Solf workshop (ScanDiaSyn 2006 Grand Meeting)

The distribution of negation in Scandinavian dialects

Christine Bjerkan Østbø, Universitetet i Tromsø

The distribution of negation in Scandinavian dialects exhibits variation, e.g. with respect to the subject in main clauses and with respect to the subject and the verb in embedded clauses. In this talk, the focus will mainly be on the relation between negation and pronouns. In all the Scandinavian Standard languages all pronouns have to precede negation and other adverbs; this is usually referred to as argument shift or object shift (with special reference to the object position). However, some dialects do not show this effect (at least) with respect to negation. I will discuss how these observations correspond to theories of negation.