Slovene is one of the few Indo-European languages to have preserved the dual alongside the singular and the plural. Although the dual is a norm in standard Slovene the use of dual in Slovene dialects varies. This paper discusses the changes that can take place in Slovene dialects according to number (dual vs. plural). Using linguistic geography methods and material collected for the ongoing Slovene Linguistic Atlas (SLA), a selected material is presented on linguistic maps; these
morphological maps show the geographical spread of number changes. The paper also draws a comparison with Standard Slovene.
|