Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T06:53:47.088Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sjå på han mannen! On the definiteness and specificity of Scandinavian pronoun demonstratives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2008

Tania E. Strahan
Tania E. Strahan*
Affiliation:
Hugvísindadeild, Gimli, Háskóli Íslands, [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

Pronouns with a demonstrative function appear in most of the Scandinavian languages in phrases like Sjå på han mannen ‘Look at that man’. Despite the Scandinavian languages varying in phrase-internal morphosyntactic definiteness agreement requirements generally, the pronoun demonstrative appears universally with a definite noun (phrase). This is accounted for within a Lexical-Functional Grammar framework, where the pronoun demonstrative is treated as carrying the feature [specific = +], and the definite noun (phrase) is the morphosyntactic realisation of underlying specificity also. In addition, there is variation as to whether the pronoun demonstratives occur as a specifier within the NP, or as the head of its own DP, taking an NP object.

Keywords

definitenessdemonstrativesidentifiabilityNorwegianPDDpronounsScandinavianspecificityuniqueness
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 31 , Special Issue 2: The syntax of nominals and noun phrases , December 2008 , pp. 193 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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

Anderssen, Merete. 2007. The acquisition of compositional definites in Norwegian. Nordlyd 34, 252–275.Google Scholar
Ariel, Mira. 2006. Accessibility Theory. In Brown, Keith (ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edn., 15–18. Amsterdam: Elsevier.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borthen, Kaja, Brøseth, Heidi & Fretheim, Thorstein. 2007. Annotation manual for the Norwegian NP-form project. Ms., Trondheim University. [Version 1.2, 16 August 2007.]Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan & Mchombo, Sam A.. 1995. The lexical integrity principle: Evidence from Bantu. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 13, 183–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Büring, Daniel. To appear. Pronouns. In Heusinger, Klaus von, Maienborn, Claudia & Portner, Paul (eds.), Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Butt, Miriam, Dyvik, Helge J. J., King, Tracy Holloway, , Hiroshi Masuichi & Rohrer, Christian. 2002. The Parallel Grammar Project. COLING2002: Workshop on Grammar Engineering and Evaluation, 1–7.Google Scholar
Delsing, Lars-Olof. 1993. The Internal Structure of Noun Phrases in the Scandinavian Languages. Ph.D. thesis, University of Lund.Google Scholar
Enç, Mürvet. 1991. The semantics of specificity. Linguistic Inquiry 22, 1–25.Google Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje, Lie, Svein & Vannebo, Kjell Ivar. 1997. Norsk Referansegrammatikk. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar
Farkas, Donka. 1994. Specificity and scope. In Nash, Lea & Tsoulas, George (eds.), Langues et grammaires, 119–137.Google Scholar
Farkas, Donka. 2002. Specificity distinctions. Journal of Semantics 19, 213–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, Janet D. & Sag, Ivan A.. 1982. Referential and quantificational indefinites. Linguistics and Philosophy 5, 355–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fretheim, Thorstein & Amfo, Nana Aba Appiah. 2005. Reference, determiners and descriptive content. Working Papers ISK 2, 87–112.Google Scholar
Hankamer, Jorge & Mikkelsen, Line. 2002. A morphological analysis of definite nouns in Danish. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 14 (2), 137–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ionin, Tania. 2006. ‘This’ is definitely specific: Specificity and definiteness in article systems. Natural Language Semantics 14, 175–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johannessen, Janne Bondi. 2006. Just any pronoun anywhere? Pronouns and ‘new’ demonstratives in Norwegian. In Solstad, Torgrim, Grønn, Atle & Haug, Dag (eds.), A Festschrift for Kjell Johan Sæbø – in Partial Fulfilment for the Requirements for the Celebration of his 50th Birthday, 91–106. Oslo: Unipub forlag.Google Scholar
Johannessen, Janne Bondi. 2007. Den psykologisk distale demonstrativen i skandinavisk. In Arboe, Torben (ed.), Nordisk dialektologi og sosiolingvistik: Foredrag på 8. Nordiske Dialektologkonference, Århus, 15.–18. august 2006, 217–228. Århus: Peter Skautrup Centret for Jysk Dialektforskning, Aarhus Universitet.Google Scholar
Johannessen, Janne Bondi. 2008. Psykologiske demonstrativer. In Johannessen, Janne Bondi & Hagen, Kristin (eds.), Språk i Oslo: Ny forskning omkring telespråk, 63–77. Oslo: Novus Forlag.Google Scholar
Josefsson, Gunlög. 1994. Scandinavian pronouns and object shift. In Riemsdijk, Henk van & Hellan, Lars (eds.), Clitics: Their Origin, Status and Position, 91–122. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Josefsson, Gunlög. 2006. Semantic and grammatical genders in Swedish – independent but interacting dimensions. Lingua 116 (9), 1346–1368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Julien, Marit. 2003. Double definiteness in Scandinavian. Nordlyd 31, 230–244.Google Scholar
Julien, Marit. 2005. Nominal Phrases From a Scandinavian Perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lødrup, Helge. 1982. De og dem i dialekten på Oslo vestkant. Norskrift 37, 54–58.Google Scholar
Lyons, Christopher. 1999. Definiteness (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nordlinger, Rachel & Bresnan, Joan. To appear. Lexical-Functional Grammar: Interactions between morphology and syntax. In Borsley, Robert D. & Börjas, Kersti (eds.), Non-transformational Syntax: A Guide to Current Models. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ørsnes, Bjarne. 2002. Case marking and subject extraction in Danish. LFG02 Conference, 333–353.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Livia, den Berg, Martin van & Ahn, David. 2003. Discourse structure and sentential information structure. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 12, 337–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riley, John. 2007. Mental representations: Reference and definiteness. Journal of Pragmatics 39, 831–871.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strahan, Tania E. 2007. The specific article in Norwegian. Ms., La Trobe University. [To appear in special issue of Australian Journal of Linguistics, edited by Marie Fellbaum-Korpi.]Google Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2005. Setningar: Handbók um setningafræði, vol. III: Íslensk tunga. Reykjavík: Almenna Bókafélagið.Google Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2007. The Syntax of Icelandic (Cambridge Syntax Guides). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vangsnes, Øystein Alexander. 1999. The Identification of Functional Architecture. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Bergen.Google Scholar
Vangsnes, Øystein Alexander. 2001. On noun phrase architecture, referentiality and article systems. Studia Linguistica 55, 249–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Heusinger, Klaus. 2002. Specificity and definiteness in sentence and discourse structure. Journal of Semantics 19, 245–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, Gregory & Birner, Betty. 1995. Definiteness and the English existential. Language 71, 722–742.CrossRefGoogle Scholar