In case of language shift or language loss (or both together), speakers are no longer able to control grammatical features of the obsolescent language. The typical symptoms of attrition are reduction of paradigms, simplifications, analogies, analytic structures. Combining this with the collateral effects of elicitation, i.e. a metalinguistic act which may lead speakers to purposely over-report shibboleth-like features and patterns, often results in over-characterizations which linguists have to be aware of. This chapter deals with two famous witnesses of the very last stages of Romance varieties both spoken in islands, Capraia (Capraino, a North Corsican variety disappeared in the 1980s) and Veglia (Vegliote, the last Dalmatian dialect, disappeared in 1898) respectively, and tries to show how to cope with these ‘dangerous’ data.
‘Restsprecher’ and Hypercharacterizing Informants between Veglia and Capraia
L. Filipponio
2024-01-01
Abstract
In case of language shift or language loss (or both together), speakers are no longer able to control grammatical features of the obsolescent language. The typical symptoms of attrition are reduction of paradigms, simplifications, analogies, analytic structures. Combining this with the collateral effects of elicitation, i.e. a metalinguistic act which may lead speakers to purposely over-report shibboleth-like features and patterns, often results in over-characterizations which linguists have to be aware of. This chapter deals with two famous witnesses of the very last stages of Romance varieties both spoken in islands, Capraia (Capraino, a North Corsican variety disappeared in the 1980s) and Veglia (Vegliote, the last Dalmatian dialect, disappeared in 1898) respectively, and tries to show how to cope with these ‘dangerous’ data.
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