So odd an article in Danish: a reply to Van de Velde

Publication date: Available online 26 September 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Muriel NordeAbstractFreek Van de Velde's article "Wayward categorial shift: so odd an article" deals with an intriguing construction, whereby the degree adverb 'so' and an adjective precede an indefinite article, which is found in several (older) Germanic languages. Such Big Mess Constructions (hence BMCs) differ from canonical NPs because the adjective usually follows an article, instead of preceding it. This observation, as well as the fact that BMCs are found in several Germanic languages at some stage of their history, begs for an explanation. Van de Velde claims the rise of the BMC is "merely the result of an historical accident", a categorial shift through reanalysis that was triggered by the phonetic similarity of an adjectival suffix and the indefinite article following the adjective. The purpose of the present paper is to examine if Van de Velde's reanalysis hypothesis holds for Danish as well. As we will see, Danish is particularly interesting for this purpose, firstly, because the Big Mess Construction is still fully productive and secondly, because the historical circumstances for the kind of reanalysis assumed for Dutch and English appeared to be less favourable.

Source: Language Sciences - October 5, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research