Rogier Blokland | Uppsala University (original) (raw)

Papers by Rogier Blokland

ESUKA/JEFUL, 2022

In language contact situations indefinite pronouns are susceptible to bor rowing and/or calquing,... more In language contact situations indefinite pronouns are susceptible to bor rowing and/or calquing, and Livonian, which has been under strong influence of Latvian, is no exception. The negative prefixoid äb, originally the third person singular of the negative auxiliary äb, and calqued on Latvian ne-neg, has been used to form nouns (e.g., äbkūlzit neg.obedience 'disobedience'), adjectives (e.g., äbjõvā neg.good 'bad') and adverbs (e.g., äbknaššõ neg.nicely 'nastily'), but in a number of 19th century sources one also finds indefinite pronouns with this same negative prefixoid, e.g., a̤ b midāgid 'nothing'. However, due to the synchronous identity of äb as a tensed negative auxiliary (present tense: äb, past tense: iz), in past tense clauses the negative prefixoid of indefinite pronouns was then also inflected, leading to forms such as is midāgid. For a brief period in the 19th century Livonian therefore had a tensed negative pronominal construction.

Uralic studies, languages, and researchers; Proceedings of the 5th Mikola Conference 19–20, September 2019, 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or tra... more All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by other means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the author or the publisher.

Multilingual Facilitation, 2021

In this paper we analyse an epic song, performed by Ulita Koskova in 1966 in Kolva in the Komi AS... more In this paper we analyse an epic song, performed by Ulita Koskova in 1966 in Kolva in the Komi ASSR, and recorded by the Hungarian-Australian researcher Erik Vászolyi, and discuss its background and wider historical context. We look at different ways how such material can contribute to data-driven and sociolinguistically oriented research, specifically in connection to contemporary documentary linguistics , and point to directions for further research.

Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Computational Linguistics of Uralic Languages, 2020

This article introduces a novel and creative application of the Constraint Grammar formalism, by ... more This article introduces a novel and creative application of the Constraint Grammar formalism, by presenting an automated method for pseudonymising a Zyrian Komi spoken language corpus in an effective, reliable and scalable manner. The method is intended to be used to minimize various kinds of personal information found in the corpus in order to make spoken language data available while preventing the spread of sensitive personal data about the recorded informants or other persons mentioned in the texts. In our implementation, a Constraint Grammar based pseudonymisa-tion tool is used as an automatically applied shallow layer that derives from the original corpus data a version which can be shared for open research use.

Teesiq Seo artikli tutvustas vahtsõt ja loovat piirdmiisi grammatiga (PG) formalismõ pruuk´mist. Taas om metod´, kon PG pru-ugitas tuusjaos, et süräkomi kõnõldu keele korpusõ lindistuisi saassiq tegüsähe, kim-mähe ja kontrol´misõvõimalusõga vaŕonim-miga käkkiq. Seo metod´om tett, et kor-pusõn saassiq kõnõlõjidõ andmit nii pall´o vähembäs võttaq, ku või, ja et tulõmit saas-siq kergehe käsilde kontrolliq. Mi plaani perrä pruugitas taad ku automaatsõt ki-hti, miä tege korpusõ säändses, et taad või kergehe uuŕmisõ jaos jakaq.

ESUKA-JEFUL, 2018

Courland Livonian is the only Finnic language where the habitive expressions of giving, taking, a... more Courland Livonian is the only Finnic language where the habitive expressions of giving, taking, and having do not use the so-called l-cases, but instead the dative, the elative or a postposition. As the l-cases mostly only occur in a number of fossilised expressions they have received less attention in the literature. In this article we summarise the functions of the l-cases in Courland Livonian on the basis of previous research and consider their status.

Negation in Uralic Languages., 2015

Standard negation in South Saami utilizes a negative auxiliary, which has two tenses (present and... more Standard negation in South Saami utilizes a negative auxiliary, which has two tenses (present and preterite), and connegative forms of the lexical verb. The negative auxiliary has a full personal paradigm in the imperative (except for the third person dual), whilst normal verbs only have a second person singular in the imperative. In predicative, locative, existential and possession clauses a combination of the negative auxiliary and the verb ‘to be’ is used. The present third person singular of the negative auxiliary serves as a negative reply. There are no specifically negative indefinites, and interrogative pronouns are also used as indefinites. Negative adjectives are mainly formed with suffixes, though borrowed prefixes also occur.

The fascination with Inner Eurasian languages in the 17th century, 2018

Mnnf. lkwners ~rtf mdrttlt9tn 6ttrdffrnis I t btt bcm fd1tr .att be f11Ua ©Q.1bb JOM .~LA, J)otll... more Mnnf. lkwners ~rtf mdrttlt9tn 6ttrdffrnis I t btt bcm fd1tr .att be f11Ua ©Q.1bb JOM .~LA, J)otll> Ki.etti, 'Jldfi1 ' !:. 'en, ~on~'r 0~11o1> etoJ 1'.~ng, (frb Tbult:, !Drtefa Juk_.t; ~a" ~Uft\' U Porti &c. frm aUa dro itnftct l'rt>. Del) atct dro bcr iolattt> otucMfl11 orb fQf£'rU ())fon Maren, \'lJlor9on tUcr bhrtou JE., /,, &c. ~~r ato C' cf) !opfta/ fojom i ~ Oi'\Jo, J;uf,, tutJf> Pi:11ii, rlra PifJix, €" ro urp I\ i//lcit,.

The paper describes work-in-progress by the Pite Saami, Kola Saami and Izhva Komi language docume... more The paper describes work-in-progress by the Pite Saami, Kola Saami and Izhva Komi language documentation projects, all of which use similar data and technical frameworks and are carried out collaboratively in Uppsala, Tromsø, Syktyvkar and Freiburg. Our projects record and annotate spoken language data in order to provide comprehensive speech corpora as databases for future research on and for these endangered – and under-described – Uralic speech communities. Applying language technology in language documentation helps us to create more systematically annotated corpora, rather than eclectic data collections. Ultimately, the multimodal corpora created by our projects will be useful for scientifically significant quantitative investigations on these languages in the future.

Актуальные проблемы диалектологии языков народов России Материалы ХIV Всероссийской научной конференции (Уфа, 20-22 ноября 2014 г.), 2014

In borrowability hierarchies pronouns usually occupy a relatively low position, i.e. they are ass... more In borrowability hierarchies pronouns usually occupy a relatively low position, i.e. they are assumed not to borrowed very often. This is undoubtedly true, and therefore cases
where it does occur may be of some interest with regard to the question what can be borrowed, and under what circumstances. Cases of borrowed non-personal pronouns
are comparatively common, but personal pronouns are borrowed relatively rarely. Such instances can usually be divided into a number of categories, and they tend to occur
mostly in languages where pronouns are open classes, in neighbouring languages with different clusivity strategies, in languages with avoidance styles, and in closely related
languages. In a number of Uralic languages cases of borrowed pronouns are also found, though most of these do not come under any of the abovementioned categories. Borrowed
personal pronouns occur in Enets, Komi-Zyryan and Komi-Permyak and in Vote. In these languages, however, the reasons for borrowing such pronouns are different: in Enets and Vote it was probably paradigmatic systematicity, whilst in the Komi cases it is most likely due to identity of various pronominal case forms.

Language contacts in times of globalization, 2011

Standard Russian and the Russian Pomor dialect are relatively new arrivals on the Kola Peninsula ... more Standard Russian and the Russian Pomor dialect are relatively new arrivals on the Kola Peninsula in north-western Russia. The indigenous languages spoken there comprise the Saamic languages Skolt Saami, Kildin Saami and Ter Saami, which belong to the Uralic language family. Speakers of the distantly related Uralic language Iźva Komi, a Permic language, arrived in the 1880s. The present article sketches recent language contact situations between Saami, Iźva Komi and Russian on the Kola Peninsula and describes the impact of these contacts in the respective languages.

Tragel, Ilona (ed). 2010. Keele rajad. Pühendusteos professor Helle Metslangi 60. sünnipäevaks, 2010

The present paper consists of two parts: a) the influence of Russian on Estonian lexicon, and b) ... more The present paper consists of two parts: a) the influence of Russian on Estonian lexicon, and b) the influence of Russian on Estonian morphosyntax. The first part is a summary of previous research, whilst the second part deals with a number of topics not explored previously. Estonian lexical loans can be
roughly divided into pre-Soviet and post-Soviet loans. In dialects and colloquial Estonian Russian influence has been strong enough for a number of morphological elements to have been borrowed in addition to discourse markers and conjunctions. Russian origin is also suggested for a number of morphosyntactic features: the use of kes „who‟ as a numerator; uses of the verbs tasuma and maksma in clauses embedding purpose or result clauses; perfective use of kõik „all‟; numeral approximativity expressed by word order inversion; incongruence in relative clauses, predicated and object ellipsis, and the use of the so-called echoic imperative.

