Om variationen mellan postverbal och medial placering av VP-adverbial i svenska
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Summary, in English
In Swedish, adverbials mainly occur in two positions in the clause: postverbally (last in the clause) or medially (before the finite verb in subordinate clauses and after the finite verb but before e.g. infinite verbs in main clauses). VP adverbials are said to have their natural position postverbally, but they can also be placed medially. This thesis examines factors that influence the placement of VP adverbials in modern written Swedish.
Through a quantitative study of data from newspaper text, it is observed that the typical medial VP adverbial is a temporal adverbial consisting of a one-word adverb phrase. Semantic category, phrase type, and number of words are, thus, all observed to correlate with the placement of the adverbial. Phrase type and number of words, however, need to be considered in relation to each other. With one-word adverbials excluded, adverb phrases are not clearly more often medial than other types of phrases. The results also show that the length of the end field of the clause correlates with the placement of the adverbial. If the end field is short, VP adverbials which are not short temporal adverbials are not likely to be medially positioned.
A small-scale study of some clauses with medial adverbials in the material indicates that information structure and avoidance of ambiguity also are relevant factors in relation to the placement of VP adverbials. Those factors could possibly be the reason why VP adverbials that do not have the characteristics of typical medial adverbials are still sometimes medially positioned.
Through a quantitative study of data from newspaper text, it is observed that the typical medial VP adverbial is a temporal adverbial consisting of a one-word adverb phrase. Semantic category, phrase type, and number of words are, thus, all observed to correlate with the placement of the adverbial. Phrase type and number of words, however, need to be considered in relation to each other. With one-word adverbials excluded, adverb phrases are not clearly more often medial than other types of phrases. The results also show that the length of the end field of the clause correlates with the placement of the adverbial. If the end field is short, VP adverbials which are not short temporal adverbials are not likely to be medially positioned.
A small-scale study of some clauses with medial adverbials in the material indicates that information structure and avoidance of ambiguity also are relevant factors in relation to the placement of VP adverbials. Those factors could possibly be the reason why VP adverbials that do not have the characteristics of typical medial adverbials are still sometimes medially positioned.
Department/s
- Swedish
- Master's Programme: Language and Linguistics
Publishing year
2023
Language
Swedish
Full text
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Document type
Student publication for Master's degree (two years)
Topic
- Languages and Literatures
Keywords
- VP adverbials
- word order
- constituent order
- Swedish
Supervisor
- Marit Julien (Universitetslektor)