TÜling

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

NB As an exception, this talk starts at 5 p.m.

Abstract:

Colloquium by Gretchen McCulloch (Lingthusiasm podcast)

People believe many false or incomplete things about language, from students and granting agencies to our friends and family. As linguists, we have expertise in analyzing language data, but we receive less training in sharing the results of those analyses with broader audiences. In this talk, I present a path for turning our existing linguistics skills towards the task of communication with non-specialist audiences. I show how we can assess texts for how well they hold our attention and then analyze the linguistic features tied to more and less engaging texts, thus letting us keep developing our linguistics communication (lingcomm) skills throughout daily life. I also show how research findings from pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, debunking, and science communication can help us do lingcomm more effectively. As a case study, I draw on my work as a linguistics communicator and internet linguist, including emoji, gesture, and podcasting.

Note that this talk is a high level overview of applying linguistics methods to doing lingcomm; for hands-on practice with your own materials, message, and audience, it is recommended to register for the full day workshop the next day. 

More information about the workshop

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

Abbreviating words instead of spelling them out in full is a practice that spans across the entire history of written communication, from ancient stone inscriptions and medieval manuscripts to 19th-century telegrams and modern-day WhatsApp messages. Unsurprisingly, abbreviation has been studied across various disciplines, including lexicology, computer-mediated communication (CMC) and paleography. However, as these fields rarely engage with each other, this attention has been compartmentalised, typically focusing on a specific period, text type, or form of abbreviation. 

This talk aims to approach abbreviation as a single phenomenon, driven by the shared motivations of saving time, space, and effort, across all forms of media. The presentation will include a theoretical discussion of abbreviation from the perspectives of writing system typology, pragmatics and word-formation processes. It will also present a corpus-based study, offering a long-term diachronic comparison of abbreviation usage in English texts from the 15th century to the present day.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

In this talk, I discuss a recent study that takes a process-oriented view towards language proficiency. The study investigates how pausing behavior within a writing session is associated with the writer's language proficiency, focusing on Finnish and Swedish as both first language (L1) and learner language (L2). The data were collected through keyboard logging software and evaluated using CEFR-based assessments of the resulting texts. We analyzed the relationship using ordinal mixed-effects logistic regression modelling, where proficiency is modelled as a function of various variables related to pausing behavior.

While the results show that the L2 writing process reflects the writer's proficiency, I will show that there is a significant difference between L2 writers of Swedish and L2 writers of Finnish compared to L1 writers. The advanced L2 writers of Swedish behave similarly to the L1 Swedish writers. In contrast, even the most advanced L2 writers of Finnish have pause lengths and linguistic contexts that are more similar to the less advanced L2 writers than the L1 writers. In addition, the pauses between words do not indicate any clear proficiency-related patterning, leaving only within-word pauses as a robust indicator of proficiency, especially in Swedish.

Unlike most writing process research, this study's parallel design allows for contrasting two typologically diverging languages while controlling for other contextual variables. Future studies could explore the grammatical nature of pause locations across the analyzed languages.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

In this talk, we explore issues related to the quantification of morphological overabundance, a situation where for a given lexeme and a given cell two competing forms are available (e. g. est. kalu ~ kalasid, 'fish', PART.PL). We explore Thornton's (2019) observation that a situation where the two competing forms are equally frequent is exceptional. This principle provides a basis for her typology of overabundant situations, but we suggest that it is possible to investigate further the distribution of overabundant forms in the languages of the world.
We first discuss the issues related to corpus-based estimates of the relative frequency of competitors and we introduce a principled methodology to quantify overabundant distributions, which takes into account statistical silence. Indeed, previous work has shown that corpus evidence for low frequency phenomena cannot be readily interpreted (Baayen 2001; Nikolaev & Bermel 2022). We then turn to the discussion of the effects of overabundance on morphological processing. A central question is whether overabundance is a transitory phenomenon or if it can be stable over time: in other words, whether overabundance is costly. Previous empirical results suggest that overabundance can be a stable feature of morphological systems. We use an approach based on implicative morphology to model the effects of overabundance on morphological processing and we study the different factors that conspire in making overabundance less complex than it could be. 

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

Bickel (2003) found intriguing cross-linguistic variation in the number of overt lexical/ NP arguments in comparison with the total number of possible arguments in a clause (Referential Density). However, we still know little about how this variation can be explained. In my talk I will examine the role of word order in determining the number of arguments based on theories of efficient language processing (cf. Gibson et al., 2019; Levshina, 2022), more specifically, the research about syntactic dependency lengths. When the verb comes later in a clause, the distances needed to reach the argument-assigning verbal head are longer, which leads to higher processing costs (cf. Ferrer-i-Cancho, 2004; Liu, 2008). These costs can be alleviated, however, if one reduces the number of overt arguments, as argued by Ueno and Polinsky (2009). The present study investigates this hypothesis using online news corpora from the Leipzig Corpora Collection (Goldhahn et al., 2012), which are annotated with Universal Dependencies (Zeman et al., 2023). The cross-linguistic data show that the average number of core arguments in a clause correlates negatively with the proportion of verb-final clauses in a corpus. A more detailed analysis of a manually annotated sample of clauses in different languages suggests that speakers of languages with verb-final and flexible orders often use diverse strategies of A-argument demotion (e.g., inchoativization, impersonalisation and passivization) as a means of reducing the number of arguments in a clause. The costs and benefits of these and other strategies, such as pro-drop, will be discussed from the perspective of the principles of communicative efficiency (Levshina, 2022).

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

Prosody is a comprehensive term that covers a variety of acoustic phenomena such as duration, intensity, and fundamental frequency, and supports diverse communicative functions ranging from encoding lexical semantics to structuring information in discourse. Prosodic variations, for instance, not only distinguish lexical meaning, as in Swedish words anden (Accent 1) ‘the duck’ vs anden (Accent 2) ‘the spirit’, but also highlight the most critical constituent of discourse, ensuring that focused information receives more attention. Despite the growing number of studies in the cognitive neuroscience of language, neural underpinnings of these prosodic functions and their interactions are not well understood. Further, there is a paucity of experimental paradigms to operationalize them in a dynamic communicative situation. Within the scope of my research, I aim to contribute to the field by investigating the relevance of prosody in spoken communication at the lexical and discourse levels i) separately and concurrently ii) using psychometric and electrophysiological measures, iii) employing typologically distinct languages, and iv) adopting ecologically valid contexts. In this talk, I will begin with a brief overview of the communicative functions of prosody and discuss our previous research, which has demonstrated prosody's contribution to lexical processing. I will then move on to our recent series of experiments where we investigate whether the language comprehension system exhibits different sensitivities to prosodic information at the lexical and discourse levels. Finally, I will elaborate on visual prosody and initiate a discussion on the parallels between acoustic and visual prosody in terms of form and function, and whether they operate as an integrated system.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

NB The talk will be in Estonian.

Abstract:

Ettekandes tutvustan aastatel 2022-2023 programmist "Eesti keel ja kultuur digiajastul" rahastatud pilootprojekti "Suuline eesti keel arvudes". Projekti eesmärgiks oli pakkuda suulise eesti keele kasutuse kohta sagedusandmeid olemasolevate spontaanse kõne korpuste põhjal ning luua nende kõrvale suuremahuline automaatselt annoteeritud korpus raadio ja taskuhäälingu salvestistest. Tutvustan loodud korpuseid ja räägin nende koostamise kogemusest, tutvustan korpustest kogutud sagedusandmestikke ja nende illustreerimiseks loodud veebilehte https://suulinekeel.ut.ee.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

Usage-based linguistics is predicated upon the premise that languages are dynamic systems that emerge from usage and are shaped by usage in a process that is mediated by general cognitive abilities and functional considerations. Form-meaning pairings constitute the building blocks of the human language capacity and permeate all levels of syntax, from word to sentence patterns. These pairings tend to be rather abstract, e.g., the genitive or the ditransitive, but, on a usage-based interpretation, they are formed through exposure to exemplars: every category is the outcome of speakers hearing many instances of language use and drawing a generalization from that experience.

In this talk, I ask whether linguistically untrained users pay attention to those dimensions that would lead to the detection of the grammatical structures that linguists posit. Drawing on physiological data (Divjak et al 2024), I will show that heart rate variability measurements indicate that language users are well aware of instances of usage that violate the expectations they have, but exit interviews reveal that these same users are not able to determine or identify the violation they so clearly responded to physiologically. In a second study (Divjak et al. Under review) linguistically untrained users are pitched against language users with MA-level training in language in a progressive sorting task that requires them to sort instances of the Polish genitive into coherent groups, according to increasingly stringent criteria. The stimuli are chosen in a such a way that both a taxonomic or structural and a thematic sorting are possible. Here we find that language users overwhelmingly classify instances according to their thematic similarity, with a taxonomic grouping emerging only among those with training in language, and only after they had been prompted to pay attention to the relation between the items. These results are in line with findings from the categorisation literature where the gradual development of taxonomic classifications is well described, and their dependence on education and expertise as well as their persistent inferiority to thematic relations is well known.

I will discuss whether findings make it challenging to claim that linguistic knowledge relies on a taxonomic categorisation of usage instances encountered during language use and hence cast doubt on the chain of assumptions underpinning the position of the more abstract form-meaning pairings as the engine of language knowledge and use. I will argue that, while abstractions may well arise at some stage during development, they may not be a necessary condition, nor the best way to capture the dynamic knowledge language users build up through exposure to language.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

First language acquisition has been studied extensively both in individual languages and crosslinguistically, with various approaches and theoretical frameworks being adopted. Yet, research on Maltese First Language Acquisition (MFLA) is lacking. 

In this light, I am currently carrying out my doctoral research, which this paper is based on. The aim of my ongoing research is to present a detailed description of the developmental patterns and stages that characterise MFLA of morphosyntax, with a special focus on gender and number inflection and clause internal agreement. A two-year longitudinal design has been chosen for this study so as to capture the language development of participants from about 18-60 months. A total of 8 Maltese-dominant participants have been recruited and visited for a total of 5 times per participant. The participants were aged 18-36 months at the initial data collection stage. Data collection sessions took place at 4/6-month intervals, depending on the participants’ age at the initial data collection stage. Both naturalistic (free-play) and controlled (comprehension and production tasks) data were collected during video-recorded 45-minute sessions. The data is currently being analysed with the aim of establishing a set of stages at which Maltese morphosyntactic elements are acquired. 

In this paper, I will present preliminary analyses of gender and number inflection and clause internal agreement data collected through specifically-designed production tasks and during free-play. Moreover, since Maltese is a Semitic language with a hybrid morphology, data from this study will be compared to data and results in papers on FLA in spoken varieties of Arabic (e.g., Morsi, 2023; Saiegh-Haddad, Hadieh & Ravid, 2012) and morphosyntactic studies conducted with Maltese-speaking adults (e.g., Nieder, van de Vijver & Mitterer, 2021).

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

Mandarin is a tone language that uses modulations of F0 to distinguish between word meanings. Textbooks distinguish between four tones: a high level tone, a rising tone, a dipping tone, and a falling tone. Every Mandarin word has a prespecified tone, which by itself is taken to be as devoid of meaning as individual sounds. In a project funded by the ERC, we are investigating how the tones of Mandarin words are realized in spontaneous conversations, using a corpus of Taiwan Mandarin. We extracted the F0 contours of a large number of words, and used a generalized additive model (GAM) to decompose these pitch contours into constituent contours, using thin plate regression splines. Surprisingly, model fit improves substantially when by-word spline smooths are included in the model. Model fit improves even further when by-word spline smooths are replaced with by-sense smooths. This finding, now observed for three independent datasets, indicates that individual word meanings have their own pitch "signatures". Conversely, smooths for the four canonical tones make only a tiny contribution to the goodness of fit.  This result raises the question of how speakers might learn these meaning-specific F0 contours which they are not consciously aware of. To address this question, we used a large language model (GP2) to obtain, for each individual uttered word, its contextualized embedding. We brought these contextualized embeddings together as the row vectors of a matrix S. We calculated, for each individual uttered word, its own pitch contours, represented by 50 measurement points in normalized time. Words' pitch measurements were brought together as the row vectors of a matrix C. It turns out that linear mappings G from S to C, i.e, SG=C, suffice to predict words' F0-contours with accuracies between 30% and 40%, far above permutation baselines, which typically are around 5%. Deep learning models do not improve on the linear mapping. Interestingly, when the centroid contextualized embedding of all words with a given tone pattern is calculated and subsequently projected into the pitch space, the predicted tone contours closely resemble the pitch contour reported by the GAM for that tone pattern. Apparently, there is considerable isomorphy between the semantic space of contextualized embeddings and the form space of words' F0 contours. This isomorphy makes the word-specific tone signatures learnable for speakers, using very simple, albeit subliminal, statistical learning.  In my presentation, I will offer some thoughts as to why this isomorphy exists, why it has escaped notice, report on recent similar results obtained for English pitch on left-stressed words, and why the mapping can be so simple.

