Verb movement in contemporary Faroese: A case study of syntactic variation and change
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Philosophy Psychology & Language
Abstract
This project is an investigation of a recent change in the syntax of the Scandinavian language Faroese, using recent experimental methods for measuring the linguistic knowledge of native speakers, both children and adults. The change, affecting the position of verbs in sentences, is akin to the one distinguishing Middle English Quene Ester looked never ... (verb before adverb) from Modern English Queen Ester never looked ... (verb after adverb). A better understanding of the contemporary Faroese situation can thus help to illumine an aspect of the history of English, as well as our understanding of language change more generally.
Organisations
Publications
Bentzen K
(2010)
On variation in Faroese verb placement
in Nordlyd
Heycock C
(2012)
Detecting the Late Stages of Syntactic Change: The Loss of V-to-T in Faroese
in Language
Heycock C
(2010)
V-to-I and V2 in subordinate clauses: an investigation of Faroese in relation to Icelandic and Danish
in The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics
Heycock C
(2013)
Acquisition in Variation (and Vice Versa): V-to-T in Faroese Children
in Language Acquisition
Heycock C
(2013)
How variational acquisition drives syntactic change The loss of verb movement in Scandinavian
in The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics
Heycock, C, Sorace, A, Hansen, Z, And Wilson, F.
(2010)
Language Acquisition and Development: Proceedings of GALA 2009
| Description | This project was an investigation of a recent change in the syntax (grammar) of the Scandinavian language Faroese, using recent experimental methods for measuring the linguistic knowledge of native speakers, both children and adults. The change, affecting the position of verbs in sentences, is akin to the one distinguishing Middle English "Quene Ester looked never ..." (verb before adverb) from Modern English "Queen Ester never looked ..." (verb after adverb). A better understanding of the contemporary Faroese situation helps to illuminate an aspect of the history of English, as well as our understanding of language change more generally. Findings specifically about the syntax of modern Faroese: - We established that the syntactic change investigated is at a very late stage, but has not yet gone to completion. In particular, the judgments of speakers on the "incoming" word order are not yet the same as the judgments of speakers of Danish on the equivalent word order (the change in Danish having gone to completion some centuries before). - Contra earlier findings, there do not appear to be detectable regional differences. - More surprisingly, there are also no detectable differences according to the age of the speaker Findings concerning aquisition, and the relation to language change: - Contra predictions that preliterate children would appear the most "advanced" in the change (on the assumption that the earlier forms remain as part of a literary register) we found that pre-school children as old as 7 produced and accepted more of the "old" forms than adults - Comparison with data from related languages (Swedish, Norwegian) suggest that this is a developmental pattern. - The relatively high levels of acceptance and production of the "old" forms among children are evidence against current theories that propose that this type of change is driven by an initial default setting in favour of the "new" form. This indirectly also constitutes evidence against "Degree Zero Learnability" - the proposal that children acquire their language entirely on the basis of root clauses. Methodological advances With this project we were able to show that judgments of acceptability, gathered systematically and analysed with appropriate quantitative measures, are sufficiently sensitive to differentiate variants that are extremely rare in corpus data. |
| Exploitation Route | The techniques that we developed for working with children can be adapted for other languages. The explanation for the change that we have developed in recent (2012--) work can be tested against other data, to establish whether it is a viable general model for linguistic change. |
| Sectors | Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~heycock/faroese-project/index.html |
| Description | This research project was developed to provide results that would further the understanding of language change in general, and specific syntactic changes in Germanic in particular. It was not designed for economic or societal impact. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2000 |
| Sector | Education,Other |
| Impact Types | Cultural |
| Description | (Re)discovering an auxiliary/main erb distinction in Scandinavian children. Conference Presentation, Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition, Lisbon, Portugal. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk resulted in many questions and a good deal of subsequent discussion. The presentation was subsequently published in the Proceedings of the conference, and a revised an expanded version was published as a journal paper. This talk was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
| Description | .On the t(r)ail of a syntactic change: Verb movement in Faroese. Invited talk, departmental seminar, University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk gave rise to lively discussion. This talk was intended for an academic audience |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
| Description | Acquisition in Variation (and vice versa). Plenary talk, Grand meeting of ScanDiaSyn/N'CLAV |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk sparked much discussion. I was able in particular to establish possible future collaboration with researchers working on similar topics in Sweden. Talk was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
| Description | Assessing variation in Germanic: Are the Faroes really between Iceland and Denmark? Invited talk, departmental seminar, Yale University, USA. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | The talk gave rise to lively discussion, particularly as a number of postgraduate students attending had done projects in this area. This talk was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
| Description | Collecting and interpreting acceptability judgments using Magnitude Estimation. Invited presentation at the US-Iceland NSF Workshop, Reykjavik |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk sparked much discussion. The methodology I presented has subsequently been adopted for studies by other researchers. This presentation was intended for an academic audience |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2007 |
| Description | Detecting embedded V2: A guide for linguists and children. Invited talk in the Workshop on Root Phenomena, ZAS, Berlin, Germany. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk results in much discussion. The Royal Society of Edinburgh / Hungarian Academy of Sciences is currently funding a visit to Edinburgh of a researcher who became interested in my work on this topic partly through this meeting. This presentation was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
| Description | How predictable is subordinate status, and when might it matter? Plenary presentation at CSI Lisbon, Portugal |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk resulted in a number of questions and discussion afterwards. On the basis of the talk I have been asked to write up a version of the material as a paper in an edited volume. This was a talk to an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.clul.ul.pt/csilisbon2014/ |
| Description | Investigating embedded V2 and/or V-to-I in Faroese. Presentation at the NORMS Workshop on Verb Placement, Reykjavik, Iceland. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk contributed to lively general conversation among the researchers working on related topics. THis talk was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2007 |
| Description | Locating finite verbs in Faroese. Invited talk, Lund University, Sweden. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Presentation sparked much discussion, welcome feedback from experts in Scandinavian syntax. This talk was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2008 |
| Description | Loss of mobility: Why Scandinavian V-to-I keeps getting mislaid. Plenary talk, 27th Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop, Yale University. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk resulted in lively discussion. I was invited to submit a version of the work to a special edition of an international journal (Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics (Springer); this was done, and the paper was accepted for publication. The presentation was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | On the acquisition (or not) of verb movement to inflection. Conference presentation, annual conference of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Questions and discussion immediately after the presentation and informally later. Talk intended for an academic audience |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
| Description | On the acquisition of Faroese clausal structure. Invited talk as visiting researcher at the University of Tromsø, Norway. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk gave rise to questions and livley discussion. The intended audience for this talk was academic (academic staff and postgraduate students). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
| Description | One week visit as a Visiting Professor to the Research Centre on Multilingualism, University of Hamburg. Two seminars given during the visit |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The postgraduate students in the workshop had many practical questions about the research methodology I was introducing in one seminar. The presentation of our results (in a separate talk) gave rise to a good deal of discussion about the effects of language contact. I was also able to initiate joint research with one of the researchers who had invited me; some of this has now been published. This talk was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
| Description | Speakers who can't make up their minds? Investigating variability in Faroese syntax. Invited talk, University of Stockholm, Sweden. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The talk gave rise to discussion involving both the attending members of staff of the university and the postgraduate students. This talk was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2008 |
| Description | Syntactic change in Faroese: The view from Kindergarten. Talk presented at the 2009 Grant Meeting of ScanDiaSyn (Scandinavian Dialect Syntax network). |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Presentation gave rise to discussion in both formal and informal setting. This talk was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
| Description | Tailing off: Tracing the late stages of a syntactic change in Faroese. Plenary talk, 13th Diachronic Generative Syntax Conference, University of Pennsylvania |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk sparked questions and discussion. On the basis of this talk and discussions during the meeting I began a collaboration with Joel Wallenberg, which has resulted to date in a number of talks and a journal paper. This talk was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| URL | http://www.ling.upenn.edu/Events/DIGS13/ |
| Description | The ambiguity of embedded clauses. Plenary talk at the annual Meeting of the Network for Scandinavian Diachronic Syntax, Stockholm. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Sparked questions and discussion. The intended audience for this presentation was academic researchers |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | The movement of verbs around Scandinavia. Invited talk, NORMS closing seminar, University of Tromsø. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk formed part of general discussion of variation in syntax, particularly in Scandinavian context. Talk was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
| Description | Variation in the structure of subordinateclauses and the instability of V-to-T in Scandinavian. Presentation at the 25th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | There was lively discussion in the question period after the talk. Feedback from this discussion was incorporated into a journal paper. The talk was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| URL | http://conference.hi.is/scl25/ |
| Description | Verb movement and negation in Scandinavian. Presentation given at the Continuity and Change in Grammar Conference, University of Cambridge |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk gave rise to much discussion, and put me in touch with a US researcher who I am now collaborating with in a further development of this work. Feedback from this conference was incorporated into a paper that we have published as a journal article. This talk was intended for an academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2008 |
| Description | Verb movement in Faroese: Riding the tail of the S-shaped curve. Invited talk, Conference on Nordic Language Variation: Grammatical, Sociolinguistic and Infrastuctural Perspectives. Reykjavik |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk sparked lively discussion. Feedback from this talk contributed to an article subsequently published in the journal Language. The intended audience for this talk was academic (from a variety of disciplines). As a result of the talk and discussions, I was included in an application for a PIRE grant from the NSF (USA) but the application was not funded. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |