In: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. 11–46
Get fulltext
Övdalian from 1909 to 2009
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 rights@benjamins.nl.
Published online: 22 January 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.221.02gar
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.221.02gar
We present a number of morphological and syntactic properties that Övdalian is reported to have according to the literature. They are classified into four categories, of which we study in particular those two that make Övdalian stand out amongst the Scandinavian languages: the category of those features that Övdalian shares with the Insular Scandinavian languages, and the category of Övdalian innovations. We compare these with what we find in the Övdalian Speech Corpus, which contains searchable recordings from the 21st century. Interestingly, we find that the verbal morphology is robust, whereas case morphology is losing ground. Syntactic innovations like referential null subjects, negative concord, subject doubling, and lack of object shift are still present in the language.
References (64)
Angantýsson, Ásgrímur. 2011. The Syntax of Embedded Clauses in Icelandic and Related Languages. Reykjavík: Hugvísindastofun Háskóla Íslands.
Bentzen, Kristine. 2007. Order and Structure in Embedded clauses in Northern Norwegian. PhD dissertation, CASTL, University of Tromsø.
Bentzen, Kristine, Garbacz, Piotr, Heycock, Caroline & Hrafnbjargarson, Gunnar H. 2009. On variation in Faroese verb placement. In NORMS Papers on Faroese, Nordlyd:Tromsø University Working Papers on Language and Linguistics 36(2): 78–102.
Björklund, Stig. 1956. Älvdalsmålet i Andréas Johannis Prytz’ Comoedia om konung Gustaf Then Första 1622. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.
Christensen, Ken Ramshøj. 2005. Interfaces: Negation - Syntax - Brain. PhD dissertation, University of Aarhus.
Collins, Chris & Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 1996. VP-internal structure and object shift in Icelandic. Lingustic Inquiry 27: 391–444.
Delsing, Lars-Olof. 1999. Från OV-ordföljd till VO-ordföljd: En språkförändring med förhinder. Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 114: 151–232.
. 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 Press.
Dyvik, Helge. 1991. The Norwegian pseudopassive in lexical theory. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 47:118–129.
Engdahl, Elisabeth. 2003. Med fokus på subjektet. In Grammar in Focus, II: Festschrift for Christer Platzack 18 November 2003, Lars-Olaf Delsing, Cecilia Falk, Gunlög Josefsson & Halldór Ármann Sigurðsson (eds), 95–105. Lund: Department of Scandinavian Languages, Lund University.
Faarlund, Jan. T., Lie, Sven & Vannebo Kjell, I. 1997. Norsk referansegrammatikk. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Falk, Cecilia. 1993. Non-Referential Subjects in the History of Swedish. PhD dissertation, Lund University.
Garbacz, Piotr. 2006. Verb movement and negation in Övdalian. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 78: 173–190.
. 2008a. Bisatsledföljden i älvdalska. In Nog ordat? Festskrift till Sven-Göran Malmgren [Meierbergs arkiv för svensk ordforskning 34], Kristinn Jóhannesson, Hans Landqvist, Aina Lundqvist, Lena Rogström, Emma Sköldberg & Barbro Wallgren Hemlin (eds), 105–112. Göteborg: Goteborg University.
. 2008b. Negationen syntax i älvdalskan. In Perspektiv på svenska språket och litteraturen, Piotr Bukowski, Grayna. Pietrzak-Porwisz & Iwona Kowal (eds), 193–202. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
. 2010. Word Order in Övdalian. A Study in Variation and Change. PhD dissertation, Lund University.
. 2013. Huvudsatsordföljd i bisatser: skandinaviska språk vs. skandinaviska dialekter. In Filologiskt smörgåsbord, 2: Vetenskapliga bidrag från skandinavistiken i Kraków, Ewa Data-Bukowska & Magdalena Wasilewska-Chmura (eds), 67–81. Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press.
Helgander, John. 1996. Mobilitet och språkförändring. Exemplet Övre Dalarna och det vidare perspektivet. [Rapport 1996: 3]. Falun: Högskolan Dalarna.
. 2000. Älvdalsmål i förändring: Den tonande dentala frikativan (dh) och dess ersättare. In Folkmålsstudier. Meddelanden från föreningen för nordisk filologi 39: 169–188.
. 2005. Älvdalsmål i förändring – några reflektioner kring en fallstudie. In Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Övdalian, Älvdalen, June 18th-19th, 2004. [URL]
Heycock, Caroline, Sorace, Antonella & Hansen, Zakaris Svabo. 2010. V-to-I and V2 in subordinate clauses: An investigation of Faroese in relation to Icelandic and Danish. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 13(1): 61–97.
Holmberg, Anders & Platzack, Christer. 1991. On the role of inflection in Scandinavian syntax. In Issues in Germanic Syntax, Werner Abraham, Wim Kosmeijer & Eric Reuland (eds), 93–118. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Hosono, Mayumi. 2013. Object Shift in the Scandinavian Languages: Syntax, Information Structure, and Intonation [LOT Dissertation Series 332]. Utrecht: LOT.
Hróarsdóttir, Þórbjörg. 2000. Word Order Change in Icelandic. From OV to VO [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 35]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Johannessen, Janne Bondi. 2008. The pronominal psychological demonstrative in Scandinavian: Its syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 31(2): 161–192.
Johannessen, Janne Bondi, Priestley, Joel, Hagen, Kristin, Åfarli, Tor Anders & Vangsnes Øystein Alexander. 2009. The Nordic Dialect Corpus. An advanced research tool. In Proceedings of the 17th Nordic Conference of Computational Linguistics NODALIDA 2009 [NEALT Proceedings Series 4], Krisstiina Jokinen & Eckhard Bick (eds). Tartu: Tartu University.
Kokkinakis, Sofie Johansson. 2003. En studie över påverkande faktorer i ordklasstaggning. Baserad på taggning av svensk text med EPOS. Ms. University of Gothenburg.
Levander, Lars. 1909. Älvdalsmålet i Dalarna. Ordböjning ock syntax. Stockholm: Kungliga boktryckeriet P. A. Norstedt and söner.
Nyström, Gunnar & Sapir, Yair. 2005a. Introduktion till älvdalska. Provversion ämnad för universitetskursen. Uppsala.
Rosenkvist, Henrik. 1994. Tecken på syntaktisk utveckling i älvdalsmålet under senare tid. BA dissertation, Lund University.
. 2008. Null referential subjects in Oevdalian. Ms, Lund University. [URL]
. 2009. Referential null subjects in Germanic languages. An overview. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 84: 151–180.
. 2011. Verb raising and referential null subjects in Övdalian. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 88: 1–20.
Sandström, Görel & Holmberg, Anders. 2003. Ett polysyntetiskt drag i svenska dialekter. In Dialektsyntaktiska studier av den nordiska nominalfrasen, Øystein Alexander Vangsnes, Anders Holmberg & Lars-Olof Delsing (eds), 99–111. Oslo: Novus Press.
Sapir, Yair. 2005a. Elfdalian, the vernacular of Övdaln. In Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Övdalian, Älvdalen, June 18th-19th, 2004. [URL]
. 2005b. Elfdalian in brief. Outline written in October 15, 2005 for the Committee of Experts of the European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages. Ms.
Schütze, Carson. 1996. The Empirical Base of Linguistics. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Sigurðsson, Halldór Á. 1989. Verbal Syntax and Case in Icelandic. PhD dissertation, Lund University.
Steensland, Lars. 2000. Älvdalska. In Världens språk. En typologisk och geografisk översikt, Karina Vamling & Jan-Olof Svantesson (eds), 361–375. Lund: Institutionen för lingvistik, Lunds universitet.
Strahan, Tania E. 2003. Long-Distance Reflexives in Norwegian: A Quantitative Study. Munich: Lincom.
Thráinsson, Höskuldur, Petersen, Hjálmar. P., Jacobsen, Jógvan í Lon & Hansen, Zakaris Svabo. 2004. Faroese. An Overview and Reference Grammar. Tórshavn: Føroya Fróðskaparfelag.
Vangsnes, Øystein. 1999. The Identification of Functional Architecture. PhD dissertation, University of Bergen.
URL: Part of the Nordic Dialect Corpus: <[URL]>
Read about it: Johannessen, Janne Bondi, Priestley, Joel, Hagen, Kristin, Åfarli, Tor Anders & Øystein Alexander Vangsnes. 2009. The Nordic Dialect Corpus. An advanced research tool. In Proceedings of the 17th Nordic Conference of Computational Linguistics NODALIDA 2009 [NEALT Proceedings Series 4], Krisstiina Jokinen & Eckhard Bick (eds). Tartu: Tartu University.
Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Garbacz, Piotr
2015. Optional V-to-I movement
in Övdalian. In Studies in Övdalian Morphology and Syntax [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 221], ► pp. 87 ff.
Steensland, Lars
2015. Is there a vocative case
in the Övdalian language?. In Studies in Övdalian Morphology and Syntax [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 221], ► pp. 167 ff.
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.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 november 2025. 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.
