Slavic verbal aspect in West and South Slavic linguistic enclaves

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Walter Breu
• Subject Area: Individual Linguistics, Historical Linguistics
• Term: from 2014 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 257620856

As before, the main objective of this renewal proposal is to analyse verbal aspect in endangered South and West Slavic linguistic enclaves in "total language contact", both with respect to forms and functions. We will continue gathering the necessary data in the main varieties by means of field research. By now, important data are at our disposal in the following micro-languages: Molise Slavic and Resian in Italy, Burgenland Croatian in Austria and Colloquial Upper Sorbian in Germany. The results of our explanatory field research in Carinthian Slovene will be analysed as soon as possible. As for Balkan varieties in Albania and Greece, our analyses have been only on the base of existing oral and written texts, while exploratory journeys to these countries have to be postponed to the renewal period. The same is true for the intended control corpus on Istroromanian and partially also on Italo-Albanian, for which we already have gathered some relevant data on the spot. Since the beginning, key steps of our research have involved examining the aspect systems of these varieties, comparing them to those of their nearest Standard languages (especially Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Slovene, Bulgarian-Macedonian, Standard Upper Sorbian, synchronically and diachronically). Among other things, we try to find correlations between our results and the specific contact constellations, which will be published in comparative studies. The dominant contact languages in question have very different aspectual structures showing the absence of aspectual oppositions (German), their restrictions with respect to tense (Italian, partially Albanian), and a full-fledged aspectual system (Modern Greek). These are starting points for quite a lot of variables in our analysis that may have influenced specific developments. In a theoretical perspective, we continue to elaborate the ILA model of the interaction of the lexicon and aspect, in order to adequately explain the way in which dominant languages influence the aspect systems of replica languages. On the whole, our project may be understood as an important element in building a general theory about the role of language contact in the change of aspect systems. On the other hand, it will contribute to the documentation of the Slavic minority varieties in question, all of them facing language death. Up to now, we have focussed mainly on the indicative active of the present and the past tense. In the renewal period we will concentrate on the remaining tenses and moods, as well as on the wide variety of infinitive constructions. A special focus will, however, be on the use of verbal aspect in the passive voice, which according to first tests in Molise Slavic is an especially rich area of contact-induced change in the field of aspect. On the whole, the renewal proposal of 24 months, presented here, is planned to complete our project, also by putting still stronger emphasis on its comparative component.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France, Italy
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Evangelia Adamou; Professor Dr. Francesco Altimari; Professorin Dr. Rosanna Benacchio