Category
Topic
Year
MAKE-causative on the example of Estonian ajama
Keywords: polysemy, grammaticalization, causative construction, verb ajama, literary language, Estonian
This paper examines the polysemy of the Estonian core verb ajama (‘to move something; to force someone’) and focuses on the development and use of the ajama-(lit. drive)-causative (MAKE-causative; henceforth ajama-causative). The analysis draws on corpus data consisting of written Estonian texts from the 16th century until the present day. As many as 2,366 cases of ajama were analysed in order to decide over the meaning groups of the verb and the relations between its meanings.
The lexical meanings of the verb ajama are ‘to move or push something’, ‘to force or direct someone’, ‘to deal with something (continually)’ and ‘to move’. A…
This paper examines the polysemy of the Estonian core verb ajama (‘to move something; to force someone’) and focuses on the development and use of the ajama-(lit. drive)-causative (MAKE-causative; henceforth ajama-causative). The analysis draws on corpus data consisting of written Estonian texts from the 16th century until the present day. As many as 2,366 cases of ajama were analysed in order to decide over the meaning groups of the verb and the relations between its meanings.
The lexical meanings of the verb ajama are ‘to move or push something’, ‘to force or direct someone’, ‘to deal with something (continually)’ and ‘to move’. A…
Public transport in Estonian literature
Keywords: literary urban studies, Estonian literature, public transport, urban space, Tallinn
The article deals with the depiction of urban transport in Estonian fiction from the second half of the 19th century to the present day. Examples from the prose of Eduard Vilde, A. H. Tammsaare, Peet Vallak, Raimond Kaugver, Mati Unt, Mats Traat, Holger Kaints, Veronika Kivisilla and some other authors have been analysed, pointing out the rich variety of aspects the description of public transport offers to authors for creating, mediating and interpreting urban environment. The prevalent fictional coverage of Tallinn public transport is compared with two Estonian descriptions of…
The article deals with the depiction of urban transport in Estonian fiction from the second half of the 19th century to the present day. Examples from the prose of Eduard Vilde, A. H. Tammsaare, Peet Vallak, Raimond Kaugver, Mati Unt, Mats Traat, Holger Kaints, Veronika Kivisilla and some other authors have been analysed, pointing out the rich variety of aspects the description of public transport offers to authors for creating, mediating and interpreting urban environment. The prevalent fictional coverage of Tallinn public transport is compared with two Estonian descriptions of…
The dimensional text model: A theoretical overview
Keywords: corpus linguistics, text classification, text typology, functional text dimensions, multidimensional analysis
Corpus linguists and language technologists are increasingly turning to the Web as a source of language data. However, automatically crawled corpora have some shortcomings: lots of data but the content is unknown. This has created a need for software which is able to extract all the necessary information from the raw corpus. One such information extraction task in natural language processing is automatic text classification, which in practice imposes several challenges, such as confusion around the terminology, the absence of a generally accepted taxonomy, etc. Even if the latter…
Corpus linguists and language technologists are increasingly turning to the Web as a source of language data. However, automatically crawled corpora have some shortcomings: lots of data but the content is unknown. This has created a need for software which is able to extract all the necessary information from the raw corpus. One such information extraction task in natural language processing is automatic text classification, which in practice imposes several challenges, such as confusion around the terminology, the absence of a generally accepted taxonomy, etc. Even if the latter…
Standardisation of meanings in Estonian corpus planning on the example of the verb vabandama
Keywords: Estonian corpus planning, word meanings, language change
Estonian corpus planning relies noticeably on traditions, not on up-to-date language research, which there is none. For example, in 1980 the Orthological Committee decided that the meanings of the words should not be standardized since they change rapidly, but the Dictionary of Standard Estonian (ÕS) published in 1999 still had some restrictions in the definitions and some of the meanings still continue to be inadvisable. The Language Committee of the Estonian Mother Tongue Society, active since 1993, expanded the meanings of some words, but merely a few words have been inspected.
One of the…
Estonian corpus planning relies noticeably on traditions, not on up-to-date language research, which there is none. For example, in 1980 the Orthological Committee decided that the meanings of the words should not be standardized since they change rapidly, but the Dictionary of Standard Estonian (ÕS) published in 1999 still had some restrictions in the definitions and some of the meanings still continue to be inadvisable. The Language Committee of the Estonian Mother Tongue Society, active since 1993, expanded the meanings of some words, but merely a few words have been inspected.
One of the…
The diary of Märt Siipsen as a means of self-positioning
Keywords: diary keeping, Märt Siipsen, genre, vernacular literacy
The article focuses on the diary of miller Märt Siipsen (1846–1916), written in the years 1896–1897. Siipsen only had the minimal three-year schooling, which makes him a great example of a vernacular writer (not connected to institutions dedicated to the spread of literacy). The diary is part of Siipsen’s personal archive, which is kept in the Cultural History Archives of Estonian Literary Museum. Besides the diary there are notebooks filled with poems, short stories, religious contemplations etc.
The document analysed here (EKM EKLA, f 169, m 133: 5) stands out in this collection…
The article focuses on the diary of miller Märt Siipsen (1846–1916), written in the years 1896–1897. Siipsen only had the minimal three-year schooling, which makes him a great example of a vernacular writer (not connected to institutions dedicated to the spread of literacy). The diary is part of Siipsen’s personal archive, which is kept in the Cultural History Archives of Estonian Literary Museum. Besides the diary there are notebooks filled with poems, short stories, religious contemplations etc.
The document analysed here (EKM EKLA, f 169, m 133: 5) stands out in this collection…
In search of a lost city: The palimpsest of post-war Tartu in Bernard Kangro’s and Jaan Kaplinski’s novels
Keywords: urban literature, palimpsest, bridges, monuments, Tartu, Bernard Kangro, Jaan Kaplinski, Michel de Certeau
The article focuses on two literary depictions of the city of Tartu as examples of palimpsestic treatment of a city space recovering from major damage incurred in WWII and reshaping itself in the changed political climate of the ensuing Soviet occupation. The novels Tartu (1962) by Bernard Kangro and The Same River (2007) by Jaan Kaplinski feature the same cityscape from around 1960 that the authors have been unable to access directly during the time of writing. The distance is spatial in case of Kangro, whose novel…
The article focuses on two literary depictions of the city of Tartu as examples of palimpsestic treatment of a city space recovering from major damage incurred in WWII and reshaping itself in the changed political climate of the ensuing Soviet occupation. The novels Tartu (1962) by Bernard Kangro and The Same River (2007) by Jaan Kaplinski feature the same cityscape from around 1960 that the authors have been unable to access directly during the time of writing. The distance is spatial in case of Kangro, whose novel…
On the perception of space, its linguistic and cultural coding and poetics of representation in Desmond Hogan’s short story “The Last Time”
Keywords: phenomenology of space perception, social space, linguistic and cultural representation of space, extracoding of real and ideal spaces, phenomenology of translation
The present article studies the perception of space in “The Last Time” (a short story written by Desmond Hogan, first published in 1979) by Maria (a former orphan in the nunnery of Ballinasloe, a small town in western Ireland, close after WW II), who makes an attempt in her first person narrative to represent and understand, twenty years later, the circumstances and the emotions of her love for a young man from a socially high-ranking family, which probably…
The present article studies the perception of space in “The Last Time” (a short story written by Desmond Hogan, first published in 1979) by Maria (a former orphan in the nunnery of Ballinasloe, a small town in western Ireland, close after WW II), who makes an attempt in her first person narrative to represent and understand, twenty years later, the circumstances and the emotions of her love for a young man from a socially high-ranking family, which probably…
Linguistic spatiality: phenomenology of space-formation in speech and literature
Keywords: phenomenology, linguistic experience, reading experience, fiction, spatiality
The paper takes a phenomenological approach and looks into spatial formations (such as a room, a territory, a landscape, a city, a country) that are indicated in conversation and texts of literary fiction. As an example of such spatial formations we can think of the “Middle-earth” in The Lord of the Rings, but also of almost any spatially situated object or action that is conveyed to us by using words. Most of the research into the readers’ experience of fiction holds the view that these spaces are imaginary, i.e. they are a product…
The paper takes a phenomenological approach and looks into spatial formations (such as a room, a territory, a landscape, a city, a country) that are indicated in conversation and texts of literary fiction. As an example of such spatial formations we can think of the “Middle-earth” in The Lord of the Rings, but also of almost any spatially situated object or action that is conveyed to us by using words. Most of the research into the readers’ experience of fiction holds the view that these spaces are imaginary, i.e. they are a product…
Analysis of Estonian external locative cases in semi-spontaneous speech using an automatic transcription system
Keywords: corpus linguistics, semi-spontaneous speech, external cases, Estonian language
We proceed from the tenets of usage-based linguistics which stresses the importance of studying language use, especially quantitative frequency measures, in order to make (qualitative) inferences about linguistic knowledge. We focus on the frequency counts of Estonian external cases (allative, adessive, ablative) and their different functions in semi-spontaneous everyday speech. The automatic transcription system applied for the present study can be accessed free of charge via the web application http://bark.phon.ioc.ee/webtrans. In our study we used the recordings of 2,681 radio broadcasts containing 15,318,158 transcribed words in total. The average word error rate…
We proceed from the tenets of usage-based linguistics which stresses the importance of studying language use, especially quantitative frequency measures, in order to make (qualitative) inferences about linguistic knowledge. We focus on the frequency counts of Estonian external cases (allative, adessive, ablative) and their different functions in semi-spontaneous everyday speech. The automatic transcription system applied for the present study can be accessed free of charge via the web application http://bark.phon.ioc.ee/webtrans. In our study we used the recordings of 2,681 radio broadcasts containing 15,318,158 transcribed words in total. The average word error rate…
In front of someone and behind something? Spatial frames of reference in Estonian
Keywords: semantics, adpositions, spatial language, frames of reference, front-back
Languages differ in how they encode spatial frames of reference. The article examines Estonian postpositions which denote front and back relations: ette ‘in front of [illative]’, ees ‘in front of [inessive]’, taha ‘to the back’, taga ‘back, behind’, tagant ‘from behind’.
The goal of the study was to discover systematic patterns in how the reference frames are used to locate spatial entities (ground objects) in the front-back dimension in Estonian. The study is corpus-based, the data coming from the Estonian National Corpus 2017 (1,107,584,469 words), collected via Sketch Engine (Kilgarriff et al.…
Languages differ in how they encode spatial frames of reference. The article examines Estonian postpositions which denote front and back relations: ette ‘in front of [illative]’, ees ‘in front of [inessive]’, taha ‘to the back’, taga ‘back, behind’, tagant ‘from behind’.
