Canonical and non-canonical patterns in the adpositional phrase of Western Uralic : constraints of borrowing

Notions about adpositions and adpositional phrases (AdpP) reflect the ambiguous nature of this particular domain. While postpositions and prepositions are often dealt with as lexical categories, their syntactic context determines the grammatical relations of individual postpositions. In the diachronic development of individual adpositions, the phrasal unit of AdpP plays a crucial role either enhancing or diminishing the possibility of adopting new adpositions. In Uralic both the head and complement may be inflected, which increases the divergence of the adpositional system in comparison with most neighboring contact languages. This is illustratively seen in the bulk of adpositions in Finnic, Saamic and Mordvinic, which only exceptionally include borrowed lexemes. The focus of this article is bifold. Firstly, it briefly outlines the main structural types of AdpP, particularly in Western Uralic. Secondly, it discusses why loanwords only seldom occur in the adpositional system of languages that are strongly influenced by language contact and widespread bilingualism, such as contemporary Veps and Erzya.Peer reviewe

What happens in language loss?

Besprechung Kehayov, Petar. 2017. The fate of mood and modality in language death. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 385 pp

Erzya chastushka – vanishing or changing oral tradition?

The current paper presents a short overview and selection of Erzya chastushkas that were recorded in Erzya villages during expeditions that were made in the 1990’s. Chastushkas are known from the 20th century folklore tradition of other Finno-Ugric peoples living in the European part of Russia as well and the first examples werepublished before the Second World War.   The publishing of the following data thus serves three aims. Firstly, it introduces a modern form of oral tradition that historically, in a way, fills the gap of several lost genres. Secondly, it presents chastushkas as a genre that was originally adopted from Russian culture but was transferred to the Erzya as it did among other groups. Thirdly, it seeks to promote the interest of folklorists towards living tradition of Finno-Ugric peoples

Morphological change and the influence of language contacts in Estonian

Estonian is an illustrative example of a modern language that was intensively influenced by morphological attrition and foreign interfernce during the last millennium. The most salient typological differences of Estonian with respect to northern Finnic languages such as Finnish, Karelian and Veps are based on the loss of several important suffixes, in particular those of certain grammatical cases. This article discusses the interliaison of morphological and contact-induced change in the evidence of Estonian inflectional case system, case syncretism and certain adverbial constructions. The main hypothesis is that diachronic changes often do not happen independently of one another and endogenous and contact-induced changes in Estonian affect the same functional domains. The conclusions of this article are mainly based on language-specific analysis and most of the data is drawn from Estonian. Nevertheless, there are certain parallels between case syncretism in Estonian, Vote and South-West Finnish dialects that will be used for comparative evidence. Convergent changes suggest that a particular morphological change does not inevitably have identical consequences even in genetically closely related languages.numbered, too, please let me know.Peer reviewe

Tiit-Rein Viitso 1938–2022

Non peer reviewe

Ammu kadunud - ammuko kadonnut? Suomen ja viron eksytyssanat ja väärät ystävät

Kirja-arvioLaalo,Klaus: Huvitav lugu - kiinnostava juttu. Suomen ja viron välinen sanaston riskiryhmä ja sen tausta