Perfect and periphrastic passive constructions in Danish

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Bjerre ◽  
Tavs Bjerre

This paper gives an account of the event and argument structure of past participles, and the linking between argument structure and valence structure. It further accounts for how participles form perfect and passive constructions with auxiliaries. We assume that the same participle form is used in both types of construction. Our claim is that the valence structure of a past participle is predictable from its semantic type, and that the valence structure predicts which auxiliary a past participle combines with in perfect constructions and whether the past participle may occur in passive constructions. Our approach sets itself apart from similar approaches, cf. e.g. Heinz & Matiasek (1994), Kathol (1994), Pollard (1994) and Müller (2003), with its strong emphasis on semantics.

1997 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Balcom

Zobl discussed inappropriate passive morphology (‘be’ and the past participle) in the English writing of L2 learners, linking its occurrence to the class of unaccusative verbs and proposing that learners subsume unaccusatives under the syntactic rule for passive formation. The research reported here supports and amplifies Zobl' proposal, based on a grammaticality judgement task and a controlled production task containing verbs from a variety of subclasses of unaccusatives. The tasks were administered to Chinese L1 learners of English and a control group of English native speakers. Results show that subjects both used and judged as grammatical inappropriate passive morphology with all verbs falling under the rubric of unaccusativity. The article concludes with linguistic representations which maintain Zobl’s insights but are consistent with current theories of argument structure.


2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torben Juel Jensen ◽  
Marie Maegaard

The article presents a real-time study of standardization and regionalization processes with respect to the use of past participles of strong verbs in the western part of Denmark. Analyses of a large corpus of recordings of informants from two localities show that the use of the dialectalenform of the past participle suffix has been in decline during the last 30 years. Theenforms are replaced by three other forms, one of which is (partly) dialectal, one regional and one standard Danish. The study indicates that a regionalization process has taken place prior to the time period studied, but that it has now been overtaken by a Copenhagen-based standardization process. The study also shows interesting differences between the two localities, arguably due to the geographical location and size, and to the status of the different participle forms in the traditional local dialects.


1968 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Richard K. Seymour
Keyword(s):  

2019 ◽  
pp. 176-231
Author(s):  
D. Gary Miller

Verbs in Gothic are thematic, athematic, or preterite present. Several classes, including modals, are discussed. Strong verbs have seven classes, weak verbs four. Inflectional categories are first, second, and third person, singular, dual (except in the third person), and plural number. Tenses are nonpast and past/preterite. There are two inflected moods, indicative and optative, and two voices (active, passive). The passive is synthetic in the nonpast indicative and optative. The past system features two periphrastic passives, one stative-eventive with wisan (be), the other inchoative and change of state with wairþan (become). Middle functions are mostly represented by simple reflexive structures and -nan verbs. Nonfinite categories include one voice-underspecified infinitive, a nonpast and past participle, and a present active imperative. The third person imperative is normally expressed by an optative.


1976 ◽  
pp. 77-106
Author(s):  
Domenico Parisi
Keyword(s):  

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-272
Author(s):  
Letizia Vezzosi

Abstract Aldred’s interlinear glosses added to the Latin text of the Lindisfarne Gospels have undoubtedly an inestimable value as one of the most substantial representatives of late Old Northumbrian. Therefore, they have been an object of study both as a source of information on this Old English variety and on the typological changes affecting Middle English. Starting from the assumption that glosses have an ancillary function with respect to the Latin text they accompany, I have argued in the present paper that they can make a significant contribution to delineating the history and meaning of a word inasmuch as glossators could have chosen vernacular words according to their core meaning. The particular case of the verbs of possession āgan and the forms derived from it, including the past participle āgen, will be used in the following discussion of the role of glosses: the investigation of their meaning in the Lindisfarne Gospels will help us understand the development of āgen into the PDE attributive intensifier own.


PMLA ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 134 (5) ◽  
pp. 1143-1149
Author(s):  
Russ Castronovo

Temporal concerns are baked into the matter of facts. From an etymological point of view, facts are moments of making and doing that are no longer alive and kicking. Coming into English and other modern Western languages by means of both the past participle of the Latin word facere (“to make or to do”) and the Latin noun factum, whose senses include the “result of doing” and “something done,” fact denotes an action that has happened and is now preserved like a fossil in the accumulated sediments of history (“Fact”). Etymologically speaking, facts are safely removed from the vicissitudes of the present and the whims of our leaders. So it makes sense that there should be some hand-wringing over facts that have become so thoroughly destabilized that they no longer seem to be based on anything. The defining moment in this distressing development occurred when the Trump administration, not content merely to put a spin on facts, dismissed quantifiable facts by summoning “alternative facts” to deny that the low attendance at the 2017 presidential inauguration was real. A dictionary, not the renowned one from Oxford but Urban Dictionary, offers the following definition of alternative facts: “an attempt to gaslight the population in an effort to control the media and create propaganda” (Mozzy-o). If only we could take refuge in etymology and remind ourselves and anyone else who will listen that facts are veritable faits accomplis, over and done with, past participles that stand as linguistic monuments to a bygone event beyond alteration.


Author(s):  
Andrew Spencer

The chapter presents an overview of phenomena which pose important problems of description and analysis. I focus on the inflectional system, which has undergone severe attrition and shows idiosyncrasies typical of such systems. For nominals I describe the personal pronoun paradigm and the ‘possessive -s’ clitic/phrasal affix. The controversial categorial status of adverbs in -ly is discussed, while for verbs, all the subcategories prove to be highly problematical. For instance, only 50 irregular verbs distinguish past tense from past participle (e.g. wrote/written), so it is not even clear whether the past participle category is a highly restricted subcategory, with the vast majority of verbs showing past tense/past participle syncretism, or whether this is a case of ‘overdifferentiation’, like the forms am, are, were of the verb BE. On the other hand, the polyfunctionality of the completely regular -ing suffix, which derives verb, noun, and adjective forms, also poses serious unresolved problems. Auxiliary verbs and related phenomena alternate between periphrastic, clitic, and genuinely morphological (affixal) constructions. The chapter concludes with consideration of those aspects of derivational morphology which seem to be indisputably productive, hence part of the grammar, including (certain types of) event nominalization, some cases of double object alternation, and morphosemantic mismatches of the kind electrical engineering ⇒ electrical engineer.


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