Seto is an exceptional language in the Uralic family due to its systematic use of postverbal negation, although preverbal and double negation marking are also used. Postverbal negation is still the most frequent and unmarked pattern occurring in about 74% of negative clauses in Seto. This paper analyzes variation between pre- and postverbal negation in East Seto (spoken in present-day Russia), based on data gathered during fieldwork trips in 2010–2013. By applying quantitative methods that are used in variationist studies (regression modelling, conditional inference trees, and random forests), we determine the variables affecting the choice between pre- and postverbal negation. Marked preverbal negation occurs more likely with first and third person, cognition verbs, and present tense, all of which are often used in fixed expressions like I don’t know. We also found a strong structural persistence effect in the data and remarkable differences between individual speakers.

The present paper examines the use of two compound tenses – perfect and pluperfect – in Estonian. Perfect and pluperfect have emerged due to the influence of the Baltic and Germanic languages and are used frequently in Estonian. However, while looking at the usage frequency derived from the Corpus of Estonian Dialects, dialect areas display remarkable differences, which can be explained either by local language contacts with Swedish, Russian, Latvian, and Finnic languages (Votic, Ingrian, and Finnish) or by functional differences in the use of compound tenses. It appears that there are two main regions where the compound tenses are used more often compared to other areas: the Insular dialect and Mulgi dialect regions. The increase of compound tenses in the Insular dialect could be a result of contacts with Swedish. However, the Insular dialect also exhibits a high number of negated utterances using the perfect reflecting changes in the formation of negation more generally in this area. The Mulgi dialect shows a high number of pluperfect forms that can be related to the abundance of reported narratives in the data, but also as an increase of using pluperfect as an evidential strategy, which is probably a result of contacts with Latvian.

Abstract. This article describes the typical properties and functions of Estonian -mine action nominals, using dialect corpus data. The dialect data entails non-standard spoken language with a regional dimension and therefore has the potential to display more variation in terms of the behaviour of action nominals in actual language use. This will be demonstrated, inter alia, by the non-canonical realization of arguments, e.g. retaining the sentential form of the patient argument, in phrases headed by -mine action nominals. The article also discusses the problems of assigning a word class to the regularly derived and productive type of action nominals, when taking into account all the possible contexts and constructions in which they can occur.

Artiklis vaadeldakse nimetamiskonstruktsioone (NK), mis väljendavad, kuidas objektina realiseeruvat argumenti kutsutakse. NK koosneb nimetamist väljendavast verbist umbisikulises tegumoes, objektist, mida kuidagi nimetatakse, ning verbi komplemendist, mis annab edasi, kuidas objekti nimetatakse. Artiklis vaadeldakse NK-sisest varieerumist eesti murretes, kasutades selleks eesti murrete korpuse andmestikku. Eesmärk on selgitada välja, milline osa varieerumisest sõltub murdealast, mis aga muudest teguritest. Andmeid on analüüsitud kvantitatiivselt, rakendades klassifitseerimispuude ja korrespondentsanalüüsi meetodeid. Analüüsist selgub, et enim on murdest mõjutatud verbi valik. Murre selgitab küllalt palju ka objekti käände varieerumist: läänepoolsed murded kasutavad konstruktsioonis nimetavat käänet enam kui idapoolsed. Komplemendi kääne on aga mõjutatud peamiselt objekti käändest. Üldiselt domineerib andmestikus nimetavas käändes komplemendi kasutus, mida võib seostada tekstide suulisusega ning suulises kõnes sageli toimuva tsiteerimisega, mis tingib komplemendi nõrga integreerituse argumentstruktuuri.

Abstract. This article provides an empirical, usage-based account of the different aspects of morphological productivity of three Estonian deverbal suffixes: -mine, -us, and -ja, in five different registers. The fundamental quantitative measures developed by Baayen (1989, 1992, 1993) and his colleagues are applied to relatively small corpus samples in order to test how well these measures conform to the linguist’s intuition about the productivity of the derivation patterns under different communicative settings. The results suggest that while the sample size does affect the reliability of the results, the measures prove a useful approximation of productivity in different registers, even for samples with low token counts. Kokkuvõte. Maarja-Liisa Pilvik: Eesti keele deverbaalsufiksite -mine, -us ja -ja produktiivsuse võrdlus viies registris: kvantitatiivne kasutuspõhine lähenemine. Artikkel annab empiirilise, kasutuspõhise ülevaate kolme eesti keele deverbaalsufiksi – -mine, -us ja -ja – produktiivsusest viies eesti keele registris. Produktiivsuse eri aspekte näitlikustavad kvantitatiivsed mõõdikud (Baayen 1989, 1992, 1993), mis on leidnud morfoloogilise produktiivsuse uurimustes laialdast kasutust. Analüüsi tulemused näitavad, et selleks uurimuses kasutatud valimi võrdlemisi väike maht mõjutab mõnevõrra mõõdikute tõlgendamist ning nende usaldusväärsust. Samas haakuvad kvantitatiivse analüüsi tulemused hästi keeleteadlase intuitsiooniga ning kasutatud morfoloogilise produktiivsuse mõõdikud võivad seega olla eri registrite empiiriliseks võrdlemiseks kasulikud isegi siis, kui valimid on korpuslingvistilises mõistes väikesed.