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Article In: Journal of Uralic Linguistics: Online-First Articles

Soikkola Ingrian olla ‘to be’

Competition of morphological forms in the context of number agreement

ORCiD logo with link | University of Tartu, Estonia
ORCiD logo with link | University of Tartu, Estonia
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Abstract
The article examines number agreement in the verb olla ‘to be’ in the Soikkola dialect of Ingrian. Although Ingrian distinguishes two grammatical numbers, in the Soikkola dialect there is competition between three verb forms: singular, plural and impersonal. The aim of this study is to identify the factors that determine the choice of a particular verb form in constructions with a plural subject. The analysis is based on recordings made in the 21st century by the authors and their colleagues. The study shows that the most significant factors influencing the choice of the verb form are verb tense and polarity, word order, and individual preferences of a native speaker, which correlate with sub-dialectal zones. A comparison of the results obtained with the data from previously published Soikkola texts suggests that the agreement system observed in the 21st century is not an innovation, because modern data and previous materials exhibit similar patterns.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and methods
  • 3.Analysis of agreement
    • 3.1Present and past tense
    • 3.2Other tenses, moods, and negative polarity
    • 3.3Agreement of the auxiliary
    • 3.4Ambiguous types of subjects
      • 3.4.1Morphologically singular nominals with plural meaning
      • 3.4.2Noun phrases (conjoined nouns or comitative constructions)
      • 3.4.3Numeral and quantifier phrases
      • 3.4.4Plurale tantum nouns
  • 4.Legacy materials
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
References (30)
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