Some notes on word order and interpretation in Dutch and Finnish

Abstract

Dutch is typically known to allow scrambling. Finnish on the other hand has a flexible word order. Even though the two languages differ in many aspects and Finnish does not have scrambling in the sense of an alternation between an adverb and an object, we suggest that the relation between word order and interpretation observed in the two languages is similar. On the basis of new empirical data from Finnish, we show that in both Dutch and Finnish movement of the direct object from its base-position to a noncanonical position in the middle field is related to discourse anaphoricity. IntroductionDutch has a rather rigid word order, but it does allow scrambling. Following Van Gelderen (2003) -but contra e.g. Hopp (2007) -we take scrambling in Dutch to be the alternation between a (sentential) adverb and an object (thus excluding dative shift or PP-movement across an adverb). Finnish, on the other hand, has a relatively free word order. It is a discourse-configurational language (Vilkuna 1989(Vilkuna , 1995, in the sense that word order is mainly driven by discourse considerations. Although Finnish does not seem to show scrambling as in Dutch, the aim of this paper is to show that the relation between word order and interpretation in Finnish is highly similar to the relation between word order and interpretation that is found in Dutch scrambling with full noun phrases. To capture the Finnish word order data in relation to the Dutch scrambling data, a broader definition of the notion scrambling is assumed. That is, we take scrambling in the broad sense to indicate movement of the direct object (DO) to a noncanonical position in the middle field of the clause, and we show that scrambling in the broad sense has the same effect on interpretation in both Dutch and Finnish, namely a D-linked interpretation of the scrambled object.

The movement to SpecFinP in Finnish

“…Movement of the subject b. Movement of the object argument I propose relying on the previous research on the derivation of OV order in Finnish, that scrambling to the edge of vP in (20b) is triggered by discourse anaphoricity (Boef & Dal Pozzo 2012see also Vilkuna 19892014;Kaiser & Trueswell 2004). The following section discusses the derivation of OV order in Finnish as presented in the previous literature.…”

“…Along the same lines, Boef & Dal Pozzo (2012) propose that the object is base-generated to the complement of the verb and has to stay in-situ when it expresses new information. 12 In addition, they connect the movement of the object with discourse anaphoricity.…”

“…However, in order for the object argument to be selected for the EPP, it has to first move from the complement of V to the edge of vP (or a higher position), where it is reachable by the EPP. This movement is assumed to be scrambling, triggered among others by discourse anaphoricity (e.g., Boef & Dal Pozzo 2012;Jokilehto 2017).…”

“…The prosodic emphasis is this time not indicated in the examples, since there are several options to prosodically emphasise different elements and more research is needed to establish their information structural status. 14 For a comparison between Finnish scrambling and scrambling in Dutch and other Germanic languages seeHolmberg (2000);Boef & Dal Pozzo (2012);Schmidt (2016).Acta Linguistica Academica 66, 2019Unauthenticated | Downloaded 12/14/20 02:51 AM UTCThe movement to SpecFinP in Finnish…”

Finnish word order: Does comprehension matter?

“…Often all or nearly all mathematically possible word permutations are attested. Some are illustrated in ( 1 As there is no independent evidence for radical nonconfigurationality in this language ( van Steenbergen 1989, Manninen 2003, Brattico 2019b, most studies have approached the phenomenon by relying on syntactic displacement, often using discourse features as drivers (Hakulinen 1975;Vainikka 1989;Vilkuna 1995;Koskinen 1998;Nelson 1998;Holmberg 2000;Kaiser 2000Kaiser , 2006Holmberg & Nikanne 2002;Boef & Dal Pozzo 2012;Huhmarniemi 2012;Brattico 2018). Yet, no analysis exists that accounts for the free word order phenomenon as a whole.…”