Grammatical Areality in Northern Europe and Northern Germany (GrammArNord)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Steffen Höder
• Subject Area: Individual Linguistics, Historical Linguistics
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 425221329

The project investigates the areal distribution of grammatical features in Germanic languages and varieties of the Nordic countries and Northern Germany, i.e. primarily German and the Continental Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish).These languages have influenced each other in a range of language contact scenarios. Consequently, the project is based on the hypothesis that the areal distribution of grammatical features, in particular in dialects and other non-standard varietues, suggests areal patterns across the boundaries of individual languages as well as language (sub-)families. A second hypothesis is that such areal patterns can be traced back to contact-induced convergence as a result of language contact between German and Nordic varieties.Following a variation-sensitive areal-typological approach, areality is conceptualized as the distribution of structural features across languoids (i.e. geographical/social/functional varieties, individual languages or language groups) in communicative space. The digital model captures this by means of Semantic Web techniques, primarily an ontology-based knowledge base.Empirically the project draws upon a systematic collection of data from existent studies in relevant fields such as dialectology, sociolinguistics, contact linguistics, language history, and grammaticography for the period between c. 1850 and the present.Consequently, the project aims a. to develop the details a linguistic as well as a digital model of areality in communicative space;b. to document the areal distribution of relevant grammatical features in communicative space;c. to evaluate the data following a variation-sensitive areal-typological approach and to map the areal distribution using methods of digital cartography;d. to investigate cases of contact-induced areality in terms of the relevant language contact scenarios.The project data and the results are going to be published both as Linked Open Data and on a project website that is designed as a digital cross-linguistic areal language atlas.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants