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In:The Perfect Volume: Papers on the perfect
Edited by Kristin Melum Eide and Marc Fryd
[Studies in Language Companion Series 217] 2021
► pp. 365–396

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Chapter 15
“Have-less perfects” in Norwegian

An Old Norse heritage

 | Norwegian University of Science and Technology | Østfold University College
Published online: 9 July 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.217.15eid
Abstract
The constructions I investigate in this paper can all be subsumed under the heading ‘have-omission’. This is also the traditional analysis, to assume an omission of a semantically superfluous auxiliary in these structures. A different perspective however, and one that I will advocate here, is that there was never an auxiliary there in the first place. From this perspective, the constructions thus do not lack a perfect auxiliary (as the term ‘have-omission’ dictates), but instead these constructions employ what only morphologically looks like a supine, i.e. an uninflected past participle, in a syntactic function where you would expect a different form (i.e. a preterit or an infinitive). Semantically these constructions display a modal reading; counterfactuality or irrealis, which I argue is conveyed by the supine-looking from itself, and a linguistic heritage from Old Norse. Their morphological, semantic, and syntactic traits suggest a common underlying explanation for these constructions, and instead of attributing these features to an invisible auxiliary, my explanation puts the emphasis on the contribution of the visible element, the “supine”.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The preterit subjunctive
    • 2.1Preterit subjunctive in Old Norse
    • 2.2Preterit subjunctive in Norwegian dialects
  • 3.The supine form as a non-finite subjunctive marker
    • 3.1The modal functions of past tense forms
  • 4.Supine-for-infinitive constructions
    • 4.1Preterit modal+ supine
    • 4.2Perfect modal + supine
    • 4.3Infinitival marker + supine
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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