Nordic Atlas of Language Structures (NALS) Journal, Vol. 1

Copyright © I. Larsson 2014

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

Choice of non-referential subject in existential constructions and with weather-verbs

Ida Larsson

Stockholm University and University of Oslo

1. Introduction

All the Scandinavian languages have overt non-referential subjects in e.g. impersonal or existential constructions and with weather-verbs like rain. It is, however, well known that the properties of the non-referential element vary between varieties and constructions (see e.g. Platzack 1983, Falk 1993, Holmberg & Platzack 1995, Vikner 1995, Svenonius 2002, Thráinsson et al. 2004, Thráinsson 2007). Icelandic, Swedish and varieties of Norwegian use a form identical to the neuter pronoun (like English it) in all kinds of constructions with non-referential subjects. In Danish, on the other hand, the pronominal form det ‘it’ is used as a quasi-argumental subject with weather-verbs and in extrapositions, but a locative form corresponding to English there or here is used (to a varying extent) in other types of sentences with non-referential subjects; see (1). According to Hansen & Heltoft (2011:1216), her ‘here’ can always be used instead of der ‘there’. In some cases, there is a choice between a locative and the pronominal expletive, but in other cases, only one of the forms is possible; cf. (2) and (3).

(1)

a.

det

sner

(Da.)

it

snows

‘It snows.’

b.

der

var

engang

en

konge

there

was

once

a

king

‘Once upon a time, there was a king’

c.

der/her

arbeides

med

tjære

there/here

work.pass

with

tar

‘Work with tar is being done’

(Hansen & Heltoft 2011:1213-1219)

 

(2)	a.	der		er		mørkt		(Da.)
		there		is		dark.n.sg
		‘It is dark.’
	b.	det	er		koldt
		it	is		cold.n.sg
		‘It is cold.’
		(Hansen & Heltoft 2011:1200, 1214)

 

(3)	a.	Det/*Der	regner		(Da.)
		it/there	rains
		‘It rains.’
	b.	*Det/Der	er	kommet		en	dreng.
		it/there	is	come		a	boy
		‘There has come a boy.’
		(Vikner 1995:225)

The locative forms der/där ’there’ and her/här ’here’ appear as non-referential subjects to a varying extent also in Norwegian and Swedish dialects (see below and cf. e.g. Hulthén 1944:53, Aksnes 2003, Carlsson 2003).[1] The pattern is not always the same as that reported for Danish. For instance, also weather-verbs can take a locative form as subject in the Stavanger dialect of Norwegian, whether the subject is clause-initial or not (Aksnes 2003).[2]

The ScanDiaSyn survey included sentences with a weather-verb with a preverbal locative or pronominal form, as well as presentational sentences with an unaccusative verb and the non-referential subject in a postverbal position. The following sentences were investigated in Norway, Sweden and Finland:

(4)	a.	Der		snør.	(#966) (No.)
		there		snows
	b.	Her		snør.	(#967) (No.)
		here		snows
	c.	Det	snør.			(#968) (No.)
		it	snows
		‘It snows.’

 

(5)

a.

Men

då

kom

der

inn

ein

svær

hund.

(#969) (No.)

but

then

came

there

in

a

big

dog

b.

Men

då

kom

her

inn

ein

svær

hund.

(#970) (No.)

but

then

came

here

in

a

big

dog

c.

Men

då

kom

det

inn

ein

svær

hund.

(#971) (No.)

but

then

came

it

in

a

big

dog

‘But then a big dog came in.’

The results from the Nordic Syntax Database (Lindstad et al. 2009) are presented in section 2 below. Data from corpora (e.g. the Nordic Dialect Corpus; see Johannessen et al. 2009) are discussed in section 3.

2. Results

Pronominal det ‘it’ as non-referential subject 

The sentence det snør ‘it snows’ (#968) with a weather-verb and the pronominal expletive is judged acceptable all across Norway, Sweden and Finland (see Map 1). Only four speakers (from Western Norway) judge it as unacceptable. Pronominal det ‘it’ is the most widespread non-referential subject form also in the presentational sentence with an unaccusative verb. Sentence (#971) is accepted in all locations where it was tested.

Map 1: Quasi-argumental det ‘it’ with a weather-verb.
 (#968: Det snør. ‘It snows.’)                 

(White = high score, grey = medium score, black = low score).

Locative der/där ‘there’ as non-referential subject 

With the locative expletive der/där, instead of det ‘it’, the sentence with a weather-verb (#966) is rejected by most speakers (Map 2). However, some informants accept also this sentence. It gets high scores in two locations in Rogaland in Western Norway, and in two locations in Nyland in Finland. There are also a few locations in Norway, Sweden and Finland where it gets an intermediate score.

Map 2: Quasi-argumental der/där ‘there’ with a weather-verb.
(#966: Der snør. It snows.’)

(White = high score, grey = medium score, black = low score).

In several locations, the locative form der/där ‘there’ is possible as an expletive in the presentational sentence, and in this context, der/där is considerably more widespread than in the weather-sentence (see Map 3). In Swedish, it is accepted in many locations in Götaland (particularly in the south and southwest), four locations in Northern Sweden, and three in Finland. It also gets an intermediate score in several locations. The sentence is judged unacceptable in Eastern and northernmost Norway, but acceptable in several locations in the south (Rogaland and Vest-Agder), in the west (Sogn og Fjordane and Møre og Romsdal), and in a few locations in Nordland and Troms in Northern Norway. In other words, many speakers have the distal locative an alternative to the pronominal form in presentational sentences.

Map 3: Expletive der/där ‘there’ in a presentational sentence with an unaccusative verb.
 (#969: Men då kom der inn ein svær hund.‘But then a big dog came in.’)

(White = high score, grey = medium score, black = low score).

Locative her/här ‘here’ as non-referential subject 

The proximal locative her/här ‘here’ is a more widespread alternative to pronominal det ‘it’ as a quasi-argument to snø ‘snow’ than the distal locative (Map 4). It is for instance accepted in a few locations on the Swedish east coast and in Finland. The sentence gets an intermediate score in a number of locations in Götaland and Northern Sweden, and in a few locations in Southern, Western and Northern Norway.

Map 4: Quasi-argumental her/här ‘here’ with a weather-verb.
 (#967: Her snør. ‘It snows.’)

(White = high score, grey = medium score, black = low score).

In the presentational sentence (5a) (#969), on the other hand, the proximal locative her/här ‘here’ is a less widespread subject form than der/där ‘there’ (see Map 5). In Norway, it is only accepted in a two locations, but it gets an intermediate score in some of the other places where also der is accepted. In Sweden, the sentence is acceptable in many locations in Götaland (particularly in the south) and in a few places in the north. It is also accepted in several locations in Southwestern Finland. Although här ‘here’ is more widespread in the presentational sentence than in the sentence with a weather-verb, there are locations in Sweden (particularly along the east coast) that accept the latter but not the former (see further section 3 below).

Map 5: Expletive her/här ‘there’ in a presentational sentence with an unaccusative verb.
 (#970: Men då kom her inn ein svær hund. ‘But then a big dog came in.’ )

(White = high score, grey = medium score, black = low score).

All three subject forms are accepted in weather-sentences in locations in Southwestern Finland. In presentational sentences, all three subject forms are acceptable in several locations, particularly in Southern and Southwestern Sweden.

3. Discussion

3.1 Age variation in NSD

With respect to the sentence with locative här ‘here’ and a weather-verb (4b) (#970), the judgments sometimes correlate with the age of the informant; cf. Map 6 and 7 below. Particularly in Sweden, the sentence is accepted to a higher extent by older speakers (Map 6), than by younger speakers (Map 7).

Map 6: Expletive her/här ‘there’ in a presentational sentence with an unaccusative verb older speakers.  (#970: Men då kom her inn ein svær hund. ‘But then a big dog came in.’ )	Map 7: Expletive her/här ‘there’ in a presentational sentence with an unaccusative verb (#970), younger speakers.
(White = high score, grey = medium score, black = low score).

