Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-05T18:11:09.491Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Linking and Optimality in the Norwegian Presentational Focus Construction1

Review products

LødrupH. 1999. Linking and Optimality in the Norwegian Presentational Focus Construction. Nordic Journal of Linguistics, 22, 205–230.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2010

Helge Lødrup
Get access

Extract

The presentational focus construction in Norwegian can have an agent in object position, as in Det arbeidet en mann i skogen ‘It worked a man in the-woods”. This creates problems for linking theory, in which a robust generalization says that agents are not realized as objects. Optimality Theory makes possible a new approach to this classical problem in Scandinavian generative grammar. The constraint that agents are not realized as objects must compete with other constraints. In Norwegian, it is ranked below a requirement that a presentational focus must be realized in object position. The Norwegian situation is compared to languages with different constraint rankings.

Type
Review Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , December 1999 , pp. 205 - 229
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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

Ackema, P. & Neeleman, A. 1998. Conflict Resolution in Passive Formation. Lingua 104, 13–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aissen, J. 1975. Presentational There Insertion: A Cyclic Root Transformation. In Grossman, R. E., San, J. & Vance, T. J. (eds Papers from the 11th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, pp. 1–15.Google Scholar
Aissen, J. 1998. Markedness and Subject Choice in Optimality Theory. Unpublished paper, University of California, Santa Cruz, http://ling.ucsc.edu/~aissen/ms.htmlGoogle Scholar
Anward, J. 1981. Functions of Passive and Impersonal Constructions: A Case Study from Swedish. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Stockholm.Google Scholar
Anward, J. 1989. Constraints on Passives in Swedish and in English. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 44, 15–30. (Department of Scandinavian Languages, University of Lund.)Google Scholar
Askedal, J. O. 1986. On Ergativity in Modern Norwegian. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 9, 25–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Åfarli, T. A. 1992. The Syntax of Norwegian Passive Constructions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouma, G., Malouf, R. & Sag, I. 1998. Satisfying Constraints on Extraction and Adjunction. Unpublished paper, Groningen University and Stanford University.Google Scholar
Boersma, P. 1997. How We Learn Variation, Optionality and Probability. Rutgers Optimality Archive, http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/roa.htmlGoogle Scholar
Bresnan, J. 1994. Locative Inversion and the Architecture of Universal Grammar. Language 70, 72–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bresnan, J. (forthcoming). Optimal Syntax. In Dekkers, J. et al. (eds), Optimality Theory: Phonology, Syntax and Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bresnan, J. & Kanerva, J. M. 1989. Locative Inversion in Chichewa: A Case Study of Factorization in Grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 20, 1–50.Google Scholar
Bresnan, J. & Moshi, L. 1990. Object Asymmetries in Comparative Bantu Syntax. Linguistic Inquiry 21, 147–185.Google Scholar
Burzio, L. 1986. Italian Syntax: A Government-Binding Approach. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. 1986. Knowledge of Language. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Christensen, K. K. & Taraldsen, K. T. 1989. Expletive Chain Formation and Past Participle Agreement in Scandinavian Dialects. In Beninca, P. (ed.), Dialect Variation and the Theory of Grammar. Dordrecht: Foris, 53–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demuth, K. 1989. Maturation and the Acquisition of the Sesotho Passive. Language 65, 56–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demuth, K. 1990. Locatives, Impersonate and Expletives in Sesotho. The Linguistic Review 7, 233–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demuth, K. & Mmusi, S. 1997. Presentational Focus and Thematic Structure in Comparative Bantu. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 18, 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
den Dikken, M. & Naess, A. 1993. Case Dependencies: The Case of Predicate Inversion. The Linguistic Review 10, 303–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ekberg, L. 1990. Theta Role Tiers and the Locative PP in Existential Constructions. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 46, 37–45. (Department of Scandinavian Languages, University of Lund.)Google Scholar
Falk, C. 1989. On the Existential Construction in the Germanic Languages. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 44, 45–59. (Department of Scandinavian Languages, University of Lund.)Google Scholar
Faarlund, J. T. 1993. Existential Sentences, Unaccusativity and Theta-roles. In Runes and Representations: Proceedings of ScandiLing Fest 1. University of Chicago Occasional Papers in Linguistics. Chicago: University of Chicago, 51–72.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, J. 1997. Projections, Heads and Optimality. Linguistic Inquiry 28, 373–422.Google Scholar
Hagen, J. E. 1977. Norske injektsetninger: En generativ presentering. Thesis for the mag.art. degree. Department of Scandinavian Languages and Literature, University of Bergen.Google Scholar
Harford, C. 1990. Locative Inversion in Chisona. In Hutchison, J. & Manfredi, V. (eds), Current Approaches to African Linguistics 7. Dordrecht: Foris, pp. 137–144.Google Scholar
Heltoft, L. & Falster Jakobsen, L. 1996. Danish Passives and Subject Positions as a Mood System - a Content Analysis. In Engberg Pedersen, E., Fortescue, M., Harder, P., Heltoft, L. & Falster Jakobsen, L. (eds), Content, Expression and Structure: Studies in Danish Functional Grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 199–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Her, O.-S. & Huang, H.-T. (1998). Locative Inversion: English, Chinese and Universal Grammar. In Huang, H. Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Languages in Taiwan. National Taiwan University, pp. 287–304.Google Scholar
Hestvik, A. 1986a. Case Theory and Norwegian Impersonal Constructions: Subject-object Alternations in Active and Passive Verbs. Nordic Journal of Lingustics 9, 181–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hestvik, A. 1986b. Norwegian Intransitive Verbs and the Syntax-Semantics Relation. Unpublished manuscript. Brandeis University.Google Scholar
Hoekstra, T. & Mulder, T. 1990. Unergatives as Copular Verbs: Locational and Existential Predication. The Linguistic Review 7, 1–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, A. & Nikanne, U. (forthcoming). Expletives, Subjects and Topics in Finnish. Unpublished manuscript. In Svenonius, P. (ed.), Subjects, Expletives and the External Projection Principle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hulk, A. 1989. La construction impersonelle et la structure de la phrase. Recherches Linguistiques 18, 59–79.Google Scholar
Kimenyi, A. 1980. A Relational Grammar of Kinyarwanda. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, P. 1998. Partitive Case and Aspect. In Butt, M. & Geuder, W. (eds), The Projection of Arguments: Lexical and Compositional Factors. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, pp. 265–307.Google Scholar
Kirsner, R. S. 1973. Natural Focus and Agentive Interpretation: On the Semantics of Dutch expletive er. In Stanford Occasional Papers in Linguistics No. 3: Papers from the Third Annual California Linguistics Conference, pp. 101–113.Google Scholar
Klamer, M. 1998. Kambera Intransitive Argument Linking. Studia Linguistica 52, 77–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroeger, P. 1993. Phrase Structure and Grammatical Relations in Tagalog. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, K. & Polinsky, M. 1997. Typological Variation in Sentence-Focus Constructions. In Singer, K., Eggert, R. & Anderson, G. (eds), CLS 33: Papers from the Panels. Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society, pp. 189–206.Google Scholar
Legendre, G. 1990. French Impersonal Constructions. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 8, 81–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legendre, G. 1998. Why French Stylistic Inversion is Optimal. Handout for talk given at the “Is Syntax Different?” workshop, CSLI, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Legendre, G., Raymond, W. & Smolensky, P. 1993. An Optimality-Theoretic Typology of Case and Grammatical Voice Systems. In Guenter, J. S., Kaiser, B. A. & Zoll, C. C. (eds), Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. pp. 464–478.Google Scholar
Levin, B. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Levin, B. & Rappaport Hovav, M. 1995. Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lødrap, H. 1994. “Surface Preforms” in Norwegian and the Definiteness Effect. In Gonzalez, M. (ed.), Proceedings of the North East Linguistics Society 24. Amherst: GLSA, Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, pp. 303–315.Google Scholar
Lødrup, H. 1995. The realization of benefactives in Norwegian. In Dainora, A., Hemphill, R., Luka, B., Need, B. & Pargman, S. (eds), Papers from the 31st Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society. Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society, pp. 317–328.Google Scholar
Lødrup, H. 1996. Underspecification in Lexical Mapping Theory: The Case of Norwegian Existentials and Resultatives. In Butt, M. & King, T. H. (eds), Proceedings of the First LFG Conference, pp. 236–248. (Revised version forthcoming in Butt, M. & King, T. H. (eds), Argument Realization. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.)Google Scholar
Machobane, 'M. 'M. 1995. The Sesotho Locative Constructions. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 16, 115–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maling, J. 1987. Existential Sentences in Swedish and Icelandic: Reference to Thematic Roles. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 28. (Department of Scandinavian Languages, University of Lund.)Google Scholar
Manning, C. D. 1996. Ergativity: Argument Structure and Grammatical Relations. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Marandin, J.-M. 1999. Dans le titre se trouve le sujet. Ou: l'inversion locative en français. Habilitation Thesis. CNRS et Universite Paris 7.Google Scholar
Merlan, F. 1985. Split Intransitivity: Functional Oppositions in Intransitive Inflection. In Nichols, J. & Woodbury, A. C. (eds), Grammar Inside and Outside the Clause. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 324–362.Google Scholar
Morimoto, Y. 1999a. An Optimality Account of Argument Reversal. Paper presented at the 1999 International Lexical-Functional Grammar Conference. http://www-csli.Stanford.edu/~morimotoGoogle Scholar
Morimoto, Y. 1999b. Subject-object Reversal in Kinyarwanda. Paper presented at the 30th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~morimotoGoogle Scholar
Neidle, C. 1988. The Role of Case in Russian Syntax. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nikanne, U. 1994. Notes on Movement to the Spec(IP) Position in Finnish. In Corver, N. & van Riemsdijk, H. (eds), Studies on Scrambling: Movement and Non-Movement Approaches to Free Word-Order Phenomena. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 431–457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perlmutter, D. M. 1978. Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis. In Jaeger, J. J., Woodbury, A. C, Ackerman, F., Chiarello, C, Gensler, O. D., Kingston, J. et al. (eds), Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society, pp. 157–189.Google Scholar
Platzack, C. 1983. Existential Sentences in English, Swedish, German and Icelandic. In Karlsson, F. (ed.), Papers from the Seventh Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, Department of General Linguistics, pp. 80–100.Google Scholar
Saccon, G. 1993. Post-verbal Subjects: A Study Based on Italian and its Dialects. Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Samek-Lodovici, V. 1996. Constraints on Subjects: An Optimality Theoretic Analysis. Ph.D. Dissertation, Rutgers University.Google Scholar
Sveen, A. 1996. Norwegian Impersonal Actives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis. Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of Linguistics, University of Oslo.Google Scholar
Tan, F. 1991. Notion of Subject in Chinese. Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of Linguistics, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Vangsnes, Ø. A. 1994. The Syntactic Source and Semantic Reflexes of the Definiteness Effect. Skriftserie Nr. 48 serie B. Department of Linguistics, University of Bergen.Google Scholar
Vikner, S. 1995. Verb Movement and Expletive Subjects in the Germanic Languages. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vikner, S. 1997. Førsteopposisjon ved Andreas Sveens doktordisputas. Norsk Lingvistisk Tidsskrift 15, 209–218.Google Scholar