Inkerinsuomen paradigmaattisen kompleksisuuden säilyminen kielikontaktissa ja attritiossa
Paradigmatic complexity in the contact between Ingrian Finnish and Estonian

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the maintenance of the paradigmatic complexity of Finnish verb inflection in a contact between two Finnic languages, Finnish (the Ingrian Finnish dialect) and Estonian. Here, paradigmatic complexity refers to the intricate paradigms in which historical sound changes have produced phonological di'erences between the paradigm members. The Ingrian Finnish and Estonian present and past tense paradigms of verb inflection are compared with each other, showing that Finnish inflection is in this respect remarkably complex compared with the Estonian inflection. On the basis of this comparison, five most complex verb types are chosen for closer analysis. The results show that even though the complexity is to a large extent maintained in the interview data, there are also signs of simplification, indicating that complex paradigms are susceptible to change. It has to be noted, however, that the simplification tendencies mostly coincide with in&uence from Estonian.

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