Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T14:05:56.410Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Scandinavian pancake sentences revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2013

Hans-Olav Enger
Hans-Olav Enger*
Affiliation:
University of Oslo, Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, P.O. Box 1102 Blindern, NO-0317 Oslo, Norway. [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

This paper defends the analysis of Scandinavian ‘pancake sentences’ as semantic or referential agreement (Enger 2004). Alternative analyses assuming that pancake sentences are to be analysed as syntactic agreement (Josefsson 2009), have some drawbacks. Notably, the distinction between different kinds of gender is not well motivated; the connection between different uses of the neuter is lost, and the use of ‘light verbs’ and of invisible elements is problematic. The referential agreement analysis, in combination with the Agreement Hierarchy, yields diachronic predictions that turn out to be correct; the syntactic analysis does not yield anything equivalent. Furthermore, the agreement pattern for very ‘general’ nouns follows more naturally under the referential agreement analysis.

Keywords

agreementAgreement Hierarchydiachronygenderpancake sentencesreferential/semantic agreementScandinavian
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , December 2013 , pp. 275 - 301
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

Asudeh, Ash & Toivonen, Ida. 2006. Symptomatic imperfections. Journal of Linguistics 42 (2), 395–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Audring, Jenny. 2009. Reinventing Pronoun Gender. Amsterdam: LOT/Vrije Universiteit.Google Scholar
Braunmüller, Kurt. 2000. Gender in North Germanic: A diasystematic and functional approach. In Unterbeck et al. (eds.), 25–54.Google Scholar
Butt, Miriam. 2003. The light verb jungle. Harvard Working Papers in Linguistics 9, 1–49.Google Scholar
Butt, Miriam. 2010. The light verb jungle: Still hacking away. In Amberber, Mengistu, Baker, Brett & Harvey, Mark (eds.), Complex Predicates, 48–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conzett, Philipp. 2010. The role of grammatical gender in noun-formation: A diachronic perspective from Norwegian. In Onysko, Alexander & Michel, Sascha (eds.), Cognitive Perspectives on Word Formation, 147–193. Berlin & New York: Mouton De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corbett, Greville G. 1979. The agreement hierarchy. Journal of Linguistics 15 (2), 203–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corbett, Greville G. 1991. Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corbett, Greville G. 2006. Agreement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Corbett, Greville G. 2012. Features. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Östen. 2000a. Animacy and the notion of semantic gender. In Unterbeck et al. (eds.), 99–116.Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen. 2000b. Elementary gender distinctions. In Unterbeck et al. (eds.), 577–594.Google Scholar
De Vogelaer, Gunter & De Sutter, Gert. 2011. The geography of gender change: Pronominal and adnominal gender in Flemish dialects of Dutch. Language Sciences 33 (1), 192–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dyvik, Helge. 1980. Grammatikk og empiri [Grammar and empirical investigation]. Bergen: Universitetet i Bergen.Google Scholar
Enger, Hans-Olav. 2004. Scandinavian pancake sentences as semantic agreement. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 27 (1), 5–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enger, Hans-Olav & Corbett, Greville G.. 2012. Definiteness, gender, and hybrids: Evidence from Norwegian dialects. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 24 (4), 287–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enger, Hans-Olav. 2013. When friends and teachers become hybrid (more than they were). Ms., University of Oslo. [To appear in an anthology after the workshop ‘Kongruenz diachron’, University of Marburg, edited by Jürg Fleischer, Paul Widmer and Elisabeth Poppe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.]Google Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje. 1977. Embedded clause reduction and Scandinavian gender agreement. Journal of Linguistics 13 (2), 239–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje, Lie, Svein & Vannebo, Kjell Ivar. 1997. Norsk referansegrammatikk [Norwegian reference grammar]. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar
Hansen, Erik & Heltoft, Lars. 2011. Grammatik over det danske sprog I: Indledning og oversigt [Grammar of the Danish language I: Introduction and overview]. København: Syddansk Universitetsforlag.Google Scholar
Hellan, Lars. 1986. The headedness of NPs in Norwegian. In Muysken, Piet & van Riemsdijk, Henk (eds.), Features and Projections, 89–123. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johannessen, Janne Bondi. 2008. The pronominal psychological demonstrative in Scandinavian: Its syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 31 (2), 161–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Josefsson, Gunlög. 1999. On the semantics and syntax of Scandinavian pronouns and object shift. In van Riemsdijk, Henk (ed.), Clitics in the Languages of Europe, 731–757. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Josefsson, Gunlög. 2006. Semantic and grammatical genders in Swedish. Lingua 116, 1346–1368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Josefsson, Gunlög. 2009. Peas and pancakes: On apparent disagreement and (null) light verbs in Swedish. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 32 (1), 35–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Källström, Roger. 1996. Om svenskans genussystem. En disussion av några analysalternativ [On the Swedish gender system: A discussion of some alternative analyses]. Gothenburg: Institutionen för Svenska Språket.Google Scholar
Knudsen, Trygve. 1973. Bøyningen av adjektiver som predikatsord [The inflection of adjectives as predicatives]. Maal og Minne 1/2, 29–41.Google Scholar
Korsæth, Else Marie. 2010. En velskapt og våken lita jente [A well-created and awake little girl]. Ms., University of Oslo. [Term paper NOR 4112]Google Scholar
Lie, Svein. 2008. Om som og ordklasser [On som and word classes]. Maal og Minne 3/4, 213–219.Google Scholar
Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics, vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nygaard, Marius. 1905. Norrøn syntax [Old Norse syntax]. Kristiania: Aschehoug.Google Scholar
Pollard, Carl & Sag, Ivan A.. 1994. Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Sasse, Hans-Jürgen. 1993. Syntactic categories and subcategories. In Jacobs, Joachim, von Stechow, Arnim, Sternefeld, Wolfgang & Vennemann, Theo (eds.), Syntax: An International Handbook of Contemporary Research, 646–686. Berlin: de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Semplicini, Chiara. 2012. Dutch double gender nouns: Arbitrary or motivated agreement? Journal of Germanic Linguistics 24 (2), 133–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siemund, Peter. 2002. Mass versus count: Pronominal gender in regional varieties of Germanic languages. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 55 (3), 213–233.Google Scholar
Siemund, Peter. 2008. Pronominal gender in English. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Teleman, Ulf. 1987. Hur många genus finns det i svenskan? [How many genders are there in Swedish?]. In Teleman, Ulf (ed.), Grammatik på villovägar [Grammar on the wrong tracks], 106–115. Stockholm: Esselte.Google Scholar
Teleman, Ulf, Hellberg, Staffan & Andersson, Erik. 1999. Svenska Akademiens Grammatik 2: Ord [The Swedish Academy grammar 2: Words]. Stockholm: Norstedts.Google Scholar
Trosterud, Trond. 2001. Genus i norsk er regelstyrt [Gender in Norwegian is Rule-Governed]. Norsk Lingvistisk Tidsskrift 19 (1), 29–59.Google Scholar
Unterbeck, Barbara, Rissanen, Matti, Nevalainen, Terttu & Saari, Mirja (eds.). 2000. Gender in Grammar and Cognition, vol. 1: Approaches to Gender. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vinje, Finn-Erik. 2002. Moderne norsk [Modern Norwegian]. Bergen: Vigmostad & Bjørke.Google Scholar
Wechsler, Stephen. 2011. Polysemy and pancakes. Presented at CSSP, Paris, 23 September 2011. http://www.cssp.cnrs.fr/cssp2011/abstracts/cssp2011Wechsler.pdf (retrieved 16 September 2013).Google Scholar
Widmark, Gun. 1966. Den inkongruenta neutrala predikatsfyllnaden och dess plats i dagens svenskans genussystem [The non-agreeing neuter complement and its place in the current Swedish gender system]. Nysvenska studier 46, 91–135.Google Scholar