Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T19:33:20.456Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Do contact languages influence the distribution of prepositions in Estonian dialects?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2019

Mirjam Ruutma
Mirjam Ruutma*
Affiliation:
Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics, University of Tartu, Jakobi 2, 51014, Tartu, Estonia
*
Email for correspondence: mirjam.ruutma@ut.ee
Get access

Abstract

The origins of prepositional phrase structure in Finnic languages shows little evidence of being contact-induced. However, whether language contact has influenced the structure at a later stage is debatable. The current paper provides new findings on the topic of contact-induced change by comparing the distribution of prepositions in Estonian dialects with the respective contact languages. The purpose is to determine whether the usage frequency of prepositions is higher in areas mainly in contact with prepositional Indo-European languages. The topic is approached from a corpus-based, frequency-driven viewpoint. The results show a small, gradual decrease in the use of prepositions from the northeastern to the western dialect areas. Thus, the uneven but regular distribution of prepositions in Estonian dialects cannot be explained with language contact. This evidence supports the general understanding that adpositions are an unlikely class to be influenced by contact.

Keywords

adpositionsdialectsEstonianlanguage contactsprepositions
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , December 2019 , pp. 365 - 384
Copyright
© Nordic Association of Linguistics 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agresti, Alan. 2007. An Introduction to Categorical Data Analysis, 2nd edn. New York: John Wiley & Sons.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ariste, Paul. 1965a. Ülevaade Hiiu murretest [An overview about Hiiu dialect]. In Kask, Arnold (ed.), Sõna sõna kõrvale. Paul Ariste teaduslikust tegevusest [A word next to a word: About the academic work of Paul Ariste], 63–74. Tallinn: Eesti NSV teaduste akadeemia Emakeele Selts.Google Scholar
Ariste, Paul. 1965b. Vadja keele ja eesti murrete suhetest [On the relations between Estonian dialects and Votic]. In Kask, Arnold (ed.), Sõna sõna kõrvale. Paul Ariste teaduslikust tegevusest [A word next to a word: About the academic work of Paul Ariste], 106–110. Tallinn: Eesti NSV teaduste akadeemia Emakeele Selts.Google Scholar
Ariste, Paul. 1981. Keelekontaktid: Eesti keele kontakte teiste keeltega [Language Contacts: Contacts Between Estonian and other Languages]. Tallinn: Valgus.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. Harald. 2008. Analyzing Linguistic Data: A Practical Introduction to Statistics Using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailyn, John Frederick. 2011. The Syntax of Russian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Björklöf, Sofia. 2012. Viron rantamurteen länsiryhmän sanaston alkuperä suomalaislainojen valossa [The origins of the vocabulary in Eastern Coastal dialect in the light of Finnish loanwords]. Master’s thesis, University of Helsinki.Google Scholar
Borras, F. M. & Christian, Reginal Frank. 1963. Russian Syntax: Aspects of Modern Russian Syntax and Vocabulary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
EED = Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat [Estonian Explanatory Dictionary]. 2009. https://www.eki.ee/dict/ekss/ (accessed 10 April 2014).Google Scholar
Ehala, Martin. 1994. Russian influence and the change in progress in the Estonian adpositional system. Linguistica Uralica 3, 177–199.Google Scholar
Ehala, Martin. 1995a. Explaining the bipositional head–complement order in adpositional systems. In Palek, Bohumil, Dane, František, Fuijmura, Osamu & Neustupný, Jiri V. (eds.), Proceedings of LP’94: Item Order in Natural Languages, 325–339. Prague: Charles University Press.Google Scholar
Ehala, Martin. 1995b. Self-organisation and Language Change: The Theory of Linguistic Bifurcations. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
