Research profile (keywords):
Prosody, syntax, syntax-prosody interface, prosody-discourse interface, intonation, especially Icelandic prosody and intonation
- Cross-linguistic
influence in phonology: the case of heritage Icelandic
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, funding period; 1 Jun 2021 - 31 May 2024
Principal Investigators: Nicole Dehé (DE 876/4-1) and Christiane Ulbrich (UL 458/2-1; University of Cologne)
Research staff: Meike Rommel (Konstanz), Jörn Krantz (Cologne), Angela James (Konstanz)
Project description: - First languages are
typically acquired with continuous exposure to one (or more)
language(s). This is not true in the same way for speakers of a
heritage language (HL). Their first language (L1) attainment frequently
does not reach native-like levels, which distinguishes them form
monolinguals and most other types of multilinguals. This has
implications for theoretical aspects of language representation and
development. Especially the area of phonetics and phonology appears to
be difficult to capture theoretically. The pronunciation of HL speakers
is often described as accented compared to monolinguals, but it also
differs from second language (L2) speakers, leaving several research
gaps to be addressed in the present project, e.g.: (i) Are phenomena at
different phonological levels affected in the same way by dynamic
cross-linguistic influences? (ii) To which extent are these effects the
same for different types of learners (HL, L2)? To address these
questions, we study two selected phenomena at different levels within
the phonology of Icelandic: preaspiration at the (sub)segmental level,
and word stress at the prosodic (and: lexical) word level in HL, L1 and
L2 speakers of Icelandic. Icelandic is particularly well suited because
of comparatively few changes in its history and relative lack of
regional variation.
- Regional pronunciation, attitudes and real-time change
RannÍs (Icelandic Research Fund)
Funding period: 2023-2026
Principal Investigators: Ásgrímur Angantýsson (University of Iceland), Finnur Friðriksson (University of Akureyri)
International collaborators: Nicole Dehé (University of Konstanz), Gunnar Ólafur Hansson (University of British Columbia), Kristín M. Jóhannsdóttir (University of Akureyri)
Project description:
- The project RePARC (Regional pronunciation, attitudes, and real-time change) aims to investigate how individuals change their pronunciation through the lifespan and the extent to which conscious and subconscious language attitudes play a role in explaining such real-time linguistic changes, using the uniquely documented development of local phonological variation in Iceland as a test case. The main empirical goal of the project is to map the current status of the regional pronunciation in Iceland in such a way that the results can be used for a systematic comparison to those of the three major previous overview studies, i.e. Thráinsson et al. (2013), Árnason and Thráinsson (2003) and Guðfinnsson (1946). For this purpose, participants from these previous projects will be included as a subset of informants for the current project, to ensure the continuity of the real-time aspect. The main theoretical impact of the project will be to integrate attitudinal factors into models of phonological change.
The project will be carried out in two main phases, following a
mixed-methods approach. On the one hand, 3000 informants aged between 12
and 95 from all around the country will be asked to, firstly,
participate in a pronunciation test, secondly, to listen to recordings
of speakers of dialects other than their own and, thirdly, give their
reaction to these recordings, and to answer a questionnaire on their
attitudes towards their own dialect. This phase will be carried out
online and its purpose is to get an overview of the current status of
the regional dialects in Iceland, including the extent to which they
have been passed on to and maintained by new generations, and people’s
attitudes towards them. Here, it will be ensured that half the sample of
adult informants (around 1000) will have taken part in the RÍN project
and/or BG’s study. In the second phase, a total of 300 informants from
the first phase will be included. Amongst these will be the people who
took part in the RÍN project and/or, to the extent possible, BG’s study
as teenagers, and will thus either be around 50 or 90 years of age at
this stage and are from the northern or the south-eastern part of
Iceland, or the Western Fjords, and either still live there or have
moved to the Greater Reykjavík area since RÍN. Furthermore, a group of
teenagers from each of the relevant regions will be added to the sample,
to create a foundation for further work of the same kind, thereby
making the real-time aspect inter-generational. Participants in all
these three age groups will be interviewed to follow up the most
interesting results that emerge from the first phase and to trace in
greater detail the real-time development of the relevant regional
features and the possible effect of attitudes on this development.