Emakeele Seltsi Aastaraamat, 2007

The present article sets itself two specific aims: a) to list all types of non-suffixal diminutiv... more The present article sets itself two specific aims: a) to list all types of non-suffixal diminutive derivation in Estonian, and b) to prove that the main function of these derivational mechanisms is to derive diminutives.
Types of non-suffixal diminutive derivation include insertion of i in inlaut (e.g. kukk ‘cock’ > kikas ‘id.’), between the stem and suffix (lipats ‘thin splinter’ > lipits ‘id.’), and in the suffix (?sula ‘soft’ > sulnis ‘sweet, delightful’); replacement of a non-palatalized consonant with ś (e.g. poeg ‘son’ > poiss ‘boy’); desuffixation (e.g. hobune ‘horse’ > hobu ‘id.’); lexicalization of the genitive (e.g. emm ‘mother’ > emme ‘id.’), and gemination (e.g. jõgi ‘river’ > jõkk ‘ditch’).
A comparison of words formed thus with their base words confirms that the meanings acquired by the derivatives coincide with meanings in Jurafsky’s (1996) polysemic model of diminutive universals, thereby proving that the above-mentioned derivational mechanisms produce diminutives.
The derivatives recorded permit us to speak of a systematic derivational model in at least three cases: insertion of i in the stem, lexicalization of the genitive, and gemination. The most common meanings denoted by these derivational mechanisms are SMALL, SMALL TYPE OF, AFFECTION and IMITATION.
The above-mentioned non-suffixal derivational mechanisms have different levels of typological universality. Whilst the derivation of diminutives with an i-element is common in the world’s languages, consonant gemination as a diminution mechanism seems to occur only in Estonian.
The three above-mentioned derivational mechanisms may be linked to the morphophonological attrition in Estonian. Through this development the agglutinative character of Estonian morphology has become more inflectional, with derivation losing part of its morphotactic transparency. As these three derivational mechanisms are morphotactically less transparent than suffixal derivation, they harmonize with the general direction of typological change in Estonian.

Janse, Mark & Tol, Sijmen (eds) 2003. Language Death and Language Maintenance. Theoretical, practical and descriptive approaches. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 240, 2003

Blokland, Rogier & Hasselblatt, Cornelius (eds) 2002. Finno-Ugrians and Indo-Europeans. Linguistic and Literary Contacts. Proceedings of the Symposium at the University of Groningen, November 22-24, 2001. Studia Fenno-Ugrica 2., 2002

… nonus internationalis Fenno-Ugristarum. Tartu 7.-13.8. …, 2001

Books by Rogier Blokland

ESUKA/JEFUL, 2022

Uralic studies, languages, and researchers; Proceedings of the 5th Mikola Conference 19–20, September 2019, 2021

Multilingual Facilitation, 2021

Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Computational Linguistics of Uralic Languages, 2020

ESUKA-JEFUL, 2018

Negation in Uralic Languages., 2015

The fascination with Inner Eurasian languages in the 17th century, 2018

Language contacts in times of globalization, 2011

Tragel, Ilona (ed). 2010. Keele rajad. Pühendusteos professor Helle Metslangi 60. sünnipäevaks, 2010

Emakeele Seltsi Aastaraamat, 2007

Janse, Mark & Tol, Sijmen (eds) 2003. Language Death and Language Maintenance. Theoretical, practical and descriptive approaches. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 240, 2003

… nonus internationalis Fenno-Ugristarum. Tartu 7.-13.8. …, 2001

Language documentation is an emerging sub-feld of applied linguistics. Although it evolved out of... more Language documentation is an emerging sub-feld of applied linguistics. Although it evolved out of traditional feldwork methodology used primarily by descriptive linguists and linguistic anthropologists, language documentation is no longer merely a method, as it has its own primary aims and methodologies. One of the most important purposes of language documentation is making data available for further research on and for endangered languages, for both further theoretical and applied research, as well as for direct use by the relevant language community. "Archiving" is but one (albeit very important) aspect of language documentation.

Among the holdings of the National Library of Sweden there is a manuscript titled Pater noſter: V... more Among the holdings of the National Library of Sweden there is a manuscript titled Pater noſter: Varijs Linguis ‘Lord’s Prayer: in various languages’, which contains 20 translations of the Lord’s Prayer. The last page of this manuscript is very defective, and its language was not identified in the first study to mention this manuscript (Biezais, Haralds. 1955. Ein neugefundener Text des lettischen Vaterunsers aus dem 16. Jahrhundert. Nordisk Tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen 42. 47–54). However, last year it was found to be a southern variety of Saami. Earlier manuscripts of the Lord’s Prayer in Saami are unknown, making this potentially the oldest known Saami text in manuscript form that has survived to the present day. Although it has not been possible to decipher the entire text, this article provides a tentative transcription and compares it to the first known published Lord’s Prayers in Saami from 1619. Additionally, it briefly presents the manuscript and its history, and gives some background on the activities of the church in northern Sweden during the 16th century when such translations came into existence.

Digital copy of the manuscript: https://manuscripta.se/ms/101704#