This is the first issue of volume 39 of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics. NJL is the journal of the Nordic Association of Linguists. Individuals may subscribe to the Journal by joining the Nordic Association of Linguists. The NAL membership form can be found on the Cambridge University Press web site of NJL, http://journals.cambridge.org/NJL, as well as on the NAL web site, http://www.uef.fi/nal.

The prescriptive infinitive can be found in the North Germanic languages, is very old, and yet is largely unnoticed and undescribed. It is used in a very limited pragmatic context of a pleasant atmosphere by adults towards very young children, or towards pets or (more rarely) adults. It has a set of syntactic properties that distinguishes it from the imperative: Negation is pre-verbal, subjects are pre-verbal, subjects are third person and are only expressed by lexical DPs, not personal pronouns. It can be found in modern child language corpora, but probably originated before ad 500. The paper is largely descriptive, but some theoretical solutions to the puzzles of this construction are proposed.

This special issue includes a collection of papers on language and intersubjctivity. There are two paradigms in linguistic approaches to intersubjectivity; cognitive linguistics and interactional linguistics, but these two paradigms hardly ever meet. This is due to the fact that these paradigms have opposing views on cognition and mental events. However, both these paradigms draw from phenomenology: whereas cognitive linguistic approaches to intersubjectivity have their basis on Husserl's philosophy, interactional linguistics is influenced by ethnomethodological conversation analysis and the philosophy of Schutz. Despite the apparent differences between these approaches, there are convergences, too. Moreover, both approaches are needed for a full account of language and human intersubjectivity.

This paper investigates the relationship between referential and non-referential null subjects in Middle Norwegian. It argues that overt, non-referential subject det arose before the loss of referential null subjects, contrary to the predictions of much previous work. A diachronic analysis compatible with the empirical findings is sketched out.

The second issue of Volume 40 (autumn 2017) of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics will be a special issue devoted to receptive multilingualism. The issue will be edited by Helka Riionheimo, Annekatrin Kaivapalu and Hanna-Ilona Härmävaara.

This paper explores issues of intersubjectivity and shared understanding as they arise in dyadic spoken interaction. Using data from Swedish conversations, we approach the topic by focusing on the functions of a reactive construction that occurs in situations when a linguistic expression (x) has been used in a prior utterance, and this expression is found to be only partially acceptable in the situation at hand. It is therefore reacted to by one of the interlocutors, and negotiated in a new turn initiated by x-å-x, i.e. a unit in which two identical copies of x are conjoined by å ‘and’, and then expanded by a supporting argument. The pragmatic functions of the construction include that of suggesting a sufficient clarification of what should be a reasonable situated meaning and an intersubjective basis for ensuing talk.

Swedish medical language is rich with Latin and Greek terminology which has undergone a Swedification since the 1980s. However, many original expressions are still used by clinical professionals. The goal of this study is to obtain precise quantitative measures of how the foreign terminology is manifested in Swedish clinical text. To this end, we explore the use of Latin and Greek affixes in Swedish medical texts in three genres: clinical text, scientific medical text and online medical information for laypersons. More specifically, we use frequency lists derived from tokenised Swedish medical corpora in the three domains, and extract word pairs belonging to types that display both the original and Swedified spellings. We describe six distinct patterns explaining the variation in the usage of Latin and Greek affixes in clinical text. The results show that to a large extent affixes in clinical text are Swedified and that prefixes are used more conservatively than suffixes.

This article approaches the relationship between empathy and language, describing the ways in which different dimensions of empathy can be attested in naturally occurring interactional data. The authors adopt the definition of empathy as a multidimensional phenomenon: emotional contagion, as well as the cognitive and affective dimensions of empathy, are all understood to be central to the empathetic process. The article promotes the view that studying the relationship between empathy and language should be grounded in the analysis of real-life interactions. Language evolves in social interaction both phylogenetically and ontogenetically, and is not only an important product but also a means of human sociality. The authors suggest that the best approach for analyzing the empathy–language interface combines the theoretical insights of cognitive grammar with the method of conversation analysis. The paper shows that when empathy is analyzed in natural conversation, we can do sequential and linguistic analysis of the ways in which affect is shown, and through a careful analysis of grammatical devices, offer an explanation of whether the displays of affect are derived from the other person's situation. By analyzing the complex ways in which the interactants orient to the different dimensions of empathy, the paper shows how linguistic analysis can give us concrete tools for forming a deeper understanding of how empathy takes place in real-life encounters.

Among the characteristic features of the Finnish language is the use of numerous derivational affixes and diverse word-formation options. Although Finnish has very old derivational elements, fairly recent suffixes and even completely new ways of forming words are also found. It is typical of word-formation options that they change, and that their frequency and popularity varies over time. In this diachronic study, the focus is on one of the most recent suffixes used in the Finnish language, the agentive -Ari suffix (e.g. kaahari ‘reckless driver’, kuohari ‘gelder of animals’). What makes the -Ari derivatives special is that the type has been adopted on the model of words borrowed from the Germanic languages. Historically these are descended from the Latin derivational element -ārius, which was adopted widely in the European languages. The main purpose of the present study was to find out whether, from a diachronic perspective, the -Ari-derived agent nouns actually represent an independent derived semantic category in Finnish. Another purpose was to characterize the process whereby the -Ari suffix was adopted in Finnish: at what point do these derived forms actually first occur in Finnish, and how has the use of the derivational element been manifested at different times. A final significant task of the study was to clarify the potential reasons and motivations for this morphological borrowing.

This article examines the interplay between certain depictions of sound and certain mimetic schemas (intersubjectively shared, body-based image schemas that concern basic processes and activities). The research contributes to the study of ideophones and also demonstrates that it is beneficial to study these types of words in written everyday interaction, as well as in spoken everyday interaction. Two Finnish sound words (ideophones, imitatives), naps ‘snap, pop’ and humps (the sound of relatively soft falling) are examined and their different meanings are analysed. Some research questions of this analysis are: What causes the sound described by either naps or humps? What kind of movement is described and to what mimetic schema is the sound linked? And also: What concrete, spatial processes might motivate the words’ more abstract uses? The examination indicates that naps and humps are used as concrete depictions of sounds and movements, but also more abstractly, as depictions of cognitive and emotional processes without any spatial movement or audible sound. The motivations for these more abstract uses are studied: It is argued that the basic uses of naps and humps are tied to certain bodily processes as their sounds or impressions, and that the more abstract uses of naps and humps reflect metaphorical mappings that map the mimetic schemas of these basic, bodily experiences to more abstract experiences. Grounds for this kind of use is the unique construal of imitatives: they present an imagistic, iconic depiction of a sensation and thus evoke imagery that is shared on a direct bodily level. Thus they aid in identifying with others and their experiences on a level that is directly accessible.

In their recent book, English: The Language of the Vikings, Joseph Embley Emonds and Jan Terje Faarlund attempt to make the case that from its Middle period onwards, English is a North Germanic language, descended from the Norse varieties spoken in Medieval England, rather than a West Germanic language, as traditionally assumed. In this review article we critique Emonds & Faarlund's proposal, focusing particularly on the syntactic evidence that forms the basis of their argumentation. A closer look at a number of constructions for which the authors suggest a Norse origin reveals that the situation is not as they present it: in many cases, the syntactic properties of Old and Middle English are not given careful enough consideration, and/or the chronology of the developments is not compatible with a Norse origin. Moreover, the authors do not engage with the large body of sound changes that constitute the strongest evidence for a West Germanic origin. We conclude that Emonds & Faarlund fail to make a convincing case either for a North Germanic origin or against a West Germanic origin.

As part of a long-term project investigating the relevance of phenomenology for (cognitive) linguistics we analyse two central, interrelated concepts: embodied intersubjectivity (intercorporeality) and sedimentation. With respect to the first, we spell out a number of different intercorporeal structures, emanating at the most fundamental level from the dual Leibkörper nature of the body. Further, we demonstrate that sedimentation is more than a ‘geological metaphor’ as meaning is intrinsically layered in human experience. This is first illustrated by reviewing evidence from ontogenetic semiotic development within the framework of the Mimesis Hierarchy model (Zlatev 2013). Then, we focus on the linguistic construal of situations lacking actual motion in dynamic terms through expressions of non-actual motion such as The road goes through the forest and He was uplifted by her smile. We review studies of non-actual motion in Swedish, English, French, Bulgarian and Thai extending and re-formulating previous analyses. We argue that the present analysis is more adequate than cognitive linguistic explanations in terms of ‘mental simulation’ and ‘conceptual metaphor’. We conclude by pointing out how our phenomenological investigation can help resolve a number of classical dilemmas in semantics: Is language primarily grounded in the body or in society? Is the ontology of linguistic meaning mental or social? What is the relationship between pre-linguistic experiences and linguistic conventions?

In current linguistics, non-objective (i.e. perspectival or construed) facets of linguistic meaning are often explained as properties or correlates of cognitive phenomena. Such outlook, exemplified by Langacker's (1987, 2008) Cognitive Grammar, stands in contrast vis-à-vis the necessary social character of language in general and linguistic meaning in particular. Accordingly, a viable semantic theory should seek to explain non-objective facets of meaning as an intersubjectively valid semantic resource that is an integral part of linguistic meaning at large. In this paper, such theory is proposed based on the phenomenological notions of intentionality and intersubjectivity. I will argue that the non-objectivity of linguistic meaning is most realistically explained as conventionalized intentionality, i.e. object-directedness of conscious experience. The conventionalization of intentionality, in turn, suggests a complex manner in which non-objective meaning motivates the selection of a linguistic expression within an intersubjective context. Finally, this intimate relationship between non-objective meaning and context suggests the feasibility of extending Cognitive Grammar's notion of construal into analysis of non-objective meaning as an intersubjective, context-sensitive facet of interaction (see Etelämäki et al. 2009 for a similar argument).