Definite articles in Scandinavian: Competing grammaticalization processes in standard and non-standard varieties

Abstract

The standard Continental Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish) are usually described as having two definite articles, one homophonous with the demonstrative pronoun den and preposed to the noun phrase (the Particle), the other manifested as an affix on the head noun (the S-article). The Particle is basically only used when the head noun is preceded by an attribute. There is however a difference between Danish and Swedish, with Norwegian in between, in that Danish suppresses the S-article whenever the P-article is used (det store hus 'the big house'), whereas Swedish normally uses both articles: det stora huset 'the big house'. The main claim of the paper is that the two articles are the result of two different processes of grammaticalization which have different geographical distributions, and that the variation we can see in the attributive constructions is the result of the competition between them about the same territory.

The Diachrony of Definiteness in North Germanic

“…The rise of articles, both definite and indefinite, is an example of a process of grammaticalization, i.e., a type of language change whereby lexical items gain grammatical meanings or grammatical items gain more grammatical meanings while being subject to certain changes, such as erosion of phonetic and semantic substance, acquisition of a more fixed position in the phrase or loss of independence, as in cliticization or affixation (see Kuryłowicz 1965, Lehmann 1995, Heine 2002, Hopper and Traugott 2003, Lehmann 2004). The process of grammaticalization of the articles has been studied within grammaticalization studies, among others Greenberg (1978), Givón (1981), Heine (1997), Dahl (2004), De Mulder and Carlier (2011), Skrzypek (2012Skrzypek ( , 2013, to name but a few.…”

“…The older research, originating with Grimm (1898), focuses mainly on the unusual form of the article as compared to the West Germanic and Romance languages (apart from Romanian), and the main aim of these publications was to account for the processes that led to the definite article taking this particular form. More recent research, in particular Dahl (2004), Skafte Jensen (2006) and Skrzypek (2012), focuses more on the functional evolution of the original distal demonstrative, which is the source of the definite article in North Germanic.…”

“…Without unreservedly stating that a significant linguistic change has taken place within a relatively short period of time (an issue addressed also in Delsing 2014), Skafte Jensen continues to compare the two systems with particular reference to the scope of the use of BNs, an issue seldom addressed in diachronic linguistics. Swedish: Larm (1936), Skrzypek (2012), Dahl (2004 and, Stroh-Wollin (2016) Larm (1936) is the first monographic study of definiteness in Swedish, following his 1933 article. It is based on a corpus of texts representing all genres.…”

“…(Skrzypek 2012:148) Concrete nouns can also be found in this category possibly understood as instances of larger situation use, referring to objects familiar to readers of the text, as in ( 106). Dahl's (2004) study is a contemporary review of the use of both pre-and postposed definite articles in non-standard varieties of Swedish, with some references to other North Germanic vernaculars. Despite the fact that it is not diachronic, it is highly relevant to the present study.…”

“…, Faarlund (2009), van Gelderen (2007) 54 2.4.3 Definite Article in Danish: Skafte Jensen (2007a) 57 2.4.4 Definite Article in Swedish: Larm (1936), Skrzypek (2012), Dahl (2004 and, Stroh-Wollin (2016) 58 2.5 Previous Studies on the Grammaticalization of the Indefinite Article in North Germanic 64 2.5.1 Indefinite Article in Icelandic: Leijström (1934) 64 2.5.2 Indefinite Article in Danish: Skafte Jensen (2016) 64 2.5.3 Indefinite Article in Swedish: Brandtler and Delsing (2010), Skrzypek (2012), Stendahl (2013) The rise of definite and indefinite articles continues to puzzle historical linguists, despite a vast, and growing, body of literature on the subject. Interest in grammaticalization of (in)definiteness is partly fueled by interest in the category of definiteness itself, and partly by the relatively large number of sources-there are a number of languages that have developed articles in their literate histories, leaving us with corpora of texts in which the process may be observed.…”