Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-25T22:38:04.466Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - When Variants Lack Semantic Equivalence: Adverbial Subclause Word Order

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2022

By
Tanya Karoli Christensen  and
Torben Juel Jensen
Edited by
Tanya Karoli Christensen  and
Torben Juel Jensen
Tanya Karoli Christensen
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
Torben Juel Jensen
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
Get access

Summary

This chapter argues that it will make results of variationist studies more relevant for linguistic theory if internal predictors assumed to constrain syntactic variation are operationalized in a way that explicitly relates them to semantic or – more broadly – functional hypotheses. We use word order in Danish adverbial subordinate clauses as a case study for how a hypothesized semantic difference between variants can be operationalized. This word order alternation concerns the relative placement of sentential adverbials and finite verbs in subclauses. While the variable is structurally well defined (Adverb < Verb vs. Verb > Adverb), it challenges classic theoretical and methodological ass+L13umptions in variationist studies by entailing a semantic difference, since the two word orders convey subtly different meanings when used in subclauses. For this study, we operationalize a set of linguistic predictors related to the two most prevalent meaning hypotheses given in the literature, the assertivity and the foregrounding hypothesis. Mixed-effect models and random forest analyses are used to examine the effects and strength of intra- and extralinguistic (social) predictors. Geographical differences related to social stratification indicate an ongoing standardization process emanating from the capital of Copenhagen. The import of our findings related to linguistic theory is discussed.

Keywords

syntactic variationsubordinate clausesadverbial clausesword orderfunctional linguisticsmixed-effects modelrandom forest analysisDanishLANCHART
Type
Chapter
Information
Explanations in Sociosyntactic Variation , pp. 171 - 206
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aaron, Jessi Elana. 2010. ‘Pushing the Envelope: Looking beyond the Variable Context’. Language Variation and Change 22 (1): 1–36. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394509990226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aelbrecht, Lobke, Haegeman, Liliane and Nye, Rachel. 2012. Main Clause Phenomena (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 190), edited by Werner Abraham and Elly van Gelderen. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Antomo, Mailin and Steinbach, Markus. 2010. ‘Desintegration und Interpretation: Weil-V2-Sätze an der Schnittstelle zwischen Syntax, Semantik und Pragmatik’. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 29 (1): 1–37.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. Harald. 2008. Analyzing Linguistic Data. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentzen, Kristine. 2014a. ‘Embedded Verb Second (V2)’. Nordic Atlas of Language Structures (NALS) Journal 1: 211–24.Google Scholar
Bentzen, Kristine. 2014b. ‘Verb Placement in Main and Embedded Clauses’. Nordic Atlas of Language Structures (NALS) Journal 1: 207–10.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Basil. 1964. ‘Elaborated and Restricted Codes: Their Social Origins and Some Consequences’. American Anthropologist 66: 55–69.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Basil. 1971. Class, Codes, and Control, vol. 1. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Boye, Kasper and Harder, Peter. 2007. ‘Complement-Taking Predicates: Usage and Linguistic Structure’. Studies in Language 31 (3): 569–606. https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.31.3.03boy.Google Scholar
Boye, Kasper, Poulsen, Mads, Pedersen, Hannah Bruun, Christensen, Marie Herget, Dalberg, Line and Vinther, Nicoline Munck. 2012. ‘At eller ikke at i tale og skrift’. Nydanske Sprogstudier 42: 41–61.Google Scholar
Breiman, Leo. 2001. ‘Random Forests’. Machine Learning 45: 5–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchstaller, Isabelle. 2009. ‘The Quantitative Analysis of Morphosyntactic Variation: Constructing and Quantifying the Denominator’. Language and Linguistics Compass 3 (4): 1010–33.Google Scholar
