Decomposing manner how in colloquial Scandinavian*

Abstract

The shape of manner how varies to considerable extent across Scandinavian dialects, and many of them quite clearly have a complex internal structure. This paper investigates the internal structure of these many forms, and it will be argued that all forms of complex manner how can be derived from just two abstract templates. Furthermore, it will be shown that the complex forms of manner how unlike the simplex ones interact with other wh-items morpologically speaking: the wh-part will always be identical to the degree wh-item in the various varieties, which in turn will be identical in form to either where or what. The few simplex forms that exist are identical to degree how, but do not share internal structure (apart from wh-) with other wh-items. Moreover, many of the complex forms of manner how are also used as determiners, and a comparison with complex wh-determiners will reveal that at a certain level of abstraction such wh-items share important parts of structure.

The polyfunctionality of which in Övdalian

“…On a comparative note, those speakers of Standard Swedish that I have consulted seem to prefer hur over hurdan in such questions and tend to regard hurdan as an item belonging to a more formal and/or literary register. It is worthwhile mentioning this fact since other varieties of North Germanic have distinct items for and , and in such cases it will always be the item which is used in queries, and which in some varieties also may span some of the nominal functions discussed above for ukin (see Vangsnes 2008aVangsnes , 2008cVangsnes , 2013 for further details). We will return to this below.…”

“…As discussed in Vangsnes (2008aVangsnes ( , 2008bVangsnes ( , 2008cVangsnes ( , 2013 in Norwegian dialects and colloquial Icelandic the item used in and questions can also be used adnominally. Furthermore, in some dialects the adnominal use is compatible with just interpretations (e.g.…”

“…For more information about the internal structure and external distribution of Swedish hur(u)dan, see Vangsnes (2008aVangsnes ( , 2008b). …”

The status ofhwætin Old English

“…Interestingly, the sets of meanings contributed by the interrogative pronouns in these (not very closely related) languages do not appear to differ arbitrarily but instead intersect in several key ways. Firstly, in all three of these languages the interrogative pronoun can be used nonargumentally to mean 'why' or 'how' in questions, as in examples (10) Such non-argumental uses of interrogative pronouns can also be found in Dutch, some varieties of Norwegian (Vangsnes 2008), and the early Celtic languages (Lewis & Pedersen 1937: 226-9 (Munaro & Obenauer 1999: 211) Dutch also permits exclamatives using the interrogative pronoun wat, as in (20) , cannot be ruled out, as there are many cases of such homophony throughout attested human languages: indeed, it seems plausible that this is the case with the Old English adjective hwaet 'quick, active, vigorous, stout, bold, brave', which is generally agreed not to be related to the interrogative pronoun hwaet but to the verb hwettan 'to whet' (see, e.g., Bosworth & Toller 1898, s.v. hwaet, 2).…”

What kind of Scandinavian? On interrogative noun phrases across North Germanic

“…These are just a few of a great multitude of forms (see the entry for korleis in Norsk Ordbok, vol. 6), but importantly, as discussed in Vangsnes (2008a), most of the many forms can be related to just two abstract morphological templates, one which involves an incorprated direction noun (cf. English what way) and another which involves the formative -dan, arguably a borrowing of the past participle of 'do' in Low German.…”