scholarly journals On the Acquisition of Word Order in WH-Questions in theTromsø Dialect

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.48 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Richardsen Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
Wh Questions

This article reports on a study of three children acquiring a dialect of Norwegian which allows two different word orders in certain types of WH-questions, verb second (V2) and and verb third (V3). The latter is only allowed after monosyllabic WH-words, while the former, which is the result of verb movement, is the word order found in all other main clauses in the language. It is shown that both V2 and V3 are acquired extremely early by the children in the study (before the age of two), and that subtle distinctions between the two orders with respect to information structure are attested from the beginning. However, it is argued that V3 word order, which should be ìsimplerî than the V2 structure as it does not involve verb movement, is nevertheless acquired slightly later in its full syntactic form. This is taken as an indication that the V3 structure is syntactically more complex, and possibly also more marked.

scholarly journals The Interaction of Input and UG in the Acquisition of Verb Movement in a Dialect of Norwegian

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.61 ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit R. Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Information Value ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Early Production ◽  
The Subject

In this paper it is argued that a principle of information structure provided by Universal Grammar (UG) may interact with input in the acquisition of word order. In a study which investigates three children from the age of approximately 1;9 to 3 acquiring a Northern dialect of Norwegian, it has previously been shown that word order patterns in certain types of wh-questions which are sensitive to subtle distinctions in the information value of the subject (given vs. new) are acquired extremely early (Westergaard 2003a). This paper presents a study of the same children’s topicalization constructions, and it is shown that, although these patterns of information structure do not appear in the input, the children nevertheless show traces of these patterns in the non-target forms that they occasionally produce. Thus, in their very early production of topicalization constructions the children seem to be guided by a word order principle based on information structure, which could be taken as support for this as a word order preferred by UG.

scholarly journals Optional word order in wh-questions in two Norwegian dialects: a diachronic analysis of synchronic variation

2005 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit R. Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Critical Level ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Clause Structure ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Spontaneous Production ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Diachronic Analysis ◽  
Split Cp

Based on a corpus of spontaneous production data, this paper compares the word order of wh-questions in two Norwegian dialects, Kåfjord and Tromsø. While the choice of word order (V2 or non-V2) in Tromsø is dependent on information structure, the Kåfjord speakers produce considerably more non-V2 in questions with monosyllabic wh-elements. The majority of questions with multisyllabic wh-constituents, on the other hand, occurs with V2. This synchronic variation is given a diachronic analysis within a Split-CP model of clause structure and a cue-based approach to acquisition and change, where an economy principle (head preference) also plays an important role. Furthermore, an information structure drift from V2 to non-V2 is argued to cause the cue for verb movement to fall below a critical level in the input to children, the result being that V2 only survives in lexically marked cases in Kåfjord, i.e. with the verb ‘be’.

Syntactic and Prosodic Reflexes of Information Structure in Germanic

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gisbert Fanselow
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Acoustic Properties ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Left Edge ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
Finite Verb

This chapter deals with syntactic and prosodic reflexes of information structure in the Germanic languages. It begins with an overview of givenness and word order variation in the TP, along with aboutness topics and the prosodic prominence of topics and foci. It then considers the postulation of a focus head in Germanic and how contrast seems to intensify the acoustic properties of topics and foci. It shows how the left edge of verb second clauses acts as a slot for placing contrastive elements in all Germanic languages, but that the position is also filled on purely formal grounds. The article also describes the conditions of information structure that decide whether an XP can go to the position preceding the finite verb/auxiliary in the verb second (V2) constructions. Finally, it discusses two types of V2 constructions: unrestricted V2 constructions and pragmatically restricted V2 constructions.

Variable V2 in Norwegian heritage language

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Westergaard ◽  
Terje Lohndal ◽  
Björn Lundquist
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
The Other ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Crosslinguistic Influence

Abstract This paper discusses possible attrition of verb second (V2) word order in Norwegian heritage language by investigating a corpus of spontaneous speech produced by 50 2nd–4th generation heritage speakers in North America. The study confirms previous findings that V2 word order is generally stable in heritage situations, but nevertheless finds approximately 10% V2 violations. The cases of non-V2 word order are argued to be due to lack of activation of the heritage language grammar, making it vulnerable to crosslinguistic influence from the speakers’ dominant language. This crosslinguistic influence does not simply replace V2 by non-V2, but is argued to operate more indirectly, affecting (a) the distribution of contexts for V2 word order, and (b) introducing two new distinctions into the heritage language, one (indirectly) based on a similar distinction in the dominant language (a difference between adverbs and negation with respect to verb movement), the other based on frequency of initial elements triggering V2 in non-subject-initial declaratives. Together, these findings also indicate that crosslinguistic influence affects different contexts of V2 differently, providing support for analyses that treat V2 word order as the result of many smaller rules.

scholarly journals Variation and change in Norwegian wh-questions

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Westergaard ◽  
Øystein A. Vangsnes ◽  
Terje Lohndal
Keyword(s):  
Geographical Distribution ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Embedded Clause ◽  
Acceptability Judgments

