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Distribution and function of embedded V–Neg in Norwegian: A corpus study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2019

Tina Louise Ringstad
Tina Louise Ringstad*
Affiliation:
Department of Language and Literature, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway
*
Email for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

Mainland Scandinavian displays a main clause phenomenon (MCP), where some embedded clauses allow the word order V(erb)–Neg(ation), in addition to the canonical Neg–V. Much has been written on the licensing conditions for embedded V–Neg, but formulating the exact conditions has proven difficult. This may be due to the fact that research has typically focussed on selected sets of clauses allowing this phenomenon and much of it has been based on the authors’ grammaticality judgements. Drawing conclusions about the licensing conditions for embedded V–Neg requires examining all types of environments that allow it in natural speech as well as the types of environments that disallow it. Therefore, the primary goal of this paper is to map out the full distribution of embedded V–Neg. This paper examines embedded V–Neg collected from five corpora of spontaneous Norwegian speech. The data provide information on the relative frequency of V–Neg in various constructions and identify hitherto unattested contexts for this word order. The paper shows that V–Neg is productive in adjunct clauses, a fact difficult to accommodate under accounts claiming it is licensed under selection of specific predicates. The data support a more discourse-oriented approach to embedded V–Neg.

Keywords

corpus studyembedded V–Negembedded V2main clause phenomenaNorwegianword order
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , December 2019 , pp. 329 - 363
Copyright
© Nordic Association of Linguistics 2019 

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