NEURO DIALECTOLOGY

The methodological demands of neurolinguistics and variation linguistics clash to a certain degree. This contribution will explore the worth of overcoming this effort. The question will be discussed using as an example neuro-dialectological studies that apply the most important neuro-dialectological method to-date: the measurement of event-related potentials (ERPs) with electroencephalography (EEG). First, the course of linguistic change will be examined. Studies on Upper and Central German have demonstrated that phonological stability and change involve completely different process signatures in the brain physiology when speakers and hearers of neighboring dialects are in contact. Second, co-present varieties, i. e. that are used next to one another in everyday life (dialect vs. regiolect or standard), will be discussed. The co-presence alters the phonological processing of dialect whereby an integrated phonological system for both varieties begins to develop. The third point concerns the object-subject word order in various German and closely related varieties. Can it be shown that there are processing differences between varieties that maintain a distinction between nominative and accusative on the one hand, and varieties that have case syncretism (Zurich German, Frisian) on the other hand?