Venue: Zoom

Abstract:

This talk explores the role of nonbinary pronouns in Dutch and how they intersect with broader linguistic and societal changes. Focusing on the interplay of linguistic factors—such as antecedent specificity (generic vs. specific), grammatical roles, and pronoun types ("die" vs. "hen")—and prescriptive influences, the study highlights how familiarity with existing language norms affects acceptability ratings of nonbinary pronouns. Additionally, the impact of priming conditions (harm reduction, authority endorsement, and neutral control) and demographic factors (e.g., cisgender status, political orientation, and prior experience with nonbinary individuals) is analyzed. The results emphasize that grassroots exposure and gradual societal shifts may play a larger role in shaping linguistic acceptance than top-down prescriptive efforts. By connecting these findings to the broader concept of grassroots prescriptivism, this talk examines the challenges and opportunities in fostering inclusive language in Dutch. The insights aim to support ongoing discussions on linguistic innovation and inclusivity in Estonia and beyond.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

The talk is dedicated to the electronic morphological dictionary of the Votic language. The dictionary is currently in its final stages of development. The talk consists of two parts. The first part discusses the conceptual challenges that arise when creating morphological dictionaries for moribund languages and presents the solutions that were adopted for the Votic morphological dictionary. The second part demonstrates the dictionary in its current state and outlines the tasks required for finalizing the dictionary work.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

This talk introduces a new language documentation project on Flemingish, a moribund Low German dialect. The corpus for this project will consist of exclusively legacy materials, both audio recordings and written language samples. Corpus building, including metadata enrichment and grammatical tagging, will be computer-aided. The project also includes collaboration with the speaker community as well as other aspects of Open Science. I will present the current project setup and discuss underlying considerations, including comparisons with two similar past projects of mine on Izhva Komi and Kola Saami.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

In this paper, we will focus on one type of multiword expressions known as semantic-rhetorical routines which can be broadly defined as typical utterances specific to a given discourse genre. We will investigate the scientific discourse in Humanities and Social Sciences, which abounds in quite particular routines such as as can be noted, it is hardly surprising that, the aim of this article is. We will begin by defining the properties of these semantic-rhetorical routines from a syntactic, semantic and pragmatic point of view. Secondly, we will look at how these routines can be identified and extracted semi-automatically from monolingual and aligned French and English corpora using the Lexicoscope corpus tool. Finally, we will present some preliminary corpus-based results and see how they can be used for applied linguistics and translation purposes.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

All over the world, the complex interplay of orthography, identity, ideology, and their choices have wider implications for literacy and scholarship. The late modern and contemporary ethno-linguistic history of Europe provides numerous case studies of that complex interplay, and its direct influence upon ethnic, regional, and ideological identities, religious, cultural, and political choices of speech communities. In that respect, our (although terminologically and geopolitically debatable) region of Central Europe is not different. Also here, language communities and activists have wanted to make their languages valid and visible through developing a script, writing system, orthography, individual letters, diacritics, or type fonts. The choices involved in deciding the graphic layout have made language ideologies tangible. Graphization (developing a written form) of a language (variety) has not only involved the selection of an appropriate orthography but also caused (often conflictive) decisions concerning cultural, religious, political, and historical matters. Understanding the dynamics of debates, involved preferences, and resulting selections can contribute to the decisions we make, both as linguists, sociolinguists, linguistic anthropologists, and as engaged linguists.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

Nowadays, with digital progression, digital newspapers have become very popular for their easy accessibility via the internet and for their interactive nature by providing a platform for the readers to share their views in the form of comments and replies. In this talk, I will focus on digital comments and show how commenters use metadiscourse markers (which refer to the ways the writers interact with their readers and guide them to better understand the writers’ intentions) while commenting on digital newspapers.

I will discuss the use of metadiscourse markers (interactive and interactional) on English digital comments, specifically news comments, by commenters from the UK, India, and the USA. Here, I will present an in-depth quantitative and qualitative analysis of the metadiscourse markers. To this aim, the talk will be focused on presenting the similarities and differences and their implications of employing metadiscourse markers by the commenters covering three contexts: i) analyzing comments on different domains, such as politics, sports and entertainment; ii) analyzing comments on two political ideologies: left-wing and right-wing; iii) from the native (the UK and the USA) and non-native (India) perspectives.

Venue: Zoom, (code: 990981)

Abstract:

The talk discusses the general question of how (non-finite) clauses can be used as modifiers (adjuncts) of events, addressing the following two problems. First, many clauses are fully saturated propositions, while modifiers are predicates. Second, clauses refer to "neutral" situations, while modifiers have a specific temporal/causal/etc. flavor. Focusing on data from Mari, I argue that two strategies are available to deal with these issues: (1) the P-strategy, whereby an adjunct clause is introduced by an adposition, and (2) the Mood-strategy, whereby an adjunct clause is derived by manipulating the clause-internal Mood and modality. Mari provides illustrations for both of the approaches. Specifically, I will examine the synchronic and diachronic behavior of Mari temporal gerunds and rationale/purpose infinitives. I will demonstrate that the former are best analyzed as PPs, while the latter are stand-alone CPs with a shifted Mood. At the end of the talk, I will also draw parallels between Mari and other Uralic languages, primarily Mordvin and Udmurt.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

NB The talk will be in Estonian.

Abstract:

Käesoleva aasta jaanuarist alustas üheksa teise tippkeskuse kõrval ka Eesti Juurte tippkeskus, mis toob kokku humanitaar- ja loodusteadlased Tartu Ülikoolist, TalTechist ja Eesti Kirjandusmuuseumist. Tippkeskusesse kuuluvad arheogenoomika (TÜ), arheoloogia (TÜ), arheokeemia (TÜ), arheozooloogia (TÜ), paleokliima ja -ökoloogia (TalTech), lingvistika (TÜ), folkloristika ja kultuurigeograafia (EKM) uurimisrühmad. Tippkeskuse fookuses on evolutsioon – muutused ajas ja ruumis – selle mõiste kõige mitmekesisemates ilmingutes. Tähelepanu keskmes on Läänemere idakalda rahvaid ja kultuure kujundanud protsessid viimase jääaja järgse asustuse algusest tänaseni, lähtudes areaalsest ja ökoloogilisest taustast. 
Ettekandes tutvustame lähemalt tippkeskuse laiemaid eesmärke ja plaane eelolevaks seitsmeks aastaks. Peatume nii võimalustel kui ka väljakutsetel, mida valdkondadeülene koostöö endas kätkeb.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

In this talk I explore the factors that drive people to produce creative metaphor and metonymy, and the features of creative metaphor and metonymy which lead people to evaluate them as effective. Considering production, I draw on studies that I have conducted into the use of creative metaphor and metonymy in film reviews, descriptions of workplace experiences, text messaging, and expressions of emotion related to traumatic experiences such as bereavement. In these studies, I have explored how the need to express evaluation, and to share emotional experiences shape the production of creative metaphor and metonymy. I then critique the idea of creative metaphor and metonymy per se and show how, in my data, creative uses of metaphor and metonymy always involve elaborations of existing conventional metaphors and metonyms. I discuss how creativity occurs at different levels of abstraction. Considering reception, I draw on studies that I have conducted which focus on people’s responses to creative metaphor and metonymy in advertising and computer-generated metaphor. In these studies, I have explored how ‘need for cognition’ and the ‘optimal innovation’ drive people’s perceptions of figurative effectiveness. I conclude with a discussion of why we are driven to use metaphor and metonymy in creative ways, and the role which this form of communication plays in the sharing and evaluation of human experiences. 

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

NB The talk will be in Estonian.

Abstract:

Tekst on suhtlusolukord, milles üks osaleja (autor) edastab teisele osalejale (vastuvõtja) mingi eesmärgiga sõnumi. Sõnumi edastamise aeg ja koht (meedium), keelelised vahendid ning muud ümbritsevad asjaolud (diskursus) on samuti suhtlusolukorra osad. Kõik eelmainitud aspektid kokku moodustavad teksti tunnused. Kui mingi suhtlusolukord oma iseloomulike tunnustega hakkab korduma, kujuneb selle põhjal välja kindel muster (tekstiliik/žanr).

Neist tunnustest lähtuvalt oleme Rõukude pärandi fondi toel uurinud gümnaasiumis ja ülikoolis kirjutatud eestikeelseid tekste ning nende tekstide kirjutamise juhendeid. Lisaks sellele oleme läbi viinud küsitlusi, et paremini mõista, mis on kirjutamise ja kirjutamise õpetamise juures kõige raskem. Kogutud teadmisi kasutame uute õppematerjalide loomisel (vt nt https://www.teadustekst.ut.ee/). Et uurida, mille poolest erinevad õpilaste kirjutised suurte keelemudelite loodutest, analüüsime võrdlevalt tekste, kus õpilastel ja ChatGPT-l on olnud sama lähteülesanne. Ettekandes tutvustan projekti eri suundade seniseid uurimistulemusi. Vaata lähemalt: https://tekstiloome.ilonatragel.ut.ee/

Venue: Zoom

Abstract:

In the current globalized society, English is pervasive in all domains of life, infusing the lexicon of a variety of languages. This talk focuses on the way Dutch-speaking children develop the social meaning of English lexical items and is composed of two parts. In a first part, I will elaborate on English as a domain-specific hotspot through the results of three studies on English use in children’s roleplay. Specifically, the results elaborate on the extent to which children are able to adjust their speech in a roleplay setting (e.g. inserting more English items for rapper as opposed to farmer). A second part, then, will center on English as a youth language marker, highlighting two studies on children’s English use in spontaneous speech. In this respect, both genre sensitivity (youth language context vs. non-youth language context) and age-related variation (preadolescents vs. adolescents) are foregrounded. Highlighting the perspective of the young language user, this paper combines the fields of anglicism research and developmental sociolinguistics to get a better understanding of how the social meaning of English is developed in (pre)adolescence.

Zoom: https://ut-ee.zoom.us/j/95972476761?pwd=K24rVzNoZldYWDZJNUJSb010blZLQT09#success

Passcode: 990981

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

NB The talk will be in Estonian.

Abstract:

Käesolevas ettekandes räägime kolmest uuringust, milles oleme käsitlenud eesti keeles esinevat morfoloogilist liiasust (Thornton 2010, 2019) eri vaatenurkade alt seoses sel aastal lõppeva projektiga "Feast and Famine: Confronting overabundance and defectivity in language" (UK AHRC, 2020-2024). Eesti keeles on teatavasti rohkesti rööpvorme nii nimisõnade kui tegusõnade morfoloogias (Viht ja Habicht 2019). Esimeses uuringute komplektis vaatlesime korpuses esinevat paralleelsete nimisõnavormide kasutust, vastates küsimustele: kui erinev on korpusepõhine kasutusstatistika sellest, mida võib järeldada grammatika kirjeldustest, ning kuidas seletada kõnelejate vormivalikuid? Teises uuringus viisime läbi 3-5aastaste lastega katse, et teada saada, kuidas rööpvormid mõjutavad keeleomandamist, otsides vastust küsimusele, kas mitu võimalikku vormi teeb omandamise lihtsamaks (kuna vähendab eksimise võimalust) või keerulisemaks (kuna keelekasutus on ebakindlam, puudub üks-ühele vormi-tähenduse seos)? Kolmandas uuringus vaatlesime, kuidas kõnelejate arvamused keelekorrekstusest ja normingutest võivad mõjutada nende rööpvormide kasutust. Siin võrdlesime eesti ja prantsuse keelt.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

NB The talk will be in Estonian.

Abstract:

Keelte dünaamika kerkis füüsikute huviorbiiti juba enam kui 20 aastat tagasi. Tänaseks on see teema saanud üheks iseseisvaks ja oluliseks haruks komplekssüsteemide uurimisteemade hulgas. Oma ettekandes üritan anda ettekujutuse sellest, mis on komplekssüsteemid ja millised on komplekssüsteemide teooria tööriistad. Keskendudes eeskätt KBFI komplekssüsteemide töörühmas tehtud uurimistööle, katsun anda ülevaate olulisematest keelte ja keelte dünaamika uurimisel kasutavatest mudelitest ja meetoditest.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

Contemporary French is unique among the Romance languages in having no lexical stress. Stress is instead assigned post-lexically to the final syllable of a small group of words ("group stress") and is closely associated with intonation. Comparatively little is known about the loss of lexical stress, other than that the earliest descriptions of French pronunciation from the 16th century appear to already describe a group stess system.

In this talk, I'll present two new insights into the development of group stress. First, based on descriptions of pronunciation from the 16th century, I'll argue that the change happened in stages, with monosyllables losing lexical stress before polysyllables. Second, by combining our knowledge of the historical sound changes with a corpus-based study of the phonotactics of early Old French, I'll highlight the importance of word-final consonants as markers of the right-edge of prosodic words. I argue that once these consonants are no longer systematically realized, fixed word-final stress becomes reanalysed as a group-level, postlexical phenomenon.

In conclusion, I suggest that this very unusual change happens in stages, and is triggered by a unique combination of relatively common sound changes.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

In this talk I will present some preliminary results from my longitudinal project on the diachronic typology of differential object marking (DOM). More specifically, I will discuss different aspects of the histories of DOM systems across languages. Thus, I will discuss the long-standing assumption that DOM often emerge from dative/dative-like markers. It has been argued in the literature that datives often expand onto direct objects and lead thereby to the emergence of differential object marking (DOM) (inter alia, Comrie 1979; Lazard 2001: 875; Dalrymple & Nikolaeva 2011: 207ff). Here, I will scrutinize the alleged historical connection between the DOM function of these markers, on the one hand, and their dative function, on the other. I present alternative historical explanations. For example, I will show that the generalization of the dative forms her/him in English was due to the major process of dative-accusative syncretism found already in Old English and was never conditioned by any of the typical DOM factors such as animacy or topicality. In turn, the DOM preposition a in Romance stems directly from a left-dislocation construction used to code direct objects bearing the marked-topic role (topic shift, contrastive topic) while the original function of the postpositions t^haʔ in Lahu and t^hie in Lolo was to code contrastive focus. I will also present evidence against dative-accusative connection for Persian and Kanuri. Finally, the historical connection between the dative function and the DOM function of -ko in Hindi might indeed be correct (cf. Butt & Ahmed 2008). Other aspects of the diachrony of DOM such as the disambiguation function of DOM will be discussed here as well.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

Politicians' language usage is highly professional nowadays, meaning that politicians' choice of words is not random but strategically planned. Populist language use is characterized by features that distinguish it from non-populist language use. The research project focuses on the question of how well young adults in Estonia can recognize populist language use and how social-demographic factors and linguistic socialization influence their level of linguistic reflexivity. To achieve this, data was collected this year through a questionnaire from young people with different linguistic and social-demographic backgrounds. In the presentation, I will provide an overview of the initial results.

NB! As an exception starting at 4:15 p.m.

Venue: Jakobi 2 - 438

Abstract:

A puzzling property of Udmurt (Uralic) is that certain case suffixes precede the possessive markers, while others follow them. The so-called adverbial case, a semantic case expressing spatiotemporal and oblique relations, is the only one that displays both orders in modern Udmurt. In this talk, I will zoom in on the Case-Poss and Poss-Case orders with the adverbial case and will argue that there is,in fact, no variation. The crucial piece of evidence comes from the nominalized clauses selected by the adverbial case. The alternative analysis proposed here relies on the understanding of the internal complexity of postpositional phrases and the diachronic changes related to them.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

Alguseks näitan TÜ suulise eest keele korpuse SEKK otsingumootoreid ja voorustatistika analüüsiprogrammi põhitulemusi. Seejärel esitan suulise dialoogi baasüksuse, kõnevooru pikkuse statistilise põhiportree. Vooru pikkust võib mõõta vooruehitusüksustes/lausungites (turn constructional unit, TCU) ja sõnades.

Vestlusanalüüsi järgi on kasutajal argivestluses korraga õigus ühele vooruehitusüksusele, institutsionaalses vestluses mõjutavad õigust erinevad lisategurid. Küsin, mil määral vastavad eesti vestlused sellele normile ning kas on erinevusi argise, institutsionaalse, vahetu ja telefonivestluse vahel.

Vooru pikkused sõnades on väga kõikuvad. Küsin, kas on erinevusi voorupikkustes argises, institutsionaalses, vahetus ja telefonivestlustes ning millised on eri pikkusega voorud süntaktiliselt. Pikemalt vaatan ühesõnalisi voore.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

Uralic Areal Typology Online ehk UraTyp (https://uralic.clld.org/) koondab infot 360 keelelise joone kohta, hõlmates 35 uurali keelt. Jooned on sõnastatud selliselt, et oleks võimalik vastata 1 (’jah, vastav joon on olemas’) või 0 (’ei, vastav keeleline joon puudub’), nt GB074 Kas on olemas eessõnad?,  UT023 Kas eitusmarkeris on võimalik väjendada aega? UraTyp kasvas välja koostööst andmebaasi Grambank (https://grambank.clld.org/) tegijatega, kusjuures 195/360 joonest ongi üle võetud Grambanki küsimustikust.

Ettekandes annan ülevaate sellest, kuidas oleme Rõukude pärandi toel andmebaasi arendanud ehk täpsustanud ja täiendanud UraTyp 1.0 versiooni ning teinud ettevalmistusi UraTyp 2.0 avalikustamiseks. Eraldi pööran tähelepanu kitsaskohtadele, mida 1 vs. 0-lähenemine paratamatult kaasa toob. Näiteks on jooni, mis saavad erinevates keeltes vastuseks 1, kuid ühes keeles on tegu üsnagi tavalise, teises pigem marginaalse nähtusega. Võrdlen meie uurimisrühmas esilekerkinud väljakutseid nendega, mida on nimetanud Grambanki tegijad (nt grammatika kättesaadavus ja vajaliku info edasiandmine). Ühtlasi käsitlen andmebaasi kasutamise ning selles sisalduva ainese uurimise võimalusi.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

In this talk I will discuss a series of studies investigating consonants in Scottish Gaelic using ultrasound to image tongue movements as well as acoustic recordings (Nance & Kirkham, 2020, 2022; Kirkham & Nance, 2022). Scottish Gaelic is an endangered Celtic language with a large and unusual sonorant system contrasting palatalised, plain, and velarised laterals, nasals, and rhotics i.e. /l̪ʲ l l̪ˠ n̪ʲ n n̪ˠ rʲ r rˠ/. Almost all Gaelic speakers are at least bilingual in Gaelic and English. Our study participants are Gaelic language professionals, who work in industries such as Gaelic media which have been created as a direct result of language revitalisation policies in Scotland. I explore the phonetic realisation and maintenance of the large Gaelic sonorant system despite linguistic pressures which otherwise might lead to sound change. I argue that the results can only be interpreted with an understanding of the language revitalisation context.

Venue: Jakobi 2-438

Abstract:

Morphological reanalysis yields grammatical morphemes by means of bleaching, metonymy, and metaphor. While this process does not itself create new forms, the resulting morphemes are often subsequently spread by analogy. Since both lexemes and grammatical morphemes can be subject to morphological reanalysis, it is theoretically possible for this process to take place recursively and to be unrestricted in direction. However, the maximum length of a morphological reanalysis chain seems to be just two steps, for example from body part (like ‘backside’) to location/trajectory (like ‘backward’) and from location/trajectory to temporal marker (like ‘ago’). Morphological reanalysis is furthermore strongly directional: I find only one example of a bi-directional pathway for semantic shift. In order to give some indication of the range of morphological reanalysis, I suggest viewing the phenomenon from two dimensions: the semantic shift as typical (“on-track”) vs. atypical (“off-piste”), and the status within the given language as solitary (an isolated change) vs. convergent (resulting in a grammatical system). These dimensions are not envisioned as discrete, rather they are devices that highlight the variety of morphological reanalysis. I present three types: the on-track solitary type is illustrated by isolated changes that are typologically common, the on-track convergent type is illustrated by the evolution of classifier systems for both nouns and verbs, and the off-piste solitary type is illustrated by examples of exaptation in which morphemes left behind by language change shift their meanings across grammatical categories. This presentation is based on an analysis of data in Heine & Kuteva’s 2019 version of the World Lexicon of Grammaticalization and on this forthcoming article.

NB Loeng on tühistatud ettekandja haigestumise tõttu.

Venue: Jakobi 2- 438

Abstract:

Tekst on suhtlusolukord, milles üks osaleja (autor) edastab teisele osalejale (vastuvõtja) mingi eesmärgiga sõnumi. Sõnumi edastamise aeg ja koht (meedium), keelelised vahendid ning muud ümbritsevad asjaolud (diskursus) on samuti suhtlusolukorra osad. Kõik eelmainitud aspektid kokku moodustavad teksti tunnused. Kui mingi suhtlusolukord oma iseloomulike tunnustega hakkab korduma, kujuneb selle põhjal välja kindel muster (tekstiliik/žanr).

Neist tunnustest lähtuvalt oleme Rõukude pärandi fondi toel uurinud gümnaasiumis ja ülikoolis kirjutatud eestikeelseid tekste ning nende tekstide kirjutamise juhendeid. Lisaks sellele oleme läbi viinud küsitlusi, et paremini mõista, mis on kirjutamise ja kirjutamise õpetamise juures kõige raskem. Kogutud teadmisi kasutame uute õppematerjalide loomisel (vt nt https://www.teadustekst.ut.ee/). Et uurida, mille poolest erinevad õpilaste kirjutised suurte keelemudelite loodutest, analüüsime võrdlevalt tekste, kus õpilastel ja ChatGPT-l on olnud sama lähteülesanne. Ettekandes tutvustan projekti eri suundade seniseid uurimistulemusi. Vaata lähemalt: https://tekstiloome.ilonatragel.ut.ee/

Venue: Jakobi 2- 438

Abstract:

Direct speech, as opposed to indirect speech, is often assumed to be a typological universal and defined in terms of faithful, or verbatim, reproduction of an original utterance. The notion of verbatim, however, is in serious need of refinement if it is to apply in practice across languages, cultures, and genres. For example, original speech in a foreign language may be translated in some situations but not others, and characteristic dialectal and stylistic features may be introduced or omitted depending on the narrator’s goals. In this talk I first survey non-verbatim elements attested in otherwise canonical direct speech, ranging from the correction of disfluencies to the substitution of indefinite pronouns for parts of the report, and then consider extending the same treatment to certain changes in pronominal deixis (such as the use of logophoric pronouns). Most of my data come from a specially annotated corpus of Wan (South Mande, Côte d’Ivoire), but parallels from other languages suggest that the same issues are relevant to direct quotation cross-linguistically, including in Standard Average European. I propose a tentative crude typology of non-verbatim elements regularly attested in direct speech and discuss its implications for theories of quotation.

Location: Zoom - NB! The link is different from the usual TÜling Zoom link.

'MEDAL' (Methodological Excellence in Data-Driven Approaches to Linguistics) Twinning project launch

On February 7, 2023 at 16:00, we launch our three-year Twinning project, MEDAL ("Methodological Excellence in Data-Driven Approaches to Linguistics"). The project includes various opportunities for students and early-career researchers, including mobility opportunities, and various workshops and summer schools open to everyone.

At the launch, we will introduce the consortium project together with our partners:

• Dagmar Divjak and Petar Milin at the University of Birmingham
• Caroline Rowland at the Max Planck Institure for Psycholinguistics
• Asli Özyürek at Radboud University 

We will also have short talks about three types of research methodology from the partner institutions:

• Peter Uhrig “Multimodal Corpus Linguistics"
• Yayun Zhang “Using Head-mounted Eye-tracking to Study Early Word Learning in Naturalistic Contexts" 
• Irene Testini "What to do with lots of language data? Introducing computational models of learning"

Location: Zoom

First insights into sociolinguistic variation in East Timorese Hakka

Timor-Leste is home to one of the most remote Chinese-descended communities of Southeast Asia. Following the young nation’s tumultuous recent history, some 4,000 Chinese-Timorese people are estimated to remain in the country today.

Most Chinese-Timorese families have lived in Timor for 3, 4 or 5 generations. Sharing a strong sense of identity, they form a tight-knit community. Nonetheless, there is much diversity within the community, for instance with respect to socioeconomic status or mobility: while Chinese-Timorese businesspeople play a prominent role in Timor-Leste’s economy and many are very well off, others live very modestly; and many fled the country during the Indonesian occupation (1975-1999), returning only after independence, while others have remained in Timor-Leste. The country’s history is also reflected in community members’ educational backgrounds: older people went to Portuguese colonial or Chinese schools; middle-aged people were educated in Indonesian state schools; and those who went to school post-independence had classes in a mix of Tetun (the country's lingua franca and offical language), Portuguese and Indonesian.

The overwhelming majority of Chinese-Timorese belong to the Hakka linguistic group. The language is an important identity marker and has been characterized as diverging significantly from other Hakka dialects. Today, language competence is declining: there may be fewer than 1,000 mother tongue speakers of Hakka in Timor-Leste, and the majority appears to be in their forties or older. To date, there has been no linguistic research on this Hakka variety, although a pilot study with four fluent speakers suggested that there is noticeable variation in the language.

In this talk, I will present first insights into variation in East Timorese Hakka, based on a small number of selected phonetic (including segmental as well as supra-segmental, i.e. tonal) and lexical variables as found in recently collected data. Factors that are hypothesized to be involved in the choice of a given variant are individual speakers’ ages, but also language backgrounds and residence history as well as social networks. In addition, I will present a brief outlook to the Hakka variety spoken in Indonesian West Timor, which developed in a similar environment, but against a different historical backdrop.

Location: Jakobi 2-428

When multiple forms compete: Overabundance in Genitive plural in Croatian

The present talk deals with the phenomenon of multiple forms within the Croatian inflectional system. Special attention is given to the Genitive plural case, which in some aspects can be compared to the Estonian partitive. The genitive case is found to be fruitful ground for many linguistic variations within all three genders. One of the largest groups of nouns that undergo overabundance of forms in Genitive plural are feminine nouns having a stem-ending consonant cluster, where 3 possible forms compete, e.g., N.sg, lutka ‘doll’ > G.pl. lutaka/lutka/lutki. For some nouns, only one or two forms are attested in corpora, nevertheless, in most cases, all three are evidenced in dictionaries and grammar books. That discrepancy can be the result of a rapid language change that normative manuals cannot follow, but other reasons are also to be investigated. 

In a situation where the language system obviously allows for multiple forms and language users are faced with multiple choice, thorough corpus-based research is needed. Based on the data from corpora combined with additional developed criteria, a database of morphological doublets has been created. It is intended to give answers to various questions someone might have on the overabundance of a particular lexeme or category. Databases can be relevant source for other research methodologies, such as questionnaires and experiments. In the talk, we will present the database of morphological doublets and our research on the acquisition of overabundant Genitive plural nouns among Croatian-speaking four-, five- and six-year-olds. We will also demonstrate the importance of synergy between different methods in order to understand how speakers, both children and adults, deal with this “messy” data. The phenomenon of overabundance is closely related to additional various language topics such as the role of diachrony, language variety, language contact, competition, language development etc.

Location: Zoom

Standardisation and the vernacular. A qualitative analysis of late eighteenth century English as represented in ego-documents from the foundation of the penal colony of New South Wales

In theory at least, written English had adopted a standardised form by about 1500. The traditions of writing English in a diversity of regional dialects which were equally valid was essentially moribund. Scots, the Germanic vernacular of Scotland, stands out from this in being in direct competition as a written prestigious variety with Standard English well into the age of print. But, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, Standard English had become the sole written code.

During that century, written dialect was certainly recorded, accurately or inaccurately, in prose and poetry, but this was generally reproduced (at least in England) by outsiders. It must nevertheless be recognised, however, that most people spoke their native dialect as their primary (and often sole) spoken variety. Literacy of some form was certainly spreading in the population during this period; the primary (normally only) written medium was Standard English, however, over which many people had limited ability as a spoken form.

This paper will consider the ego-documents of a range of participants in the first Anglophone settlement in Australia during the period 1788-92. As well as representing different social levels – from high ranking naval officers, through ordinary Royal Marines to convicts, the writers’ ethnocultural origins are also contrastive: two Scots, three Englishmen, one Irishman and a sailor from Pennsylvania who may have had German as his first language. To what extent have these individuals fully imbibed the structures and norms of the standard form? Conversely, what evidence do we have for their spoken use from their writing?

These writers are in many ways on the cusp of the popular use of English, before full, state-sponsored, literacy became the norm in the nineteenth century. This paper will demonstrate that we should not assume that our expected sociolinguistic models hold completely true for people from these backgrounds at that time.

Location: Jakobi 2-428

Strategies of filling paradigmatic gaps in native Finnish speakers

In the first part of my talk I’m going to tell the results of our current study (Nikolaev & Bermel, 2022) in which we investigate how native speakers of Finnish handle uncertainty related to linguistic forms that have gaps in their inflectional paradigms. We analyze their strategies of dealing with paradigmatic defectivity and how these strategies are motivated by subjective contemporaneousness, frequency, acceptability, and other lexical and structural characteristics of words. We administered a verb production (inflection) task with Finnish native speakers using verbs from a small non-productive inflectional type that has many paradigmatic gaps and asked participants to inflect the verbs in a given context. Inflectional uncertainty was measured by the number of different forms the participants produced for each verb. We classified produced forms that were not expected as either synonymous or novel and measured their optimal string alignment distance to expected forms. Our analyses revealed that a usage-based approach to paradigmatic defectivity fits better with the obtained results than a classical approach typically met in dictionaries and descriptive grammars. Thus, we argue, that paradigmatic defectivity can be better described as a dynamic rather than a static system, where gaps represent a continuum of possible inflectional choices rather than a lack of an inflectional variant.

In the second part of my talk, I’m going to discuss our other study (Nikolaev & Bermel, under review) in which we explore a boundary between paradigmatic gaps that are purely accidental and those that are missing for reasons beyond simple chance. The former group might be considered ‘accidental zeros’, where some inflected form is missing due to a lack of suitable context, rather than being missing despite suitable contexts being available. The question is then how to distinguish these two qualitatively different zeros from each other. We compare the frequentist (e.g., Fisher’s exact test) and Bayesian approaches that different statistical tests offer. In the Bayesian approach we are allowed to use background information while setting our priors (expectations), and this is the area where subjective grammaticality judgments could be used to set priors, which then could be updated by the corpus data.

Location: Jakobi 2-428

Visualising Languages in Space and Time: Ethno-linguistic Mapmaking in the 19^th Century Baltic Provinces

What are the origins of linguistic mapping and how have approaches to visualising languages in space and time been shaped by different intellectual and political forces, such as nationalism, imperialism, and regionalism? This presentation will discuss these questions by examining the history of ethnolinguistic mapmaking in the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire (present-day territories of Estonia and Latvia), drawing on materials from the author’s recently published book, Geographies of Nationhood: Cartography, Science, and Society in the Russian Imperial Baltic (Oxford University Press, 2022). The presentation offers a broad historical overview of trends and developments in linguistic mapping practices across the 19^th century, bringing little-known maps and mapmakers into the limelight, whilst also reflecting on what these historical maps can tell us in the context of discussions about approaches to linguistic data visualisation in the present.

Location: Jakobi 2-428

Seto keele olukorrast (välitööde põhjal) ning seto korpuse loomisest

Ettekandes räägin seto keele sotsiolingvistilisest olukorrast tänapäeval ning seto keele staatuse küsimustest. Toetun muuhulgas välitööde käigus saadud infole (2010-2016 Venemaa-osas, 2020-2022 Eestis) ning tutvustan põgusalt  veebi teel läbi viidud küsitluse tulemusi, mille fookuses on keelevahetus. Lisaks tutvustan käimasolevat projekti "Interdistsiplinaarne seto korpus: jätkuprojekt", mille käigus koostame välitööde materjalide põhjal seto keele korpuse.

Location: Jakobi 2-428

Subject and object markers in North Atlantic languages

In North-Atlantic languages (mostly spoken in Senegal and Guinea-Bissau), the general rule is that the subject can be encoded in the verb, contrary to what is observed for example in West Mande languages, where the verb provides no information on the subject. The object can also be encoded in the verb, but only in complementary distribution with the corresponding noun phrase. The study of subject marker and object marker in the North-Atlantic group distinguishes languages that mark or not a noun class distinction in the third person, those with an obligatory subject marker even if a noun phrase referring to the same entity is present in subject function, and finally those with a subject marker in complementary distribution with the corresponding noun phrase.

Location: Zoom

”A potato who tries to imitate an immigrant, languagewise” – Prosody and indexicality in the Copenhagen multiethnolect

Prosody has been the focus in descriptions of the Copenhagen multiethnolect ever since it was first described in Quist (2001). Pharao & Hansen (2005 and 2010) provide at quantitative analysis of the acoustic correlates of what was described as a staccato-like rhythm peculiar to the Copenhagen multiethnolect. Here it was shown that the main difference consisted of a shortening of phonologically long vowels. However, observations on local and global pitch contours were also reported in Pharao & Hansen (2005), specifically a difference in the tonal pattern associated with stressed syllables and a tendency for a comparatively level global pitch contour throughout declarative utterances followed by a steep fall at the end. Local pitch contours already serve as an important cue for regional varieties (Kristiansen, Pharao & Maegaard 2013, Tøndering & Pharao 2020) whereas final juncture such as that exhibited by the final fall in pitch in the Copenhagen multiethnolect is completely missing in most varieties of Danish. In this presentation, I will give the results of a quantitative analysis of local pitch contours in the Copenhagen multiethnolect and discuss how they relate to the phenomenon of staccato-like rhythm.

References

Kristiansen, T, Pharao, N & Maegaard, M 2013, ‘Controlled manipulation of intonational difference: An experimental study of intonation patterns as the basis for language-ideological constructs of geographical provenance and linguistic standardness in young Danes’ In T Kristiansen & S Grondelaers (eds.), Language (De)standardisation in Late Modern Europe: Experimental Studies. Novus, Oslo, 355–374.

Pharao, N & Hansen, GF 2005, 'Prosodiske træk i et- og tosprogede unges københavnsk', Danske Talesprog 6, 1-50.

Pharao, N & Hansen, GF 2010, ‘Prosody in the Copenhagen Multiethnolect’ in P Quist & BA Svendsen (eds.), Multilingual Urban Scandinavia: New Linguistic Practices. Multilingual Matters, Bristol, Buffalo, Toronto, 79-95.

Quist, P 2000, 'Ny københavnsk 'multietnolekt'. Om sprogbrug blandt unge i sprogligt og kulturelt heterogene miljøer', Danske Talesprog 1,143-211.

Tøndering, J & Pharao, N  2020, 'Recognising regional varieties of Danish', Linguistics Vanguard 6 s1.

Location: Jakobi 2-428

Finding words that aren’t there: Using word embeddings to improve dictionary search for low-resource languages

Modern machine learning techniques have produced many impressive results in language technology, but these techniques generally require an amount of training data that is many orders of magnitude greater than what exists for low-resource languages in general, and endangered ones in particular. However, dictionary definitions in a comparatively much more well-resourced majority language can provide a link between low-resource languages and machine learning models trained on massive amounts of majority-language data. By leveraging a pre-trained English word embedding to compute sentence embeddings for definitions in a Plains Cree (nêhiyawêwin) dictionary, we have obtained promising results for dictionary search. Not only are the search results in the majority language of the definitions more relevant, but they can be semantically relevant in ways not achievable with classic information retrieval techniques: users can perform successful searches for words that do not occur at all in the dictionary. These techniques are directly applicable to any bilingual dictionary providing translations between a high- and low-resource language.

Location: Jakobi 2-428

Mida teeb tõlkija, kui ta värvimetafoore tõlgib?

Ettekandes käsitletakse kujundlike värviväljendite, sealhulgas värvimetafooride tõlkimist inglise-eesti ja rootsi-eesti suunal. Varasemad uurimused on näidanud, et värvisõnad ja -väljendid on sageli kultuurispetsiifilised ning nende tõlkimine ühest keelest teise võib tekitada tõlkijale parasjagu peavalu. Sageli tuleb lisaks tõlkimisele hästi orienteeruda ka kultuuriraamistikes ning neid meisterlikult teisendada. Kuidas tõlkija värviväljendeid ühest keelest teise „teisendab“ ning milliseid strateegiaid selleks kasutab, on vaid üks oluline küsimus. Vastust tuleks otsida sügavamalt ning vaadelda tõlkeprotsessi ehk seda, milliseid infopäringuid tõlkija teeb, kui palju aega tal väljendi tõlkimiseks kulub ning millist rolli mängib tõlkimise juures konteksti olemasolu või puudumine. Lisaks võrreldakse kogenud tõlkijat algaja tõlkijaga ning tõlkijat nn mittetõlkijaga – pädeva võõrkeeleoskajaga, kellel tõlkekogemus puudub. Tulemused näitavad, et kogenud tõlkija tõlkeprotsess erineb märkimisväärselt algaja tõlkija valikutest ja ajakulust, mis rõhutab tõlkijahariduse tähtsust ning kogemuse olulisust tõlkimisel. Kogenud tõlkija tõlkestrateegiad on pigem suunatud sihtkeele keelenditele, algaja tõlkija ja mittetõlkija valikud aga juhinduvad lähtekeelest.  

Location: Jakobi 2-428

Studying Academic Discourse through Cross-disciplinary Scientific Lexicon using Dependency Parsed Corpora

Our presentation will be organized in two parts :

In the first part, we will introduce the cross-disciplinary scientific lexicon (CSL), a frequent lexicon specific to the scientific writing genre.
Then we will give a short demonstration of the CSL platform which allows to explore the different units and properties of this lexicon.
Finally, we will discuss the pedagogical activities considered to allow non-native writers to train themselves independently in order to remedy the difficulties they encounter during their writing assignments.

In the second part, we will explore the use of CSL classes to observe semantic-rhetorical routines in a corpus of scientific articles. These routines are pre-constructed compositional expressions that assume various functions in the text, such as introducing the plan, discussing a result, defining a term or quoting an author. Focusing on a few case studies, we will show how syntactic queries performed on a dependency parsed corpus, combined with these lexical classes, allow us to find the occurrences of these routines, even though they may be subject to important variations.

Location: Jakobi 2-427

Exceptive constructions: Syntax and Cross-linguistic distribution

Natural language allows us to express universal statements (e.g., All dogs bark), and languages also have means of expressing exceptions to such generalizations, via exceptive constructions (e.g., All dogs bark except chihuahuas). Linguistic means of expressing exclusion have received modest attention from philosophers of language and semanticists, whose focus has been primarily on English. Beyond that small body of work, little is known about exceptive constructions across the world’s languages: how they are built, what their distribution is within and across languages, and how they compare to other constructions expressing comparison or contrast. In this talk, I present and analyze the landscape of exceptive constructions in several natural languages focusing on the structural contrast between free/connected exceptives and phrasal/clausal exceptives. I will then link this exploration to more general issues of ellipsis and case-marking in exceptive phrases. 

On Zoom

Conversation-for-learning ja teised vähestruktureeritud õpikontekstid: tähelepanekud Indiana ülikooli eesti keele programmi näitel

Ettekandes teen ülevaate teise keele omandamise ja teise keele suhtluspädevuse uurimisest interaktsioonlingvistika ja konversatsioonianalüüsi vahenditega ning mitteformaalsetes õpikontekstides (nt. Hellermann et al. 2019; Salaberry & Kunitz, 2019).
Vaatlen vestlusõppe (conversation-for-learning, Kasper & Kim, 2015) kui keeleõppe vormi võimalusi teise keele omandamise uurimiseks, aga ka aktiivse võõrkeeleõppe pedagoogikas.  Analüüsin keele õppimist kui tegevusi konkreetses suhtlussituatsioonis, sh. viitamine varasemale õpikogemusele ja osalemine vestluses aktiivse keeleõppijana, näiteks eneseparandused ning valitud õpiobjektidele (learnables) keskendumine. Peatun ka teistel õppevormidel, mis aitavad luua õppijate kogukonda ja laiendada keeleõppe konteksti väljaspoole klassiruumi.
Kuna andmed on kogutud ameerika üliõpilastelt, kes õpivad eesti keele kursusel ülikoolis, siis tutvustan taustaks põgusalt ka võõrkeeleõppe olukorda Ameerika Ühendriikide kõrghariduses.

Location: Zoom

Cat–human communication: Reports from the Meowsic-project

Domestic cats have an extensive, variable and complex vocal repertoire, and they are able to modify and adapt their voices and call types, for instance to draw the attention of their human caretakers. Still, there are not many phonetic studies on cat–cat and cat–human vocal communictaion. In this talk I will give a brief overview of previous research in this field, and present some of the methods and results from the project Melody in Human–Cat Communication (Meowsic).

Location: Jakobi 2-427

Rahvusvaheline põliskeelte kümnend – kellele ja milleks?

2022. aastal alanud ja 11 aastat kestev rahvusvaheline põliskeelte kümnend on jätkuks 2019. aastal tähistatud põliskeelte aastale. Selle ettevalmistamiseks ja läbiviimiseks on UNESCO kokku kutsunud üleilmse rakkerühma, kuhu kuuluvad mitmete ÜRO allorganisatsioonide, liikmesriikide ja põlisrahvaste esindajad ning mis koordineerib kümnendi raames toimuvaid ettevõtmisi rahvusvahelisel tasandil ja ÜRO liikmesriikides. Ettekandes teen ülevaate põhjustest, miks põliskeelte aastakümme otsustati korraldada, aastakümne eesmärkidest, vahenditest ja ettevalmistustest ning sellest, kuidas on kümnend alanud. Tutvustan ka võimalusi, kuidas keeleteadlased saavad aastakümne tegevustes kaasa lüüa ning arutlen kümnendi eesmärkide saavutamise võimalikkuse üle.

Location: Jakobi 2-427

Trying to escape liability? The role of markers of epistemic modality and evidentiality in potentially defamatory texts in Spanish and French

Languages possess a vast array of devices that modulate in very different ways the responsibility we assume when we talk, such as supposedly, allegedly, visibly, obviously, in my opinion or I guess, among many others. Most of them have been semantically analysed within the linguistic categories of evidentiality and epistemic modality (Nuyts, 2001; Aikhenvald, 2004; among others), and have been pragmatically included among hedges and boosters (Hyland, 2019). Markers of evidentiality and epistemic modality may have a significant impact in potentially defamatory texts: whereas boosting strategies might be seen by lawyers and judges as unambiguous linguistic evidence of the defendants’ commitment towards punishable statements, hedging strategies may help them escape liability.

Previous studies in the field of Forensic Linguistics have not focused on the strategic role of markers of epistemic modality and evidentiality in cases involving defamation and related language crimes, such as hate discourse or threats, even if there are some notable exceptions, such as the mentions to such items in the judgments analysed by Shuy (2010) or the mitigating strategies identified in threatening discourse by Gales (2011).

The aim of this paper is to transfer specialized knowledge about markers of epistemic modality, evidentiality and related notions to a sample of defamation cases in Spanish and French in order to clarify their role in potentially defamatory discourse and show how useful this linguistic expertise might be to elucidate this type of judgements.

Location: Jakobi 2-427

Finnish prosody: Typology, focus marking and the architecture of grammar

Prosodic focus marking in Finnish is particularly interesting from a typological perspective. First, it provides evidence that Finnish is part of an under-described class of languages that makes no categorical distinctions between pitch movements. It thereby differs both from tone languages, which use pitch differences to make lexical distinctions (e.g. Mandarin má ‘mother’ vs. mâ ‘scold’), as well as from intonation languages, which use pitch to make pragmatic distinctions (e.g. English Now? vs. Now!). Unlike the best-studied European intonation languages, Finnish does not use different types of pitch accents to highlight focused constituents and deaccenting given constituents (e.g. English Who hates flying? – The PROFESSOR hates flying. vs. Does the professor like flying? – The professor HATES flying.). Instead, as I have shown in past work, Finnish prosodic focus marking can largely by characterized in terms of adjustments to phrasing and phrase marking (Arnhold, 2014a, 2016, 2019; Arnhold & Kyröläinen, 2017). Accordingly, Finnish and languages like it (e.g. Kalaallisut, see Arnhold, 2014b; Hindi, see Féry et al., 2016; Turkish, see Güneş, 2014), are classified as phrase languages in the sentence-level prosodic typology of Féry (Féry, 2010, 2017).

Second, like in other Finno-Ugric languages, variation in word order expresses focus and other aspects of information structure in Finnish (Vilkuna, 1989, 1995). This means that there is more than one grammatical tool for marking focus in Finnish, and prosodic and syntactic means can be used in interaction (Arnhold et al., 2016; Arnhold & Féry, 2013; Vainio & Järvikivi, 2007). I will report an ongoing project that investigates the implications of this fact for our conception of the architecture of grammar. In particular, it is commonly assumed that grammar is optimally evolved for communication and thereby efficient, avoiding redundancy (see overview in Reinhart, 2006). Moreover, the overall complexity of grammar is restricted by general cognitive limits (Kortmann & Szmrecsanyi, 2012; Sampson et al., 2009; Yadav et al., 2020). From this follows the prediction of prosody-syntax trade-offs, which this project tests experimentally (also see Arnhold, 2021).

Finally, time permitting, I will present a collaborative research on a case of prosody-only focus marking, namely focus on different constituents within noun phrases in Finnish (also see Arnhold, 2015), Hungarian (with Corinna Langer and Frank Kügler, Goethe-University Frankfurt) and Estonian (with Nele Ots, Goethe-University Frankfurt and University of Tartu).

On Zoom

A computational Typology of Morphological Exponence

The central tasks of morphological analysis are the segmentation of wordforms into component formatives and the identification of exponence relationships between formatives and grammatical meanings. Yet, there is currently no language-independent procedure for doing either. This is a major obstacle for morphological typology, where having comparable analyses is crucial. In this talk, I present a collaborative work with M. Carroll (Australian National University), in which we propose a formal theory of inflectional exponence, a typology of form-meaning relations, and a full implementation, letting us compare fine grained typological measures across diverse languages.

NB! Location: Ülikooli 18-139

Aika on varas and dreams are like movies: Eye movement studies on processing metaphors and similes in L1 and L2

Operating in one’s nonnative language can be challenging in general, but differences between L1 and L2 speakers may be even enlarged in case of figurative language processing. The current eye movement study investigates how Finnish native speakers process figurative language expressions like written metaphors (dreams are movies) and similes (dreams are like movies). A metaphor expresses a relationship of its constituent parts called a topic (dreams) and a vehicle (movies), in similes the relationship is made more explicit by adding the comparative word 'like'. Experiment 1 investigate the processing of such figurative expressions in L2 English. Experiment 2 directly compares the processing of these expressions in L1 Finnish and L2 English. Identical topic–vehicle pairs were used in both the metaphor and simile conditions. After reading, participants evaluated familiarity of each pair. English proficiency was measured using the Bilingual-language Profile Questionnaire and the Lexical Test for Advanced Learners of English. The results of Experiment 1 showed that readers were more likely to regress within metaphors than within similes, indicating that processing L2 metaphors requires more processing effort than processing L2 similes. The familiarity of a metaphor and L2 English proficiency modulated this effect. The results of Experiment 2 will be revealed during the presentation. The results are discussed in the light of current theories on figurative language processing.

Location: Zoom

Minority (language) policies and politics in Poland – a downward spiral?

Despite its truly multicultural past and multilingual heritage, contemporary Poland belongs to the most homogeneous countries in Europe, as far as ethnolinguistic diversity is concerned.

However, that multicultural past constitutes one of the myths eagerly referred to as an excuse for the actual – and currently exercised and projected – ethnic and linguistic top-down policies of the state, intensified by the still increasing politicization of minority issues.

A brief outline of the ethnolinguistic history and heritage of Poland will be presented with a focus primarily on the sociolinguistic, legal, and political developments of the last three decades. In the presentation, the interrelations between the former factors and the ethnolinguistic vitality indices will be reviewed with the example of several case studies.

Postponed to spring semester.

Location: Jakobi 2-427

Iconicity, and why arbitrariness is not a design feature of language

Language is traditionally thought to be arbitrary. In describing his foundational “Principle I: The Arbitrary Nature of the Sign,” Ferdinand de Saussure (1916) discussed how the same concept can be expressed with completely different word forms, such as English tree versus Latin arbor. This seems to clearly evidence that form most often does not directly correspond to meaning. Iconicity, the resemblance between form and meaning, was argued to be marginal, confined to a small number of onomatopoeias, such as English bang and beep. Following Saussure, Hockett (1960) characterized arbitrariness as a “design feature” of language, something that distinguishes human language from animal communication systems. The importance of arbitrariness has been “the received view” for decades (Perniss et al., 2010), with iconicity held to be of secondary status.

In this talk, I will argue that iconicity may be a better candidate for a “design feature” than arbitrariness. The first part of my talk will be empirical, focused on evidence showing that iconicity is widespread in spoken and signed languages, where iconicity has also been evidenced to perform important functions in acquisition and evolution. The second part is more theoretical, where I will outline how discussions often confuse ‘arbitrariness’ with ‘conventionality’ (cf. Keller, 1998), or conflate the idea of alternative structures (tree versus arbor) with the separable idea of non-iconicity (Planer & Kalkman, 2021; Watson et al., 2022). Following Flaksman’s (2017, 2020) notion of “de-iconicization”, I will make a case for arbitrariness being epiphenomenal, the result of moving away from originally iconic forms via regular processes of language change. From this perspective, arbitrariness is not itself an evolutionary target. Moreover, whereas the empirical evidence shows that speakers and signers often use iconicity at various levels of linguistic analysis, it seems hard to conceive that language users would actively strive to be arbitrary in most everyday conversations. Taken together, all of this argues for reconsidering the status of arbitrariness vis-à-vis iconicity.

Location: Jakobi 2-427

“‘Daylighting' teachers' language skills for pre-primary level initiatives: An analysis of teachers' reflections on their Võro, Estonian, and Russian abilities, kindergarten needs, and language support for Võro Language Nest and Dual Language Immersion Kindergarten Programs”

The burying of language diversity in schools through repressive policies and practices is an all too familiar global phenomenon. In an effort to understand the efforts to redress this “burying” and to advance educational environments supportive of multilingualism, I embrace the metaphor of daylighting – the contemporary urban practice of uncovering long-hidden waterways to restore and rehabilitate ecological diversity for collective betterment. The concept of “linguistic daylighting,” derived from this metaphor, refers to the process of revitalizing, or supporting, linguistic diversity in schools by removing a range of obstructions (such as laws, policies, and policies), which suppressed and/or obscured multilingualism in the spaces of public education. Daylighting, through thoughtful planning, support, and funding helps to create a socio-/cultural ecosystem supportive of a thriving multilingualism.

Part of a larger, ongoing research project on linguistic daylighting in the public schools in the U.S. Southeast, this presentation takes up this concept in the Estonian context through an examination of recent efforts at the pre-primary level to support multilingual educational environments. In particular, I consider the ways two daylighting efforts – the Võro Language Nest and the Dual Language Immersion Kindergarten Programs – center and depend upon the existing language abilities of “in-house” (i.e., already employed in that kindergarten) teachers. These kindergarten teachers’ abilities in Võro and Russian, though never before tapped for pedagogical programs, have been daylighted and proven to be a central, yet time-sensitive resource in these initiatives.

In this talk, after introducing the linguistic daylighting concept, I will share my analysis, based largely on interview data collected from 2013-2019, of these teachers’ essential linguistic resources. I consider key episodes of language “burying” in their lives given the complex historic role of schools in suppressing, or supporting, their language use as well as the consequences of family language policy. I also examine the teachers’ experience of daylighting including their reflections on language ability and the role of support from the larger kindergarten collective, class parents, and initiating institutions (e.g., Võro Institute and Innove). I conclude with thoughts on the time-sensitive nature of these daylighting projects as well as the unfinished business of linking daylighted kindergartens with basic school programs.

Uut lõunaeesti keelesaartest ja nende keelest
(Zoomis)

Viimane Eesti ja soome-ugri keeleteaduse ajakirja erinumber koondab uusimaid uurimusi lõunaeesti keelesaartest, nende ajaloolisest kujunemisest, keelest ja kultuurist. Ettekandes antakse ülevaade kogumikus esitatud põnevaimatest uurimistulemustest, näiteks Petri Kallio uuest lõunaeesti keelepuust, kus esimene hargneb leivu keel, ning Anna Stafecka ülevaatest läti murdealadest, kus on ilmsed läänemeresoome mõjud. Selliseid mõjusid on palju suuremal alal kui see, kus viimased leivu ja lutsi murrete kõnelejad elasid. Uldis Balodise artiklist selgub, et lutsid ei olegi veel välja surnud jms. Kaks kogumiku artiklit käsitlevad ka Lõuna-Pihkvamaal paiknenud Kraasna keelesaare eripära. Neist on näha, milline oli eesti kirjakeelest puutumata jäänud lõunaeesti keel. Tutvustatav lõunaeesti keelesaarte andmestik on oluline lisandus eesti ja laiemalt läänemeresoome keeleala tervikpilti.

Kognitiivse pinge indikaatorid hääles ja kõnes
(Zoomis)

Varasemad foneetilised uurimused on leidnud, et lausealgulised intonatsioonitipud on pikemates intonatsioonifraasides (mis vahetevahel kattuvad kirjakeelest tuttavate lausetega) kõrgemad kui lühemates intonatsioonifraasides [1-3]. Uurimuse eesmärk on testida ideed, et lausealgulised intonatsioonitipud kõrgenevad seoses suurema mentaalse pingutusega, mis tuleneb pikemate ning keerulisemate lausete kavandamisest. Palusin katsest osavõtjatel kirjeldada pilte, mis kujutasid sihitislikke tegevusi (nt. lööma). Tegevusse oli alati kaasatud kolm elusat ja/või elutut tegelast. Osalejad õppisid enne katset kasutama kolme tegelase nimetamiseks nimisõna mitmust (nt „Mees tõmbab eesleid“) või rinnastatud nimisõnu (nt „Mees tõmbab eeslit ja kitse“). Tulemuseks saadi pildikirjeldused, mis olid kas lühikesed või pikad. Katse teises osas paluti pilte kirjeldada nõnda, et pildi kirjeldamise vältel tuli meeles hoida kolme nimisõna, mis ei olnud pildi sisuga seotud. Pärast pildi kirjeldamist nägid osalejad ühte verbi ning neil tuli otsustada, kas selle verbi ja meeleshoitud sõnadega on võimalik teha kolm erinevat lauset. Mäluülesande eesmärk oli kasvatada mentaalset pinget. Kui pikad laused nõuavad rohkem vaimseid ressursse, siis peaks mentaalse pingutuse mõju olema suurem pikemates kui lühemates lausetes. Mentaalse pingutuse mõju kõneloomele diagnoosin kõnetempo, lausepikkuse, põhitooni ning silmaliigutuste mõõtmise abil. Sellisena loob uurimus eeldused lause intonatsiooni kognitiivsele uurimisele ja aitab paremini mõista (verbaalse) töömälu rolli kõneloomes.

Kirjandus

[1] Asu et al., Speech Prosody, 2016.
[2] Liberman, M. & J. Pierrehumbert. Studies in Phonology, 1984.
[3] J. Yuan & M. Liberman. Speech Communication, 2014.

Northeastern Romani dialects: An areal perspective

Northeastern Romani (NER) is a cluster of closely related dialects spoken in Northeastern Europe (Poland, Belarus, Russia, and the Baltic countries) since the 16^th century, cf. (Tenser 2008). Being in contact with Slavic, Baltic and to some extent Fenno-Ugric languages, NER developed several features shared with other languages of the area. In my talk I will give an overview of such innovations, e.g., subject-marking in negated existential constructions, nominative-instrumental alternation in predicative nouns, development of verbal modifiers (preverbs and verbal particles), participle-based resultatives, patterns of predicative possession and some others. I will also assess what areal features (defined in Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Wälchli 2001; Wiemer et al. 2014) proved to be resistant to borrowing in NER. An explanation of the distribution of areal innovations in NER will be offered from the point of view of sociolinguistics and structural properties of Romani itself.

Literature

Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria, and Bernhard Wälchli. 2001. The Circum-Baltic languages. An areal-typological approach. In: Dahl, Östen and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.), Circum-Baltic Languages, Vol. 2: Grammar and Typology. Amsterdam, 615-761.

Tenser, Anton. 2008. Northeastern group of Romani dialects. Ph.D. thesis. The University of Manchester.

Wiemer, Björn, Il’ja Seržant & Aksana Erker. 2014. Convergence in the Baltic-Slavic contact zone (Triangulation approach). In: Besters-Dilger, Juliane, Cynthia Dermarkar, Stefan Pfänder; Achim Rabus (eds.), Congruence in Contact-induced Language Change (Language Families, Typological Resemblance, and Perceived Similarity). Berlin, 15-42.

Communicative context and the evolution of language: The case of the patent specification genre, 1711 – 2011
(Zoomis)

Although there is now a well-established tradition of applying generalized evolutionary theoretical models to the study of language change (e.g. Croft 2000), this research has tended to focus on the evolution of languages at a very high level of generality. However, studies of register, genre and stylistic variation have demonstrated that language varies systematically depending on the communicative contexts in which it is used (Biber & Conrad 2019). This insight is clearly relevant to evolutionary models of language change: these communicative contexts are the cultural environments within which language evolves, much like the physical environments within which species evolve. Each particular communicative context shapes the language used within it in non-arbitrary ways, making language choices ever more well adapted over time for the expression of meaning in that particular cultural domain.

In this talk we will present some preliminary findings from an ongoing project that aims to develop an evolutionary account of how texts in one very specific genre have changed over time in response to cultural pressures. The genre in question is that of the patent specification.

Patenting is the branch of intellectual property law relating to innovations in industrial technology, and the patent specification genre lies at the heart of the entire patenting process. It is the genre in which a prospective patentee describes their invention in detail and explains why they believe it is worthy of intellectual property protection. Once it has been submitted for inspection, the specification then becomes the main focus of the patent officer’s technical assessment of the inventor’s claims; and if the patent application is successful, the specification finally becomes the means by which the inventor’s knowledge is made available to the public, both during the period of patent protection and in perpetuity after the expiry of the patent itself.

The data for our study consist of a diachronic corpus of British patent specification texts ranging from the publication of the world’s first specification in 1711 to the present day, with one patent selected at random per year. The project is divided into two main phases. Phase 1 (which is now complete) focuses on changes in the rhetorical structure of the patent specification genre over the last three centuries, using a combination of move structure analysis (Swales 1990; Biber et al 2007; Samraj 2014) and string edit distance techniques (Navarro 2001). Phase 2 (which is still in progress) focuses on changes at the lexico-grammatical level, with  particular reference to aspects of register and phraseology.

Our expectation was that the diachronic changes revealed by our analysis would conform either to the classic neo-Darwinian ‘phyletic gradualist’ model of evolutionary change, or to the alternative ‘punctuated equilibrium’ model proposed by Eldredge & Gould (1972). In practice, however, our results do not fit comfortably into either of these two models, but rather combine aspects of both. Specifically, we find that the patent specification genre is subject to constant and gradual change throughout its existence, but also that this constant and gradual contour is 'punctuated' by abrupt and dramatic shifts at four clearly identifiable points in time. Accordingly, we argue that the evolution of the patent specification genre is best described, following Malmgren et al (1984), as an instance of ‘punctuated gradualism’.

References

Biber, D. & Conrad, S. (2019). Register, genre, and style. 2^nd. Ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Biber, D., Connor, U., & Upton, T. A. (2007). Discourse on the move: Using corpus analysis to describe discourse structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Croft, W. (2000). Explaining language change: An evolutionary approach. Harlow, UK: Longman.