Abstract In this paper, we consider variation in Verb Second (V2) word order in wh-questions across Norwegian dialects by investigating data from the Nordic Syntax Database (NSD), which consists of acceptability judgments collected at more than 100 locations in Norway. We trace the geographical distribution of the two main variables: phrasal vs. monosyllabic wh-elements (the latter argued to be heads) and subject vs. non-subject questions. In subject questions, non-V2 is realized by inserting the complementizer som in second position instead of the verb. We also discuss the connection between non-V2 and the possibility of inserting the complementizer som under extraction of a wh-subject from an embedded clause, i.e. in that-trace contexts. Based on synchronic data, we propose a diachronic account of the geographical distribution and argue that the development from V2 to non-V2 has started in subject questions, thus allowing us to relate the loss of the V2 requirement to changes in the properties of the complementizer som.

Subject inversion in transitive sentences from Classical to Modern European Portuguese

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Galves ◽  
Alba Gibrail
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Clause Structure ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
High Position ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
Constituent Order ◽  
Tycho Brahe ◽  
Information Focus

This chapter focuses on Classical Portuguese and its change to Modern European Portuguese, bringing to the debate new data concerning transitive sentences. The data are drawn from the Tycho Brahe Parsed Corpus of Historical Portuguese (texts written by Portuguese authors born 1502–1836). It is argued that both constituent order syntax and the information structure functions of word order in transitive sentences (SVO, VSO, VOS) support the characterization of Classical Portuguese as a verb-second language: the verb occupies a high position in clause structure, which makes a high position for post-verbal subjects available as well. This explains why post-verbal subjects in Classical Portuguese are not obligatorily associated with an information focus interpretation, but very frequently receive a familiar topic interpretation. The empirical evidence discussed in this chapter supports the claim that there was a syntactic change from Classical to Modern European Portuguese, rather than a discursive reinterpretation of the same syntax.

The Prosody of Wh-exclamatives and Wh-questions in German: Speech Act Differences, Information Structure, and Sex of Speaker

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Repp
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Structural Effects ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Accent Structure

The prosody of non-assertive speech acts other than questions is rather underexplored. Very little is known about the role of information structure in non-assertive speech acts in general. The present study presents two production experiments examining the prosody of string-identical verb-second (experiment 1) and verb-final (experiment 2) wh-exclamatives and wh-questions in German in relation to their status as different speech acts, in relation to their sensitivity to information structure, and in relation to speaker sex. The study shows that the two speech acts are differentiated by many prosodic means, both globally (duration, intonation contour) and locally (accent distribution in the clause-initial and clause-final regions; pitch, duration, intensity on various elements in the clause, especially the subject pronoun and the direct object, which are more prominent in exclamatives, and the verb-second auxiliary, which is more prominent in questions). Exclamatives overall show a very rigid prosodic contour; they typically are realized with an accent on the subject pronoun and on the object and end in a fall. Questions are much more flexible; they are realized as rises or falls, and show a more varied accent structure in the clause-initial and clause-final regions. Both speech acts show information-structural effects of givenness marking, but the effects in exclamatives are remarkably weak. It is proposed that the speech-act marking prosody overrides information-structural effects to some extent. Male and female speakers show differences in their preferred accent patterns for the two speech acts. Some acoustic differences are only reliable for female speakers.

An Information Structure scenario for V2 loss in Medieval French

Diachronica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Larrivée
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Gradual Loss ◽  
Order Change ◽  
Informational Cues ◽  
Word Order Change ◽  
Informational Value

Abstract This paper discusses word order change in Medieval French. Verb-second (V2) configurations are generally understood as having an initial XP and the verb in the left periphery. How has this configuration been lost in French? Under an Information Structure scenario, the XP is in initial position because of its characterized (discourse-old) informational value, which motivates the left-peripheral position of the verb. The decline of the characterized informational value of the XP thus accounts for the gradual loss of V2. The informational behaviour of XPs was examined in unambiguous V2 configurations with an overt post-verbal subject in Medieval French. This detailed quantitative study of a calibrated corpus shows that XPs with a characterized informational value were predominant with productive V2 configurations, that they gradually declined as productive V2 was lost, and that they increasingly failed to attract the verb to the left periphery. These observations can be accounted for if V2 in Medieval French was driven by informational values and if it disappeared along with the informational cues provided by the XPs.

Verb Second in Norwegian: Variation and acquisition

2020 ◽  
pp. 770-789
Author(s):  
Terje Lohndal ◽  
Marit Westergaard ◽  
Øystein A. Vangsnes
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Initial Element ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Micro Systems ◽  
Human Language Faculty

This chapter provides an overview of the micro-variation in Norwegian when it comes to Verb Second (V2) word order, both in the various dialects and in the two standard written varieties of Norwegian. The variation is dependent on a number of factors, including clause type, type of initial element, and information structure. This overview demonstrates a rich inventory of micro-systems, raising the question of how children come to acquire such fine-grained patterns. The chapter addresses this question by providing findings from acquisition research and discusses what this considerable micro-variation and coexisting grammars tell us about the architecture of the human language faculty.

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