(SENAST UPPDATERADE VERSION!)

GRAMMATIK i FOKUS 32, 2018

Lunds Universitet, LUX-huset (Helgonavägen 3), C121 Torsdagen den 8e februari och fredagen den 9e februari

Torsdagen den 8e februari 13.00–13.05 Symposiet öppnas av Maria Persson, prefekt för Språk- och Litteraturcentrum, Lunds Universitet 13.05–13.35 Christiane Müller, Damon Tutunijan & Anna-Lena Wiklund (Lunds

universitet): The role of coherence and finiteness in extraction from adjunct islands: An acceptability study of Swedish and English

13.35–14.05 Gerd Carling (Lunds universitet): The complex dynamics of grammar change: a Eurasian outline

14.05–14.15 Paus 14.15–14.45 Cecilia Falk (Stockholms universitet): Kasus till indirekta objekt i historien 14.45–15.15 Marit Julien (Lunds universitet): Det bare er sånn – preverbale adverbialer i

skandinavisk 15.15–15.30 Kaffepaus 15.30–16.00 Victor Bogren Svensson (Lunds universitet): She seldoms to what? An

investigation into adverbial verbs and interrogative verbs in verb-initial languages

16.00–16.30 Arthur Holmer (Lunds universitet): The epiphenomenon of word order 16.30–16.40 Paus 16.40–17.10 Björn Lundquist (Universitetet i Tromsø) & Ida Larsson (Universitetet i Oslo):

Argumentplacering i nordiska dialekter – ett experiment 17.10–17.40 Fredrik Valdeson (Stockholms universitet): Kollostruktionsanalys som mått på

bitransitivitet 17.40–18.10 Halldór Ármann Sigurðsson (Lunds universitet): Gender at the edge 18.30 Reception på Språk- och Litteraturcentrum (sal L201, SOL-huset)

Fredagen den 9e februari 9.00–9.30 Iben Nyholm Debess, Hjalmar P. Petersen & Sandra Saxov Lamhauge

(Fróðskaparsetur Føroya): Features of Faro-Danish 9.30–10.00 Vi Thanh Son (Lunds universitet): Declarative knowledge of Swedish children

on English third person singular -s. 10.00–10.30 Kaffepaus 10.30–11.00 Tori Larsen & Christer Johansson (Universitetet i Bergen): The Norwegian

PRO: Referent reactivation in control and raising structures 11.00–11.30 Mikael Novén (Lunds universitet): Ease of learning new grammar is associated

with a thicker cortex in Broca’s area 11.30–11.35 Paus 11.35–12.05 Eva Klingvall (Lunds universitet) & Fredrik Heinat (Linnéuniversitet):

Quantifying expressions and interpretation in Swedish – a semantic plausibility study

12.05–12.35 Elisabet Engdahl (Göteborgs universitet): Presenteringssatser i den fantastiska grammatiken

Symposiet avslutas

The role of coherence and finiteness in extraction from adjunct islands: An acceptability study of Swedish and English

Christiane Müller, Damon Tutunjian & Anna-Lena Wiklund It has been argued that the Mainland Scandinavian languages differ from English in that they permit filler-gap dependencies into adjunct clauses (Anward, 1982; Hagström, 1976), which are standardly treated as strong islands for extraction (Huang, 1982). A closer look suggests that extraction from adjunct clauses is also possible in English, provided that a coherence relation (e.g., a causal, as opposed to a purely temporal relation) holds between the events referred to by the matrix and the adjunct clause (Truswell, 2011). The same restriction appears to hold in Swedish. However, English contrasts with Swedish in that it has been argued to disallow extraction from finite adjuncts. Observations like these raise important questions regarding filler-gap association in island domains and cross-linguistic variation. First, if coherence matters for extraction from adjunct clauses, then adjuncts appear to contrast with other island domains, in which filler-gap association has been claimed to be suspended, such as in relative clause islands in English (e.g., Traxler & Pickering, 1996). Second, if finiteness is a potential locus of variation, then this must be explained and related to other evidence of cross-linguistic and inter-individual variation (Kush et al., 2017; Phillips, 2013; Sprouse et al., 2016). We conducted two acceptability judgment experiments, one for Swedish and one for English, to investigate the hypothesis that semantic coherence facilitates extraction in both languages, whereas finiteness degrades extraction, but only in English. In our materials, we first manipulated the telicity of the matrix verb such that sentential Coherence was either augmented (coherent, 1a) or impeded (non-coherent, 1b), and then manipulated the Finiteness of the adjunct clause ([finite/non-finite] in 1). (1) a. coherent | non-finite/finite Which beer did he almost stumble [after chugging / after he chugged]? b. non-coherent | non-finite/finite Which beer did he stroll a little [after chugging / after he chugged]? The sentences in the two respective experiments corresponded closely in construction. Forty sets of items were created and distributed across four presentation lists, interspersed with 80 distractor sentences. Fifty-seven Swedish and 72 English mono-lingual, native speakers rated the sentences using a 7-point Likert scale (1 = "completely unacceptable” to 7 = "completely acceptable”), as presented using Google forms. Linear mixed models were used to analyze normalized z-score responses. As expected, coherence significantly improved extraction for both Swedish (β = 0.191, t = 4.792, p < .001) and English (β = 0.121, t = 3.853, p < .001). Furthermore, a significant Finiteness by Coherence interaction was found for English, in which finiteness was seen to degrade coherent, but not non-coherent structures (β = -0.050, t = -2.159, p < .05). Swedish showed no effect of Finiteness or Finiteness by Coherence interaction. Our results demonstrate that coherence improves extraction from adjuncts in both Swedish and English, which suggests that filler-gap association is not suspended in adjunct clauses. Furthermore, we show that finiteness reduces the acceptability of coherent structures, but only in English, thus pointing to one case of cross-linguistic variation. One possible explanation for this variation is that finite and non-finite adjuncts in English differ in terms of syntactic complexity: Non-finite after-adjuncts in English have a participial structure and can be assumed to lack a contentful CP-domain. Extraction from such structures thus requires fewer intermediate steps in successive-cyclic movement and a corresponding lower processing cost than extraction from their finite counterparts (see Wurmbrand, to appear, for a similar account for quantifier raising in English). In contrast, Swedish non-finite after-adjuncts involve a complementizer and an infinitive and can be assumed to be similar in structural size to their finite counterparts, requiring equally many movement steps and hence similar processing costs for extraction.

Thecomplexdynamicsofgrammarchange:aEurasianoutlineGerdCarling,LundUniversityThepresentationwilllookattheinheritabilityandthetendencytodevelophomoplasyofgrammaticalfeatures,seenasaproxyofthefeatures’functionand behaviour in language. Grammatical features have independenthistories, evolving under their own conditions, according to their ownpaths, and along separate lines, something that was observed already byscholars such as Antoine Meillet and Edward Sapir in the 1920s. Withmodernevolutionarytechnology,wearecapableofdemonstratingthattheassumptions and observations done by these scholarswere correct, eventhoughtheexactpathsofchangewerenotcompletelyknowntothem.Weareusedtoclassifygrammaticalfeaturesaccordingtotheirgeneraldomainof grammatical functionality (e.g., word class), such as ‘alignment’, ‘wordorder’, ‘nominal morphology’ or ‘verbal morphology’. However, thissimplified classification is not enough to understand features’ changebehaviour, rather, theirchange tendenciesare implied in theirsynchronicfunctionality, embedded in, e.g., language contact and language learning.During change, gain and loss of features may have entirely differentconnotations functionally. The presentation will summarize quantitativeresultsbasedondata fromEurasian languagesandmorecarefullydiscusstheevaluationforthecodingofgrammaticaldatabasedontheseresults.

Grammatik i fokus 8-9 feb 2018 Kasus till indirekta objekt i historien Cecilia Falk Institutionen för svenska och flerspråkighet, Stockholms universitet Vid passiva bitransitiva verb kan såväl det underliggande indirekta objektet som det underliggande direkta objektet fungera som subjekt med subjektsform nominativ: (1)a Vi erbjöds en lägenhet b En lägenhet erbjöds oss Men detta är ett förhållandevis nytt fenomen i svenska. Det finns enstaka belägg från 1600- och 1700-tal där det underliggande indirekta objektet motsvarar ett subjekt i nominativ som i (1)a, men det verkar vara först vid mitten av 1800-talet som nominativ till det underliggande indirekta objektet mer generellt blev ett alternativ i bitransitiva passiva konstruktioner. Bevarat kasus i passiv beskrivs ofta som en effekt av lexikalt kasus, medan strukturellt kasus i stället ger objektsform i aktiv diates, subjektsform i passiv diates. Genombrottet för nominativ i passiver som (1)a kan därför ses som förlust av lexikalt kasus, en förlust där då lexikalt kasus ersätts med strukturellt kasus. Men både det lexikala kasus till det indirekta objektet som vi då antar före c. 1850 och det strukturella kasus som vi antar därefter har egenskaper som vi normalt inte förknippar med lexikalt vs. strukturellt kasus. I mitt föredrag kommer jag att presentera oväntade egenskaper av detta slag.

Detbareersånn–preverbaleadverbialeriskandinaviskMaritJulien

I skandinavisk kan visse adverbialer stå mellom det initiale leddet og det finitte verbet i setninger som i utgangspunktet skulle ha det finitte verbet på andre plass. Slike adverbialer vil jeg her kalle preverbale adverbialer. Jeg vil argumentere for, for det første, at de er fraser, ikke bare hoder, og, for det andre, at det som karakteriserer dem semantisk, er at de modifiserer den proposisjonelle kjernen i utsagnet.

Frasestatusen: Når de preverbale adverbialene står lenger ned i setningen, kan det finitte verbet flytte over dem – se (1) og (2). De kan også være komplekse – se (3). Det tyder på at de ikke er hoder. (1) Jeg tror at de bare gjorde et nytt forsøk. (2) De gjorde bare et nytt forsøk. (3) De rett og slett bare gjorde et nytt forsøk.

Det fins adverbialer som kan stå så vel initialt som preverbalt, som ikke bare. Noter også at ikke i (4b) er avhengig av bare – altså er ikke bare en frase:

(4) a. Ikke bare har hun nylig skrevet en roman, hun har gitt ut plate også. b. Hun ikke bare skriver romaner, hun gir ut plater også. c. * Hun ikke skriver romaner, … Det preverbale adverbialet og det finitte verbet flytter ikke som en konstituent – se (5). Jeg vil i stedet foreslå at mens det finitte verbet i V2-setninger flytter fra verbfrasen til V2-posisjonen, blir det preverbale adverbialet satt inn direkte i den preverbale posisjonen. (5)a. Jeg tror at de rett og slett bare aldri gjorde noe nytt forsøk. b. De rett og slett bare gjorde aldri noe nytt forsøk. Semantikken: Alle preverbale adverbialer modifiserer – eller snarere kvalifiserer – proposisjonen. Mer enn i (6a) i hvilken grad proposisjonen er sann, bokstavelig talt i (6b) uttrykker ifølge hvilken tolkning proposisjonen er sann, mens simpelthen i (6c) snarere uttrykker hvor velvalgt formu-leringa som følger er.

(6)a. Vi mer enn ante hva som var på gang. b. Jeg bokstavelig talt brakk meg av stanken. c. Jeg simpelthen elsker marsipan! Adverbialer som er en del av den proposisjonelle kjernen, som aldri i (7a), kan følge etter preverbale adverbialer. Talerorienterte adverbialer inngår derimot ikke i den proposisjonelle kjernen, og de kan ikke opptre i domenet til preverbale adverbialer – se (7b).

(7)a. De rett og slett bare gjorde aldri noe nytt forsøk. b. * De rett og slett bare gjorde sjølsagt et nytt forsøk.

Noter også at preverbale adverbialer kan opptre i spørsmål, noe som ikke støtter Brandtler & Håkanssons påstand om at preverbale adverbialer uttrykker en motsetning mellom det som hevdes og det som presupponeres. I spørsmål er det ikke noe saksforhold som hevdes. I (8a) spørres det om en grunn, og denne står ikke i motsetning til proposisjonen ’dere bare står og ser på’. I (8b) spørres det om identiteten til x i proposisjonen ’vi formelig snubler over x i parken’.

(8)a. Hvorfor bare står dere og ser på? b. Og hvem formelig snubler vi over i parken?

She seldoms to what? An investigation into adverbial verbs and interrogative verbs in verb-initial languages Victor Bogren Svensson In this presentation I discuss adverbial verbs and interrogative verbs, two relatively rare and underexplored linguistic phenomena that were investigated in the typological study that form the basis of this talk. Adverbial verbs are verbal constituents that possess the morphosyntactic properties of verbs but that encode manner and temporal information, instead of referring to states or events as verbs prototypically do (Li 2007, Holmer 2012). Interrogative verbs possess the morphosyntactic properties of verbs while questioning the very content of the predicate to which they refer (Hagège 2008, Lin 2012). This study examined the properties and distribution of adverbial verbs and interrogative verbs in a language sample consisting of 60 verb-initial languages from 43 genera distributed throughout the world. It furthermore investigated the hypothesis that there is a positive correlation between adverbial verbs and interrogative verbs in verb-initial languages. The hypothesis that they develop via analogy from one another was also examined. Finally, the predictions made by the theoretical explanation of adverbial verbs stating that they are derived from overtly realized heads in functional projections were tested against the language sample employed in this study. The results of this study found no positive correlation between the presence of adverbial and interrogative verbs in verb-initial languages. A positive correlation between adverbial verbs and interrogative verbs were found in Austronesian languages, suggesting that it is a genetic feature of said language family. Furthermore, no evidence was found suggesting that adverbial verbs develop via analogy from interrogative verbs, or that interrogative verbs develop via analogy from adverbial verbs. Moreover, the theoretical analysis of adverbial verbs as being derived from overtly realized heads in functional projections was corroborated by the results of this study. This study also showed that adverbial verbs are found throughout the verb-initial languages of the world and that adverbial verbs ought to be recognized as a typologically valid linguistic category. It moreover provided further empirical support for the claim that interrogative verbs constitute a genuine linguistic class. Finally, the proposal that languages with adverbial modifiers of manner realized as verbal affixes ought to be classified into the same category of languages with adverbial verbs was proposed and defended in this paper. The claim is based on the assertion that the underlying structure in both cases is the same, where adverbial modifiers of manner realized as verbal affixes are also derived from overtly realized heads in functional projections. References: Hagège, Claude (2008). Towards a typology of interrogative verbs. Linguistic Typology, 12(1), pp. 1-44. Holmer, Arthur (2012). Evidence from Formosan for a unified theory of adverb ordering. Lingua, 122(8), pp. 902-921. Li, Chao L. (2007). Adverbial verbs and argument attraction in Puyuma. Nanzan Linguistics, 3, pp.165-202 Lin, Dong Y. (2012). Interrogative verbs in Kavalan and Amis. Oceanic Linguistics, 51(1), pp.182-206.

TheepiphenomenonofwordorderArthurHolmer,LundUniversityTraditionalwordordertypologyàlaGreenbergclassifieslanguagesintermsofthebasicorderofthethreeelementsSUBJ,OBJandV,leadingto6logicallypossiblewordordertypes. However, this six-way classification obscures the fact that some word orderpatterns cut across the classification in interesting ways: SVO and VSO share typicalhead-initialproperties(commonlysimplydescribedasVO),SVOandSOVsharetypicaltopic-initialproperties (whichcouldbedescribedasNEW-GIVENorder).Object-initiallanguagestendtodisplaycertainergativeproperties.Clearly, therefore, thesix-waywordorderdistinction is theresultof the interactionofvariousdifferent factors.Thequestion iswhich factors arepotentially relevant.Whiletraditionalwordorder typologygenerally tacitlyequatesSUBJwithAGTandOBJwithPAT, these semantic roles are seldom relevant independently of purely syntacticfeatures (once exception is the Austronesian language Bunun from Taiwan, whichdisplays consistent V-AGT-PAT order regardless of the voice of the verb and thagrammaticalcaseofthearguments).In many languages, argument placement may have less to do with either argumentstructureorsyntactic functionthanwith informationstructural function.Forexample,SOVwordorderisseldomentirelystrict.WhileSOVcorrelateswithhead-finalstructure,therelativeorderofSUBJandOBJisoftendependentoninformationstructure:focusedmaterial immediatelyprecedesVwhiletopical information iseither initialor(insomelanguages)followsVP.Themirrorimagealsoobtains:inaninvestigationofwordorderofanswerstowh-questionsinsomeAustronesianlanguagesofTaiwan,itwasfoundthatreceived VOS patterns were only robust when OBJ was the questioned item.Interestingly, this is also the order generated by translation elicitation, since OBJ isprototypicallynewinformation,whereasSUBJisprototypicallygiveninformation.On the basis of this and similar facts in Basque, it will be argued that apparent OBJposition may be more than one position: either a VP-internal complement to V or adedicatedfocuspositionforNEWinformation.Itwillalsobesuggestedthatwordordertypology, to be truly useful, should not ask "Which is the basic word order in thislanguage?", but rather along the lines of, "In a contextwhere SUBJ is new andOBJ isgiven,whicharethepossible(orpredominant)wordordersinthislanguageandwhichwordordersareexcluded?".

Argumentplacering i nordiska dialekter – ett experiment Björn Lundquist, UiT och Ida Larsson, UiO De fastlandsskandinaviska språken har förändrats massivt under de senaste 1000 åren, och över lag har de olika språken och dialekterna utvecklats parallelt: OV har gått till VO, kasus och verbkongruens har försvunnit, subjekt måste vara synliga, och syntaktiska konstruktioner som kilkonstruktion, transitiva expletiver, och V-till-I-flytt saknas i stort sett helt i svenskan, norskan och danskan idag (se Vikner 1995, Holmberg & Platzack 1995 och Bobaljik & Thráinsson 1998). Däremot finner vi relativt stor variation med hänsyn till argumentsplacering, vilket illustreras med svenska exempel i 1-5 nedan. I det här avseendet uppvisar de nordiska språken skilda språkhistoriska utvecklingar.

1. Subjektsplacering visavi negation/adverb: Igår kom {bagaren/han} inte {bagaren/han} till jobbet i tid.

2. Placering av trycksvagt objektspronomen visavi negation/adverb: Läraren hjälpte {mig} inte {mig} igår.

3. Placering av trycksvagt objektspronomen visavi subjekt: Igår hjälpte {mig} läraren {mig} med läxan.

4. Placering av reflexivpronomen visavi subjekt: Igår rakade {sig} bagaren {sig} innan jobbet.

5. Placering av objekt visavi verbpartikel: Läraren satte {tavlan/den} upp {tavlan/den} på väggen.

I projektet Variasjon og endring i den nordiske verbfrasen (NFR, projektnr. 250755) genomför vi just nu en större studie över hela det nordgermanska språkområdet, där de fem syntaktiska fenomenen ovan undersöks. 10-12 dialektområden, från Färöarna i väst till Finland i öst kommer att undersökas, och vid varje mätpunkt kommer minst 20 dialekttalare delta i ett längre språkproduktionsexperiment, där konstruktionerna i 1-5 testas. Testpersonen läser högt en mening som visas på en dataskärm och är därefter ombedd att göra en syntaktisk/semantisk transformation av meningen:

I. Subjektsinversion: Läs Bagaren kom inte för sent till jobbet -> säg samma mening med adverbet först: Igår kom... bagaren inte/inte bagaren för sent till jobbet. (testar 1, 3, och 4 ovan)

II. Subjektsinversion med förändrat tempus: Läs Läraren kommer inte att hjälpa mig med läxan imorgon -> säg samma mening fast i preteritum med adverbet först: Igår hjälpte... läraren mig inte/ mig inte läraren / inte läraren mig / mig läraren inte /läraren inte mig med läxan)(testar 1, 2, 3, 4 ovan)

III. Passiv till aktiv: Läs Studenten blev utskälld av läraren igår -> säg samma sak i aktiv form: Läraren skällde {studenten} ut {studenten} igår. (test 2, 5 ovan)

Experimentet består av sammanlagt 92 meningar (vilket tar ca 15 minuter). Med denna mängd data kan vi sedan analysera variation (a) inom enskilda talare, (b) mellan talare i samma dialektområde och (c) mellan olika dialektområden. Vi kommer främst att fokusera på (I) förhållandet mellan prosodi och ordföljd, (II) preferenser för ”harmoniska” ordföljder och (III) korrelationer mellan språkprocessering och ordföljdsfrihet. Under föredraget presenterar vi preliminära resultat från Färöarna, samt från ett par svenska och norska dialektområden. Vi kan då notera fövånansvärt stor variation mellan de olika områdena, men relativt stor konsekvens inom områdena. På Färöarna placeras nominalfrassubjekt före negation, och den följden är vanlig i svenskan men förekommer i mer begränsad utsträckning i norskan. När det gäller objektskifte uppvisar svenskan också större grad av variation än färöiskan och norskan.

Fredrik Valdeson Institutionen för svenska och flerspråkighet, Stockholms universitet

Kollostruktionsanalys som mått på bitransitivitet Verb som konstrueras med två objekt går ofta under benämningen bitransitiva verb (så exem-pelvis i SAG). Beteckningen bitransitiv används även om själva argumentstrukturkonstruktion-en som sådan, inte minst inom konstruktionsgrammatisk litteratur (se t.ex. Goldberg 1995). Här uppstår lätt en viss terminologiförbistring – är bitransitivitet en egenskap hos verbet eller hos argumentstrukturkonstruktionen? Om vi bestämmer oss för att det är verben som är bitransitiva får vi genast ytterligare ett problem – hur ska denna kategori avgränsas gentemot andra verb?

I SAG (3:298) står det kort och gott att ”[v]erb med två objekt kallas bitransitiva”. Detta förefaller som en någorlunda okomplicerad definition, men framstår som mer förvirrande om vi jämför med hur SAG definierar monotransitiva respektive intransitiva verb. Intransitiva verb beskrivs som ”[v]erb som normalt inte tar objekt” medan (mono)transitiva verb är ”[v]erb som förutsätter objekt” (SAG 3:294). Där intransitivitet beskrivs som närmast ett frekvensfenomen tycks definitionen av monotransitivitet hänvisa till verbets valens. Hur den mer vaga beskriv-ningen av bitransitiva verb ska förstås blir knappast tydligare i ljuset av hur SAG definierar monotransitiva och intransitiva verb.

Att utifrån SAG:s definition av monotransitiva verb välja att se bitransitiva verb som verb som förutsätter två objekt är inte helt oproblematiskt eftersom långt ifrån alla de verb som i SAG listas som bitransitiva obligatoriskt konstrueras med två objekt. Detta gäller kanske fram-för allt de verb som ingår i betydelsegruppen Produktion, t.ex. bygga (ngn ngt) (SAG 3:317), men även vad gäller ett mer klassiskt bitransitivt verb som ge är det inte helt självklart att verbet förutsätter två objekt. I finlandssvenska är det exempelvis möjligt att konstruera verbet utan realiserad mottagare på ett sätt som klingar aningen främmande i sverigesvenska öron, vilket illustreras i (1) (hämtat från Silén 2005:334, ortografin har bearbetats något). (1) Hej Joakim, kan du ge min telefon?

Det faktum att meningar av typen i (1) är möjliga i finlandssvenska men inte i sverigesvenska inbjuder snarast till att betrakta verbet ge som mer bitransitivt i sverigesvenska än i fin-landssvenska. Enligt ett sådant synsätt skulle bitransitivitet hos ett verb alltså vara ett graduellt fenomen. I mitt föredrag vill jag pröva möjligheten att definiera bitransitivitet utifrån frekvens. Detta kommer jag att göra med hjälp av en s.k. kollostruktionsanalys (Stefanowitsch 2013). Kollostruktionsanalysen tar hänsyn till hur ofta ett visst verb förekommer i en viss konstruktion samt hur frekvent såväl verbet som konstruktionen är i övrigt. På så sätt får man fram ett mått på hur starkt associerat ett visst verb är med en viss argumentstrukturkonstruktion. Denna as-sociationsstyrka skulle i sin tur kunna ses som ett mått på hur bitransitivt ett visst verb är. Som en följd av detta resonemang torde det även vara rimligt att tala om själva argumentstruk-turkonstruktionen som en bitransitiv konstruktion, och att därmed definiera ett verbs grad av bitransitivitet utifrån hur tätt förknippat bruket av verbet är med den bitransitiva konstruktionen. Referenser: Goldberg, Adele. 1995. Constructions. A construction grammar approach to argument struc-

ture. Chicago. SAG = Ulf Teleman, Staffan Hellberg & Erik Andersson. 1999. Svenska Akademiens gramma-

tik. Stockholm. Silén, Beatrice. 2005. Dubbelt objekt eller objekt och bundet adverbial? Konstruktionsval i sve-

rigesvenska och finlandssvenska. I: G. Byrman (red.), Svenskans beskrivning 27. Växjö, 328–339.

Stefanowitsch, Anatol. 2013. Collostructional Analysis. I: T. Hoffmann & G. Trousdale (red.), The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. New York, 290–306.

Gender at the edge Halldór Ármann Sigurðsson Lund University This paper develops an analysis of Gender where D-gender enters grammar as a feature variable (edge linker), without a fixed value, either probing n or scanning the context for a value. DP-internal n-probing yields formal gender, whereas context scanning yields semantic gender (or sometimes formal gender in n-gender languages). Only the latter strategy is available in pronominal gender languages such as English, as they lack n-gender, whereas both strategies are applicable in n-gender languages, variably so for variable DPs, depending on their nP content and on context. The paper adopts the idea that context linking does not merely involve pragmatic context scanning but also has a syntactic side to it, edge computation, whereby context-scanned and recycled features are computed at the phase edge in relation to phase-internal elements, via edge linkers.

