Human languages are inextricably a part of our mind/brain. No other animal has a comparable ability with the same complexity and richness that humans do. An important research goal is to better understand this ability for language: What is it that enables human to acquire and use language the way we do? One way of answering this is to argue that there are aspects of our biology that enable us to ...

In this paper I discuss the influence of language acquisition and borrowing on the reorganisation of grammar and lexicon in the development from Latin into Italian. We will have a look at the historical sequencing of the introduction of new phonological processes, velar palatalization, mid vowel breaking, and lateral palatalization, and how they conspire to create new contrasts or reintroduce contrasts ...

Hva er islams historie i Tromsø? Hvordan har muslimer i Tromsø tilpasset livet i nord til islam, og islam til livet i nord? Hvordan har islam blitt en nordnorsk religion? Jeg forsøker å kaste lys over disse spørsmålene gjennom feltarbeid, intervju og undersøkelser av skriftlige kilder, samt ved å dra veksler på perspektiver fra religionshistorikeren Thomas Tweed.

In this paper, we investigate verb second (V2) word order in Norwegian heritage language spoken in the United States, i.e., in a situation where the heritage speakers have English as their dominant language. We show that not only the syntax of V2 may be affected in a heritage language situation, but that the number of contexts for this word order may also be severely reduced (i.e., non-subject-initial ...

Natural Theology is an attempt to provide arguments for the existence of God based on reason and ordinary experience of nature. It became quite popular with both orthodox Christians and Deists between about 1650 and 1850, inspiring much of the scientific fieldwork done during that period. However, Darwin’s theory of evolution brought about a temporary decline of this Christian apologetic ...

This chapter introduces the key terms of the edited volume: violence, interpretation, narrative, hermeneutics, and ethics. It articulates how interpreting violence refers both to the process of meaning-making involved in understanding representations of violence and to the potential violence involved in interpretive acts themselves. Drawing on the distinction between understanding and explanation, ...

I begin this chapter with research, reported recently in The Atlantic, on the surprising phenomenon that many successful women, all accomplished and highly competent, exhibit high degrees of self-doubt. Unlike the original research, this chapter aims to bring into view the role self-respect plays in higher education as another crucial explanatory factor. First, I clarify the main concepts that are ...

This article examins the behaviour of differential object marking in a set of verbs that exceptionally trigger it on direct objects of an inanimate nature. A articular form of unifying these cases with the locative uses of the preposition a ‘to, at’ is proposed, and that is taken as a starting point to reassess the semantic nature of this case marker.

This theoretical chapter offers an integrated interdisciplinary model for the study of mediated cultural communication. Firstly, I describe the model and acknowledge preceding approaches that focused on similar issues. I show the intrinsic connections between aesthetic form, production, reception and reproduction, and argue for the necessity of studying all these components together to gain a ...

Among the social sciences, history is characterised as the most particularising discipline - the discipline to the greatest extent studying the way definite actions, events and structures differ from time to time and place to place. A considerable part of Norwegian historical research deals with local areas, <i>kommuner</i> (municipalities), <i>fylker</i> (provinces) and other regions below the ...