Horisontalistar versus vertikalistar

Akselberg, Gunnstein

doi:10.7557/17.4794

Cited by 1 publication

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“…An ongoing discussion in the explanation of dialect change in Norway is whether such changes are best explained as resulting from dialect contact between varieties of equal social status or as a result of influence from higher prestige dialects, such as a standard spoken variety (Berg et al 2018: 246;Røyneland 2020). A common reference (see for example Akselberg 2006;Berg et al 2018;Hårstad 2009;Jahr and Maehlum 2009) in this discussion is Auer's model, in which dialect convergence is described along vertical and horizontal axes (Auer 2005;Auer and Hinskens 1996). A process that is moving along the horizontal axis describes a reduction of local features in favour of those of standard or prestige varieties, while a process moving along the vertical axis leads to convergence between varieties on the same level in the social hierarchy (see Figure 1).…”

Section: Grammatical Simplification Levelling and Standardisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simplification in 43 varieties of urban Norwegian

Bugge

Neteland

2022

Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics

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This paper investigates the linguistic outcomes of contact situations in 43 Norwegian urban towns, comparing the urban varieties’ noun systems to those of the rural dialects surrounding each town. Two questions are explored: i) Is the morphology of the urban Norwegian varieties always more simplified, in terms of paradigmatic complexity and repertoire of inflectional suffixes, when compared to neighbouring rural varieties? ii) Can the noun morphology of urban Norwegian varieties best be explained as resulting from levelling and standardisation processes or as grammatical simplification between dialects in contact? We find that the urban varieties’ noun systems form a close, yet consistently simplified, match to their neighbouring rural varieties. The urban varieties can, however, not easily be placed on a scale between traditional rural dialects and standard language, indicating that the noun systems in the urban varieties of Norway are best understood as resulting from simplification rather than standardization.

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