The Diffusion of a New Morphology in Norwegian Dialects Helge Sand0y Abstract The most obvious tendency in modern Norwegian dialect change is regional levelling. It is de- pendent on the urbanisation process which has prevailed at different times in the various commu- nities. Linguistically — in our case in noun morphology — the process seems to be more in the nature of simplification than of convergence towards the prestigious Standard. The aim of this paper is to discuss the pattern of this levelling process, and to test a hypothe- sis of nrban jumping. This will be done in detail for the region of Mid-Norway, with Trondheim at the top of a hierarchy and other towns and centres at subordinated nodes. The noun morphology of five dialects in Mid-Norway will be compared. The regional capi- tal of Trondheim has a fairly complex System compared to its subordinated towns and centres. The subordinated towns therefore seem to have been exposed to simplifications independent of the Trondheim dialect, which clearly contradict the urhan jumping hypothesis. Accordingly, a new hypothesis is suggested: Within a region, the dominating centre exerts some influence on the direction of language change, but the simplification processes manifest themselves first in new centres, i.e. in subordinaled nodes in the regional hierarchy. Today the Trondheim dialect seems to be adopting certain simplifications, which in the other towns and centres have been known for generations. From these bare facts one could perhaps deduce that the regional centre of Trondheim is sensitive to changes in the subordinated towns. This conclusion is strengthened by data from Northern Norway, but not from Eastern Norway, where innovations seem to follow a different route. 1. Introduction 1.1 The myth The history of a language is often described äs a river, in which runs and water- falls follow in quick succession in some parts, while in other parts the river broadens and therefore moves very slowly. There is some dispute among Nor- wegian linguists äs to where our dialects are in this river today. Most of them are of the opinion that our language is being exposed to many rapid and dra- matic changes at the moment: that we are in the midst of a waterfall. I feel prin- cipally obliged to be opposed to such a description. People are inclined to Folia Linguistica XXXII/1-2 0165-4004/98/32-83 $ 2.- (C) Montan de Gruyfer, Berlin — Societas Linguistica Europaea Brought to you by | Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen (Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen) Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 3/28/12 1:22 PM 84 dramatise the changes they observe, because they feel uncertain about every- thing that differs from what they experienced äs a stable, Harmonie and safe world in their childhood. I do not wish to deny that changes may occur at a rapid pace, but it seems clear that the speed of change differs considerably from place to place. And such was the case earlier äs well, e.g. in the 15th Century. What should be interesting to study is why rapid change is tbund in some places and great stability in others. 1.2 Standard vs. dialects It is hard to teil to what extent Norway has a Standard spoken language. Techni- cally, the spoken versions of our two written Standards (Bokmäl and Nynorsk) may be said to function äs such, and many people use the written language äs their model when speaking, at least in some situations. Nevertheless, the same people will maintain most traits of the phonology of their dialect so that nor- mally it is easy to teil what region they come from. Because of the great toler- ance of dialect usage, the actual spread of these Standards is restricted. In Eastern Norway, especially in the Oslo area, Standard Eastern Norwegian is found. This variety is of more sociolinguistic interest, äs it is the mother tongue of some people. It is called a Standard because Speakers from many places in that region speak it in a way that disguises their exact birth place. It is impossible to hear whether they come from the west, east, north or south. This Standard Eastern Norwegian is no more than a regional Standard, but because of its considerable resemblance to written Bokmäl, some regard it äs a national Standard. Also, there are middle class groups in towns in other regions with a lan- guage variety that takes Bokmäl äs its model. But phonetically these varieties are distinctly regional and they may in some cases even have traditional roots, so that they may be referred to äs middle class dialects, to be precise. What is of interest here, is, firstly, that the notion of a spoken Standard lan- guage is problematic in Norway. It is of limited significance. Secondly, it is normally assumed that the only varieties that may influence other dialects are those with great resemblance to Bokmäl, and not to Nynorsk. Both of these points are relevant for an investigation of dialect convergence and divergence. All Norwegians have some passive knowledge of Bokmäl, and this knowl- edge may form a model in situations when people feel it necessary or desirable to modify their language. A smaller proportion of the population can rely on a passive knowledge of Nynorsk. Moreover, using Nynorsk orally may convey an ideological or political standpoint, äs Nynorsk is not a 'neutral' language. Brought to you by | Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen (Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen) Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 3/28/12 1:22 PM 85 2. Ahns 1.l Grarnmatical simplification ? One important feature of the modern development of Norwegian society since the 1960s is the growth of hundreds of municipal centres, and this may have had an impact on sociolinguistic patterns and thereby on language change. Since one of the obvious causes is geographic mobility, one could look upon the Norwe- gian speech Community äs a big melting pot, and assume that the effect on the new dialects arising from the language mixture should be linguistic simplifica- tion. This is, actually, the effect that may be observed in the new towns and in- dustrial centres that have come into being in this Century, for example Odda, Tyssedal and H0yanger. The concept of simplification is, of course, open for discussion (cf. Trudgill 1986). For our purposes, I take it for granted that there is such a concept, and that it represents some immanent tendency in language change. The focus here is on the loss of variants, which simplifies the process of language learning. Linguistic distinctions which do not correspond to semantic distinctions tend to disappear, which means that phonological and morphological variants tend to be done away with. 2.2 Influence from a centre? One ormore regions? What comes out of a melting pot may be quite random. But one may expect to find tendencies which reflect an influence of the geographic centres. If so, the question arises: Is there a national trend in the changes that could be traced back to one influential source, most probably the Oslo region? Or are there various regions with their own dominating centres? Is it possible to establish a hierarchy of centres of influence, with Oslo, of course, at the top (cf. Trudgill 1974 and 1986:42ff)? This model of spreading can be called 'urban jumping'. My own hypothesis is that Norway is regionalised to a very great extent, and that the alleged Oslo influence is exaggerated. I believe that the dialect changes in Eastern Norway follow a pattern which is different from the ones we find elsewhere in the country. 2.3 National project on dialect changes It is our aim to test these hypotheses in a project launched by five Norwegian universities in 1996. The objectives of the collaboration include an increase of efficiency in collecting data and comparing results from different dialect com- munities. The topic of this paper, i.e. noun morphology, is my part of the proj- ect. Brought to you by | Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen (Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen) Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 3/28/12 1:22 PM 86 3. Method and data Taking a closer look at noun morphology can be an efficient way of drawing a map that may answer some of the questions asked above. Morphology is ad- vantageous in that it is possible to define and operationalise the notion of bsim- plification' here. In addition, Norwegian noun morphology, more than e.g. verb morphology, can be quite complex, and it differs very much from dialect to dialect, äs will be demonstrated below. Thus tar, I have collected data from the relatively extensive dialect litera- ture, and observed the tendencies in the centres in particular. Moreover, for sev- eral years I have collected data using a questionnaire distributed each year among students at our department My results, so far, are based on these data, but the next Step is to benefit from the national project, and collect data more systematically from all over the country. As yet, some parts of our long and extended country have been underrepresented. 4. Results 4. l The contrasts Noun morphology can be very complex in some dialects. One of the most com- plex dialect Systems is that of Sunndalen in the county of M0re og Romsdal (cf. map l), which can be rendered äs in table l: Table 1: Sunndalen (-0 indicates no suffix) Class Singular Plural indef. Definite Indef. Definite Nominative Dative Nominative Dative M-ar -0 -aji M-er -0 M-weak l M-weak2 -ap F-er -0 F-ar -0 -o F-weakl -0 -3J1 F-weak2 -0 N-0 -0 -0 N-weak lOclasses 3 variants 6 variants 5 variants 4 variants 5 variants I variant 6 inflectional categories In this table, certain smaller irregulär declension classes have been excluded, most of which are referred to äs consonant stem classes in Germanic historical linguistics.