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Typologically, the Old and Middle Scandinavian languages preserve features lost in Modern Scandinavian (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish), especially zero arguments and inactive constructions. Both phenomena present difficulties for the analysis of the Old and Middle Scandinavian languages as configurational, and generative linguists often choose a reductionist strategy, claiming that at the level of deep structure, configurational structure persists. Based on Middle Danish, my claim will be that zero arguments are semantically different from – and therefore cannot be reduced to – pronouns, and secondly, that inactive constructions do not have oblique subjects, but oblique first arguments (A1s). The meanings of the case forms nominative and oblique differ, depending on their constructional context. Any functional theory must respect the relevant grammatical sign contrasts of the language analysed, not try to explain them away.

In this paper I investigate the early language contact between North Frisian and Danish. Since we have no direct evidence for this language contact apart from the layer of medieval Danish interferences in Modern North Frisian, the question arises, whether it is possible to say anything about the specific type of language contact that has taken place in the Middle Ages on the basis of the modern language data and with the help of language contact theory. Taking the lead of van Coetsem’s language contact theory, I discuss two phenomena in the (morpho)syntax of Modern North Frisian, the placement of directional particles and the inventory of verbal particles, and argue that they point to a language contact situation in which a considerable number of Danish-speakers shifted to North Frisian.

The paper deals with the assumed correlation between morphological and syntactic phenomena, especially the one that has its roots in a parametric approach to syntax since (Chomsky 1981). Its main focus is on testing predictions presented in two works (Bobaljik and Thráinsson 1998 and Holmberg 2010a). These papers connect verbal morphology with a clustering of syntactic phenomena in the Scandinavian languages and maintain that morphological evidence – in the form of ‘rich’ verbal agreement – signifies a positive setting of a parameter that in turn makes certain syntactic patterns possible. In the present paper it is shown how this relation works when tested on a group of Ovansiljan vernaculars (East Scandinavian non-standard varieties). Five of these vernaculars have retained verbal agreement in number and person, whereas two others have not. It turns out that the hypotheses encounter difficulties when faced with the Ovansiljan data.

This study involves the existence in Megleno-Romanian dialects of a lexically suppletive distinction between singular and plural forms of the adjectives meaning ‘small’ and ‘big’. The phenomenon has gone largely unnoticed both by comparative Romance linguists and by morphological theorists yet it is both typologically surprising and theoretically significant. Analysis of a remarkably similar phenomenon in mainland Scandinavian languages led Börjars and Vincent (2011) to propose a considerably attenuated version of Maiden’s claim (2004) that lexical synonymy can drive the diachronic emergence of suppletion. My close investigation of the the source of the suppletion in Megleno-Romanian, and consideration of the Scandinavian facts in the light of the Megleno-Romanian data, will show that in fact the emergence of suppletion in just these adjectives constitutes excellent evidence for the claim that lexical synonymy favours suppletion.

This chapter investigates social positioning through the use (or non-use) of address pronouns in Finland-Swedish and Sweden-Swedish service encounters recorded at theatre and event booking venues i ...

English ergative verbs in one-participant constructions such as ‘the door opens’ often correspond to reflexive verbs or -S forms in Norwegian and Swedish. Following Kemmer (1993), such constructions profile spontaneous-event meaning and belong to the middle domain. This study uses corpus methodology to explore spontaneous-event marking in Norwegian and Swedish from the point of view of Kemmer’s suggested two-cycle development path for middle marking in the Scandinavian languages. The results suggest that there are differences in the middle systems in the Scandinavian languages to the effect that Norwegian has completed Kemmer’s two cycles, whereas Swedish has not. Further, there is tentative indication that ergative verbs are on the increase in both Norwegian and Swedish for certain Subjects and in discipline-specific contexts, possibly due to influence from English.

This article is concerned with null referential subjects in Old Swedish (ca. 1225–1526), and addresses the problem of why the scope for such subjects has been reduced during the history of Swedish. Within diachronic syntax it has been a common assumption that syntactic change is caused by changes in morphology. However, this study shows that deflexion only to a limited extent can explain the loss of null referential subjects in Old Swedish, since the most striking change in their use seems to take place during Early Old Swedish (ca. 1225–1375) before the loss of person agreement: whereas referential subjects could be omitted from verb-second main clauses and subordinate clauses in Early Old Swedish, in Late Old Swedish corresponding subjectless clauses are uncommon. Within the framework of generative grammar it is argued that this is an effect of changes in movement strategies to the subject position, [Spec, IP]: whereas movement to the subject position is syntactically determined in Modern Swedish, in Early Old Swedish the corresponding move is pragmatically determined. The study is based on a corpus of approximately 193,400 words, collected from 12 Old Swedish texts.

The aim of this paper is to show the implications of using the notion of ‘common culture’ as a basis for a communication policy across language boundaries. There are eight different national languages in the Nordic area, from Greenland in the west to Finland in the east, from Sápmi — the traditional territories of the Sami people in Northern Scandinavia — in the north to Denmark in the south. Additionally, a dozen traditional minority languages and some two hundred immigrant languages are spoken in the area. Despite this linguistic diversity, a ‘Declaration on a Nordic Language Policy,’ signed in 2006 by ministers of education in the Nordic countries, recommends using one of the three ‘Scandinavian’ languages (Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish) for communication across language boundaries throughout the Nordic area, rather than using translation and interpretation, or speaking in English — which is common practice despite official policies. Moreover, recent empirical research indicates that there is good reason to seriously doubt that using a Scandinavian language is a practical communication solution for the Nordic peoples. For example, Greenlanders have poor skills in understanding Swedish. Similarly, Finnish-speaking Finns have poor skills in understanding Danish. Official Nordic language policy is based on an ideology of a common culture rather than linguistic practice. Thus, it appears that communication problems are seen as less important than the prevailing ideas of perceived common Nordic (linguistic) culture.

Current analyses of the semantic structure of the ditransitive construction in English assume that the construction consists of approximately nine semantic subconstructions, namely those of actual, intended, retained and metaphorical transfer (and some corresponding subconstructions). An examination of the ditransitive construction in Icelandic reveals at least seventeen subconstructions in that language. In addition to most of the subconstructions found in English, the ones in Icelandic also denote transfer along a path, possession, utilizing, enabling, hindrance, constraining and mental activities. An investigation of the ditransitive construction in the most archaic Swedish and Norwegian dialects reveals a significant overlap with Icelandic, but also some overlap with English and German. This comparative evidence permits a reconstruction of the semantic structure of the ditransitive construction common to the Germanic language area.

Övdalian is spoken in central Sweden by about 2000 speakers. Traditionally categorized as a dialect of Swedish, it has not received much international attention. However, Övdalian is typologically closer to Faroese or Icelandic than it is to Swedish, and since it has been spoken in relative isolation for about 1000 years, a number of interesting linguistic archaisms have been preserved and innovations have developed. This volume provides seven papers about Övdalian morphology and syntax. The papers, all based on extensive fieldwork, cover topics such as verb movement, subject doubling, wh-words and case in Övdalian. Constituting the first comprehensive linguistic description of Övdalian in English, this volume is of interest for linguists in the fields of Scandinavian and Germanic linguistics, and also historical linguists will be thrilled by some of the presented data. The data and the analyses presented here furthermore challenge our view of the morphosyntax of the Scandinavian languages in some cases – as could be expected when a new language enters the linguistic arena.

Part of the book "Studies in Övdalian Morphology and Syntax: New Research on a Lesser-Known Scandinavian Language" edited by Kristine Bentzen, Henrik Rosenkvist and Janne Bondi Johannessen. The Övdalian wh-word ukin has a variety of syntactic uses, spanning from the canonical use as personal pronoun (‘who’) to predicative property querying item (‘what ... like’) and polarity item introducing both main and embedded clauses. In this paper the various uses will be described and discussed, and it will be argued that the polyfunctionality of ukin can be well understood on the background of wh-syncretisms in other North Germanic varieties which all point in the direction of principled grammaticalization patterns in this domain. The pattern found will be accounted for by a nanosyntactic approach to lexicalization ranges.

This paper reports on an investigation of the mutual intelligibility of the three mainland Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian). These languages are so closely related that the speakers mostly use their own languages to communicate with each other. However, this kind of communication sometimes requires a great effort by the speakers (e.g. Maurud 1976, Bo 1978, Borestam 1987). Recently it has been investigated how well people understand each other in the Nordic countries (Delsing & Lundin Akesson 2005, henceforth referred to as the INS-investigation).1 In this investigation intelligibility was assessed as well as contact and attitude, but like in all previous investigations little attention was paid to linguistic distances between the languages when explaining the results. In the present investigation, a limited set of the INS-results was analyzed and extra material was added with the aim of gaining insight into the role of linguistic and extra-linguistic variables for the mutual intelligibility between speakers of the three Scandinavian languages.

The aim of much linguistic research is to determine the grammar and the lexicon of a certain language L. The spoken variant of L – in so far as it is considered at all – is generally taken to be just another projection of the same grammar and lexicon. We suspect that this assumption may be wrong. Our suspicion derives from our contrastive analyses of four corpora, two Swedish and two Danish (covering spoken as well as written language), suggesting that – in the dimensions of frequency distribution, word type selection, and distribution over parts of speech – the mode of communication (spoken versus written) is much more significant as a determining factor than even the choice of language (Swedish versus Danish).

The concept of complete equivalence is highly questionable, yet it is still relied on, for all practical purposes, in connection with the translation of Latin-based medical terms. This practice is potentially harmful, a case in point being the translation of medical texts for laymen from English into Danish. Contrary to Danish (and German and other Scandinavian languages), everyday English (and French) avails itself of numerous Latin-based medical terms, as no non-specialized alternative exists. When these terms are directly transferred under the assumption of complete equivalence, the level of formality is drastically raised. Increased awareness of the potential danger to communication posed by Latin-based terms in texts meant for lay audiences in Scandinavia and Germany is therefore desirable.

The typological and lexical similarities between the major Scandinavian languages Danish, Norwegian and Swedish as well as a feeling of economic, political and cultural togetherness, facilitate direct interscandinavian communication. Communication participants use their own languages, both in speaking or writing and in decoding what is said or written. This specific situation is called semicommunication. There are, however, problems in semicommunication, too. The pronunciation of Danish has changed strongly over time, and English has strengthened its position as a global lingua franca. The question of how well Scandinavians really understand one another is, therefore, an interesting one. Research has shown that Norwegians have a better understanding than other Scandinavians. This can be accounted for by their language's intermediate position. Another explanation is the linguistic variation in Norway, making Norwegians more experienced in interpreting small differences between language variants. In my MA-thesis, I have focussed on the differences as regards Norwegian language variation experience between the smaller and more experienced Nynorsk group and the bigger and less experienced Bokmål group. Both groups' understanding of written Swedish was tested. A Danish control group took the same test. Results show that the Norwegian group in general had few problems understanding written Swedish. A difference between the Nynorsk group and the Bokmål group, however, could not be found.

This article offers an overview of comparative syntactic research covering the Scandinavian languages in the last couple of decades. Most of this research has been conducted within Principles-and-Parameters theory, mostly its Government-Binding phase, and a brief outline of theoretical developments in the 70’s leading up GB theory is included. Comparative Scandinavian syntax research is exemplified both by studies contrasting Scandinavian languages as a whole with English, by studies examining contrasts between Insular and Mainland Scandinavian, and finally with regard to some internal Mainland Scandinavian differences.

