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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]
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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

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