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We investigate the relative contribution of duration and speech reduction on intelligibility.We manipulate spoken Danish sentences with respect to duration and pronunciation accuracy.For semantically unpredictable sentences in spoken Danish, the effect of duration is stronger than the effect of speech reduction. It has consistently been shown that among the three mainland Scandinavian languages, Danish is most difficult to understand for fellow Scandinavians. Recent research suggests that Danish is spoken significantly faster than Norwegian and Swedish. This finding might partly explain the asymmetric intelligibility among Scandinavian languages. However, since fast speech goes hand in hand with a high amount of speech reduction, the question arises whether the high speech rate as such impairs intelligibility, or the high amount of reduction. In this paper we tear apart these two factors by auditorily presenting 168 Norwegian- and Swedish-speaking participants with 50 monotonised nonsense sentences in four conditions (quick and unclear, slow and clear, quick and clear, slow and unclear) in a translation task. Our results suggest that speech rate has a larger impact on the intelligibility of monotonised speech than naturally occurring reduction.

This study takes a comparative perspective and looks into a set of phrases that originate in English but have come to be used in all the three Scandinavian languages Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. These selected cases of phraseological borrowing all serve salient pragmatic functions in contemporary Scandinavian discourse, notably the exclamatory as if! (Brinton 2014, Andersen 2015), the pragmatic marker oh wait! (Balteiro 2018) and the ever construction, as in beste dataspillet ever! ‘best computer game ever’ (Zenner et al., 2018). It is argued that social media data and other forms of computer-mediated communication provide a good context for the study of these phrases, as seen from observations in the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish versions of the TenTen corpora (Jakubicek et al., 2013). The similarity in structure and content of these corpora allows for the study of similarities and dissimilarities in the adaptation of the anglicisms studied. The corpus method involves searching for the phrases in question, inspecting concordance lines, sifting the results by setting aside use in quotations of longer stretches of code-switching and analysing pragmatic function in context. The study concludes that there is considerable overlap in terms of pragmatic functions and structural adaptation of the three borrowed phrases across the three Scandinavian languages.

This study explores the cultural semantics of colour words in the four urban, European communities of Munich, Berne, Aarhus, and Reykjavik, focussing on hautfarben (German), hutfarb (Bernese Swiss German), hudfarvet (Danish), and h uð litur (Icelandic), all of which can be translated as ‘skin coloured’. Unlike in English, where skin coloured has fallen out of use due to its racist semantic profile, these words are still widely present within the four communities. Using evidence from a referential colour naming task and semi-structured interviews, our study seeks to reveal the linguistic worldviews and idealised cognitive models embedded in skin-based colour concepts in contemporary German and Scandinavian languages. Arguing that colour concepts are linguistic constructs through which speakers have learned to pay attention to their visual worlds, we trace the origin of the skin-based colour concept to language socialisation. Our study suggests that children's use of crayons in pre-schools, homes, and kindergartens have a formative impact on the acquisition of colour concepts in general, and in particular, in acquiring a skin-based colour concept. Apart from ‘crayon socialisation’ and children's drawing practices, our study points to one other salient aspect of meaning associated with the skin-based colour concept, namely socio-political discourses of multiculturalism, political correctness and racism. Some speakers find it ‘natural’ to use a skin-based colour concept while others find it ‘racist’. Yet regardless of an individual speaker's views on the matter, they all appear to recognise the specific folk model of race, encoded in hautfarben , hutfarb , hudfarvet and huðlitur . In addition, based on the disagreement among speakers, we do find some evidence that discursive changes in German and Scandinavian languages could lead to similar changes as the ones which have taken place in English (i.e. the replacement of skin coloured with peach or a similar construct). Skin-based colours in Germanic languages also offer new perspectives on visual semantics, the social origins of colour, and on the interface of language, sociality and colour.

It is generally assumed that recurrent deviations from ordinary language in poetry have a non-complex relationship to ordinary grammar. This assumption has been formulated by Fabb (2010) as the Development Hypothesis (DH). In this paper, DH is elaborated within a generative framework and tested upon deviant word order in a sample of 19th century Swedish poetry. The result is that the hypothesis is fairly well corroborated, although not totally. In closing, an alternative hypothesis by Thoms (2010), the Non-Uniformity Hypothesis, is tested. It claims that poetry has more of its own syntax. This hypothesis is shown to yield, on the whole, predictions just as good as DH. Neither of the hypotheses, however, lasts the entire course.

This paper investigates syncretism patterns in the inventory of wh -items across North Germanic (Scandinavian) in comparison with other Germanic varieties. Based on the empirical evidence it is argued that syncretism only arises across query types that are structurally adjacent. A “nanosyntactic” account of the data is developed whereby the query types are structured along two functional sequences, one for expressions in the nominal domain and the other for expressions in the clausal domain: the Superset Principle ( Caha, 2009 ) in conjunction with a concept of best fit ensures that exponents of a question type can also spell out all other structurally embedded question types unless there exists a different exponent without the superfluous higher structure. Issues concerning directionality for expansion of spell-out ranges are also discussed.

Books are an important factor of cultural transmission, but often need to be translated to achieve this goal. English is sometimes accused of dominating in terms of translations.We develop a theoretical model,which is estimated using UNESCO translation data. We show that if account is taken of factors such as production in the source and the destination languages, as well as distances between cultures, then translations from English are surpassed in relative terms by translations from other idioms, including Scandinavian languages and French; their position as destination of literary translations is however fairly weak.