Burridge, Kate. 2014. ‘Cos – A New Discourse Marker for Australian English?’ Australian Journal of Linguistics 34 (4): 524–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2014.929079.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1984. ‘How People Use Adverbial Clauses’. In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, edited by Brugman, Claudia and Macaulay, Monica, 437–49. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny. 1987. ‘Syntactic Variation, the Linguistic Variable and Sociolinguistic Theory’. Linguistics 25 (2): 257–82.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny. 2007. ‘Discourse Variation, Grammaticalisation and Stuff Like That’. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11 (2): 155–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny, Kerswill, Paul and Williams, Ann. 2005. ‘Phonology, Grammar, and Discourse in Dialect Convergence’. In Dialect Change: Convergence and Divergence in European Languages, edited by Auer, Peter, Hinskens, Frans and Kerswill, Paul, 135–67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Christensen, Marie Herget, Christensen, Tanya Karoli and Jensen, Torben Juel. 2020. ‘Foregrounding of Subordinate Clauses by Word Order: Psycholinguistic Evidence of the Function of V>Adv (V2) Word Order in Danish.’ Linguistics 58 (1): 245–73.Google Scholar
Christensen, Tanya Karoli and Heltoft, Lars. 2010. ‘Mood in Danish’. In Mood in the Languages of Europe, edited by Rothstein, Björn and Thieroff, Rolf, 85–102. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, Tanya Karoli and Jensen, Torben Juel. 2015. ‘Word Order Variation and Foregrounding of Complement Clauses’. In Language Variation – European Perspectives V. Selected Papers from the Seventh International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (Iclave 7), Trondheim June 2013, edited by Thorgersen, Eivind, Hårstad, Stian, Mæhlum, Brit and Røyneland, Unn, 69–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Christensen, Tanya Karoli, Jensen, Torben Juel and Christensen, Marie Herget. 2014. ‘Extending Over Time: General Extenders in Danish’. Paper presented at NWAV (New Ways of Analyzing Variation) 43, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Chicago, 25 October 2014.Google Scholar
Christofaro, Sonia. 2003. Subordination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
De Sutter, Gert. 2009. ‘Towards a Multivariate Model of Grammar: The Case of Word Order Variation in Dutch Clause Final Verb Clusters’. In Describing and Modeling Variation in Grammar (Trends in Linguistics), edited by Dufter, Andreas, Fleischer, Jürg and Seiler, Guido, 225–54. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Diderichsen, Paul. 1946. Elementær Dansk grammatik. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.Google Scholar
Dines, Elizabeth R. 1980. ‘Variation in Discourse: “And Stuff Like That”’. Language in Society 9 (1): 13–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
García, Erica C. 1985. ‘Shifting Variation’. Lingua 67 (2): 189–224.Google Scholar
Green, Georgia M. 1976. ‘Main Clause Phenomena in Subordinate Clauses’. Language 52 (2): 382–97.Google Scholar
Gregersen, Frans. 2009. ‘The Data and Design of the LANCHART Study’. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 41: 3–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gregersen, Frans and Pedersen, Inge Lise. 2000. ‘A la Recherche du Word Order Not Quite Perdu’. In Textual Parameters in Older Languages, edited by Herring, Susan C., Reenen, Pieter Th. van and Schøsler, Lene, 393–431. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Grondelaers, Stefan, Speelman, Dirk and Geeraerts, Dirk. 2008. ‘National Variation in the Use of Er “There”: Regional and Diachronic Constraints on Cognitive Explanations’. In Cognitive Sociolinguistics: Language Variation, Cultural Models, Social Systems, edited by Kristiansen, Gitte and Dirven, René, 205–36. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Günthner, Susanne. 1996. ‘From Subordination to Coordination? Verb-Second Position in German Causal and Concessive Constructions’. Pragmatics 6 (3): 323–56.Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2012. ‘Main Clause Phenomena and Adverbial Clauses’. In The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, vol. 8: Adverbial Clauses, Main Clause Phenomena, and the Composition of the Left Periphery, edited by Haegeman, Liliane, 149–94. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, Christian M. I. M.. 2013. Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar, 4th ed. London: Taylor and Francis Group.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Erik and Heltoft, Lars. 2011. Grammatik over det Danske sprog. Copenhagen: Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab.Google Scholar
Hare, Richard Mervyn. 1952. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hasan, Ruqaiya. 2009. The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, vol. 2: Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and in Sociolinguistics, edited by Webster, Jonathan J.. London: Equinox.Google Scholar
Hasan, Ruqaiya. 2009 [1989]. ‘Semantic Variation and Sociolinguistics’. In The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, vol. 2: Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and in Sociolinguistics, edited by Webster, Jonathan J., 180–230. London: Equinox.Google Scholar
Hasan, Ruqaiya. 2009 [1993]. ‘Contexts for Meaning’. In The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, vol. 2: Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and in Sociolinguistics, edited by Webster, Jonathan J., 355–79. London: Equinox.Google Scholar
Heltoft, Lars. 2005. ‘Ledsætning og letled i dansk. OV-sætningens rester’. In Grammatikalisering og struktur, edited by Heltoft, Lars, Nørgaard-Sørensen, Jens and Lene, Schøsler. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline. 2007. ‘Embedded Root Phenomena’. In The Blackwell Companion to Syntax, edited by Everaert, Martin and Henk, van Riemsdijk, 174–209. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline and Sorace, Antonella. 2007. ‘Verb Movement in Faroese: New Perspectives on an Old Question’. Nordlyd 35. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.474.8069.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline, Sorace, Antonella and Hansen, Zakaris Svabo. 2010. ‘V-to-I and V2 in Subordinate Clauses: An Investigation of Faroese in Relation to Icelandic and Danish’. Journal of Comparative German Linguistics 13: 67–97.Google Scholar
Hooper, Joan B. and Thompson, Sandra A.. 1973. ‘On the Applicability of Root Transformations’. Linguistic Inquiry 4 (4): 465–97.Google Scholar
Houston, Ann Celeste. 1985. ‘Continuity and Change in English Morphology: The Variable (ING)’. Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 1183. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1183.Google Scholar
Jensen, Torben Juel. 2009a. ‘Generic Variation? Developments in the Use of Generic Pronouns in Late 20th Century Spoken Danish’. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 41: 83–115. https://doi.org/10.1080/03740460903364128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensen, Torben Juel. 2009b. ‘Refleksivt anvendte pronominer i moderne dansk’. Ny Forskning i Grammatik 16: 131–151.Google Scholar
Jensen, Torben Juel. 2013. ‘Grammatik og sprogbrugsanalyse. Tilfældet refleksivt anvendte pronominer’. In Betydning and forståelse: Festskrift til Hanne Ruus, edited by Duncker, Dorthe, Hansen, Anne Mette and Skovgaard-Petersen, Karen, 209–23. Copenhagen: Selskab for Nordisk Filologi.Google Scholar
Jensen, Torben Juel and Christensen, Tanya Karoli. 2013. ‘Promoting the Demoted: The Distribution and Semantics of “Main Clause Word Order” in Spoken Danish Complement Clauses’. Lingua 137: 38–58. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2013.08.005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensen, Torben Juel and Maegaard, Marie. 2012. ‘Past Participles of Strong Verbs in Jutland Danish: A Real-Time Study of Regionalization and Standardization’. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 35 (2): 169–95. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0332586512000182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Julien, Marit. 2007. ‘Embedded V2 in Norwegian and Swedish’. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 80: 103–61.Google Scholar
Kristiansen, Tore. 2009. ‘The Macro-Level Social Meaning of Late-Modern Danish Accents’. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 41: 167–92.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1969. ‘Contraction, Deletion, and Inherent Variability of the English Copula’. Language 45 (4): 715–62.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1978. Where Does the Linguistic Variable Stop? A Response to Beatriz Lavandera (Working Papers in Sociolinguistics, 44). Austin, TX: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1993. ‘The Unobservability of Structure and Its Linguistic Consequences’. Paper presented at NWAV (New Ways of Analyzing Variation) 22, University of Ottawa, 16 October 1993.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1994. Principles of Linguistic Change, vol. 1: Internal Factors, edited by Trudgill, Peter. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2001. Principles of Linguistic Change, vol. 2: Social Factors. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Labov, William, Ash, Sharon, Baranowski, Maciej, Nagy, Naomi and Ravindranath, Maya. 2006. ‘Listeners’ Sensitivity to the Frequency of Sociolinguistic Variables’. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 12 (2): 105–29.Google Scholar
Labov, William, Ash, Sharon, Ravindranath, Maya, Weldon, Tracey, Baranowski, Maciej and Nagy, Naomi. 2011. ‘Properties of the Sociolinguistic Monitor’. Journal of Sociolinguistics 15 (4): 431–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lavandera, Beatriz L. 1978. ‘Where Does the Sociolinguistic Variable Stop?’ Language in Society 7 (2): 171–82.Google Scholar
Maegaard, Marie, Jensen, Torben Juel, Kristiansen, Tore and Jørgensen, Jens Normann. 2013. ‘Diffusion of Language Change: Accommodation to a Moving Target’. Journal of Sociolinguistics 17 (1): 3–36.Google Scholar
Meinunger, André. 2006. ‘On the Discourse Impact of Subordinate Clauses’. In The Architecture of Focus, edited by Molnár, Valéria and Winkler, Susanne, 459–87. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Ogle, Richard. 1981. ‘Redefining the Scope of Root Transformations’. Linguistics 19: 119–46.Google Scholar
Pedersen, Inge Lise. 1996. ‘“Der kan jo være nogen der kan itte tåle det” – Om hovedsætningsordstilling i bisætninger i danske Dialekter. In Studier i talesprogsvariation og sprogkontakt. Til Inger Ejskjær på halvfjerdsårsdagen den 20. Maj 1996, edited by Ejskjær, Inger, Nielsen, Bent Jul and Pedersen, Inge Lise, 242–51. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel.Google Scholar
Pichler, Heike. 2010. ‘Methods in Discourse Variation Analysis: Reflections on the Way Forward’. Journal of Sociolinguistics 14 (5): 581–608.Google Scholar
Rickford, John R. 1975. ‘Carrying the New Wave into Syntax: The Case of Black English Bin’. In Analyzing Variation in Language, edited by Fasold, Ralph W. and Shuy, Roger W., 162–83. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Romaine, Suzanne. 1984. ‘On the Problem of Syntactic Variation and Pragmatic Meaning in Sociolinguistic Theory’. Folia Linguistica 18 (3–4): 409–37.Google Scholar
Sankoff, David and Thibault, Pierette. 1981. ‘Weak Complementarity: Tense and Aspect in Montreal French’. In Syntactic Change (Natural Language Studies), edited by Johns, Brenda B. and Strong, David R., 205–16. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Sankoff, Gillian. 1973. ‘Above and Beyond Phonology in Variable Rules’. In New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English, edited by Bailey, Charles-James N and Shuy, Roger W., 44–61. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Sankoff, Gillian and Thibault, Pierette. 1980. ‘The Alternation between the Auxiliaries avoir and être in Montreal French’. In The Social Life of Language, edited by Sankoff, Gillian, 311–45. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Schøning, Signe Wedel and Pedersen, Inge Lise. 2009. ‘Vinderup in Real Time – A Showcase of Dialect Leveling’. In Historical Linguistics 2007 (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory), edited by Dufresne, Monique, Dupuis, Fernande and Vocaj, Etleva, 233–44. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Simons, Mandy. 2007. ‘Observations on Embedding Verbs, Evidentiality, and Presupposition’. Lingua 117: 1034–56.Google Scholar
Stenström, Anna-Brita. 1998. ‘From Sentence to Discourse: Cos (Because) in Teenage Talk’. In Discourse Markers: Descriptions and Theory, edited by Jucker, Andreas H. and Ziv, Yael, 127–46. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Strobl, Carolin, Boulesteix, Anne-Laure, Kneib, Thomas, Augustin, Thomas and Zeileis, Achim. 2008. ‘Conditional Variable Importance for Random Forests’. BMC Bioinformatics 9 (307). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-9-307.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A. 2012. Variationist Sociolinguistics: Change, Observation, Interpretation. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A. and Baayen, R. Harald. 2012. ‘Models, Forests, and Trees of York English: Was/Were Variation as a Case Study for Statistical Practice’. Language Variation and Change 24 (2): 135–78.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A. and Denis, Derek. 2010. ‘The Stuff of Change: General Extenders in Toronto, Canada’. Journal of English Linguistics 38 (4). 335–68.Google Scholar
Terkourafi, Marina. 2011. ‘The Pragmatic Variable: Toward a Procedural Interpretation’. Language in Society 40: 343–72.Google Scholar
Therkelsen, Rita. 2001. ‘The Danish Discourse Particles Jo, Da and Vel’. In Proceedings of the 18th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, edited by Holmer, Arthur, Svantesson, Jan-Olov and Viberg, Åke, 255–70. Lund: Lund University.Google Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A. and Mulac, Anthony. 1991a. ‘The Discourse Conditions for the Use of the Complementizer That in Conversational English’. Journal of Pragmatics 15 (3): 237–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A. and Mulac, Anthony. 1991b. ‘A Quantitative Perspective on the Grammaticalization of Epistemic Parentheticals in English’. In Approaches to Grammaticalization, edited by Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Heine, Bernd, 313–29. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Torres Cacoullos, Rena. 2001. ‘From Lexical to Grammatical to Social Meaning’. Language in Society 30 (3): 443–78. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404501003049.Google Scholar
Verstraete, Jean-Christophe. 2004. ‘Initial and Final Position for Adverbial Clauses in English: The Constructional Basis of the Discursive and Syntactic Differences’. Linguistics 42 (4): 819–53.Google Scholar
Vikner, Sten. 1995. Verb Movement and Expletive Subjects in the Germanic Languages (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vikner, Sten. 1997. ‘V-to-I Movement and Inflection in All Tenses’. In The New Comparative Syntax, edited by Haegeman, Liliane, 189–213. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Wiklund, Anna-Lena, Bentzen, Kristine, Hrafnbjargarson, Gunnar Hrafn and Thorbjörg, Hróarsdóttir. 2009. ‘On the Distribution and Illocution of V2 in Scandinavian That-Clauses’. Lingua 119: 1914–38.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×