Verb i passiv fulgt av perfektum parcitisipp: Bruk og historie By Jan Engh (review)

Abstract

41? LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 2 (1998) Ch. 5, 'Dialect and standard in speakers' perceptions ' (101-17), discusses informants' reactions to recorded speech. Tape recordings of four different speakers were played, and the informants were then asked which of the four speakers spoke like people in Neckarau. The recordings contained a variety of prominent features of Mannheim/Neckarau dialect, including apocope of final schwa, unrounding of [y] to [i], and spirantization of medial and final [g] following back vowels, among others. In addition, some of the informants' comments about the recorded dialect samples are given here. The sixth chapter, 'Linguistic usage in the interview situation' (1 18-61). deals with the informants' linguistic usage. The first part addresses the informants ' 'alleged' usage, i e. what the informants think that they say. The second section analyzes their actual usage. The final section discusses the notion of slang (Umgangssprache). The final chapter, 'Conclusion' (162-65) briefly summarizes some of the main points of D's study. There are also several appendices, including brief biographies of the informants, comments on 'typical' Neckarau dialect, a copy of the questionnaire given to informants, and transcripts of the test speakers' and informants' speech samples [Marc Pierce, University ofMichigan.] Verb i passiv fulgt av perfektum parcitisipp : Bruk og historic By Jan Engh. Oslo: Novus Forlag, 1994. Pp. 374. NCr 285.00. This book investigates the history and usage of the past participle when preceded by a passive verb in Norwegian. It builds on Engh's paper of 1 977, a preliminary sketch of the structure of this passive construction , which E calls the AO construction. The book is divided into three main parts and appendices (309-74) which cover lists ofmaterial, possible verbs in Old and Middle Norwegian, and other matters. Part lisa description of the different AO constructions in Modern Norwegian. E analyzes these constructions in traditional syntax and sets up an informal semantic classification of the AO construction and its two verbs (the past participle and the passive verb). AO constructions are basically of two sorts (1) sentences with a free predicate such as (1-1) Planen fors0kes iverksat (The plan tries to be realized', i.e. we try to carry out the plan), which refer to a future state of affairs, and (2) sentences with a stable predicate such as (1-4) Leilighet selges m0blert ("The apartment sells furnished', i.e. Furnished apartment for sale) and (1-5) Mannskapet fryktes omkommet (The crew is feared lost'), which depict present states of affairs. Within the two mam groups, the AO construction can possess other syntactic and semantic structures, e.g. sentence (1-4) has a past participle which is derived from a transitive verb whereas ( 1 -5) has a participle derived from an intransitive verb. Furthermore, E defines a range of constructions which seem identical to the AO construction but which are unacceptable AO sentences, e.g. Leilighet selges m0blert i forrige uge (The apartment sells furnished last week'), where the time adverbial disqualifies the sentence. The second part centers on the comparison of semantic and morphosyntactic features in the AO construction of older Danish-Norwegian, Old and Middle Norwegian, and Modern Norwegian. E concludes that the AO construction is not a new construction in Norwegian; it appears as part of the infinitive system of Old Norse and Old Norwegian. In Part III E considers the origin of the AO in Latin and German. He also considers whether the AO could have been based on Norwegian or Scandinavian. In addition, he discusses the development of the AO construction from Old and Middle Norwegian to today and the connection to similar constructions m other languages. The AO construction does not originate from Latin, but probably from the AO construction in Old and Middle English (e.g. Hit wasfounyn ywritte in oon stone) and from an older Nordic predicative construction. Verbs without the required syntactic features, but with other semantic features, might have replaced the predicative, leading to an AO construction. The book offers a thorough and comprehensive treatment of a neglected aspect of Norwegian It will be of primary interest to those seeking philological evidence for the change in the use of the past participle preceded...