Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T07:57:49.588Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Full NP Object Shift: The Old Norse Puzzle and the Faroese Puzzle revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2013

Höskuldur Thráinsson
Höskuldur Thráinsson*
Affiliation:
Department of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Iceland, IS 101 Reykjavík, Iceland. hoski@hi.is, uni.hi.is/hoski
Get access

Abstract

This paper argues that there is no reason to believe that full NP Object Shift (NPOS) was not found in Old Norse (Old Icelandic) nor that it is more common in Modern Icelandic than in earlier stages of the language. In addition, it is claimed that NPOS is also an option in Modern Faroese, contrary to common belief, although it is much more restricted in Faroese than in Icelandic. These results demonstrate the usefulness of systematic corpus studies while at the same time reminding us of their limits. In addition, they shed a new light on the status of Faroese among the Scandinavian languages and on the nature of intra-speaker variation and grammar competition.

Keywords

Faroesegrammar competitionIcelandicintra-speaker variationObject ShiftOld NorseScandinaviantreebanks
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 36 , Special Issue 2: Object Shift in the Nordic Languages , October 2013 , pp. 153 - 186
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

Andréasson, Maia. 2010. Object Shift or object placement in general? In Butt, Miriam & King, Tracy Holloway (eds.), Proceedings of the LFG10 Conference, 26–42. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Angantýsson, Ásgrímur. 2011. The Syntax of Embedded Clauses in Icelandic and Related Languages. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iceland.Google Scholar
Árnason, Kristján. 1996. How to meet the European standard: Word stress in Faroese and Icelandic. Nordlyd 24, 1–22.Google Scholar
Árnason, Kristján. 2011. The Phonology of Icelandic and Faroese. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, Michael. 1992. Faroese syntax: Achievenemts, goals, and problems. In Louis-Jensen, Jonna & Poulsen, Jóhan Hendrik W. (eds.), The Nordic Languages and Modern Linguistics 7, 17–37. Tórshavn Føroya Fróðskaparfelag.Google Scholar
Bentzen, Kristine, Garbacz, Piotr, Heycock, Caroline & Hrafnbjargarson, Gunnar Hrafn. 2009. On variation in Faroese verb placement. Nordlyd 36 (2), 78–102. [NORMS Papers on Faroese]Google Scholar
Collins, Chris & Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 1996. VP-internal structure and Object Shift in Icelandic. Linguistic Inquiry 27 (3), 391–444.Google Scholar
de Hoop, Helen. 1990. Restrictions on existential sentences and Object Scrambling: Some facts from Dutch. 9th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 9), 277–288.Google Scholar
de Hoop, Helen. 1992. Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Groningen, Groningen. [Published 1996 by Garland, New York.]Google Scholar
Diesing, Molly. 1996. Semantic variables and Object Shift. In Thráinsson, Höskuldur, Epstein, Samuel David & Peter, Steve (eds.), Studies in Comparative Germanic Syntax, vol. II (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory), 66–84. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diesing, Molly. 1997. Yiddish VP order and the typology of object movement in Germanic. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 15, 369–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diesing, Molly & Jelinek, Eloise. 1993. The syntax and semantics of Object Shift. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 51, 1–54.Google Scholar
Diesing, Molly & Jelinek, Eloise. 1995. Distributing arguments. Natural Language Semantics 3, 123–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engels, Eva & Vikner, Sten. 2007. Object Shift, Scrambling, and Optimality Theory. Ms., University of Aarhus.Google Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi. 2005. Sound patterns of syntax: Object Shift. Theoretical Linguistics 31, 47–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garbacz, Piotr. 2009. Issues in Övdalian Syntax. Ph.D. dissertation, Lund University.Google Scholar
Haugan, Jens. 2000. Old Norse Word Order and Information Structure. Ph.D. dissertation, NTNU, Trondheim.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline, Sorace, Antonella, Hansen, Zakaris Svabo, Wilson, Frances & Vikner, Sten. 2012. Detecting the late stages of syntactic change: The loss of V-to-T in Faroese. Language 88 (3), 558–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 1986. Word Order and Syntactic Features in the Scandinavian Languages and English. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Stockholm.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 1997. The true nature of Holmberg's Generalization. NELS 27, 203–217.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 1999. Remarks on Holmberg's Generalisation. Studia Linguistica 53, 1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, Anders & Platzack, Christer. 1991. On the role of inflection in Scandinavian syntax. In Abraham, Werner, Kosmeijer, Wim & Reuland, Eric (eds.), Issues in Germanic Syntax, 93–118. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders & Platzack, Christer. 1995. The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Íslensk orðtíðnibók [Icelandic frequency dictionary]. 1991. Editor Jörgen Pind. Co-ediors Friðrik Magnússon & Stefán Briem. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.Google Scholar
