Studies in Övdalian Morphology and Syntax Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platform for original monograph studies into synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Studies in LA confront empirical and theoretical problems as these are currently discussed in syntax, semantics, morphology, phonology, and systematic pragmatics with the aim to establish robust empirical generalizations within a universalistic perspective. For an overview of all books published in this series, please see http://benjamins.com/catalog/la General Editors Werner Abraham Elly van Gelderen Universität Wien / Arizona State University Ludwig Maximilian Universität München Advisory Editorial Board Josef Bayer Christer Platzack University of Konstanz University of Lund Cedric Boeckx Ian Roberts ICREA/UB Cambridge University Guglielmo Cinque Lisa deMena Travis University of Venice McGill University Liliane Haegeman Sten Vikner University of Ghent University of Aarhus Hubert Haider C. Jan-Wouter Zwart University of Salzburg University of Groningen Terje Lohndal Norwegian University of Science and Technology Volume 221 Studies in Övdalian Morphology and Syntax. New research on a lesser-known Scandinavian language Edited by Kristine Bentzen, Henrik Rosenkvist and Janne Bondi Johannessen Studies in Övdalian Morphology and Syntax New research on a lesser-known Scandinavian language Edited by Kristine Bentzen University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway Henrik Rosenkvist University of Gothenburg Janne Bondi Johannessen University of Oslo John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of 8 the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Studies in Övdalian Morphology and Syntax : New research on a lesser-known Scandinavian language / Edited by Kristine Bentzen, Henrik Rosenkvist and Janne Bondi Johannessen. p. cm. (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, issn 0166-0829 ; v. 221) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Swedish language--Dialects--Sweden--Älvdalen. 2. Swedish language--Dialects-- Morphology. 3. Swedish language--Dialects--Syntax. 4. Älvdalen (Sweden)-- Languages. I. Bentzen, Kristine. II. Rosenkvist, Henrik. III. Johannessen, Janne Bondi. PD5827.A48S88 2015 439.77--dc 3 2014035751 isbn 978 90 272 5704 8 (Hb ; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 6913 3 (Eb) © 2015 – John Benjamins B.V. The e-book edition of this book is made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0 John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa Table of contents Introduction 1 Kristine Bentzen, Henrik Rosenkvist and Janne Bondi Johannessen Övdalian from 1909 to 2009 11 Piotr Garbacz and Janne Bondi Johannessen On the morpho-syntax of verb/adverb placement and fronting in embedded clauses in Modern Övdalian 47 Ásgrímur Angantýsson Optional V-to-I movement in Övdalian 87 Piotr Garbacz The syntax and meaning of subject doubling in Övdalian 107 Henrik Rosenkvist The polyfunctionality of which in Övdalian 137 Øystein Alexander Vangsnes Is there a vocative case in the Övdalian language? Some observations on forms of address in Övdalian 167 Lars Steensland The morphological expression of case in Övdalian 177 Peter Svenonius Index 231 Introduction Kristine Bentzen, Henrik Rosenkvist and Janne Bondi Johannessen University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway/ University of Gothenburg/University of Oslo 1. This book – background Övdalian is a Scandinavian language that has numerous interesting syntactic and morphosyntactic features, some of them unique for a Germanic language. Even so, relatively few studies exist on this variety, and even fewer that focus on syntax and morphosyntax, which is why we have chosen to assemble this volume. In spite of the Junggrammarians’ great interest for dialects, dialect syntax was virtually ignored during 19th century research on Scandinavian dialects. Further- more, syntax has not been in focus for dialectologists since, and hence dialect syntax has been a neglected research field. For instance, in a relatively recent book about Scandinavian dialectology (Akselberg et al. 2003), there is only one article (out of 32) about syntax; the gist of that article is furthermore that there is an ur- gent need for more dialectal syntactic studies (Eklund 2003). However, the devel- opment of syntactic theories during the last decades has provided suitable tools for micro-comparative syntactic studies, and all over Europe dialect syntax has be- come a hot topic. The northern Italian dialects have, for example, been investi- gated in the ASIS-project, and the Dutch dialects in the