This paper investigates the distribution of embedded verb second in Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish. Two conclusions can be drawn from the study. First, none of the Scandinavian languages can be said to display generalized embedded verb second across the board. There are varieties of Faroese and Icelandic that display restrictions of the kind found in the other Scandinavian languages. In these varieties, non-subject initial verb second is dispreferred in environments that are known to resist root phenomena. Second, it is shown that the definitions of assertion proposed in the literature cannot discern V2 from non-V2 word orders.

The paper compares two lexical items, Icelandic ma@?ur and Swedish man, for the construction of a detached, general discourse stance (Berman, Ragnarsdottir and Stromqvist, 2002). Both forms mean 'man', but they can also be used in a generic sense. In that usage, Icelandic ma@?ur is associated with several semantic, pragmatic, and stylistic constraints, whereas Swedish man is more freely applicable across contexts and genres. Data derived from 632 discourse tokens produced by 158 subjects were analyzed, focusing on frequency distributions of generic usages of ma@?ur/man with respect to age (10-11, 13-14, 16-17 years, adults), genre (narrative, expository), modality (speaking, writing), and language (Icelandic, Swedish). Both Icelandic and Swedish revealed a clear preference for using maDur/man in expository discourse, a finding which validates the assumption that these terms play a role in the construction of a depersonalized, general discourse stance. Further, Swedish man was used considerably more frequently than Icelandic ma@?ur, a finding which is explained as due to the difference in the constraints restricting the domain of use of the apparently equivalent term in the two languages. By and large, two main factors were found to underlie the distributions of maDur/man: general socio-cognitive development and culturally specific stylistic constraints.

Norfoods was established in 1982 and now includes agencies and institutions responsible for food composition work in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and lately Greenland. Recent activities include publications of national food composition tables, a glossary on food terms used in the Nordic languages and specific projects, e.g. on publication of food composition data on the Internet, folate in foods and dietary calculation procedures.

The focus of this academic work centers upon the emergence of present Scandinavian languages i.e. Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. The paper explains the notion of language and discusses various socio-cultural and political factors crucial with the help of different standardization stages of development of a standard language e.g. 'selection of norm', 'elaboration of function', 'codification' and 'acceptance'. The case study involves finding the oldest common language 'Proto-Scandinavian' or 'Proto-Norse' from which the concerning languages follow their respective course of development during the Middle Ages to their present existing forms.

Review of Bazerman, C. & Paradis, J. (eds.), Textual Dynamics of the Professions: Historical and Contemporary Studies of Writing in Professional Communities.

In his famous paper “Uber die phonologischen Sprachbunde” (1931) Roman Jakobson, on the basis of typological considerations, establishes a ‘Baltic language alliance’ (baltischer Sprachbund). It comprises the Baltic languages (in the genetic sense), Estonian, the Scandinavian languages and Low German. These languages are characterized by the presence of ‘polytonic’ words. The phonemic distinction may manifest itself phonetically in three different ways: word tones (Swedish, Norwegian), glottalization (Danish) and overlength (Estonian, Low German). In Scottish Gaelic dialect studies, certain phenomena have been described, independently of Jakobson, in terms of these very three phonetic features: word tones (Northern Hebrides: Oftedal), glottalization (Southern Hebrides: Borgstrom) and overlength (Ross-shire: Ternes). When seen in a diasystem, Scottish Gaelic may indeed be said to be on the verge of developing into a tone language of the Scandinavian type. This at the same time confirms the existence of Jakobson's Baltic language alliance, although the term ‘Baltic’ itself should be changed.

Since 1962 the Nordic Council has awarded each year a prize in literature to a writer in one of its member nations (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden). Each country selects two candidates, and the award is decided by a jury of l0 men (this is meant literally, since only one woman has ever sat on it). The prize is a coveted one. It gives a great deal of prestige to the winner and is usually a guarantee that the author's works will be translated into the other Scandinavian languages and spread to an international audience. Since its founding, however, the prize has never been awarded to a woman, despite the fact that a number of women who are considered leading authors in their own countries, and often have been internationally known, such as Karen Blixen, Tove Ditlevsen, Sara Lidman, Torbj6rg Nedreaas, Bj6rg Vik and Svava Jakobsd6ttir, have been among the candidates. At the second annual Research Conference on Women and Literature at Dr6bak, Norway in January of this year, it was decided to take action which would make both the reading public and the literary establishment aware of this fact, and ultimately help create an awareness that the work of women writers, although it often is concerned with other spheres of experience and problem areas than that of men, is important literature. Thus the Nordic Women's Prize in Literature was born, and it was decided to award the prize to the Finnish author M~trta Tikkaneno* The award was announced simultaneously with the announcement of the winner of the Nordic Council prize. The 26 women at the conference, among whom were representatives from all the Nordic countries except Finland, decided to go out to the reading public to collect money for the award, which was to be presented on February 20th. Despite the fact that there was only one month in which to collect money, the response was overwhelming. A sum of Nkr. 65,000 (ca £6500) was collected, which almost equalled the Dkro 75,000 (ca £7500) from tax funds which were awarded to the winner of the Nordic Council prize. Most donations were small sums given by private persons. M~rta Tikkanen was selected for her poetry collection, ,~rhundradets Kiirlekssaga (The Love Story o f the Century), published in 1978. The poems are concerned with the problems she has had combining the roles of wife, mother of four, and professional woman