EKG I = Erelt, Mati, Kasik, Reet, Metslang, Helle, Rajandi, Henno, Ross, Kristiina, Saari, Henn, Tael, Kaja & Vare, Silvi (eds.). 1995. Eesti keele grammatika I [Estonian Reference Grammar I]. Tallinn: Eesti Teaduste Akadeemia Eesti Keele Instituut.Google Scholar
EKK = Erelt, Mati, Erelt, Tiiu & Ross, Kristiina (eds.). 2007. Eesti keele käsiraamat [Handbook of Estonian], 2nd edn. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus.Google Scholar
Erelt, Mati & Metslang, Helle. 1998. Oma või võõras? [Ours or foreign?]. Keel ja Kirjandus 10, 657–668.Google Scholar
Fennell, Trevor G. & Gelsen, Henry. 1980. A Grammar of Modern Latvian. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gries, Stefan Th. 2013. Statistics for Linguistics with R: A Pratical Introduction. Berlin & Boston, MA: De Gruyter Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grünthal, Riho. 1998. Suomalais-virolaisia meriyhteyksiä ja seprakaupan kielellisiä sivutuotteita [Finnish–Estonian contacts by sea and linguistic by-products of the barter relationship]. In Grünthal, Riho & Laakso, Johanna (eds.), Oekeeta asijoo: Commentationes Fenno-Ugricae in honorem Seppo Suhonen sexagenarii 16.V.1998 [Perspectives on the Fenno-Ugric studies in the honour of Seppo Suhonen’s 60th anniversary 16 May 1998] (Suomalais-ugrilaisen Seuran Touimituksia 228), 106–121. Helsinki: Finno-Ugrian Society.Google Scholar
Grünthal, Riho. 2003. Finnic Adpositions and Cases in Change. Helsinki: Finno-Ugrian Society.Google Scholar
Grünthal, Riho. 2005. Miksi itämerensuomessa on prepositioita? [Why do the Finnic languages have prepositions?]. Virittäjä 1, 28–51.Google Scholar
Habicht, Külli. 2000. Grammaticalization of adpositions in Old Literary Estonian. In Erelt, Mati (ed.), Estonian: Typological Studies IV, 19–58. Tartu: Tartu University Press.Google Scholar
Hagège, Claude. 2010. Adpositions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 1997. From Space to Time: Temporal Adverbials in the World’s Languages (LINCOM Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 3). München/Newcastle: LINCOM Europa.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd, Claudi, Ulrike & Hünnemeyer, Friederike. 1991. Grammaticalization: A Conceptual Framework. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania. 2005. Language Contact and Grammatical Change (Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hennoste, Tiit. 1997. Eesti keele sotsiopersioodid. Üldpilt [The social periods of Estonian: An overview]. In Erelt, Mati, Sedrik, Meeli & Uuspõld, Ellen (eds.), Pühendusteos Huno Rätsepale, 28.12.1997 [Festschrift for Huno Rätsep, 28 December 1997] (Tartu Ülikooli Eesti Keele Õppetooli Toimetised 7), 45–66. Tartu: Tartu Ülikool.Google Scholar
Hewson, John & Bubeník, Vít. 2006. From Case to Adposition: The Development of Configurational Syntax in Indo-European Languages (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science 280). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hint, Mati. 1990. Vene keele mõjud eesti keelele [Russian influences on Estonian]. Akadeemia 2, 1383–1404.Google Scholar
Holmes, Philip & Hinchliffe, Ian. 1994. Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar (Routledge Grammars). London/New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1994. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huumo, Tuomas. 2013. Many ways of moving along a path: What distinguishes prepositional and postpositional uses of Finnish path adpositions? Lingua 133, 319–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janda, Laura A., Antonsen, Lene & Baal, Berit Anne Bals. 2014. A radial category profiling analysis of North Sámi ambipositions. High Desert Linguistics Society Proceedings 10, 91–102.Google Scholar
Juhkam, Evi. 1992. Eestirootslastest [About the Estonian Swedes]. Keel ja Kirjandus 7, 394–402.Google Scholar
Juhkam, Evi. 1998. Eesti-rootsi murdekontaktid [Estonian–Swedish contacts]. Master’s thesis, University of Tallinn.Google Scholar
Kask, Arnold (ed.). 1965. Sõna sõna kõrvale. Paul Ariste teaduslikust tegevusest [A word next to a word: About the academic work of Paul Ariste]. Tallinn: Eesti NSV teaduste akadeemia Emakeele Selts.Google Scholar
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria & Wälchli, Bernhard. 2001. The Circum-Baltic languages: An areal-typological approach. In Dahl, Östen & Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria (eds.), Circum-Baltic Languages, vol. 2: Grammar and Typology (Studies in Language Companion Series 54–55), 615–750. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Laanekask, Heli. 2004. Eesti kirjakeele kujunemine ja kujundamine 16.–19. sajandil [Formation and shaping of the Estonian literary language in the 16th–19th centuries]. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tartu.Google Scholar
Lass, Roger. 1997. Historical Linguistics and Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindström, Liina, Pilvik, Maarja-Liisa, Ruutma, Mirjam & Uiboaed, Kristel. 2017. On the use of perfect and pluperfect in Estonian dialects: Frequency and language contacts. In Björklöf, Sofia & Jantunen, Santra (eds.), Plurilingual Finnic: Change of Finnic Languages in a Multilinguistic Environment, 51–89. Helsinki: Finno-Ugrian Society.Google Scholar
Luts, Arved. 1960. Rändpüügist Eesti merekalastuses [About the fishing trips in Estonian sea fishing]. Etnograafia Muuseumi Aastaraamat 17, 129–168. Tartu: Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia.Google Scholar
Matras, Yaron. 2007. The borrowability of grammatical categories. In Matras, Yaron & Sakel, Jeanette (eds.), Grammatical borrowing in cross-linguistic perspective, 31–74. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Matras, Yaron. 2009. Language Contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MDC = Morphologically Disambiguated Corpus of Estonian. 2017. http://www.cl.ut.ee/korpused/morfkorpus/index.php?lang=en (accessed 4 January 2018).Google Scholar
Melander, K. R. 1937. Virolaista asutusta Suomen etelärannikolla ja sen saarilla [Estonian settlement in the south coast and islands of Finland]. Kotiseutu 1937, 63–74.Google Scholar
Metslang, Helle. 1994. Grammatikaliseerumisest eesti ja soome keeles [On the grammaticalization in Estonian and Finnish]. Lähivertailuja 7, 9–32.Google Scholar
Metslang, Helle. 2009. Estonian grammar between Finnic and SAE: Some comparisons. Language Typology and Universals 62, 49–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Must, Mari. 1987. Kirderannikumurre. Häälikuline ja grammatiline ülevaade [Northeastern Coastal dialects: An overview of phonetics and grammar]. Tallinn: Valgus.Google Scholar
Must, Mari. 1995. Vene-eesti kakskeelsus Kirde-Eestis [Russian–Estonian bilingualism in the northeastern Estonia]. In Moora, Harri & Jaanits, Lembit (eds.), Slaavi-läänemeresoome suhete ajaloost [On the history of Slavic–Finnic relations], 107–132. Tallinn: Kirjastus “Eesti raamat”.Google Scholar
Must, Mari. 2000. Vene laensõnad eesti murretes [Russian loanwords in Estonian]. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus.Google Scholar
Pall, Valdek. 1982. Idamurde vahekorrast naabermurretega ja vadja keelega [On the relation of Eastern dialect with neighbouring dialects and Votic]. Keel ja Kirjandus 5, 246–251.Google Scholar
Palmeos, Paula. 1982. Eesti keele grammatika: II osa, neljas vihik, kaassõna [Estonian reference grammar, Part II, Fourth Book: Adposition], 3rd edn. Tartu: Tartu Riiklik Ülikool.Google Scholar
Podobryaev, Alexander. 2007. “Postposition stranding” and related phenomena in Russian. In Zybatow, Gerhild, Junghanns, Uwe, Lenertová, Denisa & Biskup, Petr (eds.), Studies in Formal Slavic Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics and Information Structure, 197–208. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
R Development Core Team. 2017. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. http://www.R-project.org/ (accessed 3 June 2019).Google Scholar
Raag, Raimo. 2008. Talurahva keelest riigikeeleks [From a peasantry language to a national language]. Tartu: Atlex.Google Scholar
Rätsep, Huno. 1979. Eesti keele ajalooline morfoloogia II [Historical morphology of Estonian]. Tartu: Tartu Riiklik Ülikool.Google Scholar
