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In:Language Change at the Interfaces: Intrasentential and intersentential phenomena
Edited by Nicholas Catasso, Marco Coniglio and Chiara De Bastiani
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 275] 2022
► pp. 61–94

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The object position in Old Norwegian

An interplay between syntax, prosody, and information structure

ORCiD logo with link | University of Bergen
Published online: 21 April 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.275.02tie
Abstract
OV/VO variation in Germanic languages is a widely discussed subject. However, Old Norwegian has so far received little attention and is syntactically generally treated as one with Old Icelandic. However, in contrast to the findings of Hróarsdóttir (2000, 2009) for Old Icelandic, stating that OV orders are triggered mainly by the prosodic weight of the object, the present study shows that OV/VO variation in Old Norwegian is still more dependent on an interplay of both information status and prosodic weight of a constituent in a clause. I argue that the results for the information status of the object reflect the syntactic development in the history of Norwegian as a change in the way information-structural categories are displayed in the grammar.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Word order variation in Old Norse
    • 2.1Old Icelandic
    • 2.2Old Norwegian
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Information status
      • 3.1.1Given
      • 3.1.2New
    • 3.2Prosodic factors
    • 3.3Dataset
  • 4.Results and theoretical implications
    • 4.1Information status
    • 4.2Prosodic weight
  • 5.Some remarks on the data
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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