Cover not available

In:Constructional Approaches to Nordic Languages
Edited by Evie Coussé, Steffen Höder, Benjamin Lyngfelt and Julia Prentice
[Constructional Approaches to Language 37] 2023
► pp. 24–54

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 2
Life at the intersection

The lateral relations of han mannen, mannen, and den mannen

 | University of Potsdam
Published online: 7 November 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.37.02blo
Abstract
In colloquial Norwegian, han ‘he’ and hun ‘she’ can occur as a determiner with common nouns with human reference (e.g., han mannen, lit. ‘he man-the’). This study investigates the lateral relations of this construction (henceforth: han mannen) and two other definite-referring constructions with human reference: noun phrases that contain the adnominal determiner den (i.e., den mannen) and those that realize definiteness by a suffixed article (i.e., mannen). The study argues that han mannen lives at the intersection of these two constructions, i.e., that it is motivated by two constructions to which it is laterally related. The lateral relations between the constructions are evaluated by random forests, variable importance measures, and partial dependence plots.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The source constructions: mannen and den mannen
    • 2.1mannen: a noun phrase with a suffixed definite article
    • 2.2den mannen: noun phrases with a prenominal determiner
  • 3.Theoretical background
  • 4.The functions of han mannen
    • 4.1Psychological distance or background deixis?
    • 4.2Explaining psychological distance
  • 5.Methodology
    • 5.1Data and data selection
    • 5.2Statistical methods
    • 5.3The tested predictor variables
      • Int
      • N
      • Premod
      • Poss
      • Rc
      • Speaker
  • 6.Sequential relations: results
    • 6.1Comparing mannen and den mannen
    • 6.2Comparing mannen and han mannen
    • 6.3Comparing den mannen and han mannen
    • 6.4Summary
  • 7.The lexemes that occupy the noun slot
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (60)
References
Abbot-Smith, K. & Behrens, H. (2006). How known constructions influence the acquisition of other constructions: The German passive and future constructions. Cognitive Science 30(6), 995–1026. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ariel, M. (1988). Referring and accessibility. Journal of linguistics, 24(1), 65–87. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Audring, J. (2019). Mothers or sisters? The encoding of morphological knowledge. Word structure, 12(3), 274–296. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Belanus, B. (1981). The poodle in the microwave oven: Free association and a modern legend. Kentucky Folklore Record 27(3), 66–75.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bloom, B. (2021). Lateral relations & multiple source constructions. The Old English subject relative clause and the Norwegian han mannen-construction (Doctoral dissertation). Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Booij, G. (2017). Inheritance and motivation in Construction Morphology. In N. Gisborne & A. Hippisley (Eds.). Defaults in morphological theory (pp.18–39). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Booij, G. & Masini, F. (2015). The role of second order schemas in the construction of complex words. In L. Bauer, L. Körtvélyessy & P. Štekauer (Eds.). Semantics of complex words (pp.47–66). Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Breban, T. (2010). English adjectives of comparison. Lexical and grammaticalized uses. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bull, T. & Swan, T. (2002). Norwegian. The representation of gender in Norwegian. In M. Hellinger & H. Bußmann (Eds.). Gender across languages. The linguistic representation of women and men (pp. 219–249). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, J. (2002). Sequentiality as the basis of constituent structure. In T. Givón & B. Malle. The evolution of language out of pre-language (pp. 107–134). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2010). Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Börjars. K. & Harries, P. (2008). The clitic-affix distinction, historical change, and Scandinavian bound definiteness marking. Journal of Germanic language 20(4), 289–350. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cappelle, B. (2006). Particle placement and the case for “allostructions”. Constructions 1(7), 1–28. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, H. H. & Marshall, C. R. (1981). Definite reference and mutual knowledge. In A. Joshi, B. Webber & I. Sag (Eds.). Elements of discourse understanding (pp. 10–63). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Smet, H. & Fischer, O. (2017). The role of analogy in language change: Supporting constructions. In M. Hundt, S. Mollin & S. Pfenninger. The changing English language. Psycholinguistic preferences (pp. 240–268). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Delsing, L.-O. (1993). The internal structure of noun phrases in the Scandinavian languages. A comparative study. (Doctoral dissertation). Lunds universitet, Lund.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2019). The grammar network. How linguistic structure is shaped by language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2020). A dynamic network approach to the study of syntax. Frontiers in Psychology 11(604853). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2023). The Constructicon: Taxonomies and networks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fretheim, T. & Amfo, N. A. (2008). Reference, determiners and descriptive content. In H. Müller & A. Klinge (Eds.). Essays on nominal determination: From morphology to discourse management (pp. 337–364). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldberg. A. (1995). Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. (2003). Constructions: a new theoretical approach. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences 7(5), 219–224. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Greenwell, B. (2017). Pdp: An R package for constructing partial dependence plot. The R journal 9(1), 421–436. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gries, S. Th. (2019). On classification trees and random forests in corpus linguistics: Some words of caution and suggestions for improvement. Corpus linguistics and linguistic theory 16(3), 617–647. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Himmelmann, N. (1996). Demonstratives in narrative discourse: A taxonomy of universal uses. In B. Fox (Ed.). Studies in anaphora (pp. 205–254). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holmes, P. & Enger, H.-O. (2018). Norwegian: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hothorn, T., Hornik, K. & Zeileis, A. (2006). Unbiased recursive partitioning: A conditional inference framework. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics 15(3), 651–674. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jackson, C. (2013). Why do these people’s opinions matter? Positioning known referents as unnameable others. Discourse Studies 15(3), 299–317. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Janitza, S., Strobl, C. & Boulesteix, A.-L. (2013). An AUC-based permutation variable importance measure for random forests. BMC Bioinformatics 14(119). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johannessen, J. B. (2006). Just any pronoun anywhere? Pronouns and “new” demonstratives in Norwegian. In T. Solstad, A. Grønn & D. Haug (Eds.). A festschrift for Kjell Johan Sæbø: in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the celebration of his 50th birthday (pp.91–106). Oslo: University of Oslo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2008). The pronominal psychological demonstrative in Scandinavian: Its syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 31(2), 161–192. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2020). Psychologically distal demonstratives are not “discourse new”. In Å. Næss, A. Margetts & Y. Treis (Eds.). Demonstratives in discourse (pp. 215–241). Berlin: Language Science Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johannessen, J. B. & Garbacz, P. (2014). Proprial articles. Nordic Atlas of Language Structures (NALS) Journal 1, 10–17.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johannessen, J. B., Priestley, J., Hagen, K., Åfarli, T. A., & Vangsnes, Ø. A. (2009). The Nordic Dialect Corpus – an advanced research tool. In K. Jokinen & E. Bick (Eds.). Proceedings of the 17th Nordic Conference of computational linguistics NODALIDA 2009 (pp. 73–80). Odense: Northern European Association for Language Technology (NEALT).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kilgarriff, A., Baisa, V., Bušta, J., Jakubíček, M., Kovář, V., Michelfeit, J., Rychlý, P., & Suchomel, V. (2014). The Sketch Engine: ten years on. Lexicography 1, 7–36. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, R. T. (1974). Remarks on ‘this’ and ‘that’. Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society 10, 345–356.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (2007). Optimizing person reference – perspective from usage on Rossel Island. In N. Enfield & T. Stivers (Eds.). Person reference in action (pp. 29–72). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lie, S. (2010a). Bakgrunndeiksis og demonstrativer. In K. Jóhannesson, I. Larsson, E. Magnusson Petzell, S.-G. Malmgren, L. Rogström, & E. Sköldberg (Eds.). Bo 65. Festskrift til Bo Ralph (pp. 168–177). Göteborg: Meijerbergs institut.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2010b). Om demonstrativer. Maal og Minne 2, 59–78.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lindstad, A. M., Nøklestad, A., Johannessen, J. B., & Vangsnes, Ø. A. (2009). The Nordic Dialect Database: Mapping microsyntactic variation in the Scandinavian languages. In K. Jokinen & E. Bick (Eds.). Proceedings of the 17th Nordic Conference of computational linguistics NODALIDA 2009 (pp. 283–286). Odense: Northern European Association for Language Technology (NEALT).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Molnar, C. (2020). Interpretable machine learning: A guide for making black box models explainable. Christoph Molner.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norde, M. & Morris, C. (2018). Derivation without category change: a network-based analysis of dimunitive prefixoids in Dutch. In K. Goethem, M. Norde, E. Coussé & G. Vanderbauwhede (Eds.). Category change from a constructional perspective (pp.47–90). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perridon, H. (1989). Reference, definiteness and the noun phrase in Swedish (Doctoral dissertation). University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perridon, H. & Sleeman, P. (2011). The noun phrase in Germanic and Romance. In H. Perridon & P. Sleeman (Eds.). The noun phrase is Germanic and Romance (pp. 1–21). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pijpops, D. & Van de Velde, F. (2016). Constructional contamination: How does it work and how do we measure it? Folia Lingusitica 50(2), 543–581. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pijpops, D., De Smet, I. & Van de Velde, F. (2018). Constructional contamination in morphology and syntax. Constructions and Frames 10(2), 269–305. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmid, H.-J. (2020). The dynamics of the linguistic system: Usage, conventionalization, and entrenchment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smirnova, E. & Sommerer, L. (2020). Introduction: The nature of the node and the network – Open questions in Diachronic Construction Grammar. In L. Sommerer & E. Smirnova (Eds.) Nodes and Networks in Diachronic Construction Grammar (pp. 1–42). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stefanowitsch, A. & Gries, S. Th. (2003). Collostructions: Investigating the interaction of words and constructions. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 8(2), 209–243. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, T., Enfield, N. & Levinson, S. C. (2007). Person reference in interaction. In N. Enfield & T. Stivers (Eds.). Person reference in interaction. Linguistic, cultural, and social perspective (pp. 1–20). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Strahan, T. (2008). Sjå på han mannen! On the definiteness and specificity of Scandinavian pronoun demonstratives. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 21(2), 193–226. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Strobl, C., Boulesteix, A.-L., Kneib, T., Augustin, T. & Zeileis, A. (2008) Conditional variable importance for random forests. BMC Bioinformatics 9(307). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, S. & Baayen, R. H. (2012). Models, forests, and trees of York English: Was/were variation as a case study for statistical practice. Language Variation and Change 24(2), 135–178. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, E. C. (2018). Modeling language change with constructional networks. In S. Bordería & Ó. Lamas (Eds.). Beyond grammaticalization and discourse markers (pp. 17–50). Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trousdale, G. (2013). Multiple inheritance and constructional change. Studies in Language 37(3), 491–514. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van de Velde, F. (2014). Degeneracy: The maintenance of constructional networks. In R. Boogaart, T. Colleman & G. Rutten (Eds.). Extending the scope of construction grammar (pp. 141–180). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van de Velde, F., De Smet, H. & Ghesquière, L. (2013). On multiple source constructions in language change. Studies in Language 37(3), 473–489. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vindenes, U. (2017). Complex demonstratives and cyclic change in Norwegian (Doctoral dissertation). University of Oslo, Oslo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue