110. Old Nordic types of texts II: Old Swedish and Old Danish

Author(s):  
Nils Jörgensen
Keyword(s):  
2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 264-315
Author(s):  
Briana Van Epps ◽  
Gerd Carling ◽  
Yair Sapir

This study addresses gender assignment in six North Scandinavian varieties with a three-gender system: Old Norse, Norwegian (Nynorsk), Old Swedish, Nysvenska, Jamtlandic, and Elfdalian. Focusing on gender variation and change, we investigate the role of various factors in gender change. Using the contemporary Swedish varieties Jamtlandic and Elfdalian as a basis, we compare gender assignment in other North Scandinavian languages, tracing the evolution back to Old Norse. The data consist of 1,300 concepts from all six languages coded for cognacy, gender, and morphological and semantic variation. Our statistical analysis shows that the most important factors in gender change are the Old Norse weak/strong inflection, Old Norse gender, animate/inanimate distinction, word frequency, and loan status. From Old Norse to modern languages, phonological assignment principles tend to weaken, due to the general loss of word-final endings. Feminine words are more susceptible to changing gender, and the tendency to lose the feminine is noticeable even in the varieties in our study upholding the three-gender system. Further, frequency is significantly correlated with unstable gender. In semantics, only the animate/inanimate distinction signifi-cantly predicts gender assignment and stability. In general, our study confirms the decay of the feminine gender in the Scandinavian branch of Germanic.


1994 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alf Axelsson ◽  
Ulf Rosenhall ◽  
Gunilla Zachau
Keyword(s):  

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 265-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Ringmark ◽  
L. Roepstorff ◽  
U. Hedenström ◽  
A. Lindholm ◽  
A. Jansson

In this study, a survey was used to document the type and amount of training to which 2- to 3-year old Swedish Standardbred horses are generally subjected. Moreover, an experimental study was conducted to examine the ability to achieve conventional performance goals in 16 Standardbred geldings fed a forage-only diet and allocated to either a control training programme (C-group) or a training programme with the high intensity training distance reduced by 30% (R-group) from March as 2-year-olds until December as 3-year-olds. The median distance of high intensity training per week reported by professional trainers was 6,700 m. In experimental horses, planned high intensity training/week was 6,315 and 4,288 m in C-group and R-group, respectively. There was no difference between experimental training groups in ability to race. The proportion of experimental horses that passed a preparation race as 2-year-olds (100%) and qualified for races (94%) was greater (P<0.05) than for the rest of the cohort (77 and 63%), geldings of the same cohort (71 and 45%) and siblings of the experimental horses (84 and 69%). The proportion of horses that raced (56%) was equal to that of the cohort and of siblings (54%), but greater than the proportion of cohort geldings (35%, P<0.05). In experimental horses, total earnings until 7 years of age were correlated to exercise haematocrit as 3-year-olds (r=0.51, P>0.05) and number of races (r=0.55, P>0.05). Race record was correlated to VLa4 as 3-year-olds (r=-0.75, P<0.01). It was concluded that a forage-only diet and shorter distance of high intensity training than commonly used in Standardbred training in Sweden do not appear to restrict ability to qualify for races and race before 4 years of age.


2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-252
Author(s):  
Steffen Höder

Abstract Late medieval Sweden was a multilingual society. At least three languages ‐ namely Old Swedish, Low German, and Latin ‐ were in use, beside other regional languages. While the influence of Low German is easily detectable in all parts of the Swedish language system and has been investigated rather thoroughly from a historical sociolinguistic point of view (cf. Braunmüller 2004), the role of Latin has been rather marginalized in traditional Swedish language historiography, focusing on the earlier stages of Old Swedish, which are described as its classical form (cf. Pettersson 2005). Starting out as the language of religion, administration, diplomacy and, to some extent, trade, Latin was the dominant language of text production in Sweden until the 14th century, which saw Written Old Swedish gain some domains as well, resulting in a more balanced diglossic relation between the two languages. The emerging written variety of Swedish, however, was heavily influenced by the multilingual practices of scribes, in large part clerics who were used to using at least Swedish and Latin on a daily basis for a variety of communicative purposes (Höder 2010). These multilingual practices, ranging from ad hoc translations via code-switching to the application of Latin stylistic, textual, and syntactic norms in Swedish text production (Höder 2018), had a lasting impact on the later development of a Swedish proto-standard, and are still reflected in conservative text types today. This contribution approaches this development from a historical sociolinguistic and contact linguistic perspective, concentrating on the establishment of multilingual practices.


2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (7) ◽  
pp. 1491-1497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gudrun Nygren ◽  
Mats Cederlund ◽  
Eva Sandberg ◽  
Fredrik Gillstedt ◽  
Thomas Arvidsson ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Mats Andrén ◽  
Johan Blomberg

Abstract The present study investigates the use of gestures by 18-, 24- and 30-month-old Swedish children, as well as their practical actions in coordination with verbs. Previous research on connections between children’s verbs and gestures has mainly focused only on iconic gestures and action verbs. We expand the research foci in two ways: we look both at gestures and at practical actions, examining how the two are coordinated with static verbs (e.g. sleep) and dynamic verbs (e.g. fall). Thanks to these additional distinctions, we have found that iconic gestures and iconic actions (the latter in particular) most commonly occurred with dynamic verbs. Static verbs were most commonly accompanied by deictic actions and deictic gestures (the latter in particular). At 30 months, deictic bodily expressions, including both gestures and actions, increased, whereas iconic expressions decreased. We suggest that this may reflect a transition to less redundant ways of using bodily expressions at 30 months, where bodily movement increasingly takes on the role of specifying verb arguments rather than expressing the semantics of the verb itself.


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