Embedded clauses with main clause word order in Mainland Scandinavian

Författare

Marit Julien

Summary, in English

The properties of embedded V2-clauses in Mainland Scandinavian, as opposed to non-V2 clauses, have been a topic of much debate recently. This paper defends the view that all V2 clauses have illocutionary force, which for a declarative clause means that it is asserted. First clauses embedded under the predicate types identified by Hooper & Thompson (1973) are discussed, and it is shown that the generalisation that V2 is closely related to assertion holds for all types. After that, I present arguments against the claim that seemingly embedded V2 clauses are not in fact embedded, and then the analysis of embedded V2 is spelled out more formally. This is followed by a discussion

of possible tests for assertion, which leads to the conclusion that few of the proposed tests really work, but that certain discourse-oriented elements seem to be sensitive to the presence of illocutionary force. Finally, I look at embedded questions with main clause word order, and I tentatively conclude that these too have illocutionary force.

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