Completed funded research projects:
- Ditransitives
in Insular Scandinavian
RannÍs (Icelandic Research Fund, 195926-051)
Funding period; 1 Jun 2019 - 31 May 2022
Principal Investigators: Jóhannes G. Jónsson (University of Iceland), Cherlon Ussery (Carleton College)
Co-proposers: Nicole Dehé (University of Konstanz), Einar Freyr Sigurðsson (University of Iceland), Jim Wood (Yale University), Hjalmar P. Petersen (University of the Faroe Islands)
Project description: - The objective of
this project is to explore important issues relating to ditransitive
verbs in Insular Scandinavian. We will focus on three main issues: (a)
inversion of the two objects (DO-IO orders in active clauses and theme
passives), (b) the morphosyntax of ditransitive verbs (different cases
and DPs vs. PPs) and related syntactic issues, and (c) the scope
possibilities for the internal arguments of ditransitive verbs. These
issues will be explored through various expermental methods and
searches in corpora of natural speech.
Icelandic and Faroese provide an interesting point of comparison because the two languages share a case system where dative is the usual case for indirect objects and accusative for direct objects, but they also diverge in that Faroese has lost many of the case patterns available for ditransitives in Icelandic and is also in the process of developing a DP-PP construction with verbs of caused possession.
Our study will make use of extant theoretical literature to explain the data from Insular Scandinavian under investigation. We will also show how the data are relevant for the assessment of various analyses that have been advanced to account for ditransitives in English and other languages. These analyses concern e.g. the structure of the DP-DP construction, scope possibilities, and the relationship between the DP-DP construction and the DP-PP construction.
- Towards
a prosodic grammar for rhetorical questions
DFG Research Unit FOR 2111, Project P6 (phase 2; see below for phase 1)
Funding period; 1 Apr 2019 - 31 Mar 2022 (extended to 30 Sep 2022)
Principal Investigators: Bettina Braun (BR 3428/4-2) and Nicole Dehé (DE 876/3-2)
Current research staff: Marieke Einfeldt, Angela James; previous research staff: Katharina Zahner-Ritter, Daniela Wochner
Project description: - The main objective of the second phase
of the project is
to work towards a prosodic grammar of rhetorical questions by using the
results from phase 1 and extending our investigations. By establishing
a prosodic grammar we mean: (a) test the existence of a
new accent
type category and possibly add it to the tonal inventory of at least
German (based on phase 1, see below), (b) determine the well-formed
combinations of the phonological (pitch accents, boundary tones) and
phonetic cues (duration, voice quality, pitch range)
identified in
the first phase, and (c) work out which of the cues and which
specifications are languagespecific, and which are part of the grammar
of more than one language. To this end, we continue our research on
German and Icelandic from the first phase, and we add two
additional languages that pose different constraints on the prosodic
cues found for the marking of rhetorical questions in the first phase,
Italian and Mandarin Chinese— languages that are also of interest to
other projects in the RU.
- The
production and perception of rhetorical questions in German.
DFG Research Unit FOR 2111, P6 (phase 1; see above for phase 2)
Funding period; 1 Apr 2016 - 31 Mar 2019
Principal Investigators: Bettina Braun (BR 3428/4-1) and Nicole Dehé (DE 876/3-1)
Research staff: Jana Neitsch, Daniela Wochner, Katharina Zahner
Project description: - Rhetorical questions are an interesting linguistic phenomenon that provides valuable information about the interaction of different linguistic levels. Previous literature has mainly been concerned with lexical markers of rhetoricity (e.g. particles, negation, polarity items). One important marker of rhetoricity that has as yet hardly been investigated systematically is the prosodic realization of rhetorical questions. The present project aims at closing this gap. It investigates how interrogative clauses that are syntactically and lexically ambiguous in terms of their illocution (rhetorical question vs. information-seeking questions; e.g. G: Wer war denn noch nicht in Berlin?, E: Who has not been to Berlin?) are prosodically realized in German and how such lexically and syntactically ambiguous interrogative clauses are interpreted.
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