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Pseudocoordination in Swedish with gå ‘go’ and the “surprise effect”

Josefsson, Gunlög LU (2014) In Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 93(December 2014).
Abstract
Pseudocoordination is a construction where two verbs or VPs appear to be conjoined by what looks like the conjunction och ‘and’. In my paper I focus on pseudocoordination with gå ‘walk, go’ as Verb 1, in particular cases where this has been claimed to give rise to a “surprise effect” (Wiklund 2005, 2008). I set out from the assumption that Verb 1 in pseudocoordination is a light verb, which, following Butt (2003, 2010), is assumed to be a special use of the corresponding main verb. I distinguish three different meaning variants of the main verb gå ‘walk, go’, and connect each of these to a particular type of pseudocoordination with gå as Verb 1. The “surprise effect” is associated with one of these, gåHAPPEN. The main verb gåHAPPEN assigns... (More)
Pseudocoordination is a construction where two verbs or VPs appear to be conjoined by what looks like the conjunction och ‘and’. In my paper I focus on pseudocoordination with gå ‘walk, go’ as Verb 1, in particular cases where this has been claimed to give rise to a “surprise effect” (Wiklund 2005, 2008). I set out from the assumption that Verb 1 in pseudocoordination is a light verb, which, following Butt (2003, 2010), is assumed to be a special use of the corresponding main verb. I distinguish three different meaning variants of the main verb gå ‘walk, go’, and connect each of these to a particular type of pseudocoordination with gå as Verb 1. The “surprise effect” is associated with one of these, gåHAPPEN. The main verb gåHAPPEN assigns three theta-roles, one of them to quasi-argumental det, as in Det gick honom illa (it.N went him bad) ‘Things went bad for him’. As a light verb, gåHAPPEN can assign only two theta-roles; hence one argument, the EXPERIENCER, is “left over”, This situation triggers subjectification, meaning that the role is assigned to one of the speech participants, usually to the LOGOPHORIC AGENT (the speaker). The “surprise effect” is a pragmatic interpretation of this pattern of theta-role assignment, in a context where the subject is +HUMAN, hence exerting CONTROL.



As for the alleged conjunction och, pronounced [ɔ], I argue that it is a version of the infinitival marker att, which is also pronounced [ɔ]. The crucial difference is that it lacks tense. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
pseudocoordination, surprise effect, quasi-argument, subjectification, logophoric agent
in
Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax
volume
93
issue
December 2014
pages
24 pages
publisher
Lunds universitet : Institutionen för nordiska språk
ISSN
1100-097X
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
The information about affiliations in this record was updated in December 2015. The record was previously connected to the following departments: Swedish (015011001)
id
a77e248b-954b-40c2-bf13-45c09bf91489 (old id 4882859)
alternative location
http://projekt.ht.lu.se/uploads/media/WPSS_93.pdf
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 14:50:15
date last changed
2018-11-21 20:30:39
@misc{a77e248b-954b-40c2-bf13-45c09bf91489,
  abstract     = {{Pseudocoordination is a construction where two verbs or VPs appear to be conjoined by what looks like the conjunction och ‘and’. In my paper I focus on pseudocoordination with gå ‘walk, go’ as Verb 1, in particular cases where this has been claimed to give rise to a “surprise effect” (Wiklund 2005, 2008). I set out from the assumption that Verb 1 in pseudocoordination is a light verb, which, following Butt (2003, 2010), is assumed to be a special use of the corresponding main verb. I distinguish three different meaning variants of the main verb gå ‘walk, go’, and connect each of these to a particular type of pseudocoordination with gå as Verb 1. The “surprise effect” is associated with one of these, gåHAPPEN. The main verb gåHAPPEN assigns three theta-roles, one of them to quasi-argumental det, as in Det gick honom illa (it.N went him bad) ‘Things went bad for him’. As a light verb, gåHAPPEN can assign only two theta-roles; hence one argument, the EXPERIENCER, is “left over”, This situation triggers subjectification, meaning that the role is assigned to one of the speech participants, usually to the LOGOPHORIC AGENT (the speaker). The “surprise effect” is a pragmatic interpretation of this pattern of theta-role assignment, in a context where the subject is +HUMAN, hence exerting CONTROL.<br/><br>
<br/><br>
As for the alleged conjunction och, pronounced [ɔ], I argue that it is a version of the infinitival marker att, which is also pronounced [ɔ]. The crucial difference is that it lacks tense.}},
  author       = {{Josefsson, Gunlög}},
  issn         = {{1100-097X}},
  keywords     = {{pseudocoordination; surprise effect; quasi-argument; subjectification; logophoric agent}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{December 2014}},
  publisher    = {{Lunds universitet : Institutionen för nordiska språk}},
  series       = {{Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax}},
  title        = {{Pseudocoordination in Swedish with gå ‘go’ and the “surprise effect”}},
  url          = {{http://projekt.ht.lu.se/uploads/media/WPSS_93.pdf}},
  volume       = {{93}},
  year         = {{2014}},
}