We log anonymous usage statistics. Please read the privacy information for details.
Grammaticalization in the North: Noun phrase morphosyntax in Scandinavian vernaculars
Synopsis
This book looks at some phenomena within the grammar of the noun phrase in a group of traditional North Germanic varieties mainly spoken in Sweden and Finland, usually seen as Swedish dialects, although the differences between them and Standard Swedish are often larger than between the latter and the other standard Mainland Scandinavian languages. In addition to being conservative in many respects – e.g. in preserving nominal cases and subject-verb agreement – these varieties also display many innovative features. These include extended uses of definite articles, incorporation of attributive adjectives, and a variety of possessive constructions. Although considerable attention has been given to these phenomena in earlier literature, this book is the first to put them in the perspective of typology and grammaticalization processes. It also looks for a plausible account of the historical origin of the changes involved, arguing that many of them spread from central Sweden, where they were later reverted due to the influence from prestige varieties coming from southern Scandinavia.
Reviews
-
Review in Nordic Journal of Linguistics
by Kersti Börjars
published November 29, 2017
All in all, I think this is a gem of a book, in particular because of the wealth of data and the typological take on varieties of a language. The main point relating to innovation in Peripheral Swedish is most clearly made with respect to the spread of definiteness, but Dahl recognises that issues with the data with respect to attributive constructions and possessive constructions make it harder to be as confident about the conclusions. Still, the general idea is well illustrated. The level of detail does at times make it hard for the reader to discern the overall pattern, but the wealth of data is a major asset of the book. More maps earlier in the book, illustrating the spread of major patterns across the varieties, would have been helpful here.
![book cover](https://langsci-press.org/public/presses/1/submission_73_73_coverImage.png)
Downloads
Published
June 11, 2015
LaTeX source on
GitHub
Print ISSN
2363-5568
Cite as
Dahl, Östen. 2015. Grammaticalization in the North: Noun phrase morphosyntax in Scandinavian vernaculars. (Studies in Diversity Linguistics 6). Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10.17169/langsci.b73.17
Copyright (c) 2016 Östen Dahl
Details about the available publication format: PDF
PDF
ISBN-13 (15)
978-3-944675-57-2
Publication date (01)
2015-06-11
doi
10.17169/langsci.b73.17
Details about the available publication format: Bibliography
Bibliography
Publication date (01)
2015-06-11
Details about the available publication format: Hardcover
Hardcover
ISBN-13 (15)
978-3-944675-78-7
Details about the available publication format: Softcover
Softcover
ISBN-13 (15)
978-1-523743-60-5