Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Aikakauskirja

Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran vuosikertomus ja tilinpäätös vuodelta 2019

2022-05-06T18:31:23+03:00

Päättyvä vuosi on Seuran 136. toimivuosi. ...

Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran vuosikertomus ja tilinpäätös vuodelta 2020

2022-05-06T18:36:45+03:00

Päättyvä vuosi on Seuran 137. toimivuosi. ...

Dutkansearvi

2022-05-06T18:06:53+03:00

Tämän tekstin tarkoituksena on jakaa tietoa Dutkansearvi-nimisestä Saamen kielen ja kulttuurin tutkimusseurasta, joka perustettiin 15.6.2014 Helsingissä saamelaistutkijoiden aloitteesta ja toimesta.

Die Krankheit auf Wanderschaft in der saamischen Erzähltradition

2020-09-16T10:42:25+03:00

Among the speakers in the area from Inari to Southern Sámi, legends about epidemic, contagious diseases are part of the oral tradition. The core is constituted by legends about the plague and therefore are at the centre of the present article drawing upon both published and unpublished sources. Legends about other contagious diseases show parallels with them. The plague can take different shapes. For example, it may assume an anthropomorphic shape in the entire tradition area which becomes invisible in certain situations. Zoomorphic shapes turn out to be rather peripheral. The plague is, just as other contagious diseases, not induced by magic in the Sámi tradition. It is incurable, but it is possible to protect oneself from it in different ways, seek to annihilate it, or to make it submissive. Out of self-interest, the plague spares certain individuals.

There are, also for taboo reasons, multiple denominations for the plague restricted to certain regions. As far as the contents are concerned, there are also clear regional differences. This can be seen, for example, in the way of getting around, which in the North is above all unindependent, or in the ethnic aspects which surface in the more multifacetic Southern traditions.

Ersän prolatiivin merkitykset

2021-04-08T13:48:27+03:00

Tutkin tässä artikkelissa ersän prolatiivin merkityksiä (semanttisia funktioita). Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on selvittää, mitä erilaisia merkityksiä ersän prolatiivilla voidaan ilmaista ja mitkä ovat yhteydet näiden merkitysten välillä. Tutkimukseni pohjautuu korpukseen, ja korpuksesta kerättyä aineistoa analysoidaan kognitiivisen kielentutkimuksen kehyksessä. Erotan merkitykset toisistaan käyttämällä protoskeeman ja funktionaalisen elementin käsitteitä (Tyler & Evans 2003). Analysoimalla aineistoa olen löytänyt viisi protoskeemaa, jotka eroavat toisistaan. Näin ollen määritän ersän prolatiiville viisi merkitystä. Lisäksi neljä näistä merkityksistä voidaan kukin jakaa kahteen kontekstuaaliseen varianttiin, joilla on sama protoskeema, mutta joiden käyttöyhteydet eroavat systemaattisesti toisistaan. Lisäksi kuvaan prolatiivin säteittäiskategoriana, joka perustuu protoskeemojen välisiin yhteyksiin. Tämä tutkimus on yksi ensimmäisistä yrityksistä kuvata vähemmän tutkittua uralilaista kieltä kognitiivisen kielentutkimuksen kehyksessä, ja sellaisena se on kiinnostava sekä uralilaisten kielten että kognitiiviseen kielentutkimukseen suuntautuneille tutkijoille.

On Finnic and Khanty vowel harmony: Domains, slopes and their role in typology

2021-04-20T11:00:55+03:00

The main purpose of this paper is to examine Finnic and Khanty vowel harmony. These languages play a central role in an article by Paul Kiparsky and Karl Pajusalu (2003). Their influential study suggests a typological classification of vowel harmony, which is claimed to be supported by a particular analysis in the Optimality Theory framework. In this paper a closer look will be taken at the linguistic data and the literature, and it will be argued that in many cases example languages and dialects are hardly classifiable into the suggested category. Based on data from the sources referred to by Kiparsky and Pajusalu on Estonian (Mulgi and Northeastern dialects), Veps and Khanty, it will be shown that these (varieties of) languages exhibit different patterns of (dis)harmony from what could be presumed based on their classification. Moreover, the suggested analysis ignores cases of variation (especially vacillation), typical for the example languages. In the present study, it is emphasized that many patterns do not arise from the behavior of neutral vowels, but instead, they can be results of the length and the nature of the harmonic domain. The paper also introduces the notion of harmonicity slope, according to which the domain has no strict borders, and in which the tendency for the vowels to harmonize gradually diminishes.

Mordvalaiskielten ška-komparatiivi

2021-04-29T11:51:19+03:00

This paper deals with the comparative suffix -ška of the Mordvin languages Erzya and Moksha. Traditionally, the suffix has been regarded as the ending of the comparative case with the meaning ‘about the amount of X’. However, it has a rather limited range of uses in this function. Since the suffix is also employed as a derivational suffix that turn nouns into adjectives meaning ‘the size of X’, some researchers prefer to consider it primarily derivational rather than a case ending. Etymologically, the suffix most likely goes back to the lexical noun ška ‘time’ that still appears in Erzya, although other origins have also been suggested. In this paper, the morphological properties of the comparative suffix are surveyed as well as the syntactic functions of the comparative forms. Moreover, the path of grammaticalisation of the lexical noun into a suffix is outlined. It is shown that the suffix should indeed be considered a derivational ending in the contemporary languages. However, some aspects in its use suggest that there might be an on-going process possibly leading to the development of a case category.

On the question of substitution of palatovelars in Indo-European loanwords into Uralic

2021-03-26T16:34:43+02:00

In this paper, the Indo-European etymologies of Uralic words are analyzed that allegedly contain reflexes of Proto-Indo-European palatal stops (palatovelars) *ḱ, *ǵ and *ǵ^h. Especially Jorma Koivulehto has in many works argued that words that show these reflexes attest to very early contacts between Indo-European and Uralic, and these ideas have been very influential in the discussion of the location and dating of early varieties of Uralic, and to a lesser extent, Indo-European languages. While most of these etymologies are convincing in that they are indeed borrowed from Indo-European, a
critical examination leads to the conclusion that they can be considered loanwords from later branches (such as Indo-Iranian) that had already gone through satemization (the merger of plain velars with labiovelars and change of palatovelars to affricates or sibilants). Some etymologies also turn out to be unconvincing in the light of modern views
of Uralic and Indo-European historical phonology. These results support other recent, more skeptical views of contacts between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic and mean that many of the extra-linguistic conclusions based on earlier loanword studies have to be considered unreliable, which is in line with recent studies of prehistory.

Nganasanin itsekorjaus

2021-01-29T18:35:45+02:00

Artikkeli käsittelee nganasanin itsekorjausta vuorovaikutuslingvistisestä näkökulmasta. Itsekorjaus on suullisen vuorovaikutuksen ilmiö, jolle tyypillistä on lausuman keskeyttäminen sen hetkisen puhujan omassa puheessa esiintyvän ongelman korjaamisen ajaksi. Itsekorjauksen suorittamiseen käytetyt keinot ovat osittain riippuvaisia käytetyn kielen morfosyntaktisesta rakenteesta ja vaihtelevat kielittäin. Artikkelini tavoitteena on kuvata korjaustoimintoja eli korjausten suorittamiseen käytettyjä morfosyntaktisia keinoja sekä korjauksen yleisimpiä pragmaattisia merkityksiä puhuttua kieltä edustavan aineiston perusteella. Nganasanin yleisimmät korjaustoiminnot muistuttavat Schegloffin (2013) aiemmin kuvaamia, mutta ne rakentuvat nganasanin morfosyntaksille tyypillisellä tavalla. Korjaustoimintojen avulla puhujat käsittelevät monenlaisia ongelmia äänteellisistä lipsahduksista kompleksisiin, keskustelun dynamiikkaa koskeviin sosiaalisiin ongelmiin. Aineistossa esiintyy paljon myös koodinvaihtoon ja virheellisinä pidettyihin sanamuotoihin kohdistuvia korjauksia, joiden perusteella on mahdollista tarkastella puhujien kieliasenteita.

Reflections of Russian dialect geography in Djorža Karelian

2020-09-30T11:30:59+03:00

Can we place an Eastern Finnic dialect on the map, based exclusively on the Russian influence on its phonology and grammar? How precisely do differences between Russian (sub-)dialects manifest themselves in Eastern Finnic? Due to its unique location, far from its relatives, and its contacts with different Russian dialects, Djorža Karelian is a promising tool for answering these questions. We explore the distribution of three phonological features in Djorža Karelian vocabulary borrowed from Russian; all of them correspond to isoglosses on the Russian dialect map. In addition, we also briefly examine one syntactic feature in this Karelian variety: the distribution of two borrowed conjunctions with similar meaning and a North–South divide in Russian dialects. We conclude that phonology is not the best detector of contact between dialects of non-cognate languages, because of the relatively small sound inventory of the contact languages and the problems in distinguishing externally driven change from internally driven change. Syntax seems to be a better diagnostic for such contact, because of its complex relationship with meaning. We go on to demonstrate how syntactic evidence from a non-Slavic variety can be suggestive for the occurrence of linguistic phenomena in Russian dialects.

Mihin suuntaan saamen progressiivirakenteet ovat menossa?