Features of Faro-Danish

Iben Nyholm Debess, Hjalmar P. Petersen & Sandra Saxov Lamhauge Faro-Danish is a typical example of what van Coetsem (2000) has labeled Source Language Agentivity, where bilingual speakers impose phonetic and morphological features onto the Recipient Language (here: Faro-Danish) from a Source Language (here: Faroese). Focus in our talk will be on the vowel values of FADA, but we will also show, which other parts of grammar are affected by Faroese. That is more specific, we will very briefly show examples with (i) inter-sentential code switching; (ii) intra-sentential code switching; (iii) convergence; (iv) nonce borrowings; (v) pronominal gender and (vi) phonological blends (Petersen, 2008; 2010: 181-237). The main focus is however on, how asymmetrical bilinguals with Faroese (FA) as their L1 and Faro-Danish (FADA) as their first L2 pronounce the Danish (DA) vowels [i:, e:, ɛ:, æ:, ø:, œ:, y:, ɔ:, u:, o:]. We investigate whether there is an interaction between the two phonetic subsystems, or if speakers use a proper Danish pronunciation, or simply impose the Faroese phonological system onto their Faro-Danish pronunciation. Building on field work on the Faroe Islands and in Copenhagen, where we recorded 16 informants, we will address the question why the recordings reveal a system, where the vowels in Faro-Danish are more open and front than the corresponding Danish vowels and more front and close than the corresponding vowels in Faroese.

Finally, we address the question, if pronunciation comes early in language acquisition, and if there is an on- and offset for learning the phonological system of L2. References Árnason, K. 2011. The Phonology of Icelandic and Faroese. Oxford University Press: Oxford. Debess, I. N., Saxov, S. E. & Thomsen, S. (2013) ”Skal jeg tale dansk, som bedstefar gør det, eller ordentligt?” - En

undersøgelse af udtale af og holdninger til dansk på Færøerne. Bachelor project. Institute for Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen.

Debess, I. N., Saxov, S. E., Thomsen, S. & Kristiansen, Tore. 2014. Holdninger blandt unge og ældre færinger til færøske måder at tale dansk på. Danske Talesprog 14, 55-93.

Debess, I. N. & Saxov, S. 2015. Undersøgelse af færingers tilegnelse af udtalen af danske fortungevokaler. Paper. University of Copenhagen.

Ejstrup, M. & Foget Hansen, G. 2004. Vowels in regional variants of Danish. Proceedings Fonetik, Dep. of Linguistics Stocholm University.

Grønnum, N. 2005. Fonetik og Fonologi - Almen og Dansk.Akademisk forlag: København. Jakobsen, J. 1891. Lydskriftsprøver. Færøsk Anthologi. S.L. Møllers Bogtrykkeri: Copenhagen. Petersen, H. P. 2000. Mátingar av sjálvljóðum í føroyskum. Málting 28: 37-43. Petersen, H. P. 2008. Væk af vejen. Konge skrejen: Gøtudanskt or Dano-Faroese. RASK 28: 43-53. Petersen, H. P. 2010. The Dynamics of Faroese-Danish Language Contact. Universitätsverlag Winter: Heidelberg. Rischel, J.. 1964. Towards the Phonetic Description of Faroese Vowels. Fróðskaparrit 13: 99-113. Saxov, S. Eyðfinsdóttir. 2016. En undersøgelse af udtalen i færødansk og gøtudansk i to generationer. MA thesis. Institute

for Nordic Studies and Linguistics. Univerisity of Copenhagen: Copenhagen. van Coetsem, F.. 2000. A General and Unified Theory of the Transmission Process in Language Contact (Universitätsverlag

Winter: Heidelberg.

Declarative knowledge of Swedish children on English third person singular –s

Vi Thanh Son - Lund University

One of the most discussed topics in second language acquisition (SLA) research is the role of explicit grammar rules. Should grammar rules be taught? While some researchers (e.g Anderson, 1983, 1985; Krashen 1982, 1985) argue that grammar instruction has little place in second language acquisition, others claim that instruction of grammar rules is necessary to promote language learning (e.g. DeKeyser, 1995; Doughty, 1991; R. Ellis, 2006, 2015; Robinson, 1995, 1996; Spada & Lightbown, 1993). This paper is a part of my on-going thesis which investigates teaching practices and the learning outcomes for young language learners of English at grade 5. In this paper, I am going to present the learner outcomes in term of the Swedish children’s declarative knowledge (N. 44) on the third person singular –s (3-sg-s) in English. Declarative knowledge was investigated by means of a metalinguistic task (acceptability judgement) where learners chose appropriate answers and were asked to explain the reasons for their choices by referring to grammatical rules. The results show that most of them gave different rules for 3-sg-s and in many cases, they appeared to believe that the suffix ‘s’ was both a plural marker for nouns and for verbs (but not a singular marker for verbs). The same was found in Malmberg et al. (2000). The answers and rules given by the young learners, and the implication of teaching practices on learner outcomes will be further discussed.

The Norwegian PRO: Referent Reactivation in Control and Raising Structures

Tori Larsen & Christer Johansson

University of Bergen

Syntactic theory contains theory-internal constructs developed to satisfy the demands of a model or a theory. A prime example is empty categories. Our research focuses on the empty categories of control and raising sentence constructions. The distinction between PRO and an NP trace has been debated (Chomsky 1993, Martin 2001), and recently PRO-less theories of control have been developed (Hornstein 1999, Janke 2008).

We present our findings on reactivation patterns in control sentences. We used priming of picture recognition. Control constructions were compared with a similar syntactic construction: raising sentences. We presented a timed reading sequence of sentences presented word by word. The position before the infinitive marker is the predicted position to find effects related to either PRO or a trace. The position after the infinitive marker is where we suspect the reader will first notice the empty category. We show one image per sentence presentation in one of the two positions and ask the subject to recognize if the written equivalent of the image was present previously in the sentence or not. We introduce a total of five different sentence constructions and eight images throughout the experiment. The positive and negative decisions, where pictures were unrelated to the lexical material, were balanced. We analyze the control and raising constructions separately. Raising sentences in Norwegian are complicated for subject-to-object raising. We sampled a total of 64 native speakers of Norwegian, but two were excluded based on poor task compliance.

