Simon Pickl

Quantification and Statistical Analysis of Structural Similarities in Dialectological Area-Class Maps

Abstract Dialect atlases comprise considerable numbers of linguistic feature maps, i.e. dialect maps representing one linguistic feature each. Large amounts of data like these are often difficult to handle. This article presents a new quantitative method for the automatic analysis of such large corpora of linguistic feature maps. It makes use of geographical similarities between single maps to establish a system of criteria for structural relatedness. Furthermore, it employs statistical techniques to test whether given linguistic relations between the maps coincide significantly with structural relations. To achieve this, each underlying point-symbol map is converted into an area-class map (with all the original information still available). These area-class maps yield additional information regarding their structural composition. Cluster analysis is then employed to obtain groupings of similar maps. Such groupings facilitate the search for language-internal factors that influence the geographical distribution of linguistic variants, as the relevance of any given linguistic parameter for spatial patterns can be tested using statistical methods. Moreover, language-external factors, such as topographical conditions, can be tested in the same way. Thus, this new method allows for a profound and substantiated investigation of the regularities that can be found in the geographical distributions of linguistic variants.

Historical sociolinguistics: the field and its future

Abstract This article introduces the new Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics by situating it in the developing field of historical sociolinguistics. The landmark paper of Weinreich et al. (1968), which paid increased attention to extralinguistic factors in the explanation of language variation and change, served as an important basis for the gradual development and expansion of historical sociolinguistics as a separate (sub)field of inquiry, notably since the influential work of Romaine (1982). This article traces the development of the field of historical sociolinguistics and considers some of its basic principles and assumptions, including the uniformitarian principle and the so-called bad data problem. Also, an overview is provided of some of the directions recent research has taken, both in terms of the different types of data used, and in terms of important approaches, themes and topics that are relevant to many studies within the field. The article concludes with considerations of the necessarily multidisciplinary nature of historical sociolinguistics, and invites authors from various research traditions to submit original research articles to the journal, and thus help to further the development of the fascinating field of historical sociolinguistics.

Dialectometric concepts of space: Towards a variant-based dialectometry

Outlining the development of quantitative methods in dialectology, especially dialectometry, we show that the conventional approaches are characterized by an exclusive focus on varieties. This is due to a “lectbased” concept of linguistic space. We argue that a different approach, taking into account the individual distributions of single variants of a geolinguistic corpus, is not only possible, but desirable as a complement to the traditional approach. By introducing a statistical method that allows us to classify linguistic variables according to their distributional patterns, we illustrate this “variant-based” approach. This method may reveal as yet unknown associations between those variables, while at the same time demonstrating the feasibility and the potential of an alternative quantitative approach to linguistic variation in space.

Neues zur Entwicklung der Negation im Mittelhochdeutschen

Abstract This paper investigates the development of sentential negation in Middle High German using sermons from the Upper German dialect area. To this end, a heterogeneous yet fine-grained corpus of Alemannic and Bavarian sermons is analysed with respect to diachronic development, geographical distribution and language-internal factors. What becomes clear is that Jespersen’s Cycle, a cross-linguistic model of the development of negation that can be seen as part of the received history of German negation, fails to account for the mechanisms in the development of sentential negation in German. These mechanisms cannot be understood independently of the – in some respects parallel – development of n‑indefinites. It appears that the interplay of variation and the grammaticalisation of the n‑indefinite nicht, which co-occurred with ne but could also appear on its own, played a more important role in the emergence of the negation particle nicht than previously thought. It is argued that when nicht was grammaticalised it retained the variation of the n-indefinite nicht, and that the subsequent loss of ne was a parallel development in both usages of nicht. Für wertvolle Hinweise zu einer früheren Version dieses Beitrags möchte ich mich bei Stephan Elspaß, Helmut Graser, Nils Langer, Sonja Müller, Konstantin Niehaus, Hannes Scheutz und zwei anonymen GutachterInnen herzlich bedanken.

8. Neue Dialektometrie mit Methoden der stochastischen Bildanalyse

Vorrangiger Zweck ist die Entwicklung neuer Methoden zur quantitativen sowie qualitativen Auswertung großer Korpora areallinguistischer Daten. Zielpunkt ist die Bereitstellung der im Projekt entwickelten und erprobten Methoden in einem kompakten und anwenderfreundlichen Softwarepaket namens GeoLing, das es anderen Nutzern ermöglicht, mit ihren eigenen Daten entsprechende Analysen eigenständig durchzuführen. Die Software ist komplett in Java geschrieben und nicht nur plattformübergreifend lauffähig, sondern vom Benutzer bei Bedarf auch individuell anpassbar. Ein erster Ausgangspunkt für die Arbeiten im Projekt war die „klassische“ Dialektometrie (Séguy 1971, 1973; Goebl 1982, 1984), die bislang in der Hauptsache mittels Aggregation versucht, der Variationsvielfalt in Sprachatlanten Herr zu werden. Während diese aggregativen Vorgehensweisen (die weiterhin die Basis vieler quantitativer Zugänge zur Sprachgeographie sind, vgl. für einen Überblick etwa Heeringa 2004: 14–24; Nerbonne 2010; Nerbonne & Kretzschmar 2013) zweifelsohne die „dominanten“ (d.h. „möglichst hochrangige[n]“; Goebl 1986: 43) Strukturen der Variation gut abbilden können, werden schwächere oder weniger hochrangige Aspekte der Variation ausgeblendet. Einher geht damit oftmals auch eine starre Sicht auf „Areale“, die implizit als einheitliche Dialekträume konzeptualisiert werden, die sich scheinbar klar an Grenzen voneinander scheiden, statt fließend ineinander überzugehen. Darüber hinaus blieben (und bleiben bis heute) eventuell auftretende Mehrfachbelege an einem Ort in diesen Herangehensweisen unberücksichtigt. 2