Eldredge, N., & Gould, N. E. S. J. (1972). Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism. In T.J.M. Schopf (Ed.), Models in paleobiology (pp. 82-115). San Francisco, CA: Freeman Cooper & Co.

Malmgren, B. A., Berggren, W. A., & Lohmann, G. P. (1984). Species formation through punctuated gradualism in planktonic foraminifera. Science, 225(4659), 317-319.

Navarro, G. (2001). A guided tour to approximate string matching. ACM computing surveys (CSUR), 33(1), 31-88.

Samraj, B. (2014). Move structure. In K.P. Schneider & A. Barron (Eds.), Pragmatics of Discourse (pp. 385-406). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Liikumiskiiruse väljendamisest eesti keeles
(Jakobi 2-107)

Tension-filled repertoires: A Bakhtinian perspective
(Zoomis)

This talk is based on my latest book project that adopts a Bakhtinian perspective to account for the use of English in multilingual university settings. Bakhtin's view of language as dialogic, multi-voiced, and imbued with social tensions (e.g. 1981, 1984, 1986) has inspired many directions in research concerned with bilingualism and bilingual education. For example, numerous studies conducted over the last decade have drawn on the umbrella concept of heteroglossia* to explore the interplay between different codes. Other aspects of Bakhtin’s work, such as the role of unitary language, language contact or relationships between genres, have received less attention. Bakhtin’s interest in the dialogic and heteroglossic features of written discourse makes his theoretical insights particularly relevant to explore multilingual practices mediated by literacy.

The author’s linguistic repertoire is key in creating ‘a dialogue of languages’ (Bakhtin, 1981: 294) in written discourse. In order to explore how this dialogue is experienced, my talk will zoom in on two aspiring 'translingual authors', i.e. authors who write in more than one language or a language other than their L1  (Kellman 2000, Pavlenko 2014). Informed by recent bilingualism research which draws its inspiration in Bakhtin (e.g. Busch 2017, Pavlenko 2006; 2014), my study combines the analysis of sample texts and interviews with their authors to unveil tensions between the desired and present linguistic repertoires. I will show that such tensions also drive multilingual creativity, as writing in English can be experienced both as 'emancipatory detachment' (Pavlenko, 2014: 280) and as a straitjacket.

* The term heteroglossia was introduced by English translators of Bakhtin to cover three inter-related concepts: ‘raznorechie’ (разноречие, diversity in speech), ‘raznoyazychie’ (разноязычие, diversity in language) and ‘raznogolosie’ (разноголосие, diversity in voicedness).

The situation here goes too far. Lithuanian language standardization as an exercise of power
(Zoomis)

Although nationalism and prescriptivism are known to probably all Western communities, Lithuania seems to stand in a rather sharp contrast with respect to linguistic values, language correction practices and the role language norm-setters play in society and for official language policies. In this paper, I will show how language regimentation framework, developed during the Soviet regime, became an integral part of the official language policy in the post-Soviet Lithuania. The main focus will be on construction of a linguist authority in language planning discourse as well as propaganda of prescriptivism in mother tongue education.

Remarks on inference and assumption in Finnish
(Zoomis)

Inference and assumption are evidence types that have been labeled as [+PER] and [-DIR] by Plungian (2010). Usually, the differences between these information sources are based on whether the speaker’s claim is based on some observable evidence (inference) or not (assumption) that is not directly related to the claim that the speaker makes. These kinds of definition have been proposed, for example, by de Haan (2001) and Aikhenvald (2004), and also Plungian defines these evidence types in a similar way.  

In my talk, I will discuss the notions of inference and assumption in Finnish. I will show that the previous definitions do not fully capture the real nature of inference and assumption (in Finnish or in more general terms), but other features need to be taken into account. In addition to the mere observable/non-observable nature of the speaker’s evidence, the temporal relations between the claim and the evidence along with whether the available evidence allows naturally one or more readings will be discussed. It will also be shown that inference and assumption differ from all other evidence types in their highly subjective nature; the speaker has freedom to use either one of them according to how reliable s/he finds the available evidence to be. 

The notions of inference and assumption will be discussed in light of Finnish particles näköjään (inference) and varmaan (assumption), which were studied with the help of a questionnaire study. The use of these particles is largely determined by how much responsibility the speaker can take for his/her claim. It is also interesting that in general, the use of the particle varmaan is twice as common as the use of näköjään.  

Quantity and tone perception by Estonian and Chinese native speakers: Preliminary results
Jakobi 2-427

Long-term language experience (one’s native language, L1) affects the brain’s pre-attentional processing of acoustic features (i.e., duration and pitch) to a considerable extent. Estonian is a quantity language in which the two syllables of a disyllabic word could occur in different ratios, and Estonians use both duration and pitch cues to perceive words. Mandarin Chinese, on the other hand, uses the language-specific pitch patterns, i.e., lexical tones, to distinguish lexical meaning.

In this talk, I will present the preliminary results of our EEG experiments on how Estonian and Chinese native speakers perceive acoustic features in their respective L1 and L2 (Chinese language for Estonian subjects and vice versa). We used mismatch negativity (MMN), the brain’s ability to automatically discriminate between processing of a frequent and a rare stimulus, as a tool. Both Estonian (N=60) and Chinese (N=60) subjects listened to L1 and L2 words. An optimal MMN paradigm was adopted where the deviants differed from the standard in terms of duration, pitch, or both duration and pitch.

For the Estonian word stimuli, the Estonian subjects showed a larger MMN to both the duration change and the pitch change than the Chinese subjects. Meanwhile, the Chinese subjects showed a right laterization to both the duration change and the pitch change, suggesting that the Chinese subjects processed the Estonian words as acoustic rather than linguistic information. For the Chinese word stimuli, the Chinese subjects showed a larger MMN with an earlier onset to the pitch difference than the Estonian subjects. Instead of eliciting an enhanced MMN in the native Chinese speakers, the duration change elicited comparable MMNs in both groups, suggesting that duration is not stored in the phonological knowledge of the Chinese subjects. Together, our results showed that long-term language experience, i.e., duration and pitch components in the Estonian language and the lexical tone in Mandarin Chinese, has an effect on the brain’s auditory perception abilities.

Continuity of Livonian: Experience of critically endangered language
(Zoomis)

In my presentation, I will address issues such as the ways of the preservation and development of endangered languages in the modern world and some experience in working with Livonian. Multiple factors affect speakers of endangered languages in language life. I will show which are the current important aspects of Livonian language vitality based on my research within the community and activists for promotion and maintaining Livonian language and culture. 

Parseltongue: an application of linguistics

Parseltongue, in the Harry Potter books and films, is the fictional language which allows humans and snakes to speak to each other. No samples of the language are offered in the books, and so when the producer of the second Harry Potter film decided to include a scene with Parseltongue he needed the spoken language to be created. This talk will discuss the creation of fragments of Parseltongue, including what the rationale was for adopting particular phonetic and other features. In presenting Parseltongue I will mention for comparison two other ‘conlangs’ (constructed languages) and also show how the creation of a made-up language draws on all levels of the analysis of human languages. In the case of Parseltongue some imaginative reasoning is also needed based on how snakes might shape the shared language. The process constitutes a somewhat unusual application of linguistic knowledge, one which touches on both the differences and the underlying commonalities found in human languages.

Eestikeelsete sõnade konkreetsus: hinnangute kogumine ja kasutamine
(Jakobi 2-427)

Alates aastast 2021 on käimas projekt eestikeelsete sõnade konkreetsushinnangute kogumiseks. Hinnanguid kogume 40 000le eesti keele kõige sagedasemale sõnale ning projekti lõpuks valmib hinnangute andmebaas, mis on ligipääsetav kõigile, kellel huvi või vajadust on. Sarnaseid andmebaase leiab väga paljudele keelte kohta – suuremad andmebaasid on olemas näiteks inglise ja hollandikeelsete sõnade kohta, väiksemad aga näiteks prantsuse, horvaatia, hispaania, indoneesia ja portugali keele kohta. Loengus annan ülevaate sellest, miks selliseid andmebaase vaja on ning mis üldse on sõna konkreetsus ja abstraktsus. Samuti tutvustan, kuidas meie oma uuringu kokku panime ning räägin ka esialgsetest tulemustest.

Repetition in language - from discourse patterns to grammatical constructions

There are various patterns in the languages of the world which contain a repetition of linguistic material – from English well, well to Latin cucurrit ‘has run’ (vs currit ‘runs’). They can be distinguished by formal aspects (for example, what is repeated, how tightly are the repeated items connected) as well as their functions, which may be pragmatic (for example, used for confirming, correcting, or insisting on a statement), semantic (for example, expressing a degree or quantity), or grammatical (such as the expression of tense or number). While there is extensive research on repetition of material within the boundaries of a word (reduplication in the narrow sense, as in Latin cucurrit), the systematic investigation of the iteration of words and phrases started more recently. A third type of repetitive constructions, often neglected, its cognate constructions, where the same root is repeated in different words. The existence of corpora and corpus-linguistic methods has opened new possibilities for the study of all types of repetitive patterns and constructions.

In my talk I will first give an overview of the phenomenon and aspects of its investigation, and then discuss selected formal and functional aspects in detail on the basis of two case studies: iteration in Latgalian fairytales (guoja, guoja ‘walked and walked’), and cognate constructions in Latvian (runā vienā runāšanā, literally ‘talks in one talking’ = ‘talks without interruption’; runāt runā ‘talk.INF talk.PRS.3’ = ‘they talk indeed’). A common question in these studies is: when does a construction become grammatical, and what distinguishes semantic or grammatical uses of repetition from pragmatic uses?

Stance and engagement in academic discourse: The Baltic perspective

The expression of author stance and the ways to engage with the reader have become one of the key aspects of academic discourse investigations over the past several decades. Numerous cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary empirical studies have revealed that stance and engagement patterns are reflective of different disciplinary and cultural traditions of academic text construction. Personal pronouns, evaluative lexis, linguistic devices mitigating or strengthening propositions, discourse structuring elements, rhetorical questions and various other elements of stance and engagement have been reported to contribute to the creation of distinct academic identity on both individual and national or disciplinary levels.

This talk will focus on stance and engagement features characteristic to the academic discourse of the Baltic states and on what they can tell us about academic identity of this small geographic region. It is based on the project “Academic Writing in the Baltic States: Rhetorical structures through culture(s) and languages”, currently in progress.

Eesti viipekeel ja selle kasutajad

Viimase mõnekümne aasta jooksul, mil eesti viipekeel on uurijate huviorbiidis olnud, on viipekeele staatus ühiskonnas oluliselt muutunud. Keel, mille kasutamist varem tauniti isegi hariduses, on täna riiklikult tunnustatud ja igapäevaselt pildil. 

Loeng teeb põgusa sissevaate sellesse väiksesse kogukonda, kus eesti viipekeelt kasutatakse, ja uurimustesse, mis ühest või teisest aspektist eesti viipekeelt käsitlevad: kuidas tekivad uued viiped, missugune on eesti viipekeele grammatiline ülesehitus, kuidas keel ajas muutub. Kõrvutame eesti viipekeelt teiste viipekeeltega ja püüame leida tema haru viipekeelte keelepuus. Vaatleme ka seda, missugune mõju eesti viipekeelele on olnud ümbritseval eestikeelsel keeleruumil ja mis ootab eesti viipekeelt ees tulevikus.

Deep clausal embeddings in Finno-Ugric as a typological and theoretical challenge

Finno-Ugric languages form subordinate clauses in various ways – with finite and non-finite verb forms, with and without conjunctions, etc. All these are interesting and have been extensively studied, although the focus of researchers has always been on first-order subordinate clauses, and not on deeper embeddings (such as second- or third-order embedded clauses). Under ‘deeply embedded clause’ I mean a clause (finite, infinitival, converb or participial) which is embedded in a clause, which itself is a subordinate clause, etc – e.g. in the Finnish sentence [Lakia ehdotetaan muutettavaksi niin, [että valtioneuvosto voisi asettaa rajoituksia sellaisten yritysten koolle, [joille kehitysalueen investointitukea voidaan myöntää]]] (VISK § 1168).
Such sentences with several levels of embedding recur in debates for or against recursion as a “fundamental property of human language” which explains the excessive focus of researchers on their formal properties, such as the embedding depth, the position of the embedded clause in the superordinate clause (center-embedding vs. tail-embedding), etc. On the other hand, there are hardly any studies devoted to the grammatical semantics of such deep clausal embeddings in relation to the other clauses in the sentence; a remarkable exception is the recent work of Alexander Letuchiy (2018, 2020), which serves as an inspiration for the present talk.
What are the semantic properties (tense, aspect, modality) of such deeply embedded clauses? Are these properties determined by the immediately superordinate clause, or also by upper clauses in the embedding cycle, or can they be independently assigned – relative to the moment of speech and the reality of certain states of affairs at this moment? And finally – what kind of discoveries of a study on TAM in deep clausal embedding would pose a challenge to the recursion claim.