SAND-project. Since 2005, research groups from all of the Scandinavian countries have been working togeth- er in the network Scandinavian Dialect Syntax (ScanDiaSyn) and the Nordic Centre of Excellence in Microcomparative Syntax (NORMS) in order to investi- gate the syntactic features of the Scandinavian dialects and vernaculars, to create an online database, and to encourage further research in this field.1 Several work- shops for dialect data collection have been organized across the Nordic countries, including a couple of field trips to Älvdalen. In 2009 ScanDiaSyn’s Grand Meeting was held in Älvdalen. Some of the pa- pers from that meeting have resulted in this volume, which we hope will lead to an 1. URL: <http://uit.no/scandiasyn/scandiasyn/> doi 10.1075/la.221.01int © 2015 John Benjamins Publishing Company 2 Kristine Bentzen, Henrik Rosenkvist and Janne Bondi Johannessen increased awareness of the unique properties of Övdalian amongst linguists in Scandinavia and internationally. This introductory chapter is structured as follows. Section 2 gives an overview of the linguistic and geographical setting of Övdalian, starting with a short de- scription of the Scandinavian language family, followed by the position of Övdalian within this family, and a list of the most important previous studies focussing on morphosyntax and syntax. This section also describes the status of the language today, and finally provides some information about what empirical material can be found on the language. Section 3 discusses the name of the language, a topic that is crucial, since several names have been used in recent discussions of the language in an international context. Section 4 provides a short description of each of the papers in this volume, and our acknowledgements are stated in Section 5. 2. The linguistic and geographical setting of Övdalian 2.1 The Scandinavian languages The Scandinavian, or Nordic or North Germanic, languages branched off from Old Germanic in the early Middle Ages. The standard Scandinavian languages are Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish. Traditionally (see Wessén 1992), the languages are divided into the Western Scandinavian lan- guages (Faroese, Icelandic, and Norwegian) and the Eastern Scandinavian languages (Danish and Swedish), a division based on phonological and morpho- logical differences that emerged during the Viking Age (800 – 1100). Övdalian is an Eastern Scandinavian variety. Scandinavia has not been exposed to substan- tial migration; the languages and dialects have developed relatively undisturbed. The Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish language varieties form a linguistic continuum, from northern Norway to southern Denmark, and from western Norway to eastern Finland. 2.2 Övdalian2 At least since the Middle Ages, Övdalian has been spoken in the parish of Älvdalen in the province of Dalecarlia in western Sweden, see Map 1. The map shows the whole municipality of Älvdalen, but Övdalian is only spoken in the southeastern part. 2. We are grateful to Piotr Garbacz, who let us use parts of his dissertation (Garbacz 2010) for this section. Introduction 3 Map 1. The municipality of Älvdalen, in western Sweden. (http://commons.wikimedia.org) 2.2.1 The language and the most important previous studies Övdalian has its roots in the Dalecarlian dialects and has traditionally been seen as a Swedish dialect (Garbacz 2010: 27), but it is mutually incomprehensible among its closest standard relatives: Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish. There are differ- ences between Övdalian, Mainland Scandinavian, and the other Dalecarlian dialects on every linguistic level: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary. Having applied the Swadesh test to Övdalian, Swedish, and Icelandic, Dahl (2005: 10) claims that Övdalian is approximately as distant from spoken 4 Kristine Bentzen, Henrik Rosenkvist and Janne Bondi Johannessen standard Swedish as Swedish is from spoken Icelandic. It is therefore debatable whether it should be regarded as a dialect of Swedish or a separate language. Steensland (1986, 1990), Berglund (2001), Koch (2006), Melerska (2006), Dahl (2008), Rosenkvist (2010), and Garbacz (2010) all argue that Övdalian must be regarded as a separate language. Övdalian does not, however, at present have the status as a minority language in Sweden. Övdalian is an understudied Scandinavian language, but some works can be mentioned. Modern research on this language begins with the works of Adolf Noreen, especially Noreen (1883). The seminal work on Övdalian is Lars Levander’s doctoral thesis (Levander 1909), but also