The goal of the study was to discover systematic patterns in how the reference frames are used to locate spatial entities (ground objects) in the front-back dimension in Estonian. The study is corpus-based, the data coming from the Estonian National Corpus 2017 (1,107,584,469 words), collected via Sketch Engine (Kilgarriff et al.…
Construing the meaning of learning space in university: perceptions of students
Keywords: learning space, metaphors in learning, critical discourse analysis, construing of experiences, construing of perceptions
The aim of the article is to understand and describe the hidden meanings of learning space in the construing of learning space experience among learners in university. We also attempt to identify how to change the learning space so that it would support learning and teaching and promote the emergence of learning communities. Universities around the globe have been investing in the creation of contemporary learning spaces (Cox 2011) but the sole focus on new spatial solutions disguises the inability to be engaged in the content-related…
The aim of the article is to understand and describe the hidden meanings of learning space in the construing of learning space experience among learners in university. We also attempt to identify how to change the learning space so that it would support learning and teaching and promote the emergence of learning communities. Universities around the globe have been investing in the creation of contemporary learning spaces (Cox 2011) but the sole focus on new spatial solutions disguises the inability to be engaged in the content-related…
Õpiruum ‘learning space’ or õpperuum ‘study space’? The use of the right term conveys the meaning of the learning process
Keywords: concept of learning, educational terminology, dictionary, field of meaning, discourse analysis
In our article we conceptualise the meaning of the Estonian words õpiruum ‘learning space’ and õpperuum ‘study space’ by analysing media texts retrieved from the Internet. A media text, as we understand it, is any constructed media product or piece of communication, whether printed or audiovisual, which can be analysed and deconstructed. Until recently, the two terms õpiruum and õpperuum have been used inconsistently and all too often as synonyms in Estonian. By presenting several examples and pictures from media texts we argue that these two terms should rather…
In our article we conceptualise the meaning of the Estonian words õpiruum ‘learning space’ and õpperuum ‘study space’ by analysing media texts retrieved from the Internet. A media text, as we understand it, is any constructed media product or piece of communication, whether printed or audiovisual, which can be analysed and deconstructed. Until recently, the two terms õpiruum and õpperuum have been used inconsistently and all too often as synonyms in Estonian. By presenting several examples and pictures from media texts we argue that these two terms should rather…
The word liiklemine `traffic´ in Estonian language space
Keywords: traffic, pedestrian, walking, mobility, flaneur
Embarking from the “mobilities turn” in social sciences and humanities, this article attends to the movement in urban space from the perspective of language. This is done by an analysis of one specific word in Estonian – liiklema directly translated as ‘to participate in traffic’ – its introduction and change of use. Liiklema is an invented term from the 1920s, brought to Estonian by recognised linguist Johannes Voldemar Veski, with an aim to find a word that would capture the meanings conveyed by communication in English or the German Verkehr. However, once the word liiklema…
Embarking from the “mobilities turn” in social sciences and humanities, this article attends to the movement in urban space from the perspective of language. This is done by an analysis of one specific word in Estonian – liiklema directly translated as ‘to participate in traffic’ – its introduction and change of use. Liiklema is an invented term from the 1920s, brought to Estonian by recognised linguist Johannes Voldemar Veski, with an aim to find a word that would capture the meanings conveyed by communication in English or the German Verkehr. However, once the word liiklema…
Public space: the development of the concept and its semantic fields
Keywords: public space, place, architecture, urbanism, geography
Over the last five years, the Estonian society has begun to pay more attention to the environment we live, work and relax in. The use of the concept of ‘space’ and its association with the word ‘public’ is a practical problem on the way to a common understanding of space and its use. The ambiguity of the concept of space must be taken into account, both in everyday language and in scientific language. The concept of ‘public space’ is a rapidly developing concept in various fields in the Estonian language, yet in today’s legislation…
Over the last five years, the Estonian society has begun to pay more attention to the environment we live, work and relax in. The use of the concept of ‘space’ and its association with the word ‘public’ is a practical problem on the way to a common understanding of space and its use. The ambiguity of the concept of space must be taken into account, both in everyday language and in scientific language. The concept of ‘public space’ is a rapidly developing concept in various fields in the Estonian language, yet in today’s legislation…
Landscape as space for human beings in Estonian
Keywords: semantics, vocabulary, folk taxonomy, list task, cognitive salience index, semi-structured interview
When we study the organisation of space, one possibility is to talk about landscape as every human being is surrounded by landscape at all times (Burenhult and Levinson 2008). This is the first attempt to describe the language of landscape in Estonian. We used list task questions and semi-structured interviews as combined methods. 124 participants took part in the first part of the study (74 school-children, 7 students and 42 teachers or university professors, 80 female) where nine questions were asked under time pressure (30 seconds). All were adapted…
When we study the organisation of space, one possibility is to talk about landscape as every human being is surrounded by landscape at all times (Burenhult and Levinson 2008). This is the first attempt to describe the language of landscape in Estonian. We used list task questions and semi-structured interviews as combined methods. 124 participants took part in the first part of the study (74 school-children, 7 students and 42 teachers or university professors, 80 female) where nine questions were asked under time pressure (30 seconds). All were adapted…