of loanwords makes it possible to find the main routes and centres of Indo-European innovations in Finnic dialects and discuss the reasons for the different sources of the influences. Sometimes, the Finnic area has been a boundary zone for several widespread Indo- European stems coming from different directions. Often the area distribution of dialect words is etymologically suggestive, but the source language depends on the concept. The differences in the use of stems with the same Indo-European origin in different Finnic languages may, at least partly, be due to the words having been borrowed at different times and from different donor languages. Keywords: dialect vocabulary, Indo-European loanwords, linguistic atlases, Finnic languages DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/jeful.2014.5.2.04 1. Introduction All of the neighbours of the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family speak Indo-European languages: Germanic languages are spoken to the north and west of the Finnic area, Baltic languages to the south of it, and Slavic languages to the east of the area. Such a position means close contacts with several Indo-European languages. The contacts between the neighbouring languages are vividly shown in linguistic atlases.
    [Show full text]
  • Productivity of Finnish Vowel Harmony
    Productivity of Finnish Vowel Harmony: Experimental Evidence by Liisa Christine Duncan A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics University of Toronto © Copyright by Liisa Christine Duncan 2015 Productivity of Finnish Vowel Harmony: Experimental Evidence Liisa Christine Duncan Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics University of Toronto 2015 Abstract Finnish has a well-studied palatal harmony system whereby front and back vowels cannot co- occur in non-compound words and suffixes alternate according to the stem’s harmonic class. Nevertheless, disharmonic forms exist in the language. This thesis examines the phonetic realization of vowels in harmonic and disharmonic loanwords and nonce forms created by a language game in order to establish the productivity of stem and suffix harmony. With respect to stem harmony, when words were borrowed into Finnish in the past, disharmonic stems tended to be repaired, providing evidence for the productivity of stem harmony. If stem harmony is robust, some degree of harmonization is expected in disharmonic loans and language games. While stem harmonization was observed in existent words and novel forms created by the game, the harmonization rates were lower than would be expected of a robust constraint, indicating that stem harmony is no longer fully productive, at least for some speakers. When harmonization did occur, a strength asymmetry was apparent with [+back] functioning as a stronger harmony trigger. ii The examination of the phonetic suffixes indicated that front suffixes were unexpectedly common with all loanword stem types. While co-articulation was a possible cause of some fronting, certain speakers, especially young females, exhibited substantial overlap in the expected front and back suffix categories.
    [Show full text]
  • Folklore Texts As a Source of Linguistic Data: Evidence from Votic Folklore1
    Folklore Texts as a Source of Linguistic Data: Evidence from Votic Folklore1 Elena Markus (Tartu – Moscow) – Fedor Rozhanskiy (Tartu – Moscow) Abstract This paper discusses the use of folklore collections for linguistic research in minor unwritten languages. In particular, we examine the case of the Votic language. As with many other minor languages, the earliest texts in Votic date from the middle of the 19th century, and mostly come from folklore materials. The focus of our research is the influence of a particular collector on the system of transcription. In this paper, we inve- stigate variation in the spelling of forms, and show that there is an apparent correlation between different ways of transcribing the same forms and the individual researchers responsible for the transcription. It is clear that the written form of Votic folklore texts cannot be fully relied upon for the analysis of Votic phonetics and phonology. Keywords: Votic, folklore, phonetics, phonology, transcription Introduction The goal of the present study is to discuss certain aspects of the use of folklore collections for linguistic research. Although the history of linguistic studies goes back centuries, there is hardly any representative material older than 200 years to be found in languages that do not have a written variety. This paper examines the case of the Votic language, which is an example of a minor un- written language. Similar to many such cases, the earliest texts in Votic date from the middle of the 19th century, and come mainly from folklore materials.2 It is widely known that there are certain limitations on the use of folklore texts as a source of linguistic data.
    [Show full text]