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Linking and Optimality in the Norwegian Presentational Focus Construction1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2010

Helge Lødrup
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Extract

The presentational focus construction in Norwegian can have an agent in object position, as in Det arbeidet en mann i skogen ‘It worked a man in the-woods”. This creates problems for linking theory, in which a robust generalization says that agents are not realized as objects. Optimality Theory makes possible a new approach to this classical problem in Scandinavian generative grammar. The constraint that agents are not realized as objects must compete with other constraints. In Norwegian, it is ranked below a requirement that a presentational focus must be realized in object position. The Norwegian situation is compared to languages with different constraint rankings.

Type
Review Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , December 1999 , pp. 205 - 229
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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