Lexical‐Functional Grammar: Functional Structure

Lødrup, Helge

doi:10.1002/9781444395037.ch4

Cited by 3 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…a contrastive or continued topic is determined by the content and phonological realization of that phrase together with a model of the information states of the discourse participants (Engdahl 2001, 2006; Ginzburg 2012). I believe that this is a more transparent approach, which is compatible with several syntactic frameworks such as Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (Pollard & Sag 1994; Sag, Wasow & Bender 2003), Lexical-Functional Grammar (Bresnan 2001; Dalrymple 2001; Lødrup 2011) and the Simpler Syntax approach proposed by Culicover & Jackendoff (2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 59%

Optional expletive subjects in Swedish

Engdahl¹

2012

Nord J Linguist

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This article investigates the use of non-referential subjects in contemporary Swedish. Given that Swedish has developed a strong subject requirement, expletive subjects are expected to be used in all clauses which lack a referential subject. In spoken Swedish, however, expletive and quasi-argument subjects are optional in utterances where there is an initial det ‘it’ which is linked to an empty position inside a finite or non-finite complement. The paper establishes that there are certain similarities between these examples and tough constructions but that the examples involving finite complements cannot be subsumed under a predication analysis which seems appropriate for the tough cases. Based on a number of authentic recorded examples, I discuss the processing of utterances with fronted anaphoric pronouns and point to certain similarities with parasitic gaps. The paper closes with a comparison with other Germanic languages.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 59%

Optional expletive subjects in Swedish

Engdahl¹

2012

Nord J Linguist

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“…A somewhat different pattern is reported for Western Oslo: According to Lødrup 2011b, feminine forms such as mi ‘my’ are not used in prenominal position, as in 5a, but they are retained in postnominal possessives, illustrated in 5b. Importantly, postnominal mi as well as di and si forms can only appear immediately adjacent to an overt noun with the (traditionally feminine) definite suffix - a .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…In traditional three-gender dialects, there is only one other unambiguously feminine category, the possessive, which may be either pre- or postnominal. According to recent analyses, pre- and postnominal possessives differ in that only the former are exponents of gender (Lødrup 2011b, Svenonius 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For this reason, the postnominal possessive is also the more frequent construction, making up approximately 75% of all possessives in spontaneous production (Anderssen & Westergaard 2010). An in-depth investigation of the properties of Norwegian pre- and postnominal possessives offered in Lødrup 2011b emphasizes the strong-weak pronominal distinction, where pre- and postnominal possessives are shown to have properties of strong and weak pronouns, respectively. For the discussion of gender presented below it is important to keep in mind that postnominal possessives always, without exception, immediately follow a noun with the definite suffix.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lødrup (2011b) argues that the - a and mi/di/si forms in postnominal possessives in Western Oslo have no relation to feminine gender. According to Lødrup, they are bound morphemes that are not constrained through agreement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Grammatical Gender and Declension Class in Language Change: A Study of the Loss of Feminine Gender in Norwegian

Rodina

Westergaard

2021

J Ger Ling

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In this paper, we investigate an ongoing change in the grammatical gender system of Norwegian. Previous research has shown that the feminine form of the indefinite article is quickly disappearing from several dialects, which has led to claims that the feminine gender is being lost from the language. We have carried out a study of the status of the feminine in possessives across five age groups of speakers of the Tromsø dialect. Our findings show that the prenominal possessives are affected by the change to the same extent as the indefinite article, while forms that have been argued not to be exponents of gender (the definite suffix and the postnominal possessive) are generally unaffected.

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Cataphora, expletives and impersonal constructions in the history of Icelandic

Booth

2019

Nord J Linguist

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This paper presents a diachronic account for the emergence of the expletive það in Icelandic impersonal constructions. Using data from the IcePaHC corpus (Wallenberg et al. 2011), I show that a cataphorically referential það functions as a topic position placeholder in Old Icelandic (1150-1350) in impersonals with a clausal argument. The corpus findings indicate that það spread from this early cataphoric context to impersonals which lack the clausal argument, with ‘say-type predicates’ acting as a bridging context. Strikingly, this coincides with another change whereby cataphoric það becomes increasingly restricted to the topic position in constructions with a clausal subject. I interpret this as evidence that cataphoric það is losing its subject status in such contexts and becoming a topic position placeholder, in line with its function in impersonals. This sheds light on the mixed status of cataphoric það in modern Icelandic and challenges the ‘Prefinite First Hypothesis’ for the diachrony of Germanic expletives (e.g. Faarlund 1990).

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Lexical‐Functional Grammar: Functional Structure

Cited by 3 publications

References 21 publications

Optional expletive subjects in Swedish

Optional expletive subjects in Swedish

Grammatical Gender and Declension Class in Language Change: A Study of the Loss of Feminine Gender in Norwegian

Cataphora, expletives and impersonal constructions in the history of Icelandic

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