The semantics of Scandinavian pancake constructions
-
Tor Arne Haugen
and
Hans-Olav Enger
Abstract
A classical topic in the syntax of the mainland Scandinavian languages is so-called pancake clauses where there seemingly is disagreement between the subject and the predicative adjective, as in Pannekaker er godt ‘Pancakes(f):indf:pl be:prs good:n:sg’; the subject is in the plural, whereas the predicative adjective is in the neuter singular. According to one of the several approaches, these clauses display a type of semantic agreement. Recently, it has also been argued that there are at least four different types of pancake constructions.
In this article, the semantic relationship between the different constructions is investigated further. It is argued that, diachronically, pancake agreement started with subjects interpreted as virtual, ungrounded processes, and that the absence of grounding has been reinterpreted as absence of spatial boundedness in the latest kind of pancake construction. The analysis is supported by a diachronic corpus investigation. The emphasis on virtual reference is a new feature with the current paper, and it enables us to set aside an objection against the semantic agreement analysis. The diachronic corpus investigation enables us to revise, empirically, earlier suggestions as to when the pancake constructions originated: They are well attested from the mid-1800s, in both Swedish and Norwegian Nynorsk.
Acknowledgements
For many helpful comments, we are indebted to two referees, the Editors, and audiences at Møte om norsk språk MONS 16, Kristiansand, November 2015, and the Norwegian summer seminar of cognitive linguistics, Bergen, June 2016.
Corpora and other data sources
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Systematicity in the semantics of noun compounds: The role of artifacts vs. natural kinds
- Verb-based vs. schema-based constructions and their variability: On the Spanish transitive directed-motion construction in a contrastive perspective
- The semantics of Scandinavian pancake constructions
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Systematicity in the semantics of noun compounds: The role of artifacts vs. natural kinds
- Verb-based vs. schema-based constructions and their variability: On the Spanish transitive directed-motion construction in a contrastive perspective
- The semantics of Scandinavian pancake constructions
- Beyond motion: ‘Come’ and ‘go’ in Persian oral narratives
- Why Monday is not in front of Tuesday: On the uses of English and Finnish front adpositions in sequence metaphors of time
- Variationist typology: Shared probabilistic constraints across (non-)null subject languages
- Bilingual children as “laboratories” for studying contact outcomes: Development of perfective aspect
