Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 2020, Blaðsíða 289

used to have the Vfin–Adv order and that it was lost over the course of centuries
in both languages, and a similar process appears to be nearing completion in
Faroese. A related change also took place in English. Icelandic, however, seems
to have bucked the trend, retaining the Vfin–Adv order. It has been noted, how-
ever, that there was considerable use of the Adv–Vfin order in the 16th to mid-
19th century. While some researchers have largely dismissed this period of varia-
tion, Heimir examines it intensively in this dissertation, investigating both
whether the Adv−Vfin order was part of the repertoire of Icelandic speakers
even at the start of this period (rather than a borrowing from Danish), and
whether its rise was suppressed by normative pressure.
Against this background, I asked some more general and some more specific
questions.
3. Questions with a wider focus
Question 1: The concept of stigmatization in the context of language purism.
The first question related to the status of the variable in sociolinguistic terms,
and how the Labovian concepts of “changes from above” and “changes from
below” apply in a context of linguistic “purism” such as that described by
Heimir. In the dissertation, the Adv–Vfin order is described on the one hand as
a “language norm” associated with the ruling class, a “prestige norm”, and on the
other as “stigmatized” and “substandard”. Do these differing descriptions simply
follow on from each other diachronically? In which case is it appropriate to
invoke the idea of a Postma-style “failed change” (Postma 2010) at all when
describing the rise and fall of the Adv–Vfin order? Or do these descriptions
apply simultaneously in some way, perhaps as viewpoints associated with differ-
ent groups within society?
Question 2: The logical problem of explanation in diachronic syntax
A second quite general question concerned the status of claims about causation
in a non-experimental setting (the kind of setting we are necessarily in much of
the time in linguistics, and certainly when investigating past stages of a lan-
guage). That is, what kind of evidence is it possible to give concerning the effec-
tiveness of prescriptive norms, given that we do not have a “control case” — we
have no direct way of knowing what would have happened in the absence of
those norms. A specific instantiation of this question: on p. 78 it is said: “While
the overall trend towards less use of Adv−Vfin is probably due to a conspiracy
of factors, the effects of prescriptivism being only one of them, the marginal
presence of Adv−Vfin towards the end of the period does suggest some such
intervention [of language planning] effects.” But what is the basis of this argu-
ment? Why does the marginal presence of Adv–Vfin towards the end of the
period favour an explanation in terms of such an intervention?
Comments and questions at the doctoral defence of Heimir Viðarsson 289