Indexicality across the boundaries of syntax, semantics and pragmatics: The constructional content of the Danish free indirect object

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingBook chapterResearchpeer-review

n Danish, indirect object (IO) constructions fall into two main classes: (1) the three-argument valence-governed pattern and (2) the free indirect object construction. The free IO is a constructional extension to certain types of monotransitive constructions and verbs; by contrast, the valencegoverned IO is a manifestation of the third argument of three-place verb stems in (prototypically) transfer constructions. The free indirect object (free IO) in Modern Danish presents an intricate problem, calling for concepts and solutions not normally connected with constructional syntax. Its frequency is extremely low, and intuitions about its acceptability vary
according to basic speech act type. In assertive contexts, it comes across as old-fashioned and is hardly productive; in regulative contexts, by contrast, it retains full productivity. The few positive results yielded by a corpus search are almost exclusively examples of free IOs in regulative contexts.
Indexicality, as used especially in morphology by Henning Andersen and Raimo Anttila, is the key concept of our analysis. An IO NP must identify its argument by pointing indexically to some aspect of the predicate’s semantics, but since – in the case of free IOs – there is no third argument A3 in the verb’s valence schema, there is apparently nothing for the free IO to index. In special cases, however, most importantly in regulative contexts, the free IO finds an alternative indicatum by pointing to features of the performative situation. Our findings indicate the need for a grammatical theory that allows syntactic rules to be not only semantically, but also pragmatically sensitive.
Translated title of the contributionIndeksikalitet på tværs af grænserne mellem syntaks, semantik og pragmatik: Det danske frie indirekte objekt og dets konstruktionsindhold
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDitransitive Constructions in Germanic Languages : Diachronic and Synchronic Aspects
EditorsEva Zehentner, Melanie Röthlisberger, Timothy Colleman & al.
Place of PublicationAmsterdam
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company
Publication date2023
Pages150-194
ISBN (Print)9789027213914
ISBN (Electronic)9789027249715
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
SeriesStudies in Germanic Linguistics
Number7
ISSN2452-2120

    Research areas

  • Faculty of Humanities - indirect object constructions, constructional meaning, free indirect object, indexical meaning, valence, speech acts, reflexive morpheme, regulative speech acts, symbolic meaning

ID: 226498337