Cover not available
Part of
Studies in Övdalian Morphology and Syntax: New research on a lesser-known Scandinavian language
Edited by Kristine Bentzen, Henrik Rosenkvist and Janne Bondi Johannessen †
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 221] 2015
► pp. 177–230

The morphological expression of case 
in Övdalian

ORCID logo | CASTL, University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway

The purpose of this paper is to document and describe the case system of the most conservative variety of Övdalian still spoken (‘Traditional Övdalian,’ TÖ). The system is compared with the four-case system of Old Swedish (OS) and the three-case system of Classical Övdalian (CÖ) described by Levander (1909). I argue that TÖ distinguishes three cases, but in full noun phrases, only manifests a two-case system, where Dative case is opposed to a Direct case comprising nominative and accusative functions. Pronouns generally show a different alignment, distinguishing nominative from objective cases. I focus on the nominal suffixes, which distinguish gender, number, definiteness, and case, as well as declension class. I argue that TÖ nouns have only one suffix, where OS had three, and CÖ was in transition between two suffixes and one. I examine the patterns of syncretism, and suggest that some can be explained in terms of markedness cooccurrence restrictions, but not others. I also briefly discuss adnominal modifiers (determiners and adjectives).

Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 3.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 22 January 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.221.08sve
References
Åfarli, Tor Anders & Fjøsne, Eldfrid Haaker
2012 Weak dative case in Norwegian dialect syntax. Studia Linguistica 66(2): 75–93. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Åkerberg, Bengt
2000 Ulum Dalska Grammatik 2000. Ulum Dalska. [URL]Google Scholar
2012 Älvdalsk grammatik. Centrumtryck, Mora. With Gunnar Nyström.Google Scholar
Baerman, Matthew
2009 Case syncretism. In The Oxford Handbook of Case, Andrej Malchukov & Andrew Spencer (eds), 219–230. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Bandle, Oskar, Braunmüller, Kurt, Håkon Jahr, Ernst, Karker, Allan, Naumann, Hans-Peter & Teleman, Ulf
(eds) 2002 The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages, Vol. 1. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Blake, Barry J
2001 Case. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bobaljik, Jonathan David & Jonas, Dianne
1996 Subject positions and the roles of TP. Linguistic Inquiry 27(2): 195–236.Google Scholar
Bonet, Eulalia
1991 Morphology after Syntax: Pronominal Clitics in Romance. PhD dissertation, MIT.
Borer, Hagit
2005 Structuring Sense, 1: In Name Only. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bossong, Georg
1991 Differential object marking in Romance and beyond. In New Analyses in Romance Linguistics: Selected Papers from the XVIII Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 69], Dieter Wanner & Douglas A. Kibbee (eds), 143–170. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bye, Patrik & Svenonius, Peter
2012 Non-concatenative morphology as epiphenomenon. In The Morphology and Phonology of Exponence, Jochen Trommer (ed.), 427–495. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caha, Pavel
2009 The Nanosyntax of Case. PhD dissertation, University of Tromsø.
Carstairs, Andrew
1987 Allomorphy in Inflexion. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen & Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria
2006 The resilient dative and other remarkable cases in Scandinavian vernaculars. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung (STUF) 59(1): 56–75.Google Scholar
Dalrymple, Mary & Nikolaeva, Irina
2011 Objects and Information Structure. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
DeLancey, Scott
1981 An interpretation of split ergativity and related patterns. Language 57(3): 626–657. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Delsing, Lars-Olof
2002 The morphology of Old Nordic, II: Old Swedish and Old Danish. In Bandle, et al. (eds), Vol. 1, 925–939.
2003 Syntaktisk variation i nordiska nominalfraser. In Dialektsyntaktiska studier av den nordiska nominalfrasen, Øystein Alexander Vangsnes, Anders Holmberg & Lars-Olof Delsing (eds),11–64. Oslo: Novus.Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert M.W
1972 The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1994 Ergativity. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eythórsson, Thórhallur, Johannessen, Janne Bondi, Laake, Signe & Åfarli, Tor A
2012 Dative case in Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese: Preservation and non-preservation. Journal of Nordic Linguistics 35(3): 219–249. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje
2004 The Syntax of Old Norse. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
2009 On the history of definiteness marking in Scandinavian. Journal of Linguistics 45(3): 617–639. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garbacz, Piotr
2010 Word Order in Övdalian: A Study in Variation and Change. PhD dissertation, Lund University.
Halle, Morris
1997 Distributed morphology: Impoverishment and fission. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 30: 425–449.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin
2009 Terminology of case. In The Oxford Handbook of Case, Andrej Malchukov & Andrew Spencer (eds), 505–517. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Helgander, John
1996 Mobilitet och språkförändring. Exemplet Övre Dalarna och det vidare perspektivet. Falun, Högskolan Dalarna. Rapport 1996: 3.Google Scholar
2005 Älvdalsmål i förändring – några reflektioner kring en fallstudie. In Rapport från Fuost konferensn um övdalskų/Första konferensen om älvdalska, Gunnar Nyström. Uppsala Universitet. [URL]Google Scholar
Hjelmslev, Louis
1935 La catégorie des cas: Étude de grammaire générale, Vol. 1. Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar
Iversen, Ragnvald
1922[1973] Norrøn grammatikk, 7th edn. Kristiana: Aschehoug.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman
1936 Beitrag zur allgemeinen Kasuslehre. Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 6: 240–288.Google Scholar
Lahiri, Aditi, Wetterlin, Allison & Jönsson-Steiner, Elisabet
2005 Sounds definite-ly clitic: Evidence from Scandinavian tone. Lingue e linguaggio 2: 243–262.Google Scholar
Larsson, Hjalmar
1985 Kunundsin kumb: Lesubuok ǫ dalska. Älvdalen: Published by the author.Google Scholar
Levander, Lars
1909 Älvdalsmålet i dalarna: Ordböjning ock syntax. Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Söner.Google Scholar
1925 Dalmålet: Beskrivning och historia, I. Uppsala: Appelberg.Google Scholar
1928 Dalmålet: Beskrivning och historia, II. Uppsala: Appelberg.Google Scholar
Morén-Duolljá, Bruce
2013 The prosody of Swedish underived nouns: No lexical tones required. Nordlyd: Tromsø Working Papers in Language and Linguistics 40(1): 196–248.Google Scholar
Müller, Gereon
2005 Syncretism and iconicity in Icelandic noun declensions: A distributed morphology approach. Yearbook of Morphology 2004: 229–271. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Noreen, Adolf
1884 Altnordische Grammatik I. Halle: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
1904 Altschwedische Grammatik: Mit Einschluss des altgutnischen. Halle: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Noyer, Ralf
1992 Features, Positions and Affixes in Autonomous Morphological Structure. PhD dissertation, MIT.
Nygaard, Marius
1966 Norrøn syntax. Oslo: Emil Moestue Aschehoug.Google Scholar
Nyström, Gunnar
1964 Ett prov på Karlarvsmålet i älvdalen. Utskrift och översättning av bandinspelning jämte kommentarer. Ms, SOFI Uppsala ref. nr 25661.
Pylkkänen, Liina
2008 Introducing Arguments. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ringmar, Martin
2005 Älvdalska – en önordisk språk ö på fastlandet? In Rapport från Fuost konferensn um övdalskų/Första konferensen om älvdalska, Gunnar Nyström (ed.). Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet. [URL]Google Scholar
Sandøy, Helge
2000 Vitnemål frå ein dativbrukar. In Dialekter og folkminnen. Hyllningsskrift till Maj Reinhammar den 17 maj 2000, Lennart Elmevik (ed.), 231–239.Uppsala: Sällskapet för svensk dialektologi.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael
1976 Hierarchy of features and ergativity. In Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages, Robert M.W. Dixon (ed), 112–171. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Steensland, Lars
2006 Liten älvdalsk–svensk och svensk–älvdalsk ordbok. Älvdalen: Ulum Dalska.Google Scholar
Stump, Gregory T
2001 Inflectional Morphology: A Theory of Paradigm Structure. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Svenonius, Peter
2008 The position of adjectives and other phrasal modifiers in the decomposition of DP. In Adjectives and Adverbs: Syntax, Semantics, and Discourse, Louise McNally & Chris Kennedy (eds), 16–42. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
To appear. Declension class and the Norwegian definite suffix. In The Morpho-Syntax Phonology Connection, Vera Gribanova & Stephanie Shih (eds) Oxford OUP
Thráinsson, Höskuldur, Petersen, Hjalmar P., Jacobsen, Jógvan í Lon & Hansen, Zakaris Svabo
2004 Faroese: An Overview and Reference Grammar. Tórshavn: Føroya Fróðskaparfelag.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Vangsnes, Øystein Alexander
2015. The polyfunctionality of which in Övdalian. In Studies in Övdalian Morphology and Syntax [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 221], ► pp. 137 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.