Object shift in Scandinavian languages: The impact of contrasted elements

The article discusses the placement of the VP anaphor det 'it' as a complement of verbs selecting VP complements in Danish. With verbs that only allow a VP complement, the VP anaphor must be in SpecCP regardless of its information structure properties. If SpecCP is occupied by an operator, the anaphor can be in situ, but it cannot shift. With verbs that allow its VP complement to alternate with an NP complement, the VP anaphor can be in SpecCP, shifted or in situ according to the information structural properties of the anaphor. Only if SpecCP is occupied by an operator, must a topical anaphor be in situ. The article argues that a shifted pronominal in Danish must be categorially licensed by the verb and extends this analysis to shifting locatives. An Optimality Theory analysis is proposed that accounts for the observed facts. . boe.ibc@cbs.dk * Consider next, in Tableaux 4a-c, the verb savne 'to miss' in the very same environments. This verb allows an NP complement. For the verb savne 'to miss', the constraint VP-CAN does not take effect since the VP anaphor is a canonical complement. The constraint OP-SPC, however, takes effect to prevent a topical VP anaphor from being in SpecCP. A topical VP anaphor goes into the in-situ position to

Section: Towards An Ot Analysis Of the Placement Of Vp Anaphorsmentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

VP anaphors and Object Shift: What do VP anaphors reveal about the licensing conditions for Object Shift in Danish?

Ørsnes¹

2013

“…See also Andréasson, Engdahl & Lindahl (2013) and Bentzen (2013) for other studies of OS based on this corpus.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Object Shift in spoken Mainland Scandinavian: A corpus study of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish

Bentzen¹,

Anderssen²,

Waldmann³

2013

Abstract. Recent work on object shift (OS) suggests that this is not as uniform an operation as traditionally assumed. In this paper, we examine OS in the spontaneous speech of adults in large Danish, Norwegian and Swedish child language corpora in order to explore variation with respect to OS across these three languages. We also evaluate our results against three recent strands of accounts of OS, namely a prosodic/phonological account, an account in terms of cognitive status, and an account in terms of information structure. The results show that there is both withinlanguage and across-language variation in the application of OS, and that the three accounts can explain some of our data. However, all accounts are faced with challenges, especially when explaining exceptional cases.

“…This prediction is borne out. In contrast, Andréasson (2010, 2013 this volume) points out that occurrence of an object pronoun in shifted and non-shifted position is influenced by its cognitive status: There is a weak correlation between whether a pronominal object shifts or not and whether this pronominal object has a nominal antecedent or a propositional antecedent; see (i). However, what is important is that both unstressed pronouns with a nominal antecedent as well as ones with a propositional antecedent may occur in shifted and non-shifted position in Swedish (see Andréasson 2008).…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Object Shift and remnant VP-topicalisation: Danish and Swedish verb particles and ‘let’-causatives

Engels¹,

Vikner²

2013

On the basis of an examination of remnant VP-topicalisation constructions, this paper argues for an order preservation analysis of Scandinavian Object Shift. Extending the empirical database, we account for the phenomena in an Optimality Theoretic framework. The paper focusses on two particular constructions in Danish and Swedish, namely particle verb constructions and causative constructions with Danish lade and Swedish låta ‘let’. It is shown how differences in the VP-internal object position give rise to mirror image sequences concerning Object Shift in connection with verb second (V°-to-I°-to-C° movement) and with remnant VP-topicalisation.