Normative and non-normative language settings

The sociolinguistic approach to defectiveness and overabundance is based on the examination of languages existing in normative conditions (Czech and Croatian) and non-normative conditions (West Polesian). Both conditions differ mainly in that, in normative conditions, there is an awareness among speakers of the existence of a written codification and its significance. Therefore, in describing the observed phenomena, the influence of written codification and its knowledge (metalinguistic awareness) among the speakers should also be considered.

We looked at languages from the same family (Slavonic) and often very similar morphophonological material, although with very different sociolinguistic settings.

In the research of Czech, it was found that of the two variants (i.e., overabundant forms) mentioned in the codification, very often only one occurs in real (written) usage, or that the less frequent one is very rare. The Internet Language Reference Book (ILRB) displays full paradigms of tens of thousands of Czech words; at the level of codification based on systemic criteria, it postulates overabundance where in actual usage only one of the competing forms occurs. As part of the project, a procedure for the empiricisation of ILRB was developed. Thresholds for statistical significance and a threshold for the boundary of real variation were established (question: When is the less frequent form common enough to be considered a real variant?), so that ILRB now presents information corresponding to the real use of the (written) language. These rules are now gradually being reflected in the tables with paradigms of tens of thousands of Czech words.

Similar to Czech, a discrepancy has been identified in Croatian between the normative description of a paradigm as presented in reference books and the actual usage observed in corpora and/or speaker surveys. This difference may manifest in the absence of a particular form or its exceedingly rare frequency, indicating the artificial maintenance of overabundance by language authorities. On the other hand, there are numerous instances of forms that, while not normatively accepted, have been demonstrated to be frequently used among speakers. In this context, we can discuss the avoidance of overabundance. In both instances, the impact of the normative setting on a speaker's choice appears to be pivotal. Also, when considering the actual language description of overabundant lexemes (often influenced by traditional reasons) and the data collected from speakers, whether in written or oral language, the question of how to determine the real variants (cell-mates) arises. By building the Database of Croatian Morphological Doublets and linking it to the normative web dictionary of Croatian, our goal is to provide sufficient data to influence the future codification of overabundant lexemes.

West Polesian represents quite an extreme case of extended diglossia, language contact and a non-normative setting. Speakers of West Polesian are exposed to multiple more prestigious; highly standardised and genetically closely related Slavic varieties (Belarusian, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian). However, speaking West Polesian is highly stigmatised and it is primarily a language of oral communication within the family and people from the same village. Thus, speakers lack the notion of a standard form of their language. Field data show that speakers use an unexpectedly high amount of forms for the same cell of the paradigm (overabundance). Some of them can be postulated as loans or just the result of language contact; whereas others are just speakers’ own creations (i.e. they do not appear in any of the neighbouring languages). In the light of the discoveries by Dorian (2010),  we claim that the lack of a standard predisposes speakers to overabundant paradigms and that this may be the case in most speech communities in the world who lack a standard form of their language.

In summary, we have observed a correlation between the intervention of language authorities and the preservation, creation or sanction of overabundance. However, this comes with a caveat, some of the overabundance has been often artificially created by the academies in order to fulfil the traditional functionalist approach. In other cases, academies have tried to get rid of overabundance by promoting some forms over others, even though corpora analysis shows that the forms favoured by academies are less widely used than the others. 

Roncero, K.; Bermel, N.; Aaccad, G.; Russell, J. [Forthcoming]. Overabundance at the intersection with diglossia and variationism.

Roncero [Forthcoming]. Less is more: overabundance in minoritised languages.