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Review on: Р. П. Попова, С. А. Сажина, Фонетические и морфологические особенности коми диалектов (сравнительный аспект исследования). Монография, Сыктывкар 2014
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The “Székely ektiviti” or Szekler Activity parlour game was created in 2009 and has been commercialized since 2011. The main difference between the Szekler activity game and the original version lies in the linguistic content (apart from some minor differences in the rules of the game). As its name suggests it contains 100 cards with Szekler dialect words (at least considered as such). In 2012 the creators added 50 more cards, thus the game consists of a total number of 300+150 tasks. The present study aims to analyse the linguistic content of the game, namely to examine how and in what sense are the words/phrases “Szekler” and what conscious or hidden ideologies are reflected in this language corpus. In order to have a comparative overview, the paper also analyses the linguistic content of a similar game originating from the same context – the „Székely aktív” game. The two parlour games are also discussed from a marketing perspective, focusing on how they fit into the branding trends prevailing across different economic sectors in Szeklerland.
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This is the first ever survey of the names of icicles used in the dialects of the Komi-Zyrian language. The analysed items include both native lexical unit (words and phrases) and lexemes borrowed from Russian dialects. The analysis proves that many of the native names have a transparent internal form. Some semantic models used in the naming of icicles are identified.
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The article is devoted to the names of ’ladybug’ in the Udmurt language, which reflect the influence of neighboring cultures. For example, at first glance the composite čužanai̯/papa (literally ’maternal grandmother + insect’) is in no doubt of Udmurt origin. In fact, however, the above word is a loan translation from the Chuvash kukamai, which is used both in the sense of ’maternal grandmother’ and ’ladybug’. A careful analysis of the material has enabled us to identify the names of ’ladybug’ emerged under the influence of Russian, Mari, Chuvash and Kryashen Tatar cultures, thus refuting their previous attribution to a genuine Udmurt origin.
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The article deals with the polysemantic word čidan in the Udmurt language, the reference of which is opposed to arrogance, egoism, and ambitiousness. The folklore and linguistic sources considered indicate that the term čidan ’patience, humility, endurance, stamina’ refers to an important feature of the Udmurt national character. The word čidan has a dual meaning: some people think it shows a weakness of will and character, an inclination to tolerate humiliation; some others interprete it positively as an ability to stay calm, to overcome life’s difficulties, and endure physical and mental pain.
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Review on: И. Г. Иванов, Мутвундынам пойдарена. Шуен вашлиялтше мут-влак, Йошкар-Ола, Марий книга савыктыш, 2015
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XVI International Permian Symposium
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The aim of the dialectal researches carried out at the Hungarian Language and Literature Institute, Faculty of Central European Studies, Constantin the Philosopher University, Nitra, is to prepare a Hungarian language atlas of the Csallóköz region. The research started in 2010. The recording and processing of the synchronous dialectal collection planned for the entire research network has been carried out by the Bihalbocs software developed by Domokos Vékás and Fruzsina Sára Vargha. This paper gives an account of the results of the new, computerized processing method of the digitized data. It presents the compared results of previous and recent dialectal data, maps illustrating the regional and social distribution of the phenomena, and the possibilities of a wide range of analyses using voice synchronized dialectal dana.
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The topic of this study is language ideologies in minority language journals. It analyses the language ideologies expressed in four journals of three minorities: speakers of Csángó, Meänkieli and Kven. I am mainly interested in what language ideologies are reflected in the relation of minorities to their own language, the majority language, bi- and multilingualism; what they think about the importance of language standardization and about the relationship between language and identity. The journals researched are the Moldvai Magyarság, written in Hungarian and Romanian; the Ruijan Kaiku, written in Finnish, Kven and Norwegian; the Met, which publishes articles in Meänkieli and Swedish, as well as Meänmaa, publishing in Meänkieli. Th e text corpus shows the following ideologies: the ideology of inferiority, of pluralism or liberalism and the ideology which considers language the basis of identity. A difference can be made among the journals as the ideologies the texts represent are concerned. In the case of the Csángó journal, for example, the emphasis is laid on the unity with the Hungarian language standard; at the same time, in the Meänkieli and the Kven journals this kind of ideology is totally absent, as Meänkieli and Kven speakers do not identify with the Finnish language standard.
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This article focuses on formal subjects in Finnish as a foreign language learners’ texts. My aim is to study sentences, which in Finnish are subjectless, or have a non-typical subject. The prototypical subject in Finnish is in the nominative, agrees with the predicate, and is in preverbal position. In Finnish, however, there are plenty of subjectless constructions and clause types, for example, different expressions of weather and state. In Finnish, formal subjects are not part of these constructions. Tere are also non-typical subjects, such as clausal and infinitival subjects, or partitive subjects in existential clauses. Unlikein many Indoeuropean languages, in standard Finnish, there are no formal subjects (also known as expletives), which are non-referential, “semantically empty”, and formally fulfill the role of subject. Based on my earlier teaching experiences and this study, learners of Finnish tend to add a formal subject, an additional and unnecessary subject, in clauses which in Finnish actually are naturally subjectless, or have a subject which is not a prototypical nominative subject. Multifunctional, diverse and familiar pronoun se is applied by learners in case they have decided to add an additional subject argument.My data comes from International Corpus of Learner Finnish (ICLFI). The majority, 61 %, of formal subject clauses in my data are produced by learners on language skill level B1 or B2. My aim is to provide an overview on additional formal se-subject in learners’ written Finnish. Formal subjects are known in many languages, whereas in Finnish there is a variety of subjectless constructions. This phenomenon is interesting from a point of view of Finnish syntax, and learners’ language.
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This article presents the results of research on how Swedish-speaking students learning Finnish as a foreign language choose local cases and describe their strategies to do it. &e research is based on the descriptions from six students who have studied Finnish for about 1.5–2 years at the university. The goal of this study is to get more detailed information about the methods and strategies students use when they are dealing with the local cases. The material used in this study is collected with a test containing three types of exercises: in exercise 1 the students inflect one given word in some local case, in exercise 2 each meaning contains three words infected in different local cases and the student chooses one alternative, and in exercise 3 the student translates ten Swedish meanings to Finnish and one word in every meaning is to being detected in a local case. In every exercise, the student also describes what kind of strategy he or she uses to "and the right local case. In total, the material contains 154 answers. The material is analyzed in two parts and with two methods. In the first part an introspective method, self-observation, is used, and in the second part error analysis. The focus in part one is on the students’ descriptions of their strategies for choosing a local case. In part two the students’ local case choices are analyzed. The Finnish local case system is quite a complicated system because a learner must bear in mind several aspects simultaneously: the quality of the location (inside/outside) and the direction of the movement (to/at/from). The fact that there is a large number of verbs that govern a specific local case for their arguments also make the choice of the local case more difficult. The results show that the students have difficulties explaining in writing how they really think and decide when choosing the local cases. The descriptions are short and o!en contain only a Swedish preposition or preposition expression. Quite o!en the students also describe how a Finnish expression is expressed in Swedish and then they think in a Swedish way and choose a wrong local case. This has happened in 35 % of the occurrences of local cases in this material. The answers contain comments on the location and direction of movement. In exercises 1 and 2 the students comment more on the direction of movement than the location and their choice of case are based on a Swedish preposition expression. In exercise 3, on the other hand, the quality of location is commented on more frequently. A common feature for almost all answers is that the students pay very little attention to verbs and especially to the governing verbs.
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Text comprehension is a complex process where low- and high-level skills are likely to interact. In this article the comprehension tasks of national standardised tests of Estonian language for Grade 6 in 2013–2015 are analysed to detect levels of text comprehension in standardised tests. We found that the comprehension tasks in standardised tests are mostly focused on factual knowledge. Furthermore, 76% of questions in the national standardised test in 2014 and 57.1% in 2015 consisted of tasks which measured children’s ability to recall the details from the read or heard text. In 2013, such tasks comprised 42.9% of the national standardised test. We found only one task (in 2013) which demanded the highest skills – implementing pre-knowledge into the evaluation process. Thus, the tasks used in standardised test are not wide-ranging enough to determine students’ skills at different levels of text comprehension. As long as national standardised tests consist mostly of tasks that require readers’ memory, teachers also concentrate mainly on supporting students’ lower-level text comprehension skills. Therefore, there may not be enough attention devoted to developing the students’ high-level skills. As text comprehension at higher level is one of the most important competences students must acquire for successful academic and lifelong growth, teachers should concentrate more on supporting these skills.
