Cover not available
Part of
Time in Languages, Languages in Time
Edited by Anna Čermáková, Thomas Egan, Hilde Hasselgård and Sylvi Rørvik
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 101] 2021
► pp. 67–94

Tracing processes in auxiliarization

Time-sufficiency verbs from a Norwegian-Swedish-English contrastive perspective

| Lund University
| Lund University

This chapter considers the Norwegian verb rekke (‘reach’) and its English correspondences in a bi-directional translation corpus (ENPC), as well as occurrences of rekke in Norwegian monolingual corpora. We suggest that rekke is undergoing grammaticalization from a concrete lexical spatial verb towards a (semi-)auxiliary that contains a component of time sufficiency, similar to Swedish hinna (Johansson & Nordrum 2016), but that rekke is at an earlier stage in this development. We base this suggestion on the following observations: (1) Swedish hinna was earlier polysemous between space and time, but can only denote time in present-day Swedish. (2) Norwegian rekke is still polysemous between space and time, but seems to always denote time when used as a (semi-)auxiliary. The study contributes to the semantic description of Norwegian rekke, but also has implications for grammaticalization studies as well as for studies of modality.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Some initial observations about Norwegian rekke – in contrast with Swedish hinna
  • 3.The general procedure of the study and corpus data
  • 4. Rekke in the ENPC compared to hinna in the ESPC
    • 4.1Swedish hinna revisited
    • 4.2The English correspondences of rekke at a glance
      • 4.2.1 Rekke with ability correspondences
      • 4.2.2 Rekke with time correspondences
      • 4.4.3 Rekke with å-infinitive complementation vs. other types of complements
      • 4.2.4 Get-correspondences
    • 4.3Summing up the parallel corpus data
  • 5. Rekke in monolingual corpora
    • Time sufficiency:
    • Time with spatial endpoint:
    • Space:
    • General sufficiency:
  • 6.Is rekke becoming grammaticalized?
    • 6.1Steps in space-time semantic change
    • 6.1.2Paradigmatization: Is rekke becoming a modal?
    • 6.1.3Sufficiency and modality
    • 6.1.4The grammaticalization paths of hinna and rekke
  • 7.Final remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Corpora
Published online: 17 September 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.101.04joh
References
Beck, Sigrid & Rullmann, Hotze
1999 A flexible approach to exhaustivity in questions. Natural Language Semantics 7: 249–298. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bhatt, Rajesh
1999 Covert Modality in Non-Finite Contexts. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
Borin, Lars, Forsberg, Markus & Roxendal, Johan
2012 Korp – the corpus infrastructure of Språkbanken. In Proceedings of LREC, 2012 , 474–478. Istanbul: ELRA.
Bybee, Joan L.
2010 Language, Usage and Cognition. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. & Dahl, Östen
1989 The creation of tense and aspect systems in the languages of the world. Studies in Language 13(1): 51–103. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan, Perkins, Revere & Pagliuca, William
1994 The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar
Chesterman, Andrew
1998 Contrastive Functional Analysis [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 47]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Diewald, Gabriele & Smirnova, Elena
2012 Paradigmatic integration: The fourth stage in an expanded grammaticalization scenario. In Grammaticalization and Language Change. New Reflections [Studies in Language Companion Series 130], Kristin Davidse, Tine Breban, Lieselotte Brems & Tanja Mortelmans (eds), 111–133. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eide, Kristin Melum
2005 Norwegian Modals [Studies in Generative Grammar 74]. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. Google Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje, Lie, Svein & Vannebo, Kjell Ivar
1997 Norsk Referansegrammatikk. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Google Scholar
Flint, Aili
1980 Semantic Structure in the Finnish Lexicon: Verbs of Possibility and Sufficiency. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Google Scholar
Fortuin, Egbert
2013 The construction of excess and sufficiency from a crosslinguistic perspective. Linguistic Typology 17: 31–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grady, Joseph
1997 Foundations of Meaning: Primary Metaphors and Primary Scenes. PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Guevara, Emiliano Raul
