'At' eller ikke 'at' i tale og skrift

Kasper Boye; Mads Poulsen; Hannah Bruun Pedersen; Marie Herget Christensen; Line Dalberg; Nicoline Munck Vinther

'At' eller ikke 'at' i tale og skrift

Kasper Boye, Mads Poulsen, Hannah Bruun Pedersen, Marie Herget Christensen, Line Dalberg, Nicoline Munck Vinther

Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics

1 Citationer (Scopus)

Abstract

Like its English cognate that, the Danish complementizer at is optional in most contexts. Several factors have been hypothesized to govern the variation between presence and absence of at. This paper tests the hypothesis that speakers use optional at as a filler in case of production difficulties. The hypothesis entails two specific predictions: 1) at is relatively more frequent in complement clauses with disfluency symptoms such as pauses and lengthenings (assumption: disfluency is symptomatic of production difficulties); 2) at is relatively more frequent in complement clauses which have a non-pronominal subject (assumption: pronouns, being easily accessible, are easier to produce than e.g. nouns and complex noun phrases). Prediction 1 is tested on spoken language data (from the LANCHART corpus). Prediction 2 is tested on both spoken language data and written language data (from Kor-pusDK). Both predictions are confirmed. Interestingly, prediction 2 is confirmed not only in the spoken language test, but also in the written language test. Thus, an instance of grammatical variation which is best understood as governed by phenomena characteristic for spoken language (production difficulties), is found also in the written language.

Originalsprog	Dansk
Tidsskrift	NyS. Nydanske Studier og Almen Kommunikationsteori
Vol/bind	42
Sider (fra-til)	41-61
Antal sider	21
ISSN	0106-8040
Status	Udgivet - 2012

Citationsformater

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title = "'At' eller ikke 'at' i tale og skrift",

abstract = "Like its English cognate that, the Danish complementizer at is optional in most contexts. Several factors have been hypothesized to govern the variation between presence and absence of at. This paper tests the hypothesis that speakers use optional at as a filler in case of production difficulties. The hypothesis entails two specific predictions: 1) at is relatively more frequent in complement clauses with disfluency symptoms such as pauses and lengthenings (assumption: disfluency is symptomatic of production difficulties); 2) at is relatively more frequent in complement clauses which have a non-pronominal subject (assumption: pronouns, being easily accessible, are easier to produce than e.g. nouns and complex noun phrases). Prediction 1 is tested on spoken language data (from the LANCHART corpus). Prediction 2 is tested on both spoken language data and written language data (from Kor-pusDK). Both predictions are confirmed. Interestingly, prediction 2 is confirmed not only in the spoken language test, but also in the written language test. Thus, an instance of grammatical variation which is best understood as governed by phenomena characteristic for spoken language (production difficulties), is found also in the written language.",

author = "Kasper Boye and Mads Poulsen and {Bruun Pedersen}, Hannah and Christensen, {Marie Herget} and Line Dalberg and {Munck Vinther}, Nicoline",

year = "2012",

language = "Dansk",

volume = "42",

pages = "41--61",

journal = "NyS. Nydanske Studier og Almen Kommunikationsteori",

issn = "0106-8040",

publisher = "Dansk Sprogn{\ae}vn",

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TY - JOUR

T1 - 'At' eller ikke 'at' i tale og skrift

AU - Boye, Kasper

AU - Poulsen, Mads

AU - Bruun Pedersen, Hannah

AU - Christensen, Marie Herget

AU - Dalberg, Line

AU - Munck Vinther, Nicoline

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - Like its English cognate that, the Danish complementizer at is optional in most contexts. Several factors have been hypothesized to govern the variation between presence and absence of at. This paper tests the hypothesis that speakers use optional at as a filler in case of production difficulties. The hypothesis entails two specific predictions: 1) at is relatively more frequent in complement clauses with disfluency symptoms such as pauses and lengthenings (assumption: disfluency is symptomatic of production difficulties); 2) at is relatively more frequent in complement clauses which have a non-pronominal subject (assumption: pronouns, being easily accessible, are easier to produce than e.g. nouns and complex noun phrases). Prediction 1 is tested on spoken language data (from the LANCHART corpus). Prediction 2 is tested on both spoken language data and written language data (from Kor-pusDK). Both predictions are confirmed. Interestingly, prediction 2 is confirmed not only in the spoken language test, but also in the written language test. Thus, an instance of grammatical variation which is best understood as governed by phenomena characteristic for spoken language (production difficulties), is found also in the written language.

AB - Like its English cognate that, the Danish complementizer at is optional in most contexts. Several factors have been hypothesized to govern the variation between presence and absence of at. This paper tests the hypothesis that speakers use optional at as a filler in case of production difficulties. The hypothesis entails two specific predictions: 1) at is relatively more frequent in complement clauses with disfluency symptoms such as pauses and lengthenings (assumption: disfluency is symptomatic of production difficulties); 2) at is relatively more frequent in complement clauses which have a non-pronominal subject (assumption: pronouns, being easily accessible, are easier to produce than e.g. nouns and complex noun phrases). Prediction 1 is tested on spoken language data (from the LANCHART corpus). Prediction 2 is tested on both spoken language data and written language data (from Kor-pusDK). Both predictions are confirmed. Interestingly, prediction 2 is confirmed not only in the spoken language test, but also in the written language test. Thus, an instance of grammatical variation which is best understood as governed by phenomena characteristic for spoken language (production difficulties), is found also in the written language.

M3 - Tidsskriftartikel

SN - 0106-8040

VL - 42

SP - 41

EP - 61

JO - NyS. Nydanske Studier og Almen Kommunikationsteori

JF - NyS. Nydanske Studier og Almen Kommunikationsteori

ER -