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ScanDiaSyn-bloggen i desember 2009

Fredag den 11 december NorDiaCorp fieldwork in Halland, Sweden December 9th and 10th, Johanna Prytz and Maia Andréasson visited two locations in Halland on the west coast of Sweden. This was the first field-work for the Göteborg section of WorkPackage1 in NorDiaCorp. Our aim has been to locate informants that participated in the SweDia 2000 project ten years ago and ask them to supplement the former investigation by evaluating word orders in the ScanDiaSyn questionnaire. Tracking down the informants has not been easy. The older informants are evidently now ten years older; they may have trouble hearing or coming to the location where the interviews are to take place. The younger informants may have moved from the neighbourhood altogether, and some of them have got married and changed their last name. Nevertheless, as much as seven out of eight of the informants we met with in Halland were also in the original SweDia 2000 investigation. And, luckily, when we get in contact with the old informants, they seem to be more than happy to meet with us. One informant even called it an early Christmas gift that we were coming. Frillesås and Våxtorp in Halland In Frillesås, Halland, we first met with the two older informants at the old people's home, where one of the informants from SWEDIA2000 lives. Unfortunately, one of them had difficulties hearing the recorded sentences in the questionnaire, so we ended up reading the sentences out loud, in our Göteborg dialect. Since Frillesås is only half hour's drive from Göteborg, this is no disaster, but it made us reflect upon the risks we take when very old informants have bad hearing. There is a chance that a person with reduced hearing will want to please the interviewers by interpreting fragments of a sentence as something familiar, and not admitting that they did not catch the whole thing in it's entirety. Since we are investigating very subtle differences in word order this may leave us with unreliable data. The older male informant discussed the Frillesås dialect and made some remarks of it having traits from Danish, English, but also – in discussing this with Maia – of the fishermen's dialect of Donsö in the Southern archipelago of Göteborg. The two younger informants met with us in "Kulturgården" in Frillesås. The informants were old schoolmates, very nice and did simultaneously burst into laughter whenever they heard some of the word orders that are perfectly OK in other areas of the Nordic countries. There were some differences in judgements between the older and the younger informants. The younger were more inclined to accept for example double supine forms (i.e. Han hade länge velat läst den där boken om maffian), vart instead of blev as an auxiliary, and they also accepted the adverbs vart for existence and var for direction in questions. Informants in Frillesås filling in forms. (Photo: Maia Andréasson) In Våxtorp, we met with all the informants in "Hembygdsgården". The two older informants had grown up in the same hamlet. Just as in Frillesås we had to read out some of the sentences aloud, due to one of the informant's hearing problems. The younger informants had no problems with the recordings. Here, there were not as clear differences between younger and older informants as in Frillesås. The young informants here did not accept vart as an auxiliary instead of blir and they did not accept the adverbs vart for existence and var for direction in questions. Informants from SWEDIA2000 in Våxtorp, Halland (left and middle) enjoying a fikapaus (coffee break) with field worker Johanna Prytz. (Photo: Maia Andréasson) Interestingly, there was a difference in judgement between the older and younger informants both in Frillesås and in Våxtorp. In the section of particle placement, we ask the informants to judge between (a) Kan jag få en glass till? where the particle is final and (b) Kan jag få en till glass? where the article precedes the object. At both locations the younger informants accepted both word orders, while the older informants rejected (b). "My grandchildren talks like that!" one of the older informants stated about this word order. The younger informants apparently belong to the grandchild generation. - Maia   Þrídjudagur 8. desember Maling Seminar and Honorary Doctorate Award On December 1, 2009, Joan Maling, professor emeritus at Brandeis University, was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Iceland. Joan was a particularly appropriate choice for this honor because she has done more than most others to put the Icelandic language on the map in international linguistics. She is a frequent and welcome visitor in Iceland and has the sharp eye of the guest (glöggt er gests augað, as we say) for various theoretically interesting phenomena of Icelandic that native speakers tend to take for granted. As everybody knows, Joan was the first to note and discuss Stylistic Fronting, in a paper in Íslensk mál in 1980; this paper was later reprinted in the landmark volume Modern Icelandic Syntax, edited by Joan herself and Annie Zaenen (Academic Press, 1990). Since then, of course, countless papers have been written on Stylistic Fronting – and, given the elusive nature of this phenomenon, no end appears to be in sight. Joan Maling (right) and Sigga Sigurjónsdóttir. (Photo: Sigurjón Ólafsson) Joan has also worked intensively on another controversial construction in Icelandic, together with Sigríður Sigurjónsdóttir. This is the so-called New Passive, which Joan and Sigga in fact analyze as an impersonal active construction; needless to say, not everybody agrees with this analysis, but the debate has proven fruitful and has triggered further investigation of passive-like constructions in Icelandic and beyond, in particular in Faroese. In addition to her important scholarly achievements, Joan is also always a great source of inspiration and encouragement to the Icelandic linguistics community, and for this we owe her a lot. On the occasion of Joan Maling’s appointment as honorary doctor a two-day seminar was held at the University of Iceland. The event was generously supported by NORMS and organized in collaboration with the Institute of Linguistics and the Faculty of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies of the University of Iceland. Ten papers were presented at the seminar, on various topics in syntax close to Joan’s heart. Five of the papers were by Icelandic linguists (Jónsson, Ingason, Eythórsson, Sigurjónsdóttir, and Angantýsson) and six by linguists from other Nordic countries (Åfarli, Johannessen, Svenonius, Platzack, Engdahl, and Nikanne). The seminar is generally thought to have been a very pleasant and stimulating event. Joan Maling with a selection of her former au pairs.(Photo: Sigurjón Ólafsson) Immediately after the seminar the honorary doctorate ceremony took place in the Grand Aula of the University, presided over by Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson. Höskuldur Þráinsson presented a very informative and entertaining (real “Höski style”) overview of Joan Maling’s contribution to Icelandic linguistics. Afterwards there was a reception and photo opportunity (see the pictures), featuring among others a splendid group of Joan’s former au-pair girls. - Tolli