Our findings show that control sentences, especially subject control, tend to display reactivation effects after the infinitive marker and subject-to-subject raising displays greater reactivation effects before the infinitive maker. We will present some insights on experiment design and detection of reactivation effects. Our research takes an important step towards testing the implication of empty categories on linguistic processing.

References

Chomsky, N. (1993). Lectures on Government and Binding: the Pisa Lectures (7 ed.). Studies in Generative Grammar. Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-014131-0.

Hornstein, N. (1999). Movement and control. Linguistic Inquiry 30(1), 69–96.

Janke, V. (2008). Control without a subject. Lingua 118(1), 82–118, DOI:10.1016/j.lingua.2007.05.002.

Martin, R. (2001). Null case and the distribution of pro. Linguistic Inquiry 32(1), 141–166, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4179140.

Ease of Learning New Grammar is Associated With a Thicker Cortex in Broca’s Area

MikaelNovénCentreforLanguagesandLiterature,LundUniversity

InordertounderstandandfacilitatelanguagelearningitisimportanttoseekanswerstowhypeoplestruggletodifferentdegreeswhenitcomestoL2acquisition.Theanatomyofthecerebralcortexislikelytobeofimportancetoskillsfundamentaltolanguagelearningbuttheassociationsbetweencorticalthicknessandlanguagelearningaptitudehaveremainedunknown.Theeasewithwhichpeoplelearnnewlanguagescanbeassessedinlanguagelearningaptitudetests(Carroll&Sapon,1959).OneimportantimplementationofsuchtestaretheLLAMAtestswhicharecomputer-basedandL1independent(Meara,2005).Proficiencyinpitchperceptionisknowntofacilitatetheabilitytoperceiveandproducenewphonologicalpatterns(Posedel,Emery,Souza,&Fountain,2011;Slevc&Miyake,2006).Theworkreportedonhereassessedthelanguagelearningaptitudeandpitchperceptionof44healthyright-handedvolunteerswithnormalhearingusingtheLLAMAtestsandanin-housedevelopedpitchperceptiontest,respectively.WeshowedapositivecorrelationbetweenaptitudeforlearningforeigngrammarandthecorticalthicknessofBroca’sareaandotherfrontalareas.Moreover,wefoundthatpitchdiscrimination,ofimportanceforlanguagelearning,isassociatedwithathinnercortexintheright-hemisphericBrocahomologue.Thefindingsareofimportancetounderstandwhatneuroanatomicaltraitsinfluencehowthebrainperceivesandincorporatesnewlinguisticinformation.REFERENCESCarroll,J.B.,&Sapon,S.(1959).Modernlanguageaptitudetest.SanAntonio:TX:PsychologicalCorporation.Meara,P.(2005).LLAMALanguageAptitudeTests:TheManual).UniversityofWalesSwansea:_lognostics.Posedel,J.,Emery,L.,Souza,B.,&Fountain,C.(2011).Pitchperception,workingmemory,andsecond-languagephonologicalproduction.PsychologyofMusic,40(4),508-517.Slevc,L.R.,&Miyake,A.(2006).IndividualDifferencesinSecond-LanguageProficiency.PsychologicalScience,17(8),675-681.

Quantifying expressions and interpretation in Swedish – a semantic plausibility studyEva Klingvall and Fredrik Heinat

Anaphoric reference to quantifying expressions has been investigated in English (see e.g. Moxey and

Sandford, 1987; Sanford et al., 1996; Paterson et al., 1998; Moxey et al., 2001; Moxey, 2006; Filik et al.,

2011), but much less so in Swedish. In this talk we report the results from a semantic plausibility study

targeting such structures in Swedish.

The sentences in (1) and (2) both say that a small number of students fell asleep in the lecture, but

the sentences di↵er in what type of quantifier is used – nagra (‘some’) is a positive quantifier (upward

entailing) while fa (‘few’) is a negative quantifier (downward entailing) (Peters and Westerstahl, 2006).

(1) Nagra

some

studenter

students

somnade

fell asleep

pa

in

f

¨

orel

¨

asningen.

the lecture

(2) Fa

few

studenter

students

somnade

fell asleep

pa

in

f

¨

orel

¨

asningen.

the lecture

When referring back to ‘the students’ in (1) and (2) using sentences such as (3) and (4), a di↵erence in

which students are referred to can be detected. (1) is naturally followed by (3), which talks about the

students who fell asleep (the reference set), while (2) is naturally followed by (4), which talks about the

students who didn’t fall asleep (the complement set) (e.g. Moxey and Sandford, 1987). Using (3) as a

continuation for (2), instead, is possible (for some speakers), while (4) makes less sense following (1).

(3) De

they

var

were

sa

so

tr

¨

otta

tired

efter

after

gardagens

yesterday’s

fest.

party

(4) De

they

var

were

sa

so

fascinerade

fascinated

av

by

¨

amnet.

the topic

In a semantic plausibility study, we investigated whether quantified expressions gave rise to reference

set or complement set interpretations in Swedish. The material was manipulated along two dimensions:

positive vs negative quantifier (nagra vs fa in (5)), and refset vs compset targeting disambiguating

adjective (duktiga vs daliga in (5)). The quantifiers included were: nagra (‘some’), fa (‘few’), manga(‘many’), inte manga (‘not many’), alla (‘all’), inga (‘no’), nastan alla (‘almost all’), inte alla’ (‘not all’).

