Unit accentuation as an expression device for predicate formation in Danish?

Abstract

Abstract In the present paper, I discuss some results of an empirical investigation of spontaneous speech in Danish concerning Unit Accentuation with special reference to stress reduction in contentive verbs in various morphosyntactic contexts. The reference frame for my description is Simon C. Dik and followers' Functional Grammar (FG) as expounded in Dik (1989) - both because this work is, as yet, the most updated framework of Functionalism, and because my own version of the functional paradigm is not supposed to be known (an extensive exposition is Nedergaard Thomsen 1991). Needless to say, my model is adduced throughout. My results indicate that several corrections have to be made within FG in order for this theory to be typologically adequate as regards the description of Danish: thus e.g. its model of the layered structure of the clause (with the distinction between Arguments and Satellites) has to be modified so as to include a more nuclear layer $#x201C;around” the predicate, the ‘Nucleus’. This l...