Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T23:51:59.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Object Shift in spoken Mainland Scandinavian: A corpus study of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2013

Kristine Bentzen ,
Merete Anderssen  and
Christian Waldmann
Kristine Bentzen
Affiliation:
Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Tromsø, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway. [email protected]
Merete Anderssen
Affiliation:
Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Tromsø, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway. [email protected]
Christian Waldmann
Affiliation:
Department of Language Studies, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden. [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

Recent work on Object Shift (OS) suggests that this is not as uniform an operation as traditionally assumed. In this paper, we examine OS in the spontaneous speech of adults in large Danish, Norwegian and Swedish child language corpora in order to explore variation with respect to OS across these three languages. We evaluate our results against three recent strands of accounts of OS, namely a prosodic/phonological account, an account in terms of cognitive status, and an account in terms of information structure. Our investigation shows that there is both within-language and across-language variation in the application of OS, and that the three accounts can explain some of our data. However, all accounts are faced with challenges, especially when explaining exceptional cases.

Keywords

cognitive statuscorpus dataDanishinformation structureNorwegianObject Shiftprosodyreferencereferential accessibilitySwedishtopics
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 36 , Special Issue 2: Object Shift in the Nordic Languages , October 2013 , pp. 115 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © Nordic Association of Linguistics 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderssen, Merete. 2006. The Acquisition of Compositional Definiteness. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tromsø.Google Scholar
Anderssen, Merete & Bentzen, Kristine. 2011. Scandinavian Object Shift reanalyzed as TP-internal topicalization. Presented at the Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop (CGSW) 26, Amsterdam, June 2011.Google Scholar
Anderssen, Merete & Bentzen, Kristine. 2012. Norwegian Object Shift as IP-internal Topicalization. In Bentzen, Kristine & Fábregas, Antonio (eds.), The Grammar of Objects, special issue of Nordlyd 39 (1), 1–23.Google Scholar
Anderssen, Merete, Bentzen, Kristine & Rodina, Yulia. 2012. Topicality and complexity in the acquisition of Norwegian Object Shift. Language Acquisition 19 (1), 39–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderssen, Merete, Bentzen, Kristine, Rodina, Yulia & Westergaard, Marit. 2011. The acquisition of apparent optionality: Word order in Subject and Object Shift constructions in Norwegian. In Anderssen, Merete, Bentzen, Kristine & Westergaard, Marit (eds.), Variation in the Input: Studies in the Acquisition of Word Order (Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics 39), 241–270. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andréasson, Maia. 2008. Not all objects are born alike – accessibility as a key to pronominal object shift in Swedish and Danish. In Butt, Miriam & King, Tracy Holloway (eds.), Proceedings of the LFG08 Conference, 26–45. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Andréasson, Maia. 2009. Pronominal object shift – not just a matter of shifting or not. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 84, 1–20.Google Scholar
Andréasson, Maia. 2010. Object shift or object placement in general. In Butt, Miriam & King, Tracy Holloway (eds.), Proceedings of the LFG10 Conference, 26–42. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Andréasson, Maia. 2013. Object shift in Scandinavian languages: The impact of contrasted elements. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 36 (2), 187–217. [This issue]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andréasson, Maia, Engdahl, Elisabet & Lindahl, Filippa. 2013. Objektsrealisering och informationsstruktur i NDC – vart tar de pronominella objekten vägen? Presented at Dialektseminar 2013, Oslo, January 2013.Google Scholar
Bentzen, Kristine. 2013. Object Shift. Nordic Atlas of Linguistic Structures (NALS). http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/nals.Google Scholar
Bentzen, Kristine, Merchant, Jason & Svenonus, Peter. To appear. Deep properties of surface pronouns: Pronominal predicate anaphors in Norwegian and other Germanic languages. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics (2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bleses, Dorthe & Basbøll, Hans. 2004. The Danish sound structure – implications for language acquisition in normal and hearing impaired populations. In Schmidt, Erik, Mikkelsen, Ulla, Post, Inge, Simonsen, Jørn Borcher & Fruensgaard, Kirsten (eds.), Brain, Hearing and Learning: 20th Danavox Symposium 200, 165–190. Copenhagen: Holmen Center Tryk.Google Scholar
Bleses, Dorthe, Basbøll, Hans & Werner Vach, . 2011. Is Danish difficult to acquire? Evidence from Nordic past-tense studies. Language and Cognitive Processes 26 (8), 1193–1231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borthen, Kaja. 2003. Norwegian Bare Singulars. Ph.D. dissertation, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.Google Scholar
Borthen, Kaja, Fretheim, Torstein & Gundel, Jeanette. 1997. What brings a higher-order entity into focus of attention? In Mitkov, Ruslan & Boguraev, Branimir (eds.), Operational Factors in Practical, Robust Anaphora Resolution: Proceedings from a Workshop Sponsored by the ACL, 88–93. Madrid: Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia.Google Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi. 2005. Sound patterns of syntax: Object Shift. Theoretical Linguistics 31, 47–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, Danny & Pesetsky, David. 2005. Cyclic linearization of syntactic structure. Theoretical Linguistics 31 (1/2), 1–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frascarelli, Mara & Hinterhölzl, Roland. 2007. Types of topics in German and Italian. In Winkler, Susanne & Schwabe, Kerstin (eds.), On Information Structure, Meaning and Form, 87–116. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Givón, Thomas. 1983. Topic continuity in discourse: An introduction. Givón, In Thomas (ed.), Topic Continuity in Discourse: A Quantitative Cross-Language Study, 5–41. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grønnum, Nina. 2003. Why are the Danes so hard to understand? In Jacobsen, Henrik Galberg, Bleses, Dorthe, Madsen, Thomas O. & Thomsen, Pia (eds.), Take Danish — For Instance: Linguistic Studies in Honour of Hans Basbøll Presented on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday, 12 July 2003, 119–130. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark.Google Scholar
Gundel, Jeanette, Borthen, Kaja & Fretheim, Thorstein. 1999. The role of context in pronominal reference to higher order entities in English and Norwegian. In Bouquet, Paolo, Serafini, Luciano, Brézillon, Patrick & Castellani, Francesca (eds.), Modeling and Using Context: Proceedings from the Second International and Interdiciplinary Conference, CONTEXT '99 (Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 1688), 475–478. Berlin & Heidelberg: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gundel, Jeanette, Hedberg, Nancy & Zacharski, Ron. 1993. Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Language 69, 274–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gundel, Jeanette, Hegarty, Michael & Borthen, Kaja. 2003. Cognitive status, information structure, and pronominal reference to clausally introduced entities. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 12 (3), 281–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hankamer, Jorge & Sag, Ivan A.. 1976. Deep and surface anaphora. Linguistic Inquiry 7, 391–426.Google Scholar
Hegarty, Michael. 2003. Semantic types and abstract entities. Lingua 113, 891–927.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hellan, Lars & Platzack, Christer. 1995. Pronouns in Scandinavian languages: An overview. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 56, 47–69.Google Scholar
Hilton, Nanna Haug, Schüppert, Anja & Gooskens, Charlotte. 2011. Syllable reduction and articulation rates in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 34 (2), 215–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 1986. Word Order and Syntactic Features in the Scandinavian Languages and English. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Stockholm.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 1999. Remarks on Holmberg's Generalization. Studia Linguistica 53 (1), 1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, Anders & Platzack, Christer. 1995. The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hosono, Mayumi. 2010. Scandinavian Object Shift as the cause of downstep. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 85, 1–36.Google Scholar
Houser, Michael J., Mikkelsen, Line & Toosarvandani, Maziar. 2008. Verb phrase pronominalization in Danish: Deep or surface anaphora? In Brainbridge, Erin & Agbayani, Brian (eds.), Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Western Conference on Linguistics, Department of Linguistics, California State University, Fresno, CA, 183–195.Google Scholar
Johannessen, Janne Bondi, Priestley, Joel, Hagen, Kristin, Åfarli, Tor Anders & Vangsnes, Øystein Alexander. 2009. The Nordic Dialect Corpus – an Advanced Research Tool. In Jokinen, Kristiina & Bick, Eckhard (eds.), Proceedings of the 17th Nordic Conference of Computational Linguistics NODALIDA 2009 (NEALT Proceedings Series Volume 4), 73–80.Google Scholar
Josefsson, Gunlög. 2001. The true nature of Holmberg's Generalization revisited – once again. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 67, 85–192.Google Scholar
Josefsson, Gunlög. 2003. Four myths of Object Shift . . . and the truth. In Delsing, Lars-Olof, Falk, Cecilia, Josefsson, Gunlög & Sigurðsson, Halldór (eds.), Grammar in Focus, vol. II: Festchrift for Christer Platzack, November 18, 2003, 199–207. Lund: Department of Scandinavian Languages, Lund University.Google Scholar
Josefsson, Gunlög. 2010a. Object Shift and optionality: An intricate interplay between syntax, prosody and information structure. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 86, 1–24.Google Scholar
Josefsson, Gunlög. 2010b. ‘Disagreeing’ pronominal reference in Swedish and the interplay between formal and semantic gender. Lingua 120, 2095–2120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Josefsson, Gunlög. 2011. Deconstructing Object Shift. Presented at the VAMOS Workshop Objects – Information Structure, Prosody and Acquisition, 4–6 April 2011, University of Tromsø.Google Scholar
Josefsson, Gunlög. 2012. Deconstructing (pronominal) Object Shift. Presented at the Workshop on Scandinavian Object Shift, March 2012, University of Gothenburg.Google Scholar
Lødrup, Helge. 1994. ‘Surface proforms’ in Norwegian and the definiteness effect. In Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society 24, 303–315. Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistic Student Association (GLSA).Google Scholar
Lødrup, Helge. 2012. Some Norwegian ‘type anaphora’ are surface anaphora. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 24 (1), 23–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, Brian. 2000. The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. Mahwah, NJ & London: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Mikkelsen, Line. 2011. On prosody and focus in Object Shift. Syntax 14 (3), 230–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ørsnes, Bjarne. 2013. VP-anaphors and Object Shift: What do VP-anaphors reveal about the licensing conditions for Object Shift in Danish? Nordic Journal of Linguistics 36 (2), 245–274. [This issue]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pedersen, Karen Margrethe. 1993. Letledsregelen og lighedsregelen. Novation, ekspansion og resistens. In Pedersen, Inge Lise & Pedersen, Karen Margrethe (eds.), Jyske studier tilegnede Magda Nyberg og Bent Jul Nielsen, 199–218. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzel.Google Scholar
Plunkett, Kim. 1985. Preliminary Approaches to Language Development. Århus: Århus University Press.Google Scholar
Plunkett, Kim. 1986. Learning strategies in two Danish children's language development. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 27, 64–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plunkett, Kim & Strömqvist, Sven. 1992. The acquisition of Scandinavian languages. In Slobin, Dan I. (ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, 457–556. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya. 1981. Pragmatics and linguistics: An analysis of sentence topics. Philosophica 27, 53–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richthoff, Ulla. 2000. En svensk barnspråkskorpus: uppbyggnad och analyser. Licentiate thesis, Department of Linguistics, University of Gothenburg.Google Scholar
Selkirk, Elisabeth. 1996. The prosodic structure of function words. In Morgan, James L. & Demuth, Katherine (eds.), Signal to Syntax: Bootstrapping from Speech to Grammar in Early Acquisition, 187–214. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Simonsen, Hanne Gram. 1990. Barns fonologi: system og variasjon hos tre norske og et samoisk barn. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oslo.Google Scholar
Strawson, Peter. 1963. Identifying reference and truth values. Theoria 30, 96–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strömqvist, Sven, Richthoff, Ulla & Andersson, Anders-Börje. 1993. Strömqvist's and Richthoff's corpora: A guide to longitudinal data from four Swedish children (Gothenburg Papers in Theoretical Linguistics 66). Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet.Google Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2001. Object Shift and scrambling. In Baltin, Mark & Collins, Chris (eds.), The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory, 148–202. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vikner, Sten. 1994. Scandinavian Object Shift and West Germanic scrambling. In Corver, Norbert & van Riemsdijk, Henk (eds.), Studies on Scrambling, 487–517. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vikner, Sten. 2006. Object Shift. In Everaert, Martin & van Riemsdijk, Henk (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Syntax, vol. III, 392–436. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogel, Ralf. 2006. Weak function word shift. Linguistics 44 (5), 1059–1097.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wikström, Åsa. 2008. Den finita satsen i små barns språk. Licentiate thesis, Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University.Google Scholar