I am a Professor of Scandinavian Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Oslo.
I work on language change within the fields of phonology, historical linguistics, and sociolinguistics.
E-mail: sverre dot stausland at gmail dot com
2023 Oppklaringer om 1901-rettskrivningen.
Norsk lingvistisk tidsskrift 41(1): 147–173. pdf link
2022 Villgang i vig og verja.
Norsk Årbok, 69–78. pdf link
2021 The origin of the Proto-Indo-European nominal plural ending *-ōs.
Historische Sprachforschung 134: 186–195. pdf link
2021 Review of Ivar Berg ‘Språket som vart norsk’.
Norsk lingvistisk tidsskrift 39(1): 207–219. pdf link
2021 1901-rettskrivingi var den fyrsta samnorsk-umboti.
Norsk Årbok, 111–118. pdf postprint link
2021 Grammaticalization in Somali and the development of morphological tone.
(with Nina Hagen Kaldhol)
Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 6(1): 587–599. pdf link
2020 1901-rettskrivinga, midlandsmakselen og riksstyremålet [The orthography of 1901, the Midland norm, and the language of the central administration].
Arkiv för nordisk filologi 135: 95–111. pdf postprint link
2020 Tilsvar til Sandøy, Conzett, Kristoffersen og Nesse.
Norsk lingvistisk tidsskrift 38(2): 271–274. pdf link
2020 Norske ord og norsk ordleiding: Slag og type.
Norsk Årbok, 91–99. pdf postprint link
2019 Grunnleggjande spørsmål om språkendring og norsk språkhistorie [Fundamental questions of language change and the history of the Norwegian language].
Norsk lingvistisk tidsskrift 37(1): 77–138. pdf postprint link
2016 Null subjects, preproprial articles, and the syntactic structure of Old Norwegian pronouns.
Norsk lingvistisk tidsskrift 34(2): 183–217. pdf postprint link
2016 Neighborhood density in phonological alternations.
BLS 36: 426–440. pdf link
2015 Språkendringar langs Oslofjorden [Language change along the Oslofjord].
In Helge Sandøy (ed.) Talemål etter 1800.
Oslo: Novus. 125–158. pdf link
2015 Dialect change in South-East Norway and the role of attitude in diffusion.
Journal of Sociolinguistics 19(5): 612–642. pdf preprint link
2015 Vowel reduction in verbs in King Alfred’s Pastoral Care.
In Dag Haug (ed.) Historical linguistics 2013.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 19–40. pdf preprint link
Data files: Data Analysis
2014 Review of Kristján Árnason ‘The phonology of Icelandic and Faroese’.
Phonology 31(2): 329–337. pdf link
2013 The articulation of Norwegian retroflexes.
Journal of Phonetics 41(1): 56–58. pdf link
2012 A diachronic account of phonological unnaturalness.
Phonology 29(3): 505–531. pdf link
2012 Variation in Norwegian retroflexion.
Nordic Journal of Linguistics 35(2): 197–212. pdf link
Data files: Data Analysis
2012 Syncope of long *ī in Old Norse nouns.
In John Ole Askedal, Tom Schmidt, and Rolf Theil (eds.) Germansk filologi og norske ord.
Oslo: Novus. 33–51. pdf link
2012 From perception to phonology: The emergence of perceptually motivated constraint rankings.
Lingua 122(2): 125–143. pdf link
Data files: Data Analysis Stimuli
2011 The origin of variation in Norwegian retroflexion.
Ph.D. dissertation. Harvard University. pdf link
2011 The phonetics and phonologization of Verner’s law.
In Thomas Krisch and Thomas Lindner (eds.) Indogermanistik und Linguistik im Dialog.
Wiesbaden: Reichert. 232–241. pdf link
2009 Non-local binding in tenseless clauses.
CLS 45(2): 103–116. pdf link
2009 The development of voiced labiovelars in Germanic.
In Stephanie Jamison, Craig Melchert, and Brent Vine (eds.) Proceedings of the 20th Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference.
Bremen: Hempen. 197–211. pdf link
2008 Tense and binding in perception verb complements.
Ph.D. generals paper. Harvard University. pdf
2007 The development of voiced labiovelars in Germanic.
Harvard Working Papers in Linguistics 12: 15–26. pdf link
2006 Review of R. Nedoma ‘Kleine Grammatik des Altisländischen. 2. Auflage’.
Die Sprache. pdf
Accepted for publication, but never appeared in print.
2005 The historical development of Gothic aba and its n-stem anomalies.
Historische Sprachforschung 118: 251–262. pdf link
2005 The Germanic (i)jō-stem declension. Origin and development.
M.Phil. dissertation. University of Oslo. pdf doc link
2004 Review of R. Nedoma ‘Kleine Grammatik des Altisländischen’.
North-Western Language Evolution 45: 119–123. pdf link
2003 Ljodsamhøvet i AM 315 f fol. [The vowel harmony in AM 315 f fol.].
Arkiv för nordisk filologi 118: 47–75. pdf link
2003 Sanningsdyljing i målvitskapen.
Målmannen 2(2): 2. pdf link
2002 Eit forsvar for norsken.
(with Klaus Johan Myrvoll, Anders Olsen, and Kjetil Aasen)
Syn og segn 108(1): 56–61. pdf link
2001 Ordsoga åt dei heimlege ordi.
Review of H. Bjorvand & F. O. Lindeman ‘Våre arveord. Etymologisk ordbok’.
Vestmannen 17(3): 6, 10, 14. pdf link
2001 Meir um j-fenging
Høgnorsknytt 2001(1): 4–6. pdf link
2000 Målreinsking – ein uting?
Høgnorsknytt 2000(4): 7–8. pdf link
2000 J-fenging.
Høgnorsknytt 2000(3): 4–5. pdf link
The talks listed below are only those with links to pdf versions of the handout or slides.
Other talks have been superseded by newer talks or by publications.
For a full list of my presentations, please see my CV.
If you for some reason want the original handout or slides for talks not listed below, you can find them here.
Jan 2022 Monophthongization before the retroflex flap in Norwegian
(with Luca Lukas)
Phonology in the Nordic Countries (FiNo).
Aarhus University. pdf
Feb 2019 Does secondary stress exist in Norwegian?
Phonology in the Nordic Countries (FiNo).
University of Edinburgh. pdf
Nov 2017 Ganga og standa er ikkje avbrigde av gå og stå.
The 17th Meeting on the Norwegian Language (MONS).
Solstrand, Os. pdf
Mar 2015 Vowel harmony in an Old Norwegian manuscript
Vowel harmony in Old Norwegian.
University of Bergen. pdf
Nov 2013 Ivar Aasen og normgrunnlaget for landsmålet.
The 15th Meeting on the Norwegian Language (MONS).
University of Oslo. pdf
Jan 2013 Fagdidaktiske problem med én eller tre karakterer i norskfaget i studieforberedende retning i videregående skole.
Department of Cultural Studies and Languages.
University of Stavanger. pdf
Jan 2013 Grammatiske problem med å beskrive ordklassen adverb og setningsleddet adverbial i norsk.
Department of Cultural Studies and Languages.
University of Stavanger. pdf
Apr 2011 Rhyme acceptability determined by perceived similarity.
The 29th Weast Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL).
University of Arizona. pdf
Sep 2008 Finality constraints in Burmese – history and synchrony.
The 41st International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (ICSTLL).
University of London. pdf
Dec 2007 Perceptual and articulatory notes on the origin of Germanic geminates.
GSAS Workshop in Historical Linguistics.
Harvard University. pdf
Nov 2006 The historical derivation of Gothic aba ‘husband’.
The 18th Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference.
University of California, Los Angeles. pdf