Andreas Kathol (kathol@ling.ohio-state.edu)
Thu, 1 Sep 94 12:59:06 EDT
Hi all, Below is an array of facts displaying the phenomenon of (pronominal) "object shift" in the Skandinavian languages. From what I understand, the standard analysis in the transformational literature (Holmberg, Vikner, Webelhuth etc.) assumes that the exceptional positioning of the pronominal object to the left of the VP (indicated by the position of the negation element) is due to some kind of (A-)movement. The question I have is whether anyone is aware of any nontransformational literature accounting for these facts, or, for that matter, whether anyone has any insights to offer what an analysis in standard HPSG, GPSG, or LFG might look like. Thanks, --Andreas ============= (NB, below I'm ignoring the complications that the slightly different facts in Icelandic would bring about.) - Shift of pronominal vs. nonpronominal objects: Webelhuth 1992:163 (Swedish) (1) a. Han k\"opte den inte he bought it not b. *Han k\"opte boken inte he bought the.book not c. Han k\"opte inte boken he bought not the.book d. *Jag tror p{\aa} det inte I believe in it not e. Jag tror inte p{\aa} det I believe not in it f. *Jag tror det inte p{\aa} I believe it not in - Other verb-second contexts and placement of object wrt. to other adverbials: Vikner 1991:4 (Danish) (2) a. I g{\aa}r l{\ae}ste Peter den uden tvivl ikke yesterday read Peter it w/o doubt not b. *I g{\aa}r l{\ae}ste Peter uden tvivl den ikke c. *I g{\aa}r l{\ae}ste Peter uden tvivl ikke den - Multiple object shift: Webelhuth 1992: (Swedish) (3) Jag gav henne den inte I gave her it not - No object-shift in subordinate clauses: Webelhuth 1992:163,183,186 (Swedish) (4) a. *att han den inte k\"opte that he it not bought b. att han inte k\"opte den that he not bought it c. *att han boken inte k\"opte that he the.book not bought d. att han inte k\"opte boken that he not bought the.book e. *att jag p{\aa} det inte tror that I in it not believe f. att jag inte tror p{\aa} det that I not believe in it - No object-shift with nonfinite VPs Vikner 1991:6 (Danish) (5) a. Hvorfor skal Peter ikke k{\o}be den? why shall Peter not buy it b. *Hvorfor skal Peter den ikke k{\o}be? c. Hvorfor har Peter ikke k{\o}bt den? why has Peter not bought it d. *Hvorfor har Peter den ikke k{\o}bt? Vikner, Sten. 1991. Scandinavian Object Shift and West Germanic Scrambling. Ms., Univ. of Stuttgart. (From 1990 Tilburg Conference on Scrambling) Webelhuth, Gert. 1992. Principles and Parameters of Syntactic Saturation. Oxford.
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