(5) Nagra/Fa

some/few

studenter

students

skrev

wrote

bra

well

pa

on

tentan

exam

igar

yesterday

och

and

att

that

de

they

var

were

sa

so

duktiga/daliga

good/bad

f

¨

orbryllade

confused

professorn.

the-professor

The results were that positive quantifiers with anaphoric reference to the compset were judged as

anomalous, and negative quantifiers with anaphoric reference to the refset were judged as anomalous,

although there was more variation with regard to the negative ones. No systematic variation between

participants was detected. This is largely in line with the studied of English.

ReferenserFilik, Ruth, Hartmut Leuthold, Linda M. Moxey, and Anthony J. Sanford. 2011. Anaphoric reference to quantified antecedents: An event-related brain

potential study. Neuropsychologia 49:3786–3794.

Moxey, Linda M. 2006. Effects of what is expected on the focussing properties of quantifiers: A test of the presupposition-denial account. Journal of

Memory and Language 55:422–439.

Moxey, Linda M., and Anthony J. Sandford. 1987. Quantifiers and focus. Journal of semantics 5:189–206.

Moxey, Linda M., Anthony J. Sandford, and E. Dawydiak. 2001. Denials as controllers of negative quantifier focus. Journal of memory & language 44:427–442.

Nouwen, Rick. 2010. What’s in a quantifier? In The linguistics enterprise: from knowledge of language to knowledge in linguistics, ed. Martin Everaert, Tom Lentz,Hannah de Mulder, Øystein Nilsen, and Arjen Zondervan, 235–256. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Paterson, Kevin B., Anthony J. Sanford, Linda M. Moxey, and Eugene Dawydiak. 1998. Quantifier polarity and referential focus during reading. Journal

of Memory and Language 39:290–306.

Peters, Stanley, and Dag Westerstahl. 2006. Quantifiers in language and logic. Oxford University Press.

Sanford, Anthony J., Linda M. Moxey, and Kevin B. Paterson. 1996. Attentional focusing with quantifiers in production and comprehension. Memory &

Cognition 24:144–155.

Tsai, C.-Y. Edwin, Gregory Scontras, Kenneth Mai, and Maria Polinsky. 2014. Prohibiting inverse scope: An experimental study of Chinese vs. English.In Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics 10 , ed. Christopher Pinon, 305–322. Paris: CSSP.

1

Presenteringssatser i den fantastiska grammatiken

Elisabet Engdahl

I Den fantastiska grammatiken (2010) utvecklar Christer Platzack en detaljerad argumentstruktur för svenskan (se särskilt kap. 5). Han antar, med många andra, att en svensk sats kan innehålla högst tre DP (direkta argument) som förbinds i tre olika positioner, beroende på vilken tematisk roll argumentet har i satsen: som Tema förbinds det som komplement till roten, som Mottagare förbinds det som specifierare till rotfrasen och som Agent som specifierare till vP (s. 171ff.). En fördel med den föreslagna analysen är att den kan till stor del förklara vilka presenteringssatser (p-satser) som är möjliga i svenska.

(1) Det har försvunnit ett viktigt papper från mitt skrivbord. (SAG 3:385)

(2) * Det har skrivit någon en artikel om detta.

(1) är en möjlig p-sats där Temat ett viktigt papper står kvar i rotfrasen. (2) är däremot inte möjlig eftersom Agent-argumentet till skrivit måste förbindas som specifierare till vP, vilket betyder att det inte finns någon plats för det expletiva det. Däremot går det bra att förbinda en Mottagare i specifieraren till rotfrasen samtidigt som det finns ett Tema i komplementet:

(3) Det hände honom något konstigt igår. (Platzack 1983 (31a))

(4) Det hade tilldelats honom en belöning. (Platzack 1983 (29a))

Mottagarrollen är egentligen en familj av roller (Platzack 2010:76) som även inkluderar Upplevare. Följaktligen borde man vänta sig att (5) och (6) skulle vara möjliga p-satser.

(5) * Det fruktade en man ett jordskalv. (Maling 1988: (11c))

(6) * I natt frös det några barn i lägret.

Som Maling (1988) och Zaenen et al. (2017) visar finns det flera tematiska restriktioner på argumenten i p-satser. I föredraget diskuterar jag några sådana restriktioner i förhållande till Platzacks föreslagna argumentstruktur.

Referenser

Maling, Joan (1988) Variations on a Theme: Existential sentences in Icelandic and Swedish. McGill Working Papers in Linguistics (Special Issue on Comparative Germanic Syntax). 160–190.

Platzack, Christer (1983) Existential Sentences in English, Swedish, German and Icelandic. In Karlsson, F. (ed) Papers from the Seventh Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics. Helsinki, 80–100.

Platzack, Christer (2010) Den fantastiska grammatiken. En minimalistisk beskrivning av svenskan. Stockholm: Norstedts.

Zaenen, Annie, Elisabet Engdahl & Joan Maling (2017) Subject properties in presentational sentences in Icelandic and Swedish. In Rosén, V. & K. De Smedt (eds) The very model of a modern linguist: In honor of Helge Dyvik. BeLLS 8, Bergen.