Word order variation and foregrounding of complement clauses: Exploring the meaning of sentence adverbials as signals of word order

TY - GEN

T1 - Word order variation and foregrounding of complement clauses

T2 - 7th International Conference on Language Variation in Europe

AU - Christensen, Tanya Karoli

AU - Jensen, Torben Juel

N1 - Conference code: 7

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - Through mixed models analyses of complement clauses in a corpus of spoken Danish we examine the role of sentence adverbials in relation to a word order distinction in Scandinavian signalled by the relative position of sentence adverbials and finite verb (V>Adv vs. Adv>V). The type of sentence adverbial was the third-most important factor in explaining the word order variation: Sentence adverbials categorized as ‘dialogic’ are significantly associated with V>Adv word order. We argue that the results are readily interpretable in the light of the semantico-pragmatic hypothesis that V>Adv signals foregrounded information, and exploit the random intercepts assigned to the individual adverbials for further exploring the functions of sentence adverbials that behave unexpectedly based on the predictions of the model.

AB - Through mixed models analyses of complement clauses in a corpus of spoken Danish we examine the role of sentence adverbials in relation to a word order distinction in Scandinavian signalled by the relative position of sentence adverbials and finite verb (V>Adv vs. Adv>V). The type of sentence adverbial was the third-most important factor in explaining the word order variation: Sentence adverbials categorized as ‘dialogic’ are significantly associated with V>Adv word order. We argue that the results are readily interpretable in the light of the semantico-pragmatic hypothesis that V>Adv signals foregrounded information, and exploit the random intercepts assigned to the individual adverbials for further exploring the functions of sentence adverbials that behave unexpectedly based on the predictions of the model.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - word order

KW - sentence adverbials

KW - foregrounding

KW - random intercepts

U2 - 10.1075/silv.17.06kar

DO - 10.1075/silv.17.06kar

M3 - Article in proceedings

SN - 9789027234971

VL - V

T3 - Studies in Language Variation

SP - 69

EP - 86

BT - Language variation - European Perspectives

A2 - Thorgersen, Eivin

A2 - Hårstad, Stian

A2 - Mæhlum, Brit

A2 - Røyneland, Unn

PB - John Benjamins Publishing Company

CY - Amsterdam/Philadelphia

Y2 - 26 June 2013 through 28 June 2013

ER -