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This article investigates two questions concerning the Votic vowel system: (1) Is the contrast between e and e̮ vowel phonemes preserved in contexts after j; (2) Does contemporary Votic distinguish the vowel e̮ used in Russian borrowings from other Votic vowels? The study is based on materials recorded from the last speakers of Votic. The analysis shows that in contexts after j the vowel e̮ is phonetically similar but not identical to e; therefore, the contrast between the two vowels is not neutralized. The vowel i̮ in Russian borrowings did not merge with any Votic vowels, but it had been adopted differently into Jõgõperä and Luuditsa varieties. The Jõgõperä speaker pronounces the vowel similarly to the Russian i̮, so this high non-front vowel becomes a pair to the high front i̮. The Luuditsa speaker, however, pronounces i̮ almost as i. This fact is unexpected, but it can be explained with the hypothesis of ”double borrowing” under the influence of the contacting Ingrian language. Notably, the Luuditsa Votic speaker may have adopted the Ingrian pronunciation of the Russian borrowings where the Russian vowel i̮ is pronounced similarly to i.
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The article deals with the old Mari vocabulary appearing in school textbooks of the first half of the twentieth century. The rare and forgotten words were grouped into 24 thematic networks. They mainly have to do with the particularities of the political system and way of life, old utensils, currency and other obsolete objects and phenomena of the past. A number of those lexical units cannot be found in current lexicographical works, not even in the 10-volume dictionary of the Mari language.
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Review on: Lembit, Vaba, Sõna sisse minek, Tallinn 2015 (Eesti Teaduste Akadeemia Emakeele Seltsi toimetised nr. 73)
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This paper was created as an outcome of my contrastive linguistic analysis and a study conducted on phraseological competences of my students. The topic of the study relates to two coverbs (átmesél valamit; átfordít valamit / retell something; translate something) in objective case; since the meaning of these constructions has undergone modifications in the Hungarian spoken language in Vojvodina. This change is partly noticeable in the written assignments of students; and also in the language of the press. The major objective of this study is to examine to what extent the semantics of Hungarian verbal prefixes influence the process of mirroring and creating loan words.
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Juha Janhunen has recently presented his new theory on the formation and spread of the Uralian language family, according to which Proto-Uralic emerged in eastern Siberia in the vicinity of Proto-Altaic. The Uralic languages later spread from this region as far as Scandinavia and Central Europe. However, this theory is essentially no more than hypothetical linguistic speculation since it does not take into account the evidence of the history of various peoples, principally the fact that there is nothing in the archaeological record to indicate that there was a large-scale migration from eastern Siberia to eastern Europe during the Stone Age.
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The Hungarian particle majd has both a descriptive and an expressive meaning. Semantically it expresses futurity; at the same time it may also carry various pragmatic meanings, of which the most salient is the delaying function. The referential function of majd is foregrounded if it is the only element in the sentence with temporal meaning. It will be shown that there is also a parasitic use of majd in which case it can be omitted without loss of meaning. In some other cases the particle is used to reinforce the illocutionary meaning of the utterance.
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The paper presents the bases of an asymmetric two-component model of aspect. The main theoretical conclusion of the study is that (grammatical) viewpoint aspect and situation aspect are not independent aspectual levels, since the former often modifies the input situation aspect of the phrase/sentence. As it is shown, besides the arguments and adjuncts of the predicate, viewpoint aspect is also an important factor in compositionally marking situation aspect. The aspectual framework put forward in the paper is verified and illustrated on the basis of the aspectual system of Hungarian and some examples taken from English linguistic data.
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