2010 NoWaC: A large web-based corpus for Norwegian. Proceedings of the NAACL HLT 2010 Sixth Web as Corpus Workshop , 1–7. Stroudsburg PA: Association for Computational Linguistics.
Hasselgård, Hilde
2007 Using the ENPC and the ESPC as a parallel translation corpus: Adverbs of frequency and usuality. Nordic Journal of English Studies 6(1). [URL] (1 April 2021). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd, Claudi, Ulrike & Hünnemeyer, Friederike
1991 Grammaticalization: A Conceptual Framework. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J.
1991 On some principles of grammaticization. In Approaches to Grammaticalization, Vol. I: Focus on Theoretical and Methodological Issues [Typological Studies in Language 19-I], Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Berndt Heine (eds), 17–35. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Traugott, Elizabeth Closs
1993 Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar
Johannessen, Janne Bondi
1998 Negasjonen ikke: kategori og syntaktisk posisjon. Mons 7. Utvalde artiklar frå det 7. Møtet Om Norsk Språk i Trondheim 1997, Jan Terje Faarlund, Brit Mæhlum & Torbjørn Nordgård (eds), 80–94. Oslo: Novus. Google Scholar
Johannessen, Janne Bondi & Hagen, Kristin
2008 Språk i Oslo. Ny forskning omkring talespråk. Oslo: Novus forlag. Google Scholar
Johannessen, Janne Bondi
2003 Negative polarity verbs in Norwegian. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 71: 33–74. Google Scholar
Johansson, Mats & Nordrum, Lene
2016 Swedish hinna viewed through its English correspondences – Have time or be able to? Nordic Journal of English Studies 15: 171–199. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 Swedish orka viewed through its English correspondences – Ability, insufficient strength/energy or insufficient volition? Bergen Language and Linguistics Studies 9(1): 155–172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johansson, Stig
2007 Seeing through Multilingual Corpora [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 26]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, Christian
2002 Thoughts on Grammaticalization, 2nd, rev. edn [Arbeitspapiere des Seminars für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Erfurt 9]. Universität Erfurt: Christan Lehmann. [URL] (1 April 2021). Google Scholar
Meier, Cécile
2003 The meaning of too, enough and so … that . Natural Language Semantics 11: 69–107. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nadathur, Prerna
2016 Causal necessity and sufficiency in implicativity. In Proceedings of SALT 26 Mary Moroney, Carol-Rose Little, Jacob Collard & Dan Burgdorf (eds), 1002–1021, [URL] (1 April 2021). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
NAOB = Det Norske Akademis ordbok
Tor Guttu (ed) Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget og Det Norske Akademi for Språk og Litteratur [URL] 30 November 2019
Knudsen, Rune Lain & Vatvedt Fjeld, Ruth
2013 LBK2013: A balanced; annotated national corpus for Norwegian Bokmål. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Lexical Semantic Resources for NLP at NODALIDA 2013 [NEALT Proceedings Series 19, Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 88: 3], 12–20.
SAOB = Ordbok över svenska språket
Svenska Akademien. Lund 1893–. [URL] (30 November 2019).
Svensk-norsk blå ordbok
. 2014 Elin A. Frysjøenden (ed.). Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget. Google Scholar
Teleman, Ulf, Hellberg, Staffan & Andersson, Erik
1999 Svenska Akademiens Grammatik, Vol. 1–4. Stockholm: Svenska Akademien. Google Scholar
van der Auwera, Johan & Plungian, Vladimir A.
1998 Modality’s semantic map. Linguistic Typology 1998(2): 79–124. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
von Fintel, Kai
2006 Modality and language. In Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 10, 2nd edn Donald M. Borchert (ed), 20–27. Detroit MI: MacMillan Reference. Google Scholar
von Fintel, Kai & Iatridou, Sabine
2007 Anatomy of a modal construction. Linguistic Inquiry 38: 445–483. DOI logoGoogle Scholar

Corpora

Leksikografisk Bokmålskorpus (LBK) (‘Lexicographic corpus for Norwegian Bokmål’)
[URL] (30 May 2020).
Norsk talespråkskorpus – Oslodelen (NoTa-Oslo) (‘Norwegian corpus of spoken language, the Oslo part’)
[URL] (30 May 2020).
NoTenTen17, Bokmål (Norwegian Web 2017)
available from Sketch Engine. [URL] (30 May 2020).
The English-Norwegian Parallel corpus (ENPC)
[URL] (30 May 2020).
The Norwegian Web as a Corpus v 1.0 (NoWac v 1.0)
[URL] (30 May 2020).
Aftonbladet
1930, available at Språkbanken [URL] (30 May 2020). Google Scholar
Aftonbladet
1940, available at Språkbanken . [URL] (30 May 2020). Google Scholar