Ruutma, Mirjam. 2016. Kaassõnad eesti murretes [Adpositions in Estonian dialects]. Master’s thesis, University of Tartu.Google Scholar
Ruutma, Mirjam, Kyröläinen, Aki-Juhani, Pilvik, Maarja-Liisa & Uiboaed, Kristel. 2016. Ambipositsioonide morfosüntaktilise varieerumise kirjeldusi kvantitatiivsete profiilide abil [Descriptions of the morphosyntactic variation of ambipositions by means of quantitative profiles]. Keel ja Kirjandus 2, 92–113.Google Scholar
Saareste, Andrus. 1955. Väike eesti murdeatlas: Atlas Des Parlers Estoniens [A small atlas of Estonian dialects]. Tartu: Eesti Kirjanduse Selts.Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. 2012. Grammatical Variation in British English Dialects: A Study in Corpus-based Dialectometry (Studies in English Language). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. 2014. Methods and objectives in contemporary dialectology. In Seržant, Ilja A. & Wiemer, Björn (eds.), Contemporary Approaches to Dialectology: The Area of North, Northwest Russian and Belarusian Vernaculars/Современные Методы В Диалектологии. Ареал Северных, Северо-Западных Русских И Белорусских Говоров, 81–92. Bergen: Department of Foreign Languages, University of Bergen.Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt & Wolk, Christoph Benedikt Sebastian. 2011. Holistic corpus-based dialectology. Brazilian Journal of Applied Linguistics/Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada 11(2), 561–592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tauli, Valter. 1966. The Structural Tendencies in Uralic Languages (Indiana University Publications: Uralic and Altaic Series 17). The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Thomason, Sarah Grey & Kaufman, Terrence. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Timberlake, Alan. 2004. A Reference Grammar of Russian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Toikka, Kaja. 2003. Kirderannikumurde idaosa murde- ja keelekontaktid [Dialect and language contacts of the eastern part of Northeastern Coastal dialect]. Tallinn: TPÜ Kirjastus.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Heine, Bernd. 1991. Introduction. In Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Heine, Bernd (eds.), Approaches to Grammaticalization, vol. 1: Focus on Theoretical and Methodological Issues (Typological Studies in Language 19.1), 1–15. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Uiboaed, Kristel. 2013. Verbiühendid eesti murretes [Verb constructions in Estonian dialects]. Ph.D. dissetration, University of Tartu.Google Scholar
Uiboaed, Kristel. 2016. Spatial Visualization with R. Spatial-visualization-with-r 1.0. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.51473 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaba, Lembit. 1997. Uurimusi läti-eesti keelesuhetest [Studies about the Latvian–Estonian relations]. Tallinn/Tampere: Eesti Keele Instituut, Tampereen yliopiston suomen kielen ja yleisen kielitieteen laitos.Google Scholar
Vaba, Lembit. 2011. Kuidas läti-eesti keelekontakt on mõjutanud eesti murdekeele grammatikat ja sõnamoodustust [How Latvian–Estonian contacts have influenced the grammar and the word formation of Estonian dialects]. Emakeele Seltsi aastaraamat 56, 204–246.Google Scholar
Veismann, Ann. 2009. Eesti keele kaas- ja määrsõnade semantika võimalusi [Semantics of Estonian adpositions and adverbs]. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tartu.Google Scholar
Viikberg, Jüri. 2014. Alamsaksa laensõnadest nende tulekuajas [Arrival of Low German loanwords in Estonian]. Keel ja Kirjandus 10, 749–762.Google Scholar
Viitso, Tiit-Rein. 1990. On the earliest Finnic and Balto–Slavic contacts. Itämerensuomalaiset kontaktit: Itämerensuomalainen symposium 7. kansainvälisessä fenno-ugristikongressissa Debrecenissä 28.8–1.9.1990 [Finnic contacts: Finnic Symposium on the 7th International Finno-Ugric Conference in Debrecen, 28 August – 1 September 1990]. Helsinki: Valtion Painatuskeskus.Google Scholar
Wolk, Christoph Benedikt Sebastian. 2013. Integrating aggregational and probabilistic approaches to dialectology and language variation. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Freiburg.Google Scholar