Syntactic processing and word order in Danish

Abstract

The present paper investigates, within the cognitive and functionalist paradigm, word order in Danish by applying to a comprehensive collection of data Hawkins' (1994) Performance Theory of Order and Constituency ( = PTOC), in effect a formalist theory whereby word order and (autonomous-syntactic) constituency are seen as determined, not by internally motivated movement operations as in standard generative-transformational grammar (Chomsky's Minimalism) but by (external) performance factors like processing ease. In the main section of the paper, Section 1, I accordingly investigate Danish word order with respect to processing ease as defined by syntactic complexity; however, competing semantico-pragmatic (complexity) factors are also dealt with; both kinds of factors show out to be significant. The general introduction (Section 0), therefore, pleads for an integration of formal and functional insights (“complementarity-based linguistics”). Section 2 is a general conclusion summarizing the paper by underlining the two empirical main results obtained in the course of the study, viz.: i. the content-syntactic structure of a sentence is ‘weighed’ with respect to its syntactic complexity as input to expression-syntactic word ordering (= PTOC): the principle of Early Immediate Constituents is observed; ii. not only quantitative syntactic weight but also semantico-pragmatic complexity (e.g. word class membership of head word) may be significant factors in ordering. Thus, not only ‘con-tentive arbitrarity’ (= PTOC) but also ‘contentive motivation ‘ (= cognitive functionalism) is at play in word ordering in Danish.

The present paper is an expanded version of my presentation to the 1996 Syntactic Processing and Word Order Symposium, devoted to John A. Hawkins' Performance Theory of Order and Constituency, held at the Department of General and Applied Linguistics, University of Copenhagen. The paper has profited greatly from reactions by the audience,especially Hartmut Haberland, John Hawkins, and Lars Heltoft. I am very much endebted to John Hawkins for many valuable comments and criticisms in connection with my paper, and for moral support of my project in general. I have also had fruitful discussions with Henrik Aagesen, Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen, Lisbeth Falster Jakobsen, Peter Harder, and Erik Kafé. Special thanks go to Jan Daugaardwho has generously supplied me with compilations of corpus examples — without his help the present study would have been impossible. Equally many thanks to Niels Reinholt Petersen for his invaluable and untiring help in connection with the statistics. Finally, a word of gratitude is due to Peter Harder (co-editor of ALH) for his advice in connection with the present exposition. The research reported was financed by a grant from the Carlsberg Foundation for the years 1996–97 which is hereby gratefully acknowledged.

The present paper is an expanded version of my presentation to the 1996 Syntactic Processing and Word Order Symposium, devoted to John A. Hawkins' Performance Theory of Order and Constituency, held at the Department of General and Applied Linguistics, University of Copenhagen. The paper has profited greatly from reactions by the audience,especially Hartmut Haberland, John Hawkins, and Lars Heltoft. I am very much endebted to John Hawkins for many valuable comments and criticisms in connection with my paper, and for moral support of my project in general. I have also had fruitful discussions with Henrik Aagesen, Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen, Lisbeth Falster Jakobsen, Peter Harder, and Erik Kafé. Special thanks go to Jan Daugaardwho has generously supplied me with compilations of corpus examples — without his help the present study would have been impossible. Equally many thanks to Niels Reinholt Petersen for his invaluable and untiring help in connection with the statistics. Finally, a word of gratitude is due to Peter Harder (co-editor of ALH) for his advice in connection with the present exposition. The research reported was financed by a grant from the Carlsberg Foundation for the years 1996–97 which is hereby gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

The present paper is an expanded version of my presentation to the 1996 Syntactic Processing and Word Order Symposium, devoted to John A. Hawkins' Performance Theory of Order and Constituency, held at the Department of General and Applied Linguistics, University of Copenhagen. The paper has profited greatly from reactions by the audience,especially Hartmut Haberland, John Hawkins, and Lars Heltoft. I am very much endebted to John Hawkins for many valuable comments and criticisms in connection with my paper, and for moral support of my project in general. I have also had fruitful discussions with Henrik Aagesen, Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen, Lisbeth Falster Jakobsen, Peter Harder, and Erik Kafé. Special thanks go to Jan Daugaardwho has generously supplied me with compilations of corpus examples — without his help the present study would have been impossible. Equally many thanks to Niels Reinholt Petersen for his invaluable and untiring help in connection with the statistics. Finally, a word of gratitude is due to Peter Harder (co-editor of ALH) for his advice in connection with the present exposition. The research reported was financed by a grant from the Carlsberg Foundation for the years 1996–97 which is hereby gratefully acknowledged.