Jónsson, Jóhannes Gísli & Eythórsson, Thórhallur. 2005. Variation and change in subject case marking in Insular Scandinavian. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 28 (2), 223–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jónsson, Jóhannes Gísli & Eythórsson, Thórhallur. 2011. Structured exceptions and case selection in Insular Scandinavian. In Wiese, Heike & Simon, Horst (eds.), Expecting the Unexpected: Exceptions in Grammar, 213–242. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroch, Anthony S. 1989. Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Variation and Change 1, 199–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lockwood, William B. 1977. An Introduction to Modern Faroese. Tórshavn: Føroya Skúlabókagrunnur. [First published 1955, reprinted by Føroya Skúlabókagrunnur 2002.]Google Scholar
Mason, L. 1999. Object Shift in Old Norse. MA thesis, University of York.Google Scholar
Nilsen, Øystein. 1997. Adverbs and A-shift. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 59, 1–31.Google Scholar
Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur & Helgadóttir, Sigrún. 2011. Morphosyntactic tagging of Old Icelandic texts and its use in studying syntactic variation and change. Sporleder, Caroline, van den Bosch, Antal & Zervanou, Kalliopi A. (eds.), Language Technology for Cultural Heritage: Selected Papers from the LaTeCH Workshop Series, Theory and Applications of Natural Language Processing, 63–76. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Ingason, Anton Karl, Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr & Wallenberg, Joel. 2011. Creating a dual-purpose treebank. Journal for Language Technology and Computational Linguistics 26 (2), 141–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sundquist, John D. 2002. Object Shift and Holmberg's Generalization in the history of Norwegian. In Lightfoot, David W. (ed.), Syntactic Effects of Morphological Change, 326–347. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2001. Object Shift and Scrambling. In Baltin, Mark & Collins, Chris (eds.), The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory, 148–202. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2007. The Syntax of Icelandic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2009. Looking for parametric correlations within Faroese. Nordlyd 36 (2), 1–24. [NORMS Papers on Faroese]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2010a. Variation and parametric correlations in Faroese. Ms., University of Iceland.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2010b. Predictable and unpredictable sources of variable verb and adverb placement in Scandinavian. Lingua 120 (5), 1062–1088.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2013. Ideal speakers and other speakers: The case of dative and some other cases. In Fernández, Beatriz & Etxepare, Ricardo (eds.), Variation in Datives: A Microcomparative Perspective, 161–188. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur, Petersen, Hjalmar P., í Lon Jacobsen, Jógvan & Hansen, Zakaris Svabo. 2012. Faroese: A Handbook and Reference Grammar, 2nd edn.Tórshavn: Faroe University Press & Reykjavík: Linguistic Institute, University of Iceland. [Originally published 2004.]Google Scholar
Vikner, Sten. 1994. Scandinavian Object Shift and West Germanic Scrambling. In Corver, Norbert & van Riemsdijk, Henk (eds.), Studies on Scrambling, 487–517. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vikner, Sten. 1997. The interpretation of Object Shift, Optimality Theory and Minimalism. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 60, 1–24.Google Scholar
Vikner, Sten. 2001. The interpretation of Object Shift and Optimality Theory. In Müller, Gereon & Sternefeld, Wolfgang (eds.), Competition in Syntax, 321–340. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vikner, Sten. 2005. Object Shift. In van Riemsdijk, Henk & Everaert, Martin (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Syntax, 392–436. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Yang, Charles. 2002. Knowledge and Learning in Natural Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Yang, Charles. 2004. Universal Grammar, statistics or both? Trends in Cognitive Sciences 8 (10), 451–456.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yang, Charles. 2010. Three factors in language variation. Lingua 120 (5), 1160–1177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar