Identifying Dialect Regions

Specific features vs. overall measures using the Romanian Online Dialect Atlas

and Multidimensional Scaling

Outline

• Background– Romanian – RODA – MDS

• Dialects: England, Finland and Romania

• What makes a dialect?

Romanian

Romanian and Romance

RODA: Romanian Online Dialect Atlas

http://www.yorku.ca/vpaweb/romanian/

or temporarily at

http://ericwheeler.ca under research

RODA: Technology

MDS: multi-dimensional scaling

England (CLAE)

Finland

Geography ~ Linguistics

• In both the English and the Finnish cases, “geography” closely maps to “dialect distance”:– Geographically-distant regions are dialect-distant

– Geographically-compact areas are dialect-compact

– Overall arrangement of areas is (mostly) the same in both cases

No Surprise: geography is a factor in dialectology and the exceptions have explanations

North-West Romania

• In North-west Romania, this is not the case.– There are two areas in the south that are suitably

separate– The rest overlay one another in ways that do not

match geography– Areas that we expect to be separate are not, e.g.:

• Oaş divides into two areas

• Both are mixed in with other dialect areas.

North West Romania

North West Romania (part)

Oaş (non-palatalized dentals)

Oaş

Oaş (1)

Oaş (2)

Oaş (3)

What makes a dialect area?

• Selected features show Oaş as a separate dialect area

• MDS on “all data” shows Oaş as two areas, intermixed with the surrounding areas

What is a Dialect?

Different features- Different maps

Overlay

• Technically, we can overlay several patterns on one map

• So, where are the dialect regions?

(I) Distinct dialect regions

• Each dialect region is defined by a unique set of features

• Even though some of the features are shared from region to region

(II) Overlapping dialect regions

• Or, do we keep only 3 overlapping dialect regions?

Multiple patterns

The question arises over and over because:• Every feature has its own pattern• Many patterns coincide in some locations

and not in others• Features that are quantitative have

potentially infinite possibilitiesHow do we put these patterns together

consistently?

Proposal: Dialect Structure

Hierarchy of dialect patterns

Dialect Structure

We propose to speak of the dialect structure• Multiple levels • Dialect region exists at one (or more) level(s)• At different levels, there are different patterns

of dialect regionsIt is the total “dialect structure” that is

essential, rather than any one level or view of it.

Quantity

Quantitative Measures: Raised, word-final /e/ vs schwa

Data from:•407 maps•Field 1

Raised /e/ (horizontal)

Raised schwa (vertical)

Raised schwa is also wide-spread but does not always coincide with raised /e/(cf. 158, 159)

Quantitative MeasuresExamples:

• Is there vowel raising? (Answer can cover many degrees of raising)

• How many occurrences of syllabic /u/ vs. non-syllabic /u/ (Answers range from 0 to 400+)

Quantity in Dialect Structure

At any level of dialect structure, the distinction between regions can be variable because of the quantitative nature of what is being measured and where we choose to set the threshold.

This threshold is part of the “dialect structure” too.

Dialect Structure

• Hierarchy of levels– Ground level, intermediate levels, top level

• Thresholds for variable measures• Views of the whole structure

– View = dialect map at a given level and threshold

MDS can provide one top-level view, where every measured features has equal weight

North West Romania

Reality of the Dialect Structure

Does the multi-level, quantitatively variable structure correspond to something real?

Or, are the patterns just the artifacts of waves of change moving through the speech community, overlaid by new patterns through time

Reality: England, Finland

Distinctions seem to be:

• Clear cut

• Persistent

• Explained by geography (mostly)

So perhaps the dialect structure is “real”

Reality: Romania

• In Daco-Romanian, most distinguishing features are phonetic or lexical

• Fewer morphological or syntactic distinctions

• If the dialect areas are “real”, will they eventually also show more differences including differences in morphology and syntax?

Summary

• RODA is up and working – We have used it to investigate interesting

problems in Romance and Romanian

• Our investigations have forced us to ask “what is a dialect?”

• Our proposal: A “dialect structure” with multiple levels and quantitative thresholds– Open Question: is it real?

RODA: Romanian Online Dialect Atlas

http://www.yorku.ca/vpaweb/romanian/

or temporarily at

http://ericwheeler.ca under research