The difference between older and younger speakers seems to be even greater with regard to the presentational sentence with där ‘there’ (5a) (#969); see Map 8 and 9 below. Also this sentence is accepted to a higher extent by older speakers (Map 8), than by younger speakers (Map 9). Expletive där is typically viewed as a feature of the dialects in southernmost Sweden, but in fact, many of the older Swedish informants from other parts of Götaland and Norrland accept the sentence. Among younger Swedish speakers, the sentence gets a high score only in Southern and Southwestern Sweden (i.e. where it is expected to occur), and in a couple of other spread places. Age seems to be a more important factor in Sweden than in Norway and Finland.

Map 8: Expletive der/där  ‘there’ in a presentational sentence with an unaccusative verb older speakers. (#969: Men då kom der inn ein svær hund. ‘But then a big dog came in.’ )	Map 9: Expletive der/där  ‘there’ in a presentational sentence with an unaccusative verb (#969), younger speakers.
(White = high score, grey = medium score, black = low score).

3.2 Theoretical issues regarding expletives

In the present-day Mainland Scandinavian languages expletive subjects are generally obligatory. In older stages, the languages had null non-referential subjects (see e.g. Falk 1993, Kinn 2011). Falk (1993) shows that the use of expletive and quasi-argumental det ‘it’ increases in Swedish around the beginning of the 17th century. In the 15-16th century, det ‘it’ is used considerably more often in weather-sentences (around 30-40 %) than in expletive constructions (5-8 %). Still in the 18th century 1/3 of the weather-sentences and 2/3 of the expletive sentences in Falk’s corpus lack an overt subject. Null subjects are still possible in some restricted cases also in Present-Day Swedish (see Engdahl 2010, 2012 and Håkansson 2012).

As observed above (and discussed in much previous work), there is variation in present-day Scandinavian with respect to the form of non-referential subjects (pronominal det ‘it’, locative or null) in the different constructions. There is also variation in the possible positions of expletives. In Icelandic, an overt expletive það ‘it’ only appears in clause-initial position; cf. (6a) and (6b). In Swedish, on the other hand, expletive det ‘it’ is possible, and obligatory, also in the subject position after the verb; see (7). In Faroese, the expletive can occur in postverbal position, but it is not obligatory (see Thráinsson et al. 2004:286 and Eriksen 2009 for discussion).

(6)	a.	*(Það)	eru		mýs	í	baðkerinu.	(Ice.)
		it	be.pres.3.pl		mouse.f.pl.nom	in	bathtub.n.sg.dat.def
		‘There are mice in the bathtub.’
	b.	Eru		(*það)	mýs	í	baðkerinu?
		be.pres.3.pl		it	mouse.f.pl.nom	in	bathtub.n.sg.dat.def
		‘Are there mice in the bathtub?’
		(Cf. Thráinsson 2007:312)

The two types of sentences included in the ScanDiaSyn survey differ both with respect to type of non-referential subject (quasi-argument or expletive) and placement of the subject. In the weather-sentence, the quasi-argument is in initial position, whereas it follows the verb in the presentational sentence. It should therefore be noted that some Swedish speakers still allow an expletive subject to be omitted (or covert) when there is a (typically) locative element in sentence initial position, as in (7a) (see Falk 1993, Teleman et al. 1999/4:54 and Engdahl 2012). The locative PP in (7a) does not otherwise have the properties of a subject, and it cannot occur in the subject position after the verb; see (7b) and (7c). In Germanic, expletives with a locative form are generally not restricted to clause-initial position (like Icelandic expletive það ‘it’), but occur both in initial and post-verbal position (van Craenenbroeck 2011).

(7)

a.

I

gräset

kan

(det)

finnas

ormar

(Swe.)

in

grass.def

can.pres

it

exist.pres

snake.pl

‘There could be snakes in the grass.’

b.

Kan

*(det)

finnas

ormar

i

gräset?

can.pres

it

exist.pres

snake.pl

in

grass.def

‘Could there be snakes in the grass?’

c.

*Kan

i

gräset

finnas

ormar?

can.pres

in

grass.def

exist.pres

snake.pl

‘Could there be snakes in the grass?’

(Cf. Falk 1993:282 f.)

That sentences with an initial locative element (e.g. here or there) sometimes do not need to have an overt element in subject position does in other words not necessarily mean that the initial element should be treated as an expletive in that variety. Instead, we could assume that the presence of an initial locative allows an expletive to be omitted (or covert), and this would be one way of accounting for the fact that the form här ‘here’ to some of the Swedish-speaking informants is more acceptable in the weather-sentence (with the locative in initial position) than in the presentational sentence (with the locative in post-verbal position). On this account, these speakers give different judgments to the sentences in the survey based on placement of the locative, not on the type of construction. According to Engdahl (2012), examples like (7a) are more generally accepted by older speakers, just like the tested sentences with här and a weather-verb. In examples like (8) below, här in the second clause would then have the same function as the phrase här i gården ‘here in the farm’ in the first clause:

(8)

Här

i

gården

har

begåtts

mord,

här

spökar,

och

jag

flyr

(Swe.)

here

in

farm.def

have.pres

commit.sup.pass

murder.pl

here

haunt.pres

and

I

flee.pres

‘Here in the farm have murders been committed, the place is haunted, and I flee’ (Strindberg *1849)

On this account, we would have to explain the fact that speakers that allow här ‘here’ do not necessarily allow där ‘there’. Moreover, as Falk (1993:274) points at out, quasi-argumental det ‘it’ is generally obligatory also in the presence of an initial locative phrase, other than här (at least for some speakers); cf. (9).

(9)	På	Island	regnade	*(det).	(Swe.)
	on	Iceland	rain.past	it
	‘It rained on Iceland.’

It has been noted in previous studies that locative här is used instead of det ‘it’ with weather-verbs in some varieties of Swedish. Hulthén (1944:43) states that sentences like här regnar ‘here rains’ are provincial or part of a local standard. He treats här as a non-referential subject. Jörgensen (1976) gives examples like (10) from the spoken language. He treats examples like these as subjectless, and groups them with cases like (11).

(10)	Å	här	regnar	alldeles	kolossalt	mycket	(Swe.)
	and	here	rain.pres	completely	enormously	much
	‘And it rains a whole lot here.’
	(Jörgensen 1976:67)

 

(11)	a.	Så	skedde			också.		(Swe.)
		So	happen.past			also.
		‘So also happened.’
	b.	För		här	är		bra.		(Swe.)
		because		here	be.pres		good
		‘Because it is good here.’
		(Jörgensen 1976:67)

In the SweDia2000 material (partially available in the Nordic Dialect Corpus) investigated by Carlsson (2003), there are examples where här occurs in postverbal position in Southern Swedish dialects; see (12). Teleman et al. (1999/4:54) give similar examples.

(12)

För

det

första

var

här

inte

mycket

byggt.

(Swe.)

for

the

first

be.past

here

not

much

build.pastpart

För

det

andra

var

här

en

otroligt

massa

affärer.

for

the

second

be.past

here

an

unbelievable

lot

shop.pl

‘Firstly, there was not a lot built here. Secondly, there were an unbelievable amount of shops here.’

(Older woman, Våxtorp, Halland; from Carlsson 2003:12)

Här seems to retain its locative meaning also when it is used as subject (or in sentences with a covert non-referential subject). Examples like (12) would be degraded or anomalous without a locative adverbial; cf. (13) with expletive det ‘it’. At least some of the Swedish speakers that allow här ‘here’ in weather-sentences seem to have this option only when talking about their own proximity, but this has not been tested systematically (cf. Teleman et al. 1999/4:54).

(13)	Det	var	inte	mycket	byggt	??(här).	(Swe.)
	it	be.past	not	much	build.pastpart	here
	‘Not much was build here.’

Also där ‘there’ can contribute locative meaning when it occurs in subject position; cf. (14) and (15).

(14)	Ändå	bodde	där	folk.	(Swe.)
	yet	live.past	there	people
	‘Yet, there were people living there.’
	(Older  man, N Rörum, Skåne; from Carlsson 2003:13)

 

(15)	Ändå	bodde	det	folk	*(där).	(Swe.)
	yet	live.past	it	people	there
	‘Yet, there were people living there.’

In Southern Sweden (as in Denmark), presentational sentences with der/där ‘there’ do, however, not necessarily have a distal (or locative) reading; cf. the examples in (16). In Carlsson’s (2003) corpus-study of Southern Swedish dialects, där is more common than det ‘it’, but speakers alternate between the two, even in similar contexts; see the examples in (17), which are produced by the same speaker.

(16)

a.

Men

vad

är

där

att

göra?

(Swe.)

but

what

be.pres

there

to

do.inf

‘But what is there to do?’

(Older man, Össjö, Skåne; from Carlsson 2003:13)

b.

Nej,

där

var

inte

tid

att

åka

nånstans.

no

there

be.past

not

time

to

go.inf

anywhere

‘No, there wasn’t time to go anywhere.’

(Older man, Bara, Skåne; from Carlsson 2003:19)

c.

Först

får

man

kolla

om

där

är

nåt

first

get.pres

one

check.inf

if

there

be.pres

any

intresse

överhuvudtaget

och

är

där

det

får

man

…

interest

at.all

and

is

there

that

get.pres

one

‘First, you need to check if there is any interest at all, and if there is that, you need to...’

(Younger man, Össjö, Skåne; from Carlsson 2003:19)

 

(17)

a.

Men

där

är

ju

ingen

som

liksom

går

in

och

hälsar

på.

(Swe.)

but

there

be.pres

part

no one

who

like

go.pres

in

and

visit.pres

part

‘But there is no one who like goes in and says hallo.’

(Younger woman, Löderup, Skåne)

b.

För

det

är

nog

ingen

annan

som

kommer

till

en.

because

it

is

probably

nobody

else

who

come.pres

to

one

‘Because there is probably nobody else who comes to you.’

(Younger woman, Löderup, Skåne; from Carlsson 2003:24)

Similar variation is reported for the Stavanger dialect in Norway (Aksnes 2003). The variation is also reflected in the grammaticality judgments given e.g. in Southern Sweden and Rogaland in Norway, where both det ‘it’ and der/där ‘there’ are accepted in the tested presentational sentence.

Some varieties of Norwegian have developed an expletive form distinct from both the neuter singular pronoun and the locative adverb. This is for instance the case in Lyngdal (West-Agder), where the form dar (cognate with the locative adverb der ‘there’) is used in many expletive contexts (data from Pål Kristian Eriksen p.c.):

(18)

a.

Der

kjeme

dar

ein

bil.

(No. Lyngdal, West-Adger)

there

comes

expl

a

car

‘There comes a car there.’

b.

Nå

snø

dar

ude.

now

snows

expl

outside

‘Now it snows outside.’

In these contexts, the pronominal expletive can also be used, but might be a (stylistically) marked alternative (Eriksen, p.c.). In sentences with extraposed infinitives or that-clauses, the pronominal form is more common, and often the only option. The properties (and history) of the distinct expletive form have not been studied, and its geographical distribution is not known.

References

Åfarli, Tor A. 2009. ’Passive participle agreement in Norwegian dialects,’ Groninger Arbeiten zur Germanistischen Linguistik 49, 167-181.

Åfarli, Tor A. 2011. ’Agreement is not an essential ingredient of finiteness: Evidence from impersonal sentences in Norwegian dialects and English,’ Ms., NTNU, Trondheim.

Aksnes, Marita. 2003. Konstruksjoner med formelt subjekt i stavangerdialekten, Master thesis, NTNU, Trondheim.

Carlsson, Mirjam. 2003. ´Där-konstruktioner i skånska dialekter. En syntaktisk dialektundersökning,´ unpublished Bachelor Thesis, University of Lund, Lund.

Christensen, Kirsti Koch & Knut Tarald Taraldsen. 1989. ‘Expletive chain formation and past participle agreement in Scandinavian dialects’, in Paola Benincà (ed.) Dialect Variation and the Theory of Grammar, Foris, Dordrecht.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van. 2011. ‘Expletives in Germanic. From micro to macro,’ talk at CASTL, University of Tromsø, 27 October, 2011.

Engdahl, Elisabet. 2010. ‘Vad händer med subjektstvånget? Om det-inledda satser utan subjekt,’ Språk och stil 20, 81-104.

Engdahl, Elisabet. 2012. ‘Optional Expletive Subjects in Swedish,´submitted.

Eriksen, Pål Kristian. 2009. ‘Expletive dropping in Faroese: Two competing ways of expressing the world,’ Nordlyd 36.2, 36-55.

Eriksen, Pål Kristian. 2011. ‘Expletives as world subjects: A functional-typological approach to expletive subjects,’ Ms., Oslo.

Falk, Cecilia. 1993. Non-Referential Subjects in the History of Swedish, PhD dissertation, Institutionen för nordiska språk, Lund.

Hansen, Erik & Lars Heltoft. 2011. Grammatik over det Danske Sprog, Det Danske Sprog- och Litteraturselskab.

Holmberg, Anders & Christer Platzack. 1995. The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax, Oxford University Press, New York & Oxford.

Hulthén, Lage. 1944. Studier i jämförande nunordisk syntax, Wettergren & Kerners förlag, Göteborg.

Johannessen, Janne Bondi, Joel Priestley, Kristin Hagen, Tor Anders Åfarli & Øystein Alexander Vangsnes. 2009. ‘The Nordic Dialect Corpus - an Advanced Research Tool,’ in Jokinen, Kristiina and Eckhard Bick (eds.), Proceedings of the 17th Nordic Conference of Computational Linguistics NODALIDA 2009, NEALT Proceedings Series Volume 4.

Jörgensen, Nils. 1976. Meningsbyggnaden i talad svenska, PhD diss., Studentlitteratur, Lund.

Kinn, Kari. 2011. ‘Overt non-referential subjects and subject-verb agreement in Middle Norwegian,´ Working papers in Scandinavian Syntax 88, 21-50.

Larsson, Ida. 2014. ‘Expletives and Agreement in Passives,’ Nordic Atlas of Language Structures (NALS). http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/nals#/chapter/58.

Lindstad, Arne Martinus, Anders Nøklestad, Janne Bondi Johannessen, Janne Bondi & Øystein Alexander Vangsnes. 2009. ‘The Nordic Dialect Database: Mapping Microsyntactic Variation in the Scandinavian Languages,’ In Kristiina Jokinen and Eckhard Bick (eds.), Proceedings of the 17th Nordic Conference of Computational Linguistics NODALIDA 2009. NEALT Proceedings Series Volume 4.

Platzack, Christer. 1983. ‘Existential sentences in English, German, Icelandic, and Swedish,´in Fred Karlsson (ed.) Papers from the Seventh Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki.

Svenonius, Peter. 2002. ‘Introduction,´ in Peter Svenonius (ed.) Subject, Expletives and the EPP, Oxford university press, Cary, NC, 3-27.

Teleman, Ulf, Hellberg Staffan & Andersson, Erik. 1999. Svenska Akademiens grammatik 1–4, Norstedts Ordbok, Stockholm.

Thráinsson, Höskuldur, Hjalmar P. Petersersen, Jógvan í Lon Jacobsen & Zakaris Svabo Hansen. 2004. Faroese. An Overview and Reference Grammar, Føroya Fróðskaparfelag, Tórshavn.

Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2007. The Syntax of Icelandic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Vikner, Sten. 1995. Verb Movement and Expletive Subjects in the Germanic Languages, Oxford University Press, New York & Oxford.

 

Web sites:

Nordic Atlas of Language Structures (NALS) Journal: http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/nals

Nordic Dialect Corpus: http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/nota/scandiasyn/index.html

Nordic Syntax Database: http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/nota/scandiasyn/index.html