Abstract
As described in Endresen (1985) and Bull (1987) Norwegian dialects in Trondelag and North Norway have a way of forming degree questions without the use of a wh-expression and without the syntax that normally accompanies wh-questions. Taken at face value the construction takes the form of