TY - JOUR

T1 - Foregrounding of subordinate clauses by word order

T2 - Psycholinguistic evidence of the function of V>Adv (V2) word order in Danish

AU - Christensen, Marie Herget

AU - Christensen, Tanya Karoli

AU - Jensen, Torben Juel

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - In modern Danish, main clauses have the word order X > Verb > Adverb (i.e. V2) whereas subordinate clauses are generally characterized by the ”subordinate clause” word order Subject > Adverb > Verb. Spoken Danish has a high frequency of ”main clause” word order in subordinate clauses, however, and in the article we argue that this ”Main Clause Phenomena” (cf. Aelbrecht et al. 2012) functions as a foregrounding device, signaling that the more important information of the clause complex is to be found in the subordinate clause instead of in its matrix clause.A prediction from the foregrounding hypothesis is that a subordinate clause with Verb>Adverb word order will attract more attention than a clause with Adverb>Verb word order. To test this, we conducted an experiment under the text change paradigm. 59 students each read 24 constructions twice, each containing a subordinate clause with either Verb>Adverb or Adverb>Verb word order. Half of the subordinate clauses were governed by a semifactive predicate (open to both word orders) and the other half by a semantically secondary sentence (in itself strongly favoring Verb>Adverb word order). Attention to the subordinate clause was tested by measuring how disinclined the participants were to notice change of a word in the subordinate clause when re-reading it.Results showed significantly more attention to Verb>Adverb clauses than to Adverb>Verb clauses (though only under semifactive predicates), and more attention to subordinate clauses under semantically secondary than semifactive predicates. We consider this as strongly supporting the hypothesis that Verb>Adv word order functions as a foregrounding signal in subordinate clauses.

AB - In modern Danish, main clauses have the word order X > Verb > Adverb (i.e. V2) whereas subordinate clauses are generally characterized by the ”subordinate clause” word order Subject > Adverb > Verb. Spoken Danish has a high frequency of ”main clause” word order in subordinate clauses, however, and in the article we argue that this ”Main Clause Phenomena” (cf. Aelbrecht et al. 2012) functions as a foregrounding device, signaling that the more important information of the clause complex is to be found in the subordinate clause instead of in its matrix clause.A prediction from the foregrounding hypothesis is that a subordinate clause with Verb>Adverb word order will attract more attention than a clause with Adverb>Verb word order. To test this, we conducted an experiment under the text change paradigm. 59 students each read 24 constructions twice, each containing a subordinate clause with either Verb>Adverb or Adverb>Verb word order. Half of the subordinate clauses were governed by a semifactive predicate (open to both word orders) and the other half by a semantically secondary sentence (in itself strongly favoring Verb>Adverb word order). Attention to the subordinate clause was tested by measuring how disinclined the participants were to notice change of a word in the subordinate clause when re-reading it.Results showed significantly more attention to Verb>Adverb clauses than to Adverb>Verb clauses (though only under semifactive predicates), and more attention to subordinate clauses under semantically secondary than semifactive predicates. We consider this as strongly supporting the hypothesis that Verb>Adv word order functions as a foregrounding signal in subordinate clauses.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - change blindness

KW - ledsætninger

KW - Dansk

KW - forgrundsbetydning

KW - ledstilling

KW - change blindness

KW - subordinate clauses

KW - Danish

KW - foregrounding

KW - word order

U2 - 10.1515/ling-2019-0040

DO - 10.1515/ling-2019-0040

M3 - Journal article

VL - 58

SP - 245

EP - 273

JO - Linguistics

JF - Linguistics

SN - 0024-3949

IS - 1

M1 - 7

ER -