The presentational focus construction in Norwegian can have an agent in object position, as in Det arbeidet en mann i skogen ‘It worked a man in the-woods”. This creates problems for linking theory, in which a robust generalization says that agents are not realized as objects. Optimality Theory makes possible a new approach to this classical problem in Scandinavian generative grammar. The constraint that agents are not realized as objects must compete with other constraints. In Norwegian, it is ranked below a requirement that a presentational focus must be realized in object position. The Norwegian situation is compared to languages with different constraint rankings.

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The purpose of this article is to show that Norwegian has complex predicates, in which two verbs are reanalyzed as one predicate in a monoclausal structure, comparable to complex predicates that have been proposed for other languages. The central evidence comes from the construction called the long passive, in which the subject of the first verb is typically the patient of the second verb. Norwegian long passives often have passive morphology on both verbs, and I consider this a case of verbal feature agreement. The article also discusses evidence for complex predicates from active sentences.

This article argues that the complex reflexive in Norwegian has a wider distribution than is usually assumed in the literature (for example, Hellan 1988). Both simple and complex reflexives are used in the local domain, which must be defined as the minimal clause. The simple reflexive is used when the physical aspect of the referent of the binder is in focus. It is seen as an inalienable denoting the body of the referent of the binder. Its distribution follows an independently established binding principle for inalienables, while the complex reflexive is an elsewhere form.

Pseudocoordinations (for example sitte og skrive`sit and write') look like coordinations, but do not have the syntactic properties of coordinations. Their analysis is a classical problem in Scandinavian grammar. In this article, it is argued that pseudocoordinations are not a unitary phenomenon; different first verbs take different constructions. Most pseudocoordinations are control constructions. The syntactic differences between pseudocoordination control constructions and ordinary control constructions are discussed, and shown to follow from the control theory of Lexical-Functional Grammar. Not all pseudocoordinations are control constructions, however. There are also pseudocoordinations that are raising constructions, and pseudocoordinations that are monoclausal. 1