Lühendamise ja lühendsõnade fenomenist eesti keeles

Author(s): Silvi Vare / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 05/2014

The article discusses shortening, which is a way of word formation that has hitherto received little attention in modern Estonian. This is a process in which a word is transformed into a shorter one without changing the meaning. The nature of this type of word formation and definition problems are explained and various techniques of shortening are described. Analysis of the linguistic material shows that shortening is a widespread technique both in colloquial and literary Estonian, including special language. Detailed analysis is given to clipping, in which case a new word is produced by cutting off a part from the beginning, middle, or end of a longer lexical unit. The most productive type in Estonian is back clipping, in which case the whole semantic load falls upon the front part of the longer base word. Fore-clipping is less exemplified. Compound nouns are particularly prone to shortening, while in this case the clipping happens at the morphological boundary of immediate constituents. Noun phrases are also easily clipped, which adjective phrases seldom are. In a few examples a verb with a foreign stem has lost a suffix. A new trend of clipping compounds is on the rise. The study is based on examples drawn from the recent orthological dictionaries and the Explanatory Dictionary of Estonian.

Tähendussuhetest eesti murretes

Author(s): Vilja Oja / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 08-09/2014

The article addresses the semantic differences of certain standard Estonian words across Estonian dialects as revealed by semantic maps. Word use appears to be the most distinctive for the main dialect groups of North Estonian and South Estonian. Within the South Estonian area it is Tartu and Võru dialects that have the most features in common. Semantic features reminiscent of Mulgi dialect now occur in the western region of Tartu dialect, in the southern region of Tartu dialect and the western region of Võru dialect. On the other hand, Mulgi dialect has features in common with the vernaculars of Pärnumaa and northern Viljandimaa. In the North-Estonian area, Insular dialect stands out for its peculiar word usage, which often differs, in turn, between the two largest isles (Hiiumaa and Saaremaa). There is also a perceptible difference between the western and eastern wings of the North Estonian main dialect group, although the boundary is rather fuzzy. The semantic variants of an Estonian dialect word seldom stop at the linguistic boundary of Estonian, usually continuing in use in cognate languages. Comparing the areal distribution of a word and its senses in dialects and place names we can see that there is some geographic and semantic coincidence, but never absolute.

Eesti keele sõnaprosoodia lõuna-läänemeresoome taustal

Author(s): Karl Pajusalu / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 08-09/2014

The article presents an overview of the specific traits of Estonian word prosody as compared to other Southern Finnic languages, based on the results of experimental phonetics gained over recent years. First the Southern Finnic language group is defined on a diachronic basis. The group includes North Estonian (the basis of standard Estonian), Votic, Livonian and South Estonian. The following analysis is focused on Estonian ternary quantity alternation (consonantal and vocalic), tonal contrast in Livonian and Estonian, foot isochrony in Southern Finnic languages, the emergence of velar vowel harmony and the later disappearance of vowel harmony, reduction and peripheralization of the vowels of non-initial syllables, elision of sounds and transference of accent, and, finally, constraints on quality alternation. Each object of research is analysed on the background of the other languages of the group and their dialects. The comparative study demonstrates that specific traits of Southern Finnic prosody are the most widely represented in Livonian, while their representation in South Estonian is somewhat higher than in North Estonian. Votic prosody has the most traits in common with Northern Finnic languages. However, Southern Finnic languages share certain traits with Sami and with Mordvin languages, which are not characteristic of Northern Finnic. In summary, it becomes clear that the specific traits of Estonian prosody are of different age and origin, reflecting not only contacts with cognate languages but also intra-language changes as well as areal developments in the Circum-Baltic area.

Jootraha

Author(s): Jüri Viikberg / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 04/2014

In most countries a tip or gratuity (Est. ’jootraha’) is an extra amount of money given to someone as a reward for good service. Usually the sum is small and goes straight to the attendant (waiter, taxi driver, hairdresser). In Estonian the word (in the form of yotoraa) was first recorded in the 16th century and is a loan translation from Low German (cf. drink-, drinke-gelt ‘Trinkgeld’). Initially the word was used in the sense of a sacrifice (drink offering) to house fairies, but later it acquired the meaning of extra money given to the attendant for buying himself a drink. As beer was a customary drink at that time, we may very well call the extra allowance beer money. The Low German loan translation jooduraha can be related to an earlier Estonian word joot (Pl. usu. joodud) that meant offering food and drink to guests on some family occasion (christening, wedding) or celebrating the completion of a major work (e.g. the building of a boat or a windmill). We can find examples in the folk tradition that jootu joodi (’a drink was had’) also to ensure the success of a forthcoming undertaking (seal hunting, letting the cattle out for the first time in spring). By the 19th century the word jooduraha had basically acquired the meaning of a reward to someone (errand boy, postman, coachman) in return for a service. The word jootraha first appeared in dictionaries in 1917. Today (young) Estonians often use the word tipp (< English tip) instead of jootraha.

Veel kord Pandiverest ja ta nimest

Author(s): Marje Joalaid / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 12/2013

Toponymy has points of contact with several other disciplines, first and foremost with linguistics, history and geography. Based on those three, the article attempts to dissipate the doubts of Taavi Pae about Paul Ariste’s etymology of Pandivere, which associates the name with the Mordvin noun panda ‘hill’. The name of Pandivere is obviously quite old, but not so much for the heights, which have been named after a manor, which in turn has got its name from a village. From a linguistic point of view the initial component Pand(i)- may be associated with the Estonian noun põndak ‘hillock’. The word family of põnt : põnda with the derivatives põndak(as), põndas etc, all referring to a small hill, is quite widespread in Estonian dialects. In other Finnic languages the word stem is not used as a noun, but it does occur in place names. According to 19th-century Russian scholar Vladimir Mainov the Veps have referred to the Urals as Kivi-panda (kivi ‘stone’). In Finland there are several high and steep hills called Pantamäki (mäki ‘hill’). In earlier records the initial component of the name Pandivere ends in -e, which may be indicative of its being a plural attributive part. As the village was situated on two hills, the name may well have have been motivated by those: Pande ’GenPl hill’ + -vere. From a historical point of view the village is much older than first believed (1547). In the 13th century the village belonged to Koeru parish in Järvamaa county: in 1281 a small village called Pandevire is mentioned, in 1288 the spelling is Pandevere. The parish of Väike-Maarja, where Pandivere belonged later, is a much more recent formation, probably established no earlier than the late 15th century and then included in Virumaa County. Earlier the area used to border the prehistoric parish of Lemmundu in Virumaa. There is also a natural geographic association: the village is situated in a high terrain, which is not quite flat. There have been two hills there, about 250 m from one another, long serving as a source of sand. There are several legends about their origin. At least one of the two hills, Ammemägi, which is reported to have had a steep slope, used to serve as an important natural landmark, mentioned in 1646 as marking the border between Raeküla manor and the villages of Kadila and Naraka.

Sarn ja sarnane

Author(s): Lembit Vaba / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 02/2015

The Estonian sarn ‘cheekbone’ belongs to the words with still no satisfactory etymology. The same applies to the word sarnane ‘similar; coll. such’. Although to-day the word sarn is considered a natural part of the North-Estonian based common and standard language, its historical area of distribution refers it to South Estonian. The word does not occur in other Finnic languages, nor in more distantly related languages. The article suggests a Slavic etymology. The assumed source word is the pre-pleophonic *skorńa, which has descendants in East, West and South Slavic languages, e.g. Russian скоронь f. ‘temple’, Church Slavonic скрания (-ья) ‘cheek; temple; forehead; jaw’, скрань ‘cheek; cheekbone; side of face; jaw’ etc. The word sarnane has been offered different etymologies. One of them suggests that it has the same root with sarn ‘cheekbone’. However, this etymology is called into question by the historical South Estonian distribution of sarn, whereas sarnane occurs all over Estonia. According to the other etymology sarnane has a Finnic-Permic of Finno-Ugric root, with such Finnic descendants as, e.g., Finnish saarna ‘sermon’, Karelian šoarna ‘fairy tale’ etc. The semantic relationship has been quite credibly substantiated by Julius Mägiste, arguing that sarnane has originally meant ‘in question, similar to the object of talk’.

Punning on Anglicisms - a Manifestation of Linguistic Ingenuity

Author(s): Nevena Alexieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2004

The considerable lexical impact of English on Bulgarian, especially over the past decade of radical social and political changes, has manifested itself not only in an ever growing number of anglicisms, but also in an amusing linguistic exercise on the part of intellectuals of a humorous cast of mind. That this is not an isolated national phenomenon becomes clear from a paper entitled “Continental pundits”, whose author, M. Gorlach, describes a few cases of recent puns on anglicisms in German. In a footnote he remarks, “There must be plenty of evidence for similar uses of English words in other languages” (Gorlach, 1994:52). But while the German puns in his paper appear to represent the more serious, linguistically centred type of wordplay, which is partly rooted in the greater closeness of English and German, my selection contains exclusively puns that can be defined as witty, even facetious-sounding, linguistic remarks on topical social phenomena.

Етимология и фонетична еволюция на думата lambir (ламбър ‘липа’) в говора на турскоезичното население от Сърнена Средна гора

Author(s): Christo Saldžiev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2004

В съвременния говор на турскоезичното население от района на Сърнена Средна гора1 единственият начин за обозначаване на липа е думата lambir1. Нейната особена фонетична конструкция повдига редица въпроси, свързани с взаимодействието между езиците от Балканския полуостров. Първият съществен проблем е свързан с отношението на lambir към общотурската лексема за липа Матиг (ъхламур). Последната се явява заемка в турския от гръцката дума (рлароирд и носи всички особености на турската езикова адаптация. На първо място трябва да бъде отбелязана протезата на ъ, чрез която се усвояват в турския думи с две или повече начални съгласни: islav (ислав) - славянин, Istranca (Ъстранджа) - Странджа1 2 * 4. Отпадането на краесловния вокал и също може да се разглежда като елемент от един традиционно наложил се модел на усвояване на гръцките заемки в турския - fener (фенер). В този аспект с голяма доза сигурност може да се предполага, че отсъствието на краесловно и при lambir се дължи на първоначалните фонетични промени, настъпили при усвояването на думата в турските говори.

A2–C1-TASEME EKSAMITEKSTIDE KÄÄNDSÕNAKASUTUS

Author(s): Kais Allkivi-Metsoja / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 18/2022

In this study, natural language processing (NLP) is used to analyse nominal inflection in Estonian proficiency examination writings representing the CEFR levels A2–C1. The aim is to define the nominal features that distinguish learner language production at each proficiency level. For this purpose, the frequency and variation of inflectional forms are measured in two ways: a) for the nominal parts of speech (PoSs) in total, i.e., considering the use of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and numerals; b) for nouns, pronouns and adjectives individually (numerals were discarded due to low frequency). The analysed corpus contains 480 texts, 120 for each level. Nominal features based on the grammatical categories of number, case and degree of comparison are extracted from the morphologically tagged and manually corrected output of the Stanza NLP toolkit. Relevant features are selected according to the following criteria: they correlate with the proficiency level, their values change monotonically, and there are statistically significant differences between (some) adjacent levels. A2–C1-level texts are consistently distinguished by the number of cases used in the text as well as the ratio of singular and plural forms. The changes in the frequency of nominal inflectional forms mainly occur from level B1 to C1. The use of translative, nominative and genitive case are more strongly related to the text level, while partitive, inessive, elative and comitative case and comparative adjectives also differentiate some levels. Furthermore, the study indicates that it is beneficial to observe inflection-based features separately for each PoS when analysing L2 development. Firstly, the PoSspecific frequencies of some grammatical categories increase at different stages of proficiency. Secondly, changes may emerge for certain PoSs only. The identified criterial features could be used for automated assessment of Estonian L2 writings alongside lexical, syntactic and other linguistic features. The results can also help to specify the CEFR level descriptions for Estonian.

EESTI KEELE ÜHENDKORPUSTE SARI 2013–2021: MAHUKAIM EESTIKEELSETE DIGITEKSTIDE KOGU

Author(s): Kristina Koppel,Jelena Kallas / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 18/2022

The paper describes the Estonian National Corpus 2021 (Estonian NC 2021), the latest and the largest edition in the Estonian National Corpora series. The entire series of Estonian NC consists of four corpora: Estonian NC 2013, 2017, 2019 and 2021. The series was compiled by the Institute of the Estonian Language in cooperation with the software company Lexical Computing Ltd. All corpora are accessible through the Sketch Engine interface, a corpus query system developed and maintained by Lexical Computing Ltd. The data are also stored in the repository Entu at Center of Estonian Language Resources. The Estonian National Corpus 2021 contains eleven sub-corpora (i.e. Web 2013, Web 2017, Web 2019, Web 2021, Feeds 2014-2021, Wikipedia 2021, Wikipedia Talk 2017, the Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Literature, the Balanced Corpus, and the Reference Corpus) totalling 2.4 billion words. In addition, the corpus is divided into genres and topics. The most extensive part of the Estonian NC 2021 is the Estonian Web Corpora, i.e. texts crawled from the web. In the paper, we outline the process of crawling the web, the process of cleaning and post-processing the crawled data, and the methodology for classifying web texts into genres and topics. We also introduce new tools for the analysis of corpus data in Sketch Engine, and suggest further perspectives and needs for corpus development.

ÎN CONTRA UNEI RADIOGRAFII A LIMBII ROMÂNE DE LA ÎNCEPUTUL SECOLULUI AL XX-LEA. AL. TĂLĂŞESCU – CUM S-A STRICAT LIMBA ROMÂNEASCĂ?

Author(s): Adrian Chircu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2022

In our study, we aim to discuss a philological and linguistic study published by Al. Tălășescu in response to an article with the same title (Cum s-a stricat limba românească?‘How was the Romanian language ruined?’), written by I.N. Lahovary and commented on by us in a previous contribution. A thorough analysis of this synthesis of the lexicon of the early 20th century helps us far better to understand what the attitude was towards old words or neologisms. Al. Tălășescu's approach is critical, mainly targeting I.N. Lahovary, who argued that the Romanian language must keep its old words, as they have special meanings and an important role in the language, many of them being part of the fundamental vocabulary. Contrary to his contemporary, Al. Tălășescu believes that a good part of the neologisms that enter the language is necessary because they nuance communication and designate certain notions or objects for which, in our language, there does not exist a term yet.

Proximization strategies used in Covid-19 prevention discourse: An STA based analysis of official guidelines issued in Pakistan

Author(s): Nosheen Irshad / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

This study is an attempt to highlight the proximization strategies used in the Covid-19 preventive guidelines issued by the government of Pakistan. The theory of proximization (Cap 2017) has been taken as a theoretical framework for the present study and the analysis of the selected texts is guided by the spatial-temporal-axiological (STA) model (Cap 2013b). The guidelines issued by the government of Pakistan between March 25 and May 6, 2020, for the prevention of the disease have been selected as a sample for this study as they are expected to carry governmental plans for fighting the disease and the coercive strategies that have been used in order to make people act accordingly. Just like war, the situation of the pandemic spread calls for quick proposal of coercive strategies and their presentation in a way that can get the people on board with the institutional plans. With this in mind, the sample has been descriptively analyzed for the linguistic choices that indicate the spatial, temporal, and axiological proximization of the threat (Covid-19) in the light of proximization theory (Cap 2017). The results show that there are a significant number of linguistic markers that link the disease prevention discourse with the political intervention discourse, justifying the application of proximization theory (Cap 2017) to both of them. The evidence collected during the analysis establishes that the authorities use proximization strategies in disease prevention discourse in order to add to the fear appeal which helps in soliciting unconditional and quick legitimization of the proposed plan of action against the spreading disease.

Question design in veterinary consultations: Question forms and client responses in accomplishing problem presentation in a Malaysian context

Author(s): Noorjan Hussein Jamal,Mei Yuit Chan,Shameem Rafik-Galea,Ngee Thai Yap,Geok Imm Lee,Puteri Azaziah Megat Abd Rani / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

Question design by medical practitioners has been shown to have important consequences on how patients present their problems in clinical consultations. Linguistic structure of questions as part of question design implements different communicative and pragmatic functions, and hence, affects patients’ response in different ways. This study examined types of questions asked by veterinarians in the problem presentation phase of the clinical consultation in relation to their linguistic forms and functions. Veterinary illness consultations were video-recorded and veterinarians’ question types, their linguistic forms and clients’ response in the interaction were identified and examined. The results show that the general inquiry question implemented using the open-ended wh-question structure and the closed-ended declarative interrogative are the preferred forms used by veterinarians to solicit patients’ presenting problems from clients. Also, alignment of the linguistic form of questions with their pragmatic functions and the discourse goal of problem presentation affects clients’ ascription of veterinarians’ actions. The findings from the study can inform veterinarian communication training for more effective veterinarian-client communication to accomplish problem presentation in clinical consultations.

Management of therapist directiveness in integrative psychotherapy: A corpus-assisted discourse study

Author(s): Jesse W. C. Yip / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

Healthcare practitioners often face the dilemma of whether to provide advice during medical consultations due to concerns around affecting patients’ autonomy in decision making. Healthcare practitioners’ directiveness in patient–practitioner interactions may influence the success of medical consultations. Research has revealed that healthcare practitioners employ various communicative strategies and linguistic patterns to manage directiveness in medical consultations, such as the notions of likelihood and uncertainty, use of information, and politeness. Nonetheless, few scholars have examined how psychotherapists manage directiveness in counseling or psychotherapy sessions. Directives are inevitable speech acts in counseling or psychotherapy. Therapists may encounter challenges when producing directives, such as preventing clients from seeking their own solutions or clients becoming excessively dependent on therapists’ suggestions. Drawing upon the systems of mood and modality in systemic functional linguistics, this article employs a corpus-assisted approach to investigate therapists’ directives in terms of phraseological patterns, use of modality, and corresponding interpersonal meanings. Results reveal that therapists tend to manage directiveness by forming indicative directives and using low-value modulation modality. This article is the first corpus-assisted study to contribute to an understanding of therapist directiveness in psychotherapy from a lexico-grammatical perspective.

„GUSTUL CUVINTELOR” ÎN ATELIERUL DE TRADUCERI

Author(s): Oana Benedicta Feher / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2022

Language constitutes the starting point in the discovery of a world. When we learn a new language and end up thinking in it, another world adds to the first, with a different culture and vision. The translator’s task is to achieve the connection between these two worlds by adapting the language and the message a text contains. The degree of difficulty is given by the type of text, the age it comes from, the fields to which it belongs, the translator’s specialization, etc. My professional background, the one of a philologist, the interest in the study of languages, have lead me to a very interesting, atypical text. I am refering to Le Goût des mots (Gustul cuvintelor), a small volume which could be categorized as an essay, a particular one, since its author, Françoise Héritier, was a well known anthropologist, ethnologist and a French feminist militant. The translation workshop I am proposing integrates the following steps: essential data about the author; an identification of the structure regarding the chosen volume; a review of the translation’s levels of difficulty focusing on lexical and semantical ones. The results of this approach are surprising.

From Culinary Practice to Printed Text: The Eighteenth-Century Language of London Cookbooks

Author(s): Elena Butoescu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

The present article will explore the role that cookbooks had in eighteenth-century London, being extremely popular and highly pirated, probably the most successful women’s printed genre of the eighteenth century. These cookery books represented a reliable source of information not only about social distinction and food practices, but also about urban development and marketability. This is not only an analysis of the literature and culture of food as printed in the eighteenth-century by well-known London publishing houses, but also an insight into the vast scope of city dwellers. I will look at how the rhetoric of food reveals the mentality, customs, and culinary developments of eighteenth-century urban practices, ranging from the private area of the home to the public space of the print market. The catalog of didactic language on how to pluck poultry, burn charcoal, or prepare dishes in a clean and hygienic environment expresses the richness of food-related terminology, as well as the diversity of epithets praising the quality of the book or indicating the expected market. The article argues that the terminology used in these cookbooks, the paratexts and the systematic structure of the recipes reflect a specific country/city divide, since they provided instruction on how to adapt rural recipes to an urban kitchen, acknowledged the social division between servant and mistress, and shaped a new consumer behaviour.

Bridging the Gap between Cultures: The Translation of Cockney and Slang in G. B. Shaw’s “Pygmalion”

Author(s): Iris Rusu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

This article analyses the main drama translation strategies pertaining to the rendering of dialect and slang from English into Romanian with practical emphasis on “Pygmalion” (1914; 1941) by George Bernard Shaw. Moreover, it aims to review translation techniques and strategies which facilitate the translation of slang and dialect, more precisely Cockney, from English into Romanian. Amongst the strategies discussed here are: the application of a cultural filter and of local adaptation, the use of dialect compilation, pseudo-dialect translation, parallel dialect translation, dialect localization, and standardisation. The second half of this article scrutinises a selection of lines extracted from G. B. Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” comparing and contrasting the existing Romanian translations and suggesting new solutions to rendering culture-specific terms into Romanian.

Gjorgji Bufli, Luciano Rocchi (2021). A Historical-Etymological Dictionary of Turkisms in Albanian (1555 – 1954)

Author(s): Ekaterina Tarpomanova / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

Лексико-семантические особенности цветообозначений в классической азербайджанской литературе (на основе литературного произведения Низами Гянджави «Семь красавиц»)

Author(s): Parvin Yagub Abdullabeyova / Language(s): Russian Issue: 09/2022

The article deals with lexico-semantic features of colour denotations in the Azerbaijani language. The concept of colour in the language, in particular, is used as a symbolic phenomenon; one can assert that linguists treat the etymological features of the colour concept with great interest. The article points out that the colour in the language is closely linked to the cultural heritage of the people, which is reflected in the works of the Asian poet Nizami Ganjavi. The association expressed by colour refers to the source of origin of a particular colour, which may be, for instance, a specific object or place. The meaning conveyed by colour carries a symbolic and emotional value in a specific socio-cultural context, providing the context for the literary work and its interpretation.

From History to Modern Tendencies in the Sphere of Ethnolinguistics and Topical Issues in This Area

Author(s): Aida Akif Mirzayeva / Language(s): English Issue: 10/2022

As a linguistics field, ethnolinguistics is a science with great potential for development and research, in addition to having different names, tasks, goals and many controversial issues. This field of linguistics needs to be sufficiently studied and requires a more thorough investigation. From this point of view, the mentioned topic is crucial for modern linguistics. The object of ethnolinguistic research is language as a carrier of ethnocultural information, the relationship between language and folk mentality, and the role of language in the ethnic picture of the world. This article aims to shed light on the initial perception of the science and modern investigations in this field and draw attention to the topicality of the issue. For this purpose, throughout the research, the scientific literature related to the topic is analysed, and the development trends of Azerbaijani ethnolinguistics and its current state are reviewed and evaluated. The empirical analysis method was used during the research. From a practical point of view, the study can serve as a rich scientific resource for researchers conducting research in ethnolinguistics. As a result, it is noted that in the field of ethnolinguistics, which is developing as a particular field in Azerbaijani linguistics, new studies and research are conducted that resonate with the requirements of the modern stage of science, and they will contribute to world linguistics in this direction in the future.