Eesti Keeleteaduse 20 Aastat Muutuva Keele Päevade Paistel

The Language Change Conference (Muutuva keele päev) was born in 2005 as a result of cooperation between two projects funded by the Estonian Science Fund: “The dynamics of Estonian grammar and vocabulary during 1990–2000” (Helle Metslang, Tallinn University) and “The changing of Estonian grammatical system and its reasons: analysis of language change in usage context” (Ilona Tragel, University of Tartu). At the first conference in Tallinn in 2005, 16 presentations were given by 17 authors. At the 20th conference in Tartu in 2024, 36 presentations were given by 63 authors. Altogether, there have been 343 presentations and 215 unique authors across the 20 conferences. The article presents an analysis of the topics of the presentations as well as the authors and their social networks. The analysis showed that although the conference brought together researchers from several institutions, the biggest number of authors came from the University of Tartu. Both the number of presentations and authors grew over the years, as well as the number of authors per presentation. This tendency can also be seen internationally and presumably reflects the project-based nature of research and the way researchers are often evaluated by their number of publications. The topics of the presentations at the conferences have been mostly concerned with Estonian, although Finnish, English and Russian were also occasionally represented. Although linguistic research tends to focus on written language, there was roughly an equal number of presentations on spoken and written language. Among parts of speech, verbs and adpositions were the most popular subjects. In syntax, interrogative sentences and word order were analysed most often. Language variation and child language acquisition also occured frequently. Muutuva keele päevad sündisid kahe Eesti Teadusfondi 2005. aastal alanud projekti koostöös: „Eesti keele grammatika ja sõnavara dünaamika 1990.–2000. aastatel“ (Helle Metslang, TlÜ) ja „Eesti keele grammatilise süsteemi muutumine ja selle põhjused: keelemuutuste analüüs kasutuskontekstis“ (Ilona Tragel, TÜ). Esimesel muutuva keele päeval Tallinnas 4.11.2005 peeti 16 ettekannet 17 autorilt, 20. ettekandepäeval Tartus 2024. aastal 36 ettekannet 63 eri autorilt. 20 aasta jooksul on ettekannete unikaalseid autoreid olnud kokku 215 ja ettekandeid 343. Artiklis vaadatakse sügavamale sisse eespool esitatud arvudesse ning antakse ka ülevaade ettekandepäevadel käsitletud teemadest. Ühtlasi esitatakse ettekannete autorite sotsiaalne võrgustik.