Multilingualism and longitudinal language contact in the German-Danish border region (original) (raw)
Related papers
Related languages, convergence and replication: Faroese-Danish
International Journal of Bilingualism, 2011
The aim of this article is to present examples of a number of types of changes in Faroese that have come about under the influence of Danish. The majority of the residents of the Faroe Islands are bilingual in Faroese (L1) and Danish . This has resulted in many loanwords, convergence and replication. The main topic of this article is convergence and replication, and we subscribe to a definition of convergence that stresses it as a one-way phenomenon, which involves the abstract level structure of a source language, and the surface-level patterns coming from the recipient language.
Language contact and V3 in Germanic varieties new and old
Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics, 2017
Certain recently-attested varieties of Germanic V2 languages are known to deviate from the strict V2 requirement characteristic of the standard. This is the case, for example, for Kiezdeutsch, a new German dialect, as well as urban vernacular varieties of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish: descriptively speaking, in these varieties, subject-verb inversion may be absent under certain well-defined conditions. In this article I outline those conditions and the type of syntactic analysis required to account for them, claiming that an articulated left periphery is needed to account for the findings. The similarity of the V3 patterns found in these new varieties, which are geographically isolated from each other but which share a characterization in terms of the demographics of their speaker groups, invites a diachronic account in terms of language contact. I argue that transfer cannot account for V3, but that a scenario of sequential simplification and complexification is able to do so. Finally, turning to Old English, which exhibits similar (though not identical) V2/V3 alternations, I argue that a similar synchronic analysis can be upheld and that its diachronic origins may well also have been similar—a case of using the present to inform our approach to the past.
Converging VP in Related Languages
The paper deals with Danish-Faroese and Danish-German language contact, in particular Faro-Danish and Danish-German verb phrases that are constructed under heavy influence of Faroese and German, respectively. The theoretical framework is the Abstract Level Model (2002) as well as further developments by and . The focus of the work described is on the process and the results of convergence. It will be shown how semantic information, syntactic information (predicate-argument-structure) and the morphological realization patterns are transferred extensively from one language to another, without this being evidenced by an insertional kind of code-switching.
Danish and German as European neighbour languages
2021
Schleswig-a region of longitudinal language contact For centuries, Schleswig /South Jutland was an area of language contact between varieties of five typologically and genetically related Germanic languages: South Jutish, North-Friesian, Low German, Standard German (Hochdeutsch), and Standard Danish (Rigsdansk, predominantly as a written variety until 1920). After a short introduction, my presentation will focus on those linguistic features where South Jutish substratum influenced the spoken regional West German varieties: (1) und/än-constructions, (2) prepositions in front of infinitive constructions, (3) durative constructions and finally (3) inchoative constructions. The hypothesis suggested is that these features are the results of a linguistic situation characterized by widespread (productive and/or receptive) bi-and multilingualism and language shift(s). The situation before 1920 will be contrasted with the linguistic development after the division of Schleswig in 1920 which is characterized by an increasing dominance of the standard varieties of German and Danish at the expense of the traditional regional vernaculars, the emergence of a non-focused contact variety based on Standard Danish (Sydslesvigdansk), and a gradual decrease of regional bi-and multilingualism during the last three generations.
Middle Low German-Middle Scandinavian language contact and morphological simplification
Multilingua 16:4, 389-409, 1997
The impact of Low German on the Continental Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian) in the days of the Hanseatic League has been a decisive chapter in Scandinavian language history. Not only were a substantial amount of words transferred from Middle Low German into Middle Scandinavian, it has also been argued that Middle Low German influence played an important part in the loss of inflectional morphology (deflexion) in most varieties of the continental Scandinavian languages, although this aspect remains somewhat underexposed in the extensive literature on language contact between Middle Low German and Middle Scandinavian . The strongest argument in favour of this claim is that the decline of the old native inflectional Systems reached its most advanced stage in precisely those areas where Middle Low German impact was at its strongest, whereas more peripheral languages and dialects, such as Icelandic or certain Swedish rural dialects are more conservative. However, it still remains unclear in what way contact with Middle Low German affected Scandinavian morphology. In the present study I will examine some of the hypotheses that have been put forward with regard to the relationship between language contact and morphological simplification. I will approach this problem from two, rather different, angles. First, I will discuss the hypothesis that long term contact between closely related languages (such as Middle Low German and Middle Scandinavian or Old English and Old Norse), which to a degree are mutually intelligible, leads to a rapid neutralisation of inflectional differences. The second viewpoint I will consider concerns the relation between the vast amount of loan-words and morphological simplification (cf. Norde 1994). I will take the Middle Low German influence on Middle Swedish as an example.
The role of finite verbs in mixed and converged languages
“On the role of finite verbs in overtly mixed and in converged languages”. Bo65. Festskrift till Bo Ralph (Kristinn Jóhannesson et al. eds.). Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet, 2010, pp.242 - 251 (Meijerbergs arkiv för svensk ordforskning 39).
The replication of concrete formal-structural material (morpho-phonological forms with attached meanings) from one language in another is universally understood to instantiate grammatical and lexical 'borrowing' (we follow mainstream usage here and attach no value judgement to the word 'borrowing' itself, which is obviously just a metaphor). More controversial is the interpretation of contact-induced structural change that does not involve such replication of forms, but is manifested rather through shift in meaning, distribution, or organisation of inherited material, inspired by an external model. Such changes are sometimes referred to as 'convergent developments' , and are often typical of linguistic areas. We explore the position of language convergence of this kind in the overall context of contact-induced change. Taking into consideration recent work on language convergence in the context of grammaticalisation theory (Heine & Kuteva 2005), we address the mechanism that is involved when language-internal resources are employed to replicate an external model. We attempt to trace this mechanism to its roots at the level of the organisation of communicative discourse in multilingual settings.
Case studies of contact-induced morphological change in Germanic
"Most research on language contact is limited to phonology and syntax (Schrijver forthc.), whereas its effects on morphology have been neglected by most scholars. However, some studies on language contact (Weinreich 1953, Thomason/Kaufman 1988, Heine/Kuteva 2005, Gardani 2008) have emphasized that it did affect the domain of morphology as well. I will present two case studies of contact-induced morphological change in the Germanic (Gmc.) languages to demonstrate both the explanatory power and problems of contact-induced explanations. One of the most debated problems of historical English studies is the rise of the 3rd sg s-ending in the English verb. It can be traced back to Old English, more specifically to the Northumbrian ending as, es. This ending stands in contradiction to what is usually reconstructed and expected in a Gmc. language in the 3rd person sg, i.e. a dental ending. As will be shown, the s-ending has been analogically transferred from the 2nd sg-ending of the Northumbrian verb on the model of Old Norse, where the 2nd and 3rd sg endings had the same form. The second case study is concerned with the reduction of the PIE verbal tense/aspect system to a simple non-past/past opposition in Proto-Gmc. In PIE, there was a complex tense/aspect-system, including different categories like aorist, perfect, present. In Proto-Gmc. however, only two tenses are left and aspect has completely disappeared. Traditional approaches have posited internal language change as the force behind these changes, whereas alternative hypotheses have proposed external influence, i.e. language contact. Thus, the Gmc. verbal system is characterized by diachronic processes that are often observed in language contact situations, specifically in situations of second language acquisition (Thomason/Kaufman 1988: 74-75; van Coetsem 2000: 182; Mailhammer 2007: 197). However, it is unlikely, both on linguistic and archaeological grounds, that the language that influenced Gmc. was Punic (Mailhammer 2010; Vennemann 1998 and elsewhere). It is much more likely that Germanic was influenced by Baltic-Finnic languages, which belong to a language family with a simple two-tense system. References: van Coetsem, Frans. 2000. A General and Unified Theory of the Transmission Process in Language Contact. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter. Gardani, Francesco. 2008. Borrowing of inflectional morphemes in language contact, Wien: Lange. Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania. 2005. Language Contact and Grammatical Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mailhammer, Robert. 2007. The Germanic Strong Verbs. Foundations and Development of a new System [Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 183]. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Mailhammer, Robert. 2010. Die etymologische Forschung und Lehre auf dem Gebiet des Germanischen. Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia 15, 37-65. Schrijver, Peter. forthcoming. Language Contact and the Origin of Europe's Languages. Routledge Chapman & Hall. Thomason, Sarah Grey & Kaufman, Terrence. 1988. Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weinreich, Uriel. 1953. Languages in Contact, 6th. edition [Reprint]. The Hague/Paris: Mouton. Vennemann, Theo. 1998. Germania Semitica: +plōg/+pleg-, +furh-/+farh-, +folk/+flokk, +felh-/+folg. Deutsche Grammatik – Thema in Variationen: Festschrift für Hans-Werner-Eroms zum 60. Geburtstag. Donhauser, Karin & Eichinger, Ludwig M. (eds.), 245–261."
The convergence process between Faroese and Faro-Danish
The topic of this paper is convergence in an asymmetrical bilingual setting, and it will be shown that the outcome of the convergence process is different in the dominant language (L1) from what it is in the receiving language (L2). In L1, there is complication of the receiving language, while there is reduction in the syntax of the L2.