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Variation in Hasidic Yiddish syntax: A corpus study of language change on the internet

Tue, December 19, 8:30 to 10:00am, Marriott Marquis Washington, DC, Chinatown Room

Abstract

The use of "big data" from social media sites has enabled sociolinguists to investigate patterns of variation at unprecedented scales. However, researchers of minority languages -- who stand the most to gain from increased sample sizes -- have been slow to pursue projects incorporating large online corpora. This paper presents an analysis of particle verb variation in Yiddish, using a 22-million-word corpus scraped from a popular Hasidic discussion forum, KAVE SHTIEBEL ('the coffee room'; www.kaveshtiebel.com). Particle verbs are combinations of verbs and preposition-like words that function semantically as a single lexical verb (e.g., THROW UP, WORK OUT, TAKE OVER). In Yiddish (unlike English) particles always precede verbs in infinitives (e.g., ARAYN-SHIKN inward-send 'to send in'). In non-finite tense phrases, however, an additional overt tense marker TSU is licensed, which can be realized in one of two places: either between the particle and the verb (e.g., ARAYN-TSU-SHIKN inward-to-send 'to send in') or before both elements (e.g., TSU-ARAYN-SHIKN). Native speakers of Hasidic Yiddish consider the first variant to be normatively correct, while the second is considered to be non-standard (and non-Hasidim generally do not find it acceptable at all). A statistical analysis using over 28,000 particle verbs reveals that writers favor the standard variant the longer their accounts remain open, even as newcomers bring about a forum-wide increase in the rate of the non-standard variant. These quantitative results support ethnographic evidence from offline interviews with KAVE SHTIEBEL writers, highlighting the role of the internet in spreading norms of language use among Hasidic Jews.

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