On the semantics and pragmatics of negation and their effects on the structure of negatives in a cross-linguistic perspective

Cross-linguistic typological work on negation has paid most attention to standard negation, i.e. the negation of declarative verbal main clauses. Other aspects of negation that have received at least some attention in large-scale typological studies include the negation of imperatives, the negation of stative (nonverbal, existential, etc.) predications, the negation of indefinite pronouns, abessives, the effects of negation on the marking of NPs, and negative replies to questions – for a recent overview of typological work on negation, see Miestamo 2017. Currently, typological work is underway on various aspects of the typology of negation: e.g., Veselinova’s work on negative lexicalizations and the relationship between negation and TAM, Miestamo & Koptjevskaja Tamm’s work on antonyms, Van Olmen’s work on negative imperatives, and Mauri & Sansò's work on anticircumstantial clauses as well as Miestamo, Shagal & Silvennoinen’s work on negation in dependent clauses.

In typological work, explanations for cross-linguistic generalizations are most often sought in the functional properties of the phenomenon under study. Such explanations include, for example, economy-based explanations of cross-linguistic markedness patterns, e.g. explaining the markedness of the plural by its lower text frequency as compared to the singular. In this talk, instead of first presenting typological generalizations on the structure of negatives and then discussing their possible functional explanations, I will turn the perspective around, start from the functional properties (semantics, pragmatics, processing etc) of negation and see what kinds of negative structures they may give rise to. I will discuss ways in which negation differs from affirmation in its semantics and pragmatics, paying attention for example to the discourse context of negation, and how such differences can be seen as motivating various cross-linguistically recurring structural patterns in negatives. This shift of perspective will help us to see connections between different typological properties of negatives that might otherwise go unnoticed.

References

van der Auwera, J. & L. Lejeune. 2005. The prohibitive. In M. Haspelmath, M. Dryer, D. Gil & B. Comrie (eds.), The world atlas of language structures, 290–293. Oxford: OUP.
Croft, W. 1991. The evolution of negation. Journal of Linguistics 27(1). 1–27.
Dahl, Ö. 1979. Typology of sentence negation. Linguistics 17. 79–106.
Dryer, M. S. 2013a. Negative morphemes. In M. Dryer & M. Haspelmath (eds.), World atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. http://wals.info/chapter/112/.
Dryer, M. 2013b. Order of negative morpheme and verb. In M. Dryer and M. Haspelmath (eds.), World atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. http://wals.info/chapter/143.
Dryer, M. 2013c. Position of negative morpheme with respect to subject, object, and verb. In M. Dryer and M. Haspelmath (eds.), World atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. http://wals.info/chapter/144.
Eriksen, P.K. 2011. ‘To not be’ or not ‘to not be’: The typology of negation of non-verbal predicates. Studies in Language 35 (2): 275-310.
Haspelmath, M. 1997. Indefinite pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haspelmath, M. 2013. Negative indefinite pronouns and predicate negation. In M. Dryer & M. Haspelmath (eds.), World atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, http://wals.info/chapter/115.
Holmberg, A. 2015. The Syntax of Yes and No. Oxford: OUP.
Miestamo, M. 2005. Standard negation: The negation of declarative verbal main clauses in a typological perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Miestamo, M. 2014. Partitives and negation: A cross-linguistic survey. In S. Luraghi & T. Huumo, eds., Partitive Cases and Related Categories, 63-86. Mouton de Gruyter.
Miestamo, Matti. 2016. Questionnaire for describing the negation system of a language. Available online via http://tulquest.huma-num.fr/fr/node/134.
Miestamo, M. 2017. Negation. In A. Aikhenvald & R. M. W. Dixon, eds., The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology, 405-439. Cambridge: CUP.
Payne, J. 1985. Negation. In T. Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, volume I, Clause structure, 197–242. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stolz, T., C. Stroh & A. Urdze. 2007. WITH(OUT): On the markedness relations between comitatives/instrumentals and abessives. Word 58(2). 63-122.
Van Alsenoy, L. 2014. A New Typology of Indefinite Pronouns, with a Focus on Negative Indefinites. U Antwerp dissertation.
Veselinova, L. 2013. Negative existentials: A cross-linguistic study. Rivista di linguistica 25 (1): 107-145.

Sõnaliigiline varieerumine kaassõna ja adverbi piirialal: kas elliptilisus või tähenduslik diferentseeritus?

Kui kaassõnad moodustavad suhteliselt väikse ja kindlapiirilise sõnaklassi (neid saab loendada sadades), siis määrsõnade klass on nii eesti keeles kui ka teistes keeltes suur ja heterogeenne (loendatakse tuhandetes). Kahe klassi ühisossa kuuluvad sõnad, mis võivad samas tähenduses olla kord kaassõnad (üle põllu), kord määrsõnad (sõitis üle). Tavalisem on selline varieeruvus  kohatähenduslike sõnade puhul, kuid mõningal määral ka muudes tähendustes. Koos verbiga võib olla moodustunud ka uue tähendusega tervik, ainukordne ühendverb (üle minema, läbi kukkuma). Kuid kaassõna ja ühendverbi vahel eksisteerib nende sõnade puhul lisaks veel mitmesuguseid kasutusi, kus komplemendiks sobiv sõna on kas juurde mõeldav (kaassõnafraas on elliptiline), grammatiliste käänete asemel kohakäändes (august läbi) või asendab komplementi lokatiivne proadverb (sealt läbi). Süntaktiliselt eristab kaassõnalist ja adverbilist esinemist kaassõna lahutamatus komplemendist, samas kui adverb ja nimisõna ei pea paiknema kõrvuti. Kaassõnadega lähendab adverbilisi kasutusi seotus pigem komplemendilaadse nimisõnaga kui verbiga. Sellise sõnaliigilise varieeruvuse taga on nähtud eelkõige pragmaatilisi ja infostruktuurilisi tegureid, kuid ka verbi semantikast tulenevaid eristusi. Oma ettekandes arutlen kaas- ja määrsõna vahelise kontiinumi näidete üle. Uurin, millised semantilised tegurid võiksid mõjutada sõna kasutamist kord kaassõna, kord adverbina ning kas ja kuidas mõjutab sagedus sõnade esinemist ühes või teises koosluses.

Spoken English in time and across time: Constructions, context, corpora

Spoken dialogue is the most common use of language, but it is also incredibly complex and dynamic. It puts on full display the intricate ways in which speakers coordinate their contributions to make sense of the world and negotiate social relations with each other. A fruitful method for studying spoken dialogue is to consult language corpora based on spoken, conversational data. However, the shortage of such corpora has long been an obstacle. This talk brings together the main findings of my recent work on spoken English both from a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. It provides a novel and empirically grounded account of the dynamic negotiation of meaning in spoken dialogue including the constructional properties and socio-cognitive processes that play a role. It also reports on the compilation of a new corpus of spoken English, the London–Lund Corpus 2, designed according to the same principles as the first London–Lund Corpus with data from the 1950s to 1980s. In this way, the corpus allows not only for synchronic investigations of contemporary speech but also for principled diachronic research of spoken language across time.

Läänemeresoome keelte struktuurijoonte püsivus ja muutuvus

Ettekandes tutvustan oma järeldoktorantuuri projekti, mille jooksul on lähema vaatluse all  läänemeresoome keelte struktuurijoone püsivus vs. muutuvus. Tutvustan mõne konkreetse näite varal, mida olen seni teinud ja mida on veel plaanis teha. Et projekt on osa laiemast tervikust, suuremahulise uurali keelte andmebaasi UraTyp arendamisest, esitlen ettekandes ka andmebaasi ning selle põhjalt tehtud analüüside esimesi tulemusi.

The status of thematic roles in language and cognition: evidence from instruments

Thematic roles such as Agent and Patient are ubiquitous in theories of the syntax/semantics interface (where in "Joel cut the bread," Joel is characterized as an Agent and the bread as a Patient). Despite this ubiquity, thematic roles have for decades been criticized as lacking theoretical utility and psychological reality. In this talk, I focus on the Instrument role (e.g., the knife in "Joel cut the bread with a knife"), asking whether such a role has broad explanatory value in linguistics and cognitive science. I present an analysis of the English instrumental markers "with" and "use", arguing that Agent but not Instrument is needed as a semantic primitive to account for these words’ meanings. It would be hasty, however, to abandon instrumentality as a category, as elicited video descriptions and sentence acceptability judgments demonstrate a stable Instrumental prototype across English, Dutch, and German. In addition, data from child homesigners (deaf children who have been taught neither a spoken nor a sign language) suggest ways of linguistically encoding the role of an Instrument that are shared across cultures. Taken together, these results suggest that Instrument is a prominent category in cognition but that this category is not directly reflected in English word meaning.

Low transitivity predications in Finnish: comparing Free nominals and copula clauses as grammatical and international resources

In their 1980 paper, Hopper & Thompson introduced a scalar notion of transitivity. At the low end of the transitivity scale, there are one-participant predications which are atelic in their aspect and do not describe actions (Hopper & Thompson 1980: 252). Thompson and Hopper (2001) point out that conversation is very low in transitivity: In their American English conversational data, one-participant clauses were abundant (73% of clauses). A typical example of a low transitivity (LT) predication is a copula clause. In the data Thompson and Hopper used, 37% of one-participant clauses were copula clauses. Comparing this to Finnish conversational data, LT predications dominate, while only 22% of clauses have two participants (are transitive).

The Finnish verb olla ‘to be’ is used in a number of LT clause types, including copula clauses and existential and habitive clauses. Predications that involve assessment and categorization are typically done with copula clauses, but they can also be made without a verb, with free NPs (Helasvuo 2001, 2019; see also Ono & Thompson 1994; Tao 1992, 1996) and other free nominals such as adjectives. In this paper, we will discuss the contexts in which speakers of Finnish use olla as a linking verb and ones where predications are made without it, as free nominals (NPs and APs). We analyze their functions and position in the interaction sequence.

Predicate nominals in copula clauses and free nominals serve partly overlapping functions. Both are, for example, used for characterizing, categorizing, and identifying referents. Well over half of the predicate nominals in our data characterized a referent, whereas less than 27% of free nominals served this function. Furthermore, free nominals were used in many functions that were not available for predicate nominals in copula clauses. For example, only free NPs were used as vocatives. Our study also indicates that the verbless formats are more likely than formats with the copula to be used in non-initial positions in sequences of talk and less likely to initiate new actions. The formats with olla are more likely to be used in initial position and may initiate actions.

References

Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa 2001: Syntax in the Making. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa 2019: Free NPs as units in Finnish. Special Issue on Usage-based and
Typological Approaches to Linguistic Units. Ritva Laury, Tsuyoshi Ono & Ryoko Suzuki (guest eds), Studies in Language 43(2):301–328.
Ono, Tsuyoshi & Sandra A. Thompson 1994: Unattached NPs in English conversation. BLS 20.
Tao, Hongyin 1992: NP Intonation Units and Referent Identification. BLS 18.
Tao, Hongyin 1996: Units in Mandarin Conversation. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Studies on linguistic landscapes in Estonia

Linguistic landscape studies focusing on written use of languages in public places is a fast developing field in sociolinguistics. Collecting and analysing signs and advertisements found in the streets of different cities, towns and villages reveals patterns of language use, language contacts, and power relations between different speech communities. Estonia, as a multilingual country with a long history of foreign influences, makes a fascinating case for analysis. In the presentation, issues of methodology of linguistic landscape studies will be discussed in relation to the Estonian context, the project LinguaSnapp Tallinn which is currently under development will be presented, and several sets of data from Tallinn, Narva and other Estonian cities will be analysed with the focus on multilingual practices and contact-induced changes in Estonian Russian.