Argument placement in Icelandic
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5617/nals.10098Abstract
This paper gives an overview of the Icelandic data in the Nordic Word Order Database (NWD; Lundquist et al. 2019). The data were collected from 30 native speakers of Icelandic, and the experimental task elicited argument placement (subject shift, object shift, long object shift, particle shift). The results confirm that subject shift of definite subjects and pronouns is produced categorically in Icelandic, as is pronominal object shift. With regard to the placement of non-pronominal objects relative sentence adverbials and particles, there is, on the other hand, variability. Rather surprisingly, the results suggest that the placement of subjects (initial or postverbal) influences non-pronominal object shift. With respect to the ordering of objects and particles, the distinction between directional and metaphorical particles is relevant. The patterns are partly different from what we find in the comparable data from the other North Germanic languages (also available in NWD).
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The NALS Journal is a gold Open Access journal licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence. Publication of articles is free of charge, as the expenses are covered by the University of Oslo. The NALS Journal is a level 1 journal in the Norwegian system.
Author(s) retains copyright to the article and give The NALS Journal right to first publication while the article is licensed under the Creative Commons License Attribution 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.