Introduction: What Varies when Language Varies?

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Variation is a universal phenomenon permeating language, culture, and the entire worldview. It characterizes human linguistic ability in the broadest sense. The current edition focuses on language variation which is examined from different angles: concentrating on the stability or variability of different levels and components of language, comparing morphosyntactic and semantic patterns in different languages, examining how mechanisms of human cognition manifest in language, and analyzing language as material for traditional song. Systematic patterns of variation for different levels are outlined. In linguistics, variation first became a central topic of research, studied systematically and quantifiably, in sociolinguistics (e.g. Labov 1972), with the focus of the study on phonetic and phonological details. The study of variation in grammar, being more complicated, began a decade later in the 1980s. By now, variation has become a central concept in the study of morphosyntax where variation is broadly defined as the use of different linguistic codings for the same functions (Dufter et al. 2009: 2–3). The framework of variation is also applicable to the study of similarities and differences, for example, in prosody, morphology, word formation, semantics, and pragmatics but also in comparing language varieties (see e.g. Lieb 1993). Variation is also a central concept in folklore whose mechanisms are based on the interaction of invariance and variability. The poetic structure of traditional song is developed from linguistic material, and its variation is restricted by communication type and syncretism with music and performance (see e.g. Metslang 1987, Honko 2000, Babič and Voolaid 2019a). This special issue is inspired by the conference “Variation in language, literature and folklore” held in Tartu, Estonia, in December 2017. The main organizers of the conference were the Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies and the working group of Estonian Research Council research project PUT475 (and of the next project PRG341). The topics discussed at the conference included specific and common in variation in language, literature, folklore, and music, and the confluences and connections between different variations (see also Babič and Voolaid 2019b). This issue contains contributions based on conference presentations on linguistic variation as well as new studies. The issue contains nine studies focusing on (1) the general concept of variation (Moravcsik), (2) morphosyntactic variation (Sahkai and Tamm; Irimia; Norvik), semantic variation (Kalda and Uusküla; Prieto Mendoza); rhythmical variability in sung oral poetry (Bravi and Proto; Oras).