Övdalian from 1909 to 2009

We present a number of morphological and syntactic properties that Ovdalian is reported to have according to the literature. They are classified into four categories, of which we study in particular those two that make Ovdalian stand out amongst the Scandinavian languages: the category of those features that Ovdalian shares with the Insular Scandinavian languages, and the category of Ovdalian innovations. We compare these with what we find in the Ovdalian Speech Corpus, which contains searchable recordings from the 21st century. Interestingly, we find that the verbal morphology is robust, whereas case morphology is losing ground. Syntactic innovations like referential null subjects, negative concord, subject doubling, and lack of object shift are still present in the language.

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