Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T00:13:45.921Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pseudocoordination with posture verbs in Mainland Scandinavian: A grammaticalized progressive construction?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2019

Helge Lødrup
Helge Lødrup*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo, Pb 1102, Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway
*
Email for correspondence: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

Pseudocoordination with posture verbs in Mainland Scandinavian (e.g. the Norwegian Han sitter og arbeider ‘he sits and works’) is traditionally considered a grammaticalized progressive construction. The posture verb is said to have a bleached meaning, and to have the grammatical status of an auxiliary or a light verb. In recent years, some researchers have expressed doubt about this view. In this article, I argue that the traditional arguments for grammaticalization do not hold. However, I also give new evidence for early grammaticalization. Posture verbs can to some extent be used as light verbs in sentences such as Kebab må sittes og nytes ‘kebab must sit.pass and enjoy.pass’, which have never been discussed in connection with grammaticalization. Finally, I argue that pseudocoordination with posture verbs should not be seen as progressive, but rather as a locational (or situative) construction.

Keywords

grammaticalizationlight verbsNorwegian syntaxposture verbspseudocoordinationScandinavian syntax
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , May 2019 , pp. 87 - 110
Copyright
© Nordic Association of Linguistics 2019 

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

Ameka, Felix K. & Levinson, Stephen C.. 2007. Introduction: The typology and semantics of locative predicates: Posturals, positionals, and other beasts. Linguistics 45(5/6), 847–871.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behrens, Bergljot, Flecken, Monique & Carroll, Mary. 2013. Progressive attraction: On the use and grammaticalization of progressive aspect in Dutch, Norwegian, and German. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 25(2), 95–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berthele, Raphael, Whelpton, Matthew, Næss, Åshild & Duijff, Pieter. 2015. Static spatial descriptions in five Germanic languages. Language Sciences 49, 82–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biberauer, Theresa & Vikner, Sten. 2017. Having the edge: A new perspective on pseudo-coordination in Danish and Afrikaans. In LaCara, Nicholas, Moulton, Keir & Tessier, Anne-Michelle (eds.), A Schrift to Fest Kyle Johnson (Linguistics Open Access Publications 1), 77–90. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts. http://scholarworks.umass.edu/linguist_oapubs/1 (accessed 18 July 2017).Google Scholar
Blensenius, Kristian. 2014. En tveksam imperfektivmarkör: Aspekt hos pseudosamordningar med positionsverb [A dubious marker of imperfectivity: Aspect in pseudocoordinations with posture verbs]. In Anna, W. Gustafsson, Holm, Lisa, Lundin, Katarina, Rahm, Henrik & Tronnier, Mechtild (eds.), Svenskans beskrivning [Description of Swedish], vol. 34 (Lundastudier i nordisk språkvetenskap A74), 105–118. Lund: Lund University, Centre for Languages and Literature.Google Scholar
Blensenius, Kristian. 2015. Maintaining contact with pseudoprogressive pseudocoordinations: Swedish verbal coordinations with ‘sit’, ‘stand’, and ‘lie’ from a spatial perspective. In Kristian Blensenius, Progressive Constructions in Swedish. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Gothenburgh. Google Scholar
Braunmüller, Kurt. 1991. Die skandinavischen Sprachen im Überblick. Tübingen: Francke.Google Scholar
Breed, Adri. 2017. The subjective use of postural verb in Afrikaans (I): Evolution from progressive to modal. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 52(1), 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butt, Miriam & Lahiri, Aditi. 2013. Diachronic pertinacity of light verbs. Lingua 135, 7–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bylin, Maria. 2013. Aspektuella hjälpverb i svenskan [Aspectual auxiliaries in Swedish]. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Stockholm.Google Scholar
Camilleri, Maris & Sadler, Louisa. 2017. Posture verbs and aspect: A view from vernacular Arabic. In Butt, Miriam & Holloway King, Tracy (eds.), Proceedings of the LFG17 Conference, 167–87. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Cardinaletti, Anna & Giusti, Giuliana. 2001. “Semi-lexical” motion verbs in Romance and Germanic. In Corver, Norbert & van Riemsdijk, Henk (eds.), Semi-lexical Categories, 371–414. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Cormack, Annabel & Smith, Neil. 1994. Serial verbs. Working Papers in Linguistics (UCLWPL) 6, 63–88. [Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London]Google Scholar
Diderichsen, Paul. 1957. Elementær dansk grammatik [Elementary Danish grammar]. København: Gyldendal.Google Scholar
Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell. 2015. A contrastive study of Norwegian pseudo-coordination and two English posture-verb constructions. In Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (eds.), Cross-linguistic Perspectives on Verb Constructions, 29–57. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Ebert, Karen H. 2000. Progressive markers in Germanic languages. In Dahl, Östen (ed.), Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe, 605–654. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Enger, Hans-Olav. 2000. Verbendelsen -s i norsk bokmål: Bøying eller avledning [The verbal suffix -s in Bokmål Norwegian: Inflection or derivation?]. Norsk Lingvistisk Tidsskrift 18(1), 9–36.Google Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje, Lie, Svein & Vannebo, Kjell Ivar. 1997. Norsk referansegrammatikk [Norwegian reference grammar]. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar
Hansen, Erik. 1974. Stå, sidde, ligge [Stand, sit, lie]. Mål & Mæle 1(2), 26–32.Google Scholar
Hansen, Erik & Heltoft, Lars. 2011. Grammatik over det danske sprog. Volume II: Syntaktiske og semantiske helheder [Grammar of Danish, vol. II: Syntactic and semantic units]. København: Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab.Google Scholar
Hareide, Lidun. 2016. The translation of formal source-language lacunas: An empirical study of the overrepresentation of target-language specific features and the Unique Items hypotheses. In Ji, Meng, Hareide, Lidun, Li, Defeng & Oakes, Michael (eds.), Corpus Methodologies Explained: An Empirical Approach to Translation Studies, 137–187. London: Routledge & WiAS.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd. 1993. Auxiliaries: Cognitive Forces and Grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania. 2002. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hesse, Andrea. 2009. Zur Grammatikalisierung der Pseudokoordination im Norwegischen und in den anderen skandinavischen Sprachen. Tübingen: Francke.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline & Petersen, Hjalmar P.. 2012. Pseudo-coordinations in Faroese. In Braunmüller, Kurt & Gabriel, Christoph (eds.), Multilingual Individuals and Multilingual Societies, 259–280. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hilpert, Martin. 2011. Grammaticalization in Germanic languages. In Narrog & Heine (eds.), 708–718.Google Scholar
Hilpert, Martin & Koops, Christian. 2008. A quantitative approach to the development of complex predicates: The case of Swedish Pseudo-Coordination with sitta “sit”. Diachronica 25(2), 242–261.Google Scholar
Hobæk Haff, Marianne & Lødrup, Helge. 2016. Où en est le «passif long» en français? Syntaxe et sémantique 17, 153–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Höder, Steffen. 2011. Dialect convergence across language boundaries. In Gregersen, Frans, Parrott, Jeffrey K. & Quist, Pia (eds.), Language Variation: European Perspectives III, 173–184. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Höhle, Tilman. 1990. Assumptions about asymmetric coordination in German. In Mascaró, Joan & Nespor, Marina (eds.), Grammar in Progress, 221–235. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holm, Elisabeth. 2013. Det sto aldri på noe papir, men det lå i luften og satt i veggene: Kroppspositurverb brukt om eksistens og lokasjon i norsk [It never ‘stood’ on paper, but it ‘lay’ in the air and ‘sat’ in the walls: Posture verb used of existence and location in Norwegian]. MA thesis, University of Oslo.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 2002. Expletives and agreement in Scandinavian passives. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 4(2), 85–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2003. Grammaticalization, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1895. En sproglig værdiforskydning. OG = AT [A displacement of linguistic value: OG 'and’ = AT 'to']. Dania III, 145–182.Google Scholar
Jóhannsdóttir, Kristín M. 2007. The posture verb progressive in Icelandic. In Puig-Waldmüller, Estela (ed.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 11, 361–374. Barcelona: Pompeu Fabra University.Google Scholar
Johannessen, Janne Bondi & Edzard, Lutz. 2017. Pseudo-coordination in Scandinavian and Semitic involving a finite verb form and an infinitive. Presented at the Workshop on Pseudo-coordination and Multiple Agreement Constructions, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 2–3 May 2017.Google Scholar
Kinn, Torodd. 2018. Pseudocoordination in Norwegian: Degrees of grammaticalization and constructional variants. In Coussé, Evie, Andersson, Peter & Olofsson, Joel (eds.), Grammaticalization Meets Construction Grammar, 75–106. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kjeldahl, Anne. 2010. The Syntax of Quirky Verbal Morphology. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Aarhus.Google Scholar
Korzen, Hanne. 2016. Hvordan man ‘ligger sig til hovedrollen’ på fransk efter først at have ‘væltet kaffen’: To anvendelser af Per Durst-Andersens teori om aspekt og sprogtypologi til forklaring af centrale aspekter ved dansk og fransk [How one ligger sig til hovedrollen ‘sleeps one’s way to the leading part’ after having væltet kaffen ‘spilt the coffee’: Two applications of Per Durst-Andersen’s theory of aspect and language typology to explain central aspects of Danish and French]. Globe: A Journal of Language, Culture and Communication 1, 26–36.Google Scholar
Kuteva, Tania. 2001. Auxiliation: An Enquiry into the Nature of Grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kvist Darnell, Ulrika. 2008. Pseudosamordningar i svenska: särskilt sådana med verben sitta, ligga och stå [Pseudocoordinations in Swedish: Especially those with the verbs sitta ‘sit’, ligga ‘lie’ and stå ‘stand]. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Stockholm.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1986. Frame semantic control of the Coordinate Structure Constraint. Chicago Linguistics Society (CLS) 39(2), 152–167.Google Scholar
Lemmens, Maarten. 2005. Aspectual posture verb constructions in Dutch. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 17(3), 183–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levin, Beth & Rappaport Hovav, Malka. 1995. Unaccusativity: At the Syntax–Lexical Semantics Interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lødrup, Helge. 1999. Linking and optimality in the Norwegian presentational focus construction. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 22(2), 205–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lødrup, Helge. 2002. The syntactic structures of Norwegian pseudocoordinations. Studia Linguistica 56(2), 121–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lødrup, Helge. 2014a. There is no reanalysis in Norwegian pseudocoordinations (except when there is). In Helland, Hans Petter & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (eds.), Affaire(s) de grammaire: Mélanges offerts à Marianne Hobæk Haff à l’occasion de ses soixante-cinq ans, 43–65. Oslo: Novus.Google Scholar
Lødrup, Helge. 2014b. Long passives in Norwegian: Evidence for complex predicates. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 37(3), 367–391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lødrup, Helge. 2017. Norwegian pseudocoordination with the verb drive ‘carry on’: Control, raising, grammaticalization. In Butt, Miriam & King, Tracy Holloway (eds.), Proceedings of the LFG17 Conference, 264–284. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Narrog, Heiko & Heine, Bernd (eds.). 2011. The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Newman, John. 2002. A cross-linguistic overview of the posture verbs ‘sit’, ‘stand’, and ‘lie’. In Newman, John (ed.), The Linguistics of Sitting, Standing, and Lying, 1–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Platzack, Christer. 1983. Existential sentences in English, Swedish, German and Icelandic. In Karlsson, Fred (ed.), Papers from the Seventh Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, 80–100. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, Department of General Linguistics.Google Scholar
Reis, Marga & Sternefeld, Wolfgang. 2004. Review article on Susanne Wurmbrand’s Infinitives Restructuring and Clause Structure . Linguistics 42(2), 469–508.Google Scholar
Roberts, Ian. 2010. Grammaticalization, the clausal hierarchy and semantic bleaching. In Traugott & Trousdale (eds.), 45–73.Google Scholar
Ross, Daniel. 2016. Between coordination and subordination: Typological, structural and diachronic perspectives on pseudocoordination. In Pratas, Fernanda, Pereira, Sandra & Pinto, Clara (eds.), Coordination and Subordination: Form and Meaning – Selected Papers from CSI Lisbon 2014, 209–243. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Ross, Daniel & Lødrup, Helge. 2017. SIT as a progressive marker in pseudocoordination? Handout. Workshop on Pseudo-Coordination and Multiple Agreement Constructions, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 2–3 May.Google Scholar
Ross, John Robert. 1967. Constraints on Variables in Syntax. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Teleman, Ulf, Hellberg, Staffan & Andersson, Erik. 1999. Svenska akademiens grammatik [The Swedish Academy grammar], vol. 4. Stockholm: Svenska Akademien.Google Scholar
Thorell, Olof. 1973. Svensk grammatik [Swedish grammar]. Stockholm: Esselte Studium.Google Scholar
Tonne, Ingebjørg. 1999. A Norwegian progressive marker and the level of grammaticalization. Languages in Contrast 2(1), 131–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tonne, Ingebjørg. 2001. Progressives in Norwegian and the Theory of Aspectuality. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oslo.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Trousdale, Graeme. 2010a. Gradience, gradualness and grammaticalization: How do they intersect. In Traugott & Trousdale (eds.), 19–44.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Trousdale, Graeme (eds.). 2010b. Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vannebo, Kjell Ivar. 1969. Aksjonsart i norsk: Ein syntaktisk funksjonsanalyse [Aktionsart in Norwegian: An analysis of syntactic function]. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar
Vannebo, Kjell Ivar. 2003. Ta og ro deg ned noen hakk: On pseudocoordination with the verb ta ‘take’ in a grammaticalization perspective. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 26(2), 165–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viberg, Åke. 2013. Posture verbs: A multilingual contrastive study. Languages in Contrast 13(2), 139–169.Google Scholar
Wiklund, Anna-Lena. 2007. The Syntax of Tenselessness. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wurmbrand, Susanne. 2001. Infinitives: Restructuring and Clause Structure. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar