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Ditransitives in Germanic Languages: Synchronic and diachronic aspects
Edited by Eva Zehentner, Melanie Röthlisberger and Timothy Colleman
[Studies in Germanic Linguistics 7] 2023
► pp. 115–149

The double object construction in 19th‑ and 20th‑century Swedish

This paper presents a study of the double object construction (DOC) in 19th‑ and 20th‑century Swedish, focussing on the semantic range of the construction. The results show that throughout this period, the Swedish DOC occurs with verbs of transfer (e.g. ge ‘give’), future transfer (erbjuda ‘offer’), dispossession (beröva ‘deprive’), hindrance (neka ‘deny’), communication (säga ‘say’), causation (förorsaka ‘cause’), creation and obtaining (laga ‘cook’, skaffa ‘obtain’) as well as verbs of attitude (avundas ‘envy’). Verbs of benefaction and malefaction (öppna ‘open’, spärra ‘block’) are found in the 19th‑century data, but do not occur in the DOC in present-day Swedish anymore. Over time, verbs of transfer have come to constitute the majority of the instances of the DOC, while most other semantic categories have undergone a decrease in token frequency, relative to the construction as a whole. These findings suggest that since the beginning of the 19th century, the Swedish DOC has undergone a process of semantic specialization, similar to the development of the corresponding constructions in English (Colleman and De Clerck 2011; Zehentner 2018) and Dutch (Colleman 2011). The study also reveals a decline in text frequency and overall type frequency of the DOC as a whole, indicating that the construction has become less productive over the last two centuries.
Keywords: double object construction, ditransitives, diachronic construction grammar, Late Modern Swedish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Ditransitive verbs and the double object construction in Swedish
    • 2.2Accounts of the double object construction in other Germanic languages
    • 2.3Semantic categories employed to describe the double object construction
  • 3.Data
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Semantic analysis of the double object construction in 19th‑ and 20th‑century Swedish
      • 4.1.1Verbs of transfer
      • 4.1.2Verbs of future transfer
      • 4.1.3Verbs of dispossession
      • 4.1.4Verbs of hindrance
      • 4.1.5Verbs of communication
      • 4.1.6Verbs of causation
      • 4.1.7Verbs of creation and obtaining
      • 4.1.8Verbs of benefaction and malefaction
      • 4.1.9Verbs of attitude
      • 4.1.10Other verbs
    • 4.2Quantitative overview of the data
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1The semantic development of the Swedish DOC in the light of other constructional changes
    • 5.2Comparison with other Germanic languages
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 8 August 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sigl.7.04val
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