Cover not available

Article published In: Languages in Contrast
Vol. 15:2 (2015) ► pp.230–250

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

Exploring spontaneous-event marking though parallel corpora

Translating English ergative intransitive constructions into Norwegian and Swedish

 | Chalmers University of Technology/Lund University (Sweden)
Published online: 19 November 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.15.2.04nor
English ergative verbs in one-participant constructions such as ‘the door opens’ often correspond to reflexive verbs or -S forms in Norwegian and Swedish. Following Kemmer (1993), such constructions profile spontaneous-event meaning and belong to the middle domain. This study uses corpus methodology to explore spontaneous-event marking in Norwegian and Swedish from the point of view of Kemmer’s suggested two-cycle development path for middle marking in the Scandinavian languages. The results suggest that there are differences in the middle systems in the Scandinavian languages to the effect that Norwegian has completed Kemmer’s two cycles, whereas Swedish has not. Further, there is tentative indication that ergative verbs are on the increase in both Norwegian and Swedish for certain Subjects and in discipline-specific contexts, possibly due to influence from English.
References (36)
Andersen, B. 1978. Danske oversættelseækvivalenter af nogle ergative og pseudo-intransitive konstruktioner i engelsk naturvitenskabeligt og teknisk/teknologisk sprog. Århus: Handelshøjskolen i Århus, Engelsk Institut.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davidse, K. 2002. “Nominative and Oblique in English: Reflexive Clauses as a Test Case for Distinct Agent-Patient Models”. In The Nominative & Accusative and their Counterparts, K. Davidse and B. Lamiroy (eds), 131–74. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. “On Transitivity and Ergativity in English, or on the Need for Dialogue between Schools”. In English as a Human Language: to Honor Louis Goossens, J. van der Auwera, F. Durieux, L. Lejeune (eds), 95–108. München: LINCOM Europa,Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davidse, K. and Heyvaert, L. 2007. “On the Middle Voice: an Interpersonal Analysis of the English Middle”. Linguistics 45(1):37–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Engdahl, E. 2006. “Semantic and Syntactic Patterns in Swedish Passives”. In Demoting the Agent. Passive, Middle and Other Voice Phenomena, B. Lyngfelt and T. Solstad (eds), 21–45. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enger, H-O. and Nesset,T. 1999. “The Value of Cognitive Grammar in Typological Studies: the Case of Norwegian and Russian Passive, Middle and Reflexive”. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 22(1):27–60. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enger, H-O. and Nesset, T. 2001. “The Norwegian and Russian Reflexive-Middle-Passive Systems and Cognitive Grammar”. In A Cognitive Approach to the Verb, Morphological and Constructional Perspectives, H. Gram-Simonsen and R.T. Endresen (eds), 221–241. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enger, H-O. 2001. “The Norwegian Reflexive-Middle-Passive Marker -s”. In A Cognitive Approach to the Verb, Morphological and Constructional Perspectives, H. Gram-Simonsen and R.T. Endresen (eds), 243–258. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. “Skandinavisk -s(t) igjen: grammatikalisering fra klitikon til avledningsaffiks”. In Språk i endring: indre norsk språkhistorie, J.T. Faarlund (ed.), 29–56. Oslo: Novus Forlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Faarlund, T., Lie, S. and Vannebo, K-I. 1997. Norsk referansegrammatikk. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, M.A.K and Matthiessen, C.M.I.M. 2004. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Hodder Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holm, G. 1952. Om s-passivum i svenskan. Företrädesvis folkmålen och den äldre fornsvenskan. Lund: CWK Gleerup.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hopper, P. and Thompson, S.A. 1980. “Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse”. Language 56(2):251–299. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hopper, P. and Traugott, E. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kemmer, S. 1993. The Middle Voice. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lyngfelt, B. 2007. “Mellan polerna. Reflexiv- och deponenskonstruktioner i svenskan”. Språk och Stil 171: 86–134.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “En akademiledamot pensioneras inte – om konstruktioner med s-verb i svenskan”. In BO 65. Festskrift till Bo Ralph. K. Jóhannesson, I. Larsson, E. Magnusson Petzell, S-G. Malmgren, L. Rogström and E. Sköldberg (eds), 178–192. Göteborg: Styrelsen för Meijerbergs Institut vid Göteborgs Universitet.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mair, C. 2004. “Corpus Linguistics and Grammaticalisation Theory. Statistics, Frequency and Beyond”. In Corpus Approaches to Grammaticalization in English, I H. Lindquist and C. Mair (eds), 121–150. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mitkovska, L. and Bužarovska, E. 2012. “An Alternative Analysis of the English Get-Past Participle Constructions: Is Get all that Passive?” Journal of English Linguistics 40(2):196–215. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nordrum, L. 2007. English Lexical Nominalizations in a Norwegian-Swedish Contrastive perspective. Göteborg: Doctoral Thesis from University of Gothenburg. Available at [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perlmutter, D. 1978. “Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis.” Proceedings of the 4th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 157–189. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stålhammar, M. 2006. “Grammatical Metaphor/Metonymy in the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe: a Comparison between the English and Swedish Versions”. Nordic Journal of English Studies 5(1):99–117. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Teleman, U. Hellberg, S. and Anderson, E. 1999. Svenska Akademiens grammatik. Stockholm: Svenska Akademien.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van der Auwera, J. 2012. “From Contrastive Linguistics to Linguistic Typology”. Languages in Contrast 12(1):69–86. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bokmålsordboka. Available at [URL] [last accessed 8 March 2013].
Nationalencyclopedin. Available at [URL] [last accessed 8 March 2013].
The English-Norwegian Parallel Corpus (ENPC). Available at [URL] [last accessed 9 April 2013].
The English-Swedish Parallel Corpus (ESPC) Available at [URL] [last accessed 9 April 2013].
Oslo korpuset av taggede norske tekster (bokmål). Available at: [URL] [last accessed 9 April 2013].
Språkbanken. Available at [URL] [last accessed 9 April 2013]
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Johansson, Mats & Lene Nordrum
2021. Tracing processes in auxiliarization. In Time in Languages, Languages in Time [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 101], ► pp. 67 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 26 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue