Verb-particles: active verbs

Björn Lundquist

NorDiaCorp

1. Introduction

The syntax of Scandinavian verb particles has been described in a series of papers by Peter Svenonius (see Svenonius 1996, 2003 and 2005). Earlier seminal work include Sandøy (1976), Åfarli (1985) and Taraldsen (1983). The main patterns for particles are illustrated below.

In Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese, a verb-particle can either precede or follow an NP direct object, as shown for Norwegian and Icelandic below:[i]

(1)	a.	Vi	kastet	hunden		ut.		(Norw.)
	b.	Við	hentum	hundinum		út.	(Ice.)
		we	threw	dog.DEF		out
		‘We threw the dog out.’
(2)	a.	Vi	kastet	ut	hunden.			(Norw.)
	b.	Við	hentum	út	hundinum			(Ice.)
		we	threw	out	dog.DEF
		‘We threw out the dog.’

In the discussion part below we will look at some dialects where participle placement is less free, and at least partly determined by semantic factors. Particles cannot precede pronominal direct objects in the aforementioned languages (with the exception of some Norwegian dialects, see discussion below):

(3)	a.	Vi	kastet		den		ut.		(Norw.)
	b.	Við	hentum		honom		út.		(Ice.)
		we	threw		it/him		out
		‘We threw it the dog.’
(4)	a.	*Vi	kastet	ut		den.			(Norw.)
	b.	*Við	hentum	út		honom.		(Ice.)
		we	threw	out		it/den.
		‘We threw out the dog.’

In Danish, particles obligatorily follow both NP and pronominal direct objects:

(5)	a.	Boris	skruede	musikken/den		ned	(Dan.)
		Boris	turned	music.DEF/it		down
		‘Boris turned the music/it down.’
	b.	Boris	skruede	ned	musikken/den		(Dan.)
		Boris	turned	down	music.DEF/it
		‘Boris turned the music/it down.’

In Swedish on the other hand, particles precede both NP and pronominal objects, as shown below:

(6)	a.	Vi	kastade	ut	hunden/den.		(Swe.)
		we	threw	out	dog.DEF/it
		‘We threw out the dog/it.’
	b.	Vi	kastade	hunden/den		ut.		(Swe.)
		Boris	threw	dog.DEF		out
		‘Boris turned the music/it down.’

2. Results

2.1 Nordic Syntactic Database (NSD)

In the ScanDiaSyn-survey, particle placement in active sentences was only tested in Swedish speaking areas (i.e., Sweden and parts of Finland). The aim was to check how robust the Swedish pattern given in (6) above really is. Particle placement was tested with both pronominal and NP direct objects. The following sentences were tested:

(1421)	Jag		satte	på	radion.		(Swe.)
	I		turned	on	radio.DEF
	‘I turned on the radio.’
(1420)	Jag	satte		radion		på.		(Swe.)
	I	turned		radio.DEF		on
	‘I turned the radio on.’

(1421) (1420)

(1422)	Jag		satte	på	den.		(Swe.)
	I		turned	on	it
	‘I turned it on.’
(1423)	Jag	satte		den		på		(Swe.)
	I	turned		it		on
	‘I turned it on.’

(1422) (1423)

As can be seen, a pronoun preceding a particle is not accepted anywhere, and an NP preceding a particle is only accepted at one measure point, Larsmo in Österbotten. The Swedish pattern in other words seems to be very robust.

3. Discussion

Vinka (1994?) reports on some Northern Swedish dialects where some particles optionally follow pronouns. He calls these particles predicative particles, and they behave differently from non-predicative particles with respect to a number of tests. The clearest test is whether a bare particle can follow a copula, as in the following example:

(7)	a.	Tv’n	är		på.			(Predicative part.)
		TV.DEF	is		on
		‘The TV is on.’ (i.e., ‘The TV is turned on.’)
	b.	*Vinet		är		upp.	(Non-predicative part.)
		wine.def		is		up
		*‘The wine is up.’ (int. ‘The wine is/has been drunk up.’)

Vinka thus claims that the sentence (1422) is grammatical:

(1422)	Jag	satte	den	på	(Swe.)
	I	turned	it	on
	‘I turned it on.’

As shown in the map above, this sentence has not been judged as grammatical at any locations in Northern Sweden. More detailed field work might show that this construction still is acceptable in certain pockets of Northern Sweden, but for now we can only conclude that the order between particles and pronouns is rigid throughout Sweden. We also do not have any evidence that the distinction predicative - non-predicative has any effect on particle placement.

Sandøy (1976) reports that there is a distinction between directional and non-directional particles in at least some Norwegian dialects (Sandøy focus on the Romsdal dialect in Western Norway. Clearly non-directional particles in the Romsdal dialect have to precede the direct object, while directional particles clearly prefer to follow the direct object. The following two examples illustrate the difference (curly brackets indicate possible or impossible positions for the particle):

(8)

Han

bar

{?ut}

fangst’n

sin

{ut}

åt

dei

fattige.

he

carried

out

catch-DEF

his

out

to

the

poor

‘He carried his catch out to the poor’

(9)

Han

he

rekna

{ut}

prisan

{ut}

he

has

counted

out

price.DEF

out

‘He has calculated the price’

Whether the semantic distinction between the particles in (8) and (9) should be described as directional vs. non-directional has been debated. Aa (2010) argues that the distinction rather is dynamic vs. resultative particles, and that dynamic particles tends to precede the object, while resultative particles follow the object. It should however be pointed out that the semantic function of the particle plays a fairly small role in determining the position of the particle throughout Scandinavia. Both in Swedish and Danish the particle placement is fixed. In Norwegian (and insular Scandinavian), information structure plays a more important role: objects that are new in the discourse (and therefore carry strong stress) are more likely to follow particles than given objects (most clearly seen in the case of pronouns).

ÅÅ (2010) reports from fieldwork in Trøndelag that some dialects show more or less a Swedish pattern, especially in dialects spoken in areas close to the Swedish border. In Nordli, both pronouns and full NP objects obligatorily follow a directional particle. In Fosen, closer to the coast, NP objects preferably follow the particle, while pronouns precede the particle.

(10)	a.	Han		kasta		{ut}	hunden		{*ut}	(Nordli)
		he		threw		out	dog		out
		‘He threw the dog out’
(10)	b.	Han	kasta		{ut}		han		{??/*ut}	(Nordli)
		he	threw		out		it		out
		‘He threw it out’
(11)	a.	Han		kasta		{ut}	hunden		{??ut}	(Fosen)
		he		threw		out	dog		out
		‘He threw the dog out’
(11)	b.	Han	kasta		{??ut}			han	{ut}	(Fosen)
		he	threw		out			it	out
		‘He threw it out’

Note that the particle ut in the examples above at least potentially can be interpreted as a directional/resultative particle.

In the Nordic Dialect Corpus, utterances with a particle preceding a non-stressed pronoun are fairly easy to find. They seem to be absent in Northern Norwegian, and very uncommon in Southern Norwegian. In Trøndersk and Eastern Norwegian they are fairly frequent, though particles following pronouns are still more common.

It should further be noted that there are cases in Norwegian (and the other Scandinavian languages as well) where something that looks like a particle has to precede a pronominal complement. Two examples are given below: the preposition/particle til (‘to’) that creates punctual events (see Tungseth 2006 for detailed discussion), and the preposition/particle av (‘off’), that expresses source:

(12)

a.

Hon

slo

{til}

ham

{*til}

(Nor.)

she

hit.PAST

to

him

to

‘She hit him’

b.

De

slet

{av}

ham

{*av}

gensern

(Nor.)

they

tear.PAST

off

him

off

sweater.DEF

‘They tore his sweater off’ (lit. ‘They tore off him the sweater’

Til is analyzed as a verbal preposition by Tungseth (2006), and might thus not constitute a counterexample to the general particle-pattern. Av, in (12b) can also be analyzed as a preposition, with ham as the complement. However, preposition phrases can in general not precede the direct object, which make av look more like a particle. It should be noted though that ham in (12b) does not behave like a typical direct object, as it cannot be promoted to subject in a passive, and it cannot be topicalized.

From a historical perspective it interesting to note that Aasen (1864) already noted that the particle-object order was the unmarked order when the object carries heavy stress, while pronouns in the unmarked case preceded the particle, with the exception of Trøndersk and the dialects spoken in the areas closest to Sweden in Eastern Norway.

Particle placement is also discussed in the sections on particle placement in passives and particle placement and reflexive verbs.

References

Sandøy, Helge. 1976. Laust samansette verb i vestnordisk: ein samanliknande leddstillingsanalyse for islandsk, færøysk og romsdalsmål. Universitetet i Oslo, Oslo.

Svenonius, Peter. 1996. The optionality of particle shift. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 57: 47–75.

Svenonius, Peter. 2003. Swedish particles and directional prepositions. In Grammar in Focus: Festschrift for Christer Platzack 18 November 2003, edited by Lars-Olof Delsing, Cecilia Falk, Gunlög Josefsson, and Halldór Á . Sigurðsson, vol. II, pp. 343–351. Department of Scandinavian Languages, Lund University, Lund.

Taraldsen, Knut Tarald. 1983. Some phrase structure dependent differences between Swedish andNorwegian. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 9: 1–45.

Tungseth, Mai. 2006. Verbal Prepositions in Norwegian: Paths, Places and Possession. Ph.D. thesis. University of Tromsø.

Vikner, Sten. 1987. Case assignment differences between Danish and Swedish. In Proceedings of the Seventh Biennial Conference of Teachers of Scandinavian Studies in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, edited by Robin M.A. Allan and Michael P. Barnes, pp. 262–281. University College London, London.

Vinka, Mikael. 1999. Predicative and non-predicative verb particle constructions. In WCCFL 18 Proceedings, edited by S. Bird, A. Carnie, J. Haugen, and P. Norquest, pp. 570–585. Cascadilla Press, Somerville, Ma.

Åfarli, Tor A. 1985. Norwegian verb particle constructions as causative constructions. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 8 1: 75–98.

---

[i] According to sources, pre-argumental particles in Faroese are quite rare, compared to Norwegian and Icelandic.