2021-10-14T15:54:49+03:00

The Saami languages utilize a long-established progressive construction based on the inflected copula verb and the so-called action essive form of the main verb, for example North Saami lea dahkamin ‘is doing’ of dahkat ‘to do’. The present paper examines an apparently innovative construction that has not been described before, similarly appearing in a progressive function but based on the inflected copula and the locative case form of the deverbal noun in -u, for example lea jođus ‘is going’ of johtit ‘to travel, go, be in motion’. The main data source used is the SIKOR corpus, containing contemporary written language material in several Saami languages; supplementary sources of both written and oral material and of different ages are used as well. The data reveals that the new construction is frequently used of the verb johtit ‘to travel, go’ in modern North Saami (leat jođus) and fairly known in Inari Saami, too (leđe joođoost). It is used more rarely of the verb mannat ‘to go’ in North Saami (leat manus); from Inari Saami there is only a single attestation of this verb in older data. Other verbs are not observed to be used in a similar construction, and the innovation seems to be confined to the contemporary use of these two Saami languages. It is argued that there are both language-internal and external factors that have contributed to the emergence of the leat jođus construction, including the global tendency of progressives to develop out of locative constructions and most importantly the model of the contact language Finnish, where a structurally identical deverbal noun based progressive construction is commonly used of the most frequent motion verbs (olla menossa ~ tulossa ~ lähdössä of mennä ‘to go’, tulla ‘to come’, lähteä ‘to depart’).

Der Partitiv im Taimyr Dolganischen

2020-06-12T13:05:14+03:00

Although recent cross-linguistic and typological research on partitive cases (Luraghi & Huumo eds. 2014) has started to expand its perspective beyond Europe, partitive and partitive-like cases in the indigenous languages of Central and Eastern Siberia have been largely overlooked. This study discusses the partitive case in Taimyr Dolgan, a Turkic language of Northern Siberia from a functional-typological, areal and historical perspective, synthesizing existing descriptions (Ubrjatova 1985, Artem’ev 1999) with the author’s field materials and a convenience sample consisting of about 48000 words of written Dolgan. Due to the fact that Finnic languages dominate cross-linguistic research on partitive cases, this study concludes with a short comparative analysis commenting on Dolgan-Finnish similarities and dissimilarities.

Subjektin merkintä tverinkarjalan pidiä-, šuaha- ja voija-konstruktioissa

2021-04-27T00:08:47+03:00

The article deals with subject expression in Tver Karelian modal constructions, which include a finite form of modal verb pidiä ‘must, have to’, šuaha ‘may, can’ or voija ‘can, may’. Pidiä, šuaha and voija belong to the core modal verbs, not only in Karelian but in other Finnic languages as well, and they are the most frequently and freely used modals to express different kinds of (non-epistemic and epistemic) modalities. According to earlier studies, all aforementioned modals have both unipersonal and multipersonal usages in Eastern Finnic languages, but the variation between the usages has remained largely unknown. This empirical study seeks to answer, 1) how often the pidiä, šuaha and voija constructions contain an overtly expressed subject NP, 2) how the prospective subject NP is marked, and 3) how large a proportion of all pidiä, šuaha and voija constructions are subjectless. The data used represent spoken Tver Karelian from mid-20th century, and as the theoretical and methodological background of the study serves functional dialect syntax.

Inarinsaamen ja koltansaamen nuotta-apajien nimet:

2021-04-21T00:16:37+03:00

Tässä artikkelissa analysoin inarin- ja koltansaamen nuotta-apajien nimien rakennetta, muodostamistapaa ja nimeämisperusteita. Lisäksi tarkastelen nuottaamiseen liittyvää sanastoa ja sen historiaa. Materiaalina on 204 inarinsaamenkielistä apajannimeä Inarista sekä 161 koltansaamenkielistä apajannimeä Suonikylästä, Petsamosta. Nimiä analysoidaan Kurt Zilliacusin ja Eero Kiviniemen 1960 ja -70-luvuilla kehittämän syntaktis-semanttisen luokittelumallista sovelletulla metodilla. Alkuperäisen metodin sopivuutta saamen kielten paikannimien luokitteluun lähestytään kriittisesti. Tulokset osoittavat, että inarin- ja koltansaamen nimiopit eroavat toisistaan, mutta niissä on myös paljon yhteistä. Koltansaamen apajannimistä on tunnistettavissa selvästi prototyyppinen, kaksisosainen rakennetyyppi, jonka perusosa on tai se päättyy sanaa laapp ’apaja’. Koltansaamen apajannimet ovat keskimäärin yhden sanan pidempiä kuin inarinsaamessa. Edellä mainittu rakennetyyppi löytyy myös inarinsaamesta, mutta se on vain yhtä tavallinen kuin useat muut tyypit. Inarinsaamen apajannimien rakennetyypit muistuttavat talonnimien rakennetyyppejä. Nimeämisperusteet ovat pääosin samanlaisia kummassakin kielessä. Tavallisin nimeämisperuste on molemmissa kielissä apajan sijainnin tai aseman kuvaaminen.