Artiklar / Institutionen för språk och litteraturer
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://gupea-staging.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/28050
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Auxiliary combinations in Old West Germanic: A window into their grammaticalization(2025) Coussé, EvieThis article examines how and why auxiliaries combine into complex verb constructions in Old West Germanic. It integrates findings from prior corpus studies on Old Dutch and Old English with original corpus research on Old Saxon, Old High German, and Early Middle High German up to 1150. The combined results indicate that all Old West Germanic varieties combine only two auxiliaries, with the finite auxiliary always being a modal. These finite modals could have scope over a wide range of potential auxiliaries, including passive, perfect, modal, aspectual, and causative auxiliaries, as well as perception verbs. The range of auxiliary combinations is shown to expand progressively over time and across regions. The article reveals that the combinatorial potential of auxiliaries relates to their degree of grammaticalization and the availability of a nonfinite verb form. This relationship is argued to be bidirectional: (a) the ongoing grammaticalization of auxiliaries creates and expands their combinatorial potential, while (b) the combination of auxiliaries into complex verb constructions in turn stimulates the emergence of auxiliaries as a category of their own. This implies that the combination of auxiliaries is not only a symptom of their grammaticalization but also a catalyst for further change.Item On ambiguous past participles in Dutch(2011) Coussé, EvieThis article takes up the longstanding debate on the categorisation of the past participle. This construction is known to exhibit the structural and semantic features of both adjectives and verbs. In this article, the question is addressed how the past participle should be categorised in contexts where both an adjectival and a verbal analysis are equally possible (such as in clauses with the stative verb to be). Previous research has focused on determining diagnostics to discriminate between the adjectival and verbal analysis in particular contexts of usage. In this article, however, it will be argued that even a combination of all state-of-the art criteria does not guarantee a full coverage of all past participles in actual language usage. In answer to this shortcoming, an alternative viewpoint is developed in which past participles are considered to be fundamentally ambiguous, unless a preference is indicated by additional contextual elements. This inherent ambiguity of past participles is supported by the conversational maxims of quantity that state that a contribution should only be as informative as is required to fulfil the goal of the conversation. In this perspective, contextual elements that point to a resultative or a processual interpretation are only added if conversational needs require the disambiguation of the past participle.Item Lexical expansion in the HAVE and BE perfect in Dutch A constructionist prototype account*(2014) Coussé, EvieThis article investigates lexical expansion in the HAVE and BE perfect in Dutch. It is known from previous research that early perfects show more lexical restrictions than their modern counterparts. The aim of this article is to uncover how perfects change their collocational preferences over time. The present study tackles this issue taking a quantitative corpus perspective. The empirical basis for this study is a sample of HAVE and BE perfects taken from a corpus of Dutch legal texts (1250–1800). The sample is analyzed using the method of diachronic distinctive collexeme analysis. The statistical analysis indicates that both perfect constructions show fine-grained shifts in collocational preferences over time. The observed lexical expansion has the following properties: it (a) proceeds gradually, (b) through semantically related verb classes, (c) away from a prototype. These properties are accounted for making use of insights from prototype theory and construction grammar.Item The grammaticalization of the have perfect in Dutch A corpus study of contextual extension and semantic generalization(2013) Coussé, EvieThe article investigates the grammaticalization of the have perfect in Dutch by means of a corpus study of historical legal texts dating from the middle of the thirteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century. The focus of the investigation is on the gradual extension of the have + past participle construction in contexts that were not attested before. The study of the status of the subject, the direct object and the past participle in the corpus shows that the construction is increasingly used in a wider array of contexts. Moreover, the corpus search indicates that meaning components of the have + past participle construction are lost in the process of contextual extension. More specifically, the construction is increasingly used in the background of the discourse in order to expand on events that happened before the time of reference.Item Human impersonal pronouns in Swedish and Dutch. A contrastive study of man and men(2012) Coussé, Evie; van den Auwera, JohanThis paper presents a contrastive study of the human impersonal pronouns man in Swedish and men in Dutch. Both impersonal pronouns are etymologically derived from man ‘human being’ and they more or less have the same meaning. However, there are important differences in the usage of these pronouns. In this study, the similarities and differences between Swedish man and Dutch men are studied in a Dutch-Swedish parallel corpus. Analyzing a parallel corpus has the advantage of allowing one to both study the distribution of man en men in original texts and to contrast the use of these pronouns with their translations.Item Pound's Four Pages: "literary Camouflage" and Postwar Anonymous Propaganda(2022) Hentea, MariusThis essay examines Ezra Pound's behind-the-scenes control of the little review Four Pages, which ran for fifteen issues from 1948 to 1951. After his return to the United States in 1945 to face charges of treason, Pound was declared mentally incompetent and institutionalized in a mental hospital in the nation's capital. With his publishers attempting to rehabilitate Pound's public standing by spotlighting his purely "literary" efforts, Pound had to resort to anonymous publication to continue to have a say on contemporary matters. This essay shows how Pound essentially created and edited a little review to have a venue that pushed his social and political ideas at a time when doing so openly was problematic for legal and political reasons. The use of anonymity as a writer and editor was part of the wider "literary camouflage" that Four Pages engaged in to advance Pound's wider cultural and political agenda.Item Trollkarlar och magi i ett semantiskt och etymologiskt perspektiv(Göteborgs universitet, Institutionen för språk och litteraturer, 2018) Söhrman, Ingmar; Göteborgs universitet, Institutionen för språk och litteraturerItem De slaviska språken i Göteborg(Göteborgs universitet, 2014) Ljunggren, Magnus; Institutionen för språk och litteraturerItem Det betydelsebemängda slutavsnittet i Peterburgs epilog(2013-04-16) Ljunggren, Magnus; Granberg, AntoanetaItem GATLOPPET I MEDNYJ VSADNIK – GRUNDACKORDET I PETERBURG(2012-04-19) Ljunggren, Magnus; Granberg, Antoaneta; Institutionen för språk och litteraturer, Slaviska språk, Göteborgs universitetItem Dudkin och den existentiella våndan(2011-12-07) Ljunggren, Magnus; Institutionen för språk och litteraturer, Slaviska språk, Göteborgs universitet