From the contents: A propos de la genese du sens specifique des verbes perfectifs en Russe (Andries Breunis). - A note on Stang's law in Moscow accentology (Pepijn Hendriks). - Notes on intonation and voice in modern Russian (Cornelia E. Keijsper). - Early dialectal diversity in South Slavic II (Frederik Kortlandt). - Bad theory, wrong conclusions: M. Halle on Slavic accentuation (Frederik Kortlandt). - Description and transcription of Russian intonation (ToRI) (Cecilia Ode). - The use of the supine in lower Sorbian (Han Steenwijk)."

This study is devoted to a corpus of Old Russian letters, written on pieces of birchbark. These unique texts from Novgorod and surroundings give us an exceptional impression of everyday life in medieval Russian society. In this study, the birchbark letters are addressed from a pragmatic angle. Linguistic parameters are identified that shed light on the degree to which literacy had gained ground in communicative processes. It is demonstrated that the birchbark letters occupy an intermediate position between orality and literacy. On the one hand, oral habits of communication persisted, as...

In Voices on Birchbark Jos Schaeken explores the major role that writing on birchbark – an ephemeral, even ‘throw-away’ form of correspondence and administration – played in the vibrant medieval merchant city of Novgorod and other cities in the Russian Northwest. Birchbark literacy was crucial to the organization of Novgorodian society; it was integrated into a huge variety of activities and had a broad social basis; it was used extensively by the laity, by women as well as men, by villagers as well as landlords. Voices on Birchbark is the first book-length study of this unique...

Every five years, on the occasion of the International Congress of Slavists, a volume appears that presents a comprehensive overview of current Slavic linguistic research in the Netherlands. Like its predecessors, the present collection covers a variety of topics: Bulgarian and Polish aspectology (Barentsen, Genis), Slavic historical linguistics (Kortlandt, Vermeer), pragmatics of tense usage in Old Russian (Dekker), dialect description (Houtzagers), L2 acquisition (Tribushinina & Mak), Russian foreigners’ speech imitation (Peeters & Arkema), corpus-based semantics (Fortuin & Davids) and...

In Verbal Aspect in Old Church Slavonic Jaap Kamphuis demonstrates that the aspect system of Old Church Slavonic can best be described if one divides the verbs into three main categories: perfective, imperfective and anaspectual. This differs from the traditional division into perfective and imperfective verbs only. To support the categorization, the study contains a corpus-based quantitative and qualitative analysis of the available Old Church Slavonic data. This analysis contributes to a better understanding of the development of aspect in Slavic. Kamphuis shows that aspect in Old Church...

The Vend nyelvtan is a grammar completed in 1942 by the linguist Avgust Pavel that was designed to serve as a modern standard for the Prekmurje Slovenes who were to be subjects of Hungary. Though the grammar was meant to divide the Prekmurje Slovenes from the Slovenes of Yugoslavia, it was never put into use. Today it serves as a reflection of the lexical and grammatical peculiarities of the Prekmurje dialect as it was spoken during Pavel’s lifetime (1886–1946). The English translation of the grammar, originally written in Hungarian, offers linguists insight into a key part of the...

In her book, Gulnaz Sibgatullina examines the intricate relationship of religion, identity and language-related beliefs against the background of socio-political changes in post-Soviet Russia. Focusing on the Russian and Tatar languages, she explores how they simultaneously serve the needs of both Muslims and Christians living in the country today. Mapping linguistic strategies of missionaries, converts and religious authorities, Sibgatullina demonstrates how sacred vocabulary in each of the languages is being contested by a variety of social actors, often with competing agendas. These...