|
1
ScanDiaSyn-bloggen i oktober 2007
Laurdag 20. oktober
 |
| Kristine Bentzen at the defense podium (MMS-photo: Øystein A. Vangsnes) |
Kristine Bentzen has just defended her doctoral dissertation today in a public defense at the University of Tromsø. Her dissertation is a collection of six papers written over the last couple of years, three of them in collaboration with other authors, and bears the title “Order and Structure: in embedded clauses in Northern Norwegian”. Opponents at the defense were Professor Caroline Heycock of the University of Edinburgh and Assistant Professor Susi Wurmbrand of the University of Connecticut. Third member of the committee was Professor Knut Tarald Taraldsen.
 |
| Kristine Bentzen discussing with second opponent Susi Wurmbrand (MMS-photo: Øystein A. Vangsnes) |
After first giving her trial lecture on the assigned topic ‘The acquisition of finiteness’ Kristine gave an outline of her dissertation for the audience. Then followed the critiques from and discussion with the two opponents, interluded by a lunch break.
Kristine is the first CASTL PhD candidate proper to defend her thesis – proper in the sense that she is the first defender to hold a PhD grant from the CoE. Furthermore I would say that she is also a real product of ScanDiaSyn/NORMS – Kristine has truely been active in the various activities in and related to the network: She participated in the PhD course on methods that was organized in Oslo i 2004, she has travelled to all three grand meetings, she took part in the fieldworks in Northern Ostrobothnia and in Senja, and although she couldn't make it to the Älvdalen field trip, she went there on the follow-up trip a couple a weeks ago. Kristine has presented her work at a whole lot of workshops on syntactic microcvariation throughout the last four years.
 |
| Order and Structure in the auditorium (MMS-photo: Øystein A. Vangsnes) |
So all in all this is a great day not only for Kristine and CASTL, but also for the whole Scandinavian Dialect Syntax community! Congratulations, Kristine!
- Øystein
Onsdag 10. oktober
DanDiaSyns hjemmeside er gået i luften. Her kan I bl.a. finde information om NORMS-ekskursionen til Vestjylland - husk at tilmelde jer før 15. november.
Kommentarer og tilføjelser modtages gerne :-)
– Lena i København
Lovdàn sjäkst oktober
 |
| Lake Nässjön in Älvdalen October 2007 (Photo: Piotr Garbacz) |
Henrik Rosenkvist, Piotr Garbacz, Kristine Bentzen, and Peter Svenonius are reporting from Älvdalen. Piotr came a week ago, and the rest of us arrived on Thursday. The locals appear to be pleased with our open letter published in Mora Tidning a few days ago, in which we encouraged speakers to preserve their language by passing it on to children. We have been working intensively with informants born between 1925 and 1938, and have made much headway, thanks to their help and generosity.
 |
| Peter Svenonius and Kristine Bentzen interrogating Uls-Gerda on Övdalian syntax (Photo: Piotr Garbacz) |
We have made great inroads into the structure of a language variety which we are tentatively calling ‘conservative’ or ‘traditional’ Övdalian or Älvdalian, in order to distinguish it from the ‘classic’ Övdalian described by Levander in 1909 and from the ‘modern’ Övdalian spoken by younger speakers. Features of conservative Övdalian that we have been studying include negative concord, subject pronoun doubling, verb movement in embedded clauses, certain restrictions on subject extraction, and a distinctive system of case. Conservative Övdalian shares with Modern Övdalian various other distinctive qualities, such as subject agreement, null subjects, and a three-way gender system.
One of many words that we learned on this trip was djyryl, which betokens tree sap that is too soft to chew, but which can be used as a sort of glue to hold sand on a stick for sharpening scythes.
We’re sharpening our pencils in preparation for the big upcoming Övdalian conference next summer. We have heard from Yair Sapir that we can expect to see a call for papers soon.
– Henrik, Piotr, Kristine, and Peter
Onsdag 3. oktober
 |
| Margit og UiOs utlånsbil (Photo: Signe Laake) |
Torsdag 27. september dro Margit Ims og Signe Laake avgårde til Telemark for å gjøre opptak med informanter. Vi lånte gratis bil av UiO og kjørte fra Oslo til Nissedal tidlig på morgenen. I Nissedal møtte vi to av informantene hjemme hos den ene informanten. Der var det full oppdekning med rundstykker, kanelboller og bløtkake. Opptaket gikk veldig bra, og spørreskjemaet fungerte utrolig bra.
Etter lunsj bar det videre til Kvitsund videregående skole i Kvitseid kommune for å møte to elever fra Nissedal der. Dette er en internatskole som ligger helt fantastisk til. Her overnattet vi også. Det var like greit for vi var ikke ferdig før kl 21 om kvelden.
 |
| Atrå samfunnshus sammen med bilinteressert informant (Photo: Signe Laake) |
Dagen etter sto Tinn for tur. Vi sto opp grytidlig for å møte første informant på Atrå samfunnshus kl 10. Vi hadde en fantastisk kjøretur langs Tinnsjøen. På Atrå fikk høre mange spennede historier av den ene informanten som studerte gamle kirkebøker og skrev lokalhistoriske bøker. De to siste informantene var utrolig bilinteresserte og klarte nesten å overbevise oss om å flytte til Atrå.
Turen gikk veldig bra selv om det ble mye kjøring. Spørreskjemaet fungerer bra. Noen av informantene syns til og med det var litt moro. Ellers var det noen nybegynnerfeil, men alt i alt var vi enige om at det hadde vært en fin tur.
- Signe
 |
| På vei til Kvitsund langs Nisser (Photo: Signe Laake) |
Arkiv 2007
September
August
Juni
Mai
April
Mars
Januar/Februar
2006
Desember
November
Oktober
September
August
Juni
Mai
April
Mars
Februar
Januar
2005
Oktober-desember
|