SUMMARY This investigation of Germanic Verscharfung distinguishes between two types of phonological change. Sound change affects only the phonetic features of a segment whereas prosodic change consists of a change in the rhythmic structure of a language. The fixing of initial stress in Germanic is a prosodic change which conditions the gemination of intervocalic glides following short, previously unstressed vowels. However, the gemination of glides is irregular since prosodic change is phonetically abrupt but lexically gradual and may therefore lead to irregular changes on the segmental level. In contrast, the second stage of Germanic Verschärfung, the fortition of geminate glides to geminate obstruents in East and North Germanic, is an exceptionless sound change in which [-consonantal] becomes [+consonantal]. RÉSUMÉ Cette enquête de la Verschärfung germanique distingue entre deux types de changement phonologique. Tandis que le changement phonétique n'affecte que les caractéristiques phonétiques d'un segment, le changement prosodique transforme la structure rythmique d'une langue. L'introduction de l'accent initial dans la langue germanique est un changement prosodique qui entraîne la gémination des sons transitoires intervocaliques après une voyelle courte préalablement non-accentuée. Cependant, la gémination des sons transitoires est irrégulière, étant donné que le changement prosodique est phonétiquement abrupte, mais lexicalement graduel. Pour cette raison, le changement prosodique peut entraîner un changement irrégulier au niveau du segment. Par contre, la deuxième phase de la Verschärfung germanique, la transformation des sons transitoires géminés en occlusives géminées dans la langue germanique orientale et septentrionale, constitue un changement phonétique sans exception dans lequel [-consonne] devient [+consonne]. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG In dieser Untersuchung der germanischen Verschärfung werden zwei Arten von phonologischem Wandel unterschieden. Lautwandel betrifft nur die phonetischen Merkmale eines Segments, wahrend prosodischer Wandel die rhythmische Struktur einer Sprache verandert. Die Einführung des Initialakzents im Germanischen ist ein prosodischer Wandel, der die Verdop-pelung zwischenvokalischer Gleitlaute herbeiführt, wenn der vorangehende Vokal kurz und vorher unbetont war. Die Verdoppelung von Gleitlauten ist jedoch unregelmäßig, denn prosodischer Wandel ist phonetisch abrupt aber lexikalisch graduell. Deswegen kann prosodischer Wandel zu unregel-mäBigem Wandel auf der segmentalen Ebene führen. Andererseits ist die zweite Phase der Verschärfung, die Verstärkung von verdoppelten Gleitlauten zu verdoppelten Obstruenten im Ost- und Nordgermanischen, ein ausnahms-loser Lautwandel, in dem [-konsonantisch] zu [+konsonantisch] wird.

1. Preface 2. Typological reflections on loss of morphological case in Middle Low German and in the Mainland Scandinavian languages (by Askedal, John Ole) 3. Ethnoreconstruction in Kok-Paponk (by Black, Paul) 4. Rraising verbs vs. auxiliaries (by Boye, Kasper) 5. On the origin of the final unstressed [i] in Brazilian and other varieties of Portuguese: New evidence in an enduring debate (by Carvalho, Maria Jose) 6. Socio-historical evidence for copula variability in rural Southern America (by Clements, Gaillynn D.) 7. Main Stress Left in Early Middle English (by Dresher, B. Elan) 8. Some dialectal, sociolectal and communicative aspects of word order variation and change in Late Middle English (by Eitler, Tamas) 9. Using Universal Principles of Phonetic Qualitative Reduction in Grammaticalization to explain the Old Spanish Shift from ge to se (by Enrique-Arias, Andres) 10. The origin of transitive auxiliary verbs in Chukotko-Kamchatkan (by Fortescue, Michael) 11. Grammaticalisation and Latin (by Fruyt, Michele) 12. Paths of semantic extension: From cause to beneficiary and purpose (by Luraghi, Silvia) 13. Vanishing discourse markers: Lat. et vs. sic in Old French and Old Romanian (by Manoliu, Maria M.) 14. From ditransitive to monotransitive structure in the history of the Spanish language. Reanalysis of objects: A case of incorporation and monotransitivization (by Ortiz Ciscomani, Rosa Maria) 15. Reflexive intensification in Spanish: Toward a complex reflexive? (by Pedersen, Johan) 16. Modern Swedish bara: From adjective to conditional subordinator (by Rosenkvist, Henrik) 17. Nordic prefix loss and metrical stress theory with particular reference to ga- and bi - (by Schulte, Michael) 18. The origin and development of lar, a modal epistemic in Swedish (by Svensson, Gudrun) 19. The development of the Spanish verb ir to an auxiliary of voice (by Vinther, Thora) 20. The development of continuous aspect (by Watanabe, Kazuha) 21. Index