Cover not available

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. 177–230

Get fulltext
PDF logo with download linkDownload Chapter PDF

The morphological expression of case 
in Övdalian

ORCiD logo with link | CASTL, University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway
Open Access logo
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
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.221.08sve
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).
References (52)
References
Åfarli, Tor Anders & Fjøsne, Eldfrid Haaker. 2012. Weak dative case in Norwegian dialect syntax. Studia Linguistica 66(2): 75–93. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Åkerberg, Bengt. 2000. Ulum Dalska Grammatik 2000. Ulum Dalska. [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. Älvdalsk grammatik. Centrumtryck, Mora. With Gunnar Nyström.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baerman, Matthew. 2009. Case syncretism. In The Oxford Handbook of Case, Andrej Malchukov & Andrew Spencer (eds), 219–230. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Blake, Barry J. 2001. Case. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bobaljik, Jonathan David & Jonas, Dianne. 1996. Subject positions and the roles of TP. Linguistic Inquiry 27(2): 195–236.Google Scholar logo with link to 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caha, Pavel. 2009. The Nanosyntax of Case. PhD dissertation, University of Tromsø.
Carstairs, Andrew. 1987. Allomorphy in Inflexion. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Dalrymple, Mary & Nikolaeva, Irina. 2011. Objects and Information Structure. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeLancey, Scott. 1981. An interpretation of split ergativity and related patterns. Language 57(3): 626–657. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert M.W. 1972. The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1994. Ergativity. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje. 2004. The Syntax of Old Norse. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. On the history of definiteness marking in Scandinavian. Journal of Linguistics 45(3): 617–639. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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 logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Helgander, John. 1996. Mobilitet och språkförändring. Exemplet Övre Dalarna och det vidare perspektivet. Falun, Högskolan Dalarna. Rapport 1996: 3.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Hjelmslev, Louis. 1935. La catégorie des cas: Étude de grammaire générale, Vol. 1. Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iversen, Ragnvald. 1922[1973]. Norrøn grammatikk, 7th edn. Kristiana: Aschehoug.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. 1936. Beitrag zur allgemeinen Kasuslehre. Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 6: 240–288.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Larsson, Hjalmar. 1985. Kunundsin kumb: Lesubuok ǫ dalska. Älvdalen: Published by the author.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levander, Lars. 1909. Älvdalsmålet i dalarna: Ordböjning ock syntax. Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Söner.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1925. Dalmålet: Beskrivning och historia, I. Uppsala: Appelberg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1928. Dalmålet: Beskrivning och historia, II. Uppsala: Appelberg.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Müller, Gereon. 2005. Syncretism and iconicity in Icelandic noun declensions: A distributed morphology approach. Yearbook of Morphology 2004: 229–271. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noreen, Adolf. 1884. Altnordische Grammatik I. Halle: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1904. Altschwedische Grammatik: Mit Einschluss des altgutnischen. Halle: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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 logo with link to 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 logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Steensland, Lars. 2006. Liten älvdalsk–svensk och svensk–älvdalsk ordbok. Älvdalen: Ulum Dalska.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stump, Gregory T. 2001. Inflectional Morphology: A Theory of Paradigm Structure. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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 logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

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 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.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue