Persistence of dialectal features in Norwegian dialects

This study examines the diachronic development of six morphological and syntactic features in Norwegian dialects, aiming to determine whether the persistence of a dialectal feature is more influenced by its status as an archaism or innovation, or by its sociolinguistic function. The analysis utilizes two corpora comprising a total of 5.5 million words of non-standard Norwegian recorded between 1937 and 2015. Among the six features examined, three are inherited from Old Norse/Middle Norwegian (dative forms, embedded V2, preproprial articles), while the other three are more recent innovations (the use of an originally oblique pronominal form in subject position, the use of the secondary pronominal form vårs ‘us’ instead of oss ‘us’ in object position, and the extended use of definiteness). The findings suggest that the identificational function of a dialect feature plays a more crucial role in its persistence than the age of the feature. This conclusion aligns with Trudgill (1986) and Sandøy (1996), both of whom underscore the significance of identificational language features.