Chat – New rooms for language contact
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Birgitte Jacobsen
Abstract
The chat room is a new locus of contact between local languages and the global web language, English. The present paper investigates how Greenlandic chat language responds to contact not only with English, but also with Danish, the former colonial language in Greenland. The data compiled in 2006 comprises 56 pages of chat from 12 chat sessions. Greenlandic chat language is characterized by nonstandard spellings, innovative lexicon, and in addtion, by innovative morphology which challenges the principles of polysynthesis and of word formation in general. Especially, the range of linguistic elements which may be involved in word formation is wider in chat language than elsewhere.
Abstract
The chat room is a new locus of contact between local languages and the global web language, English. The present paper investigates how Greenlandic chat language responds to contact not only with English, but also with Danish, the former colonial language in Greenland. The data compiled in 2006 comprises 56 pages of chat from 12 chat sessions. Greenlandic chat language is characterized by nonstandard spellings, innovative lexicon, and in addtion, by innovative morphology which challenges the principles of polysynthesis and of word formation in general. Especially, the range of linguistic elements which may be involved in word formation is wider in chat language than elsewhere.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
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Part I. Polysynthesis
- Polysynthesis in the Arctic 3
- Polysynthesis as a typological feature 19
- Analytic vs. synthetic verbal constructions in Chukchi and West Greenlandic 35
- Lexical polysynthesis 51
- How synchronic is synchronic analysis? 65
- Comparative constructions in Central Alaskan Yupik 81
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Part II. Around the verb
- The efficacy of anaphoricity in Aleut 97
- Objective conjugations in Eskaleut and Uralic 115
- Complex verb formation revisited 135
- Determining the semantics of Inuktitut postbases 149
- The marking of past time in Kalaallisut, the Greenlandic language 171
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Part III. Discourses and contacts
- Tracking topics 185
- Arguments and information management in Inuktitut 201
- Space and structure in Greenlandic oral tradition 215
- Grammatical structures in Greenlandic as found in texts written by young Greenlanders at the turn of the millennium 231
- Chat – New rooms for language contact 249
- Seward Peninsula Inupiaq and language contact around Bering Strait 261
- Typological constraints on code mixing in Inuktitut–English bilingual adults 273
- Index of languages 307
- Index of subjects 309
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
-
Part I. Polysynthesis
- Polysynthesis in the Arctic 3
- Polysynthesis as a typological feature 19
- Analytic vs. synthetic verbal constructions in Chukchi and West Greenlandic 35
- Lexical polysynthesis 51
- How synchronic is synchronic analysis? 65
- Comparative constructions in Central Alaskan Yupik 81
-
Part II. Around the verb
- The efficacy of anaphoricity in Aleut 97
- Objective conjugations in Eskaleut and Uralic 115
- Complex verb formation revisited 135
- Determining the semantics of Inuktitut postbases 149
- The marking of past time in Kalaallisut, the Greenlandic language 171
-
Part III. Discourses and contacts
- Tracking topics 185
- Arguments and information management in Inuktitut 201
- Space and structure in Greenlandic oral tradition 215
- Grammatical structures in Greenlandic as found in texts written by young Greenlanders at the turn of the millennium 231
- Chat – New rooms for language contact 249
- Seward Peninsula Inupiaq and language contact around Bering Strait 261
- Typological constraints on code mixing in Inuktitut–English bilingual adults 273
- Index of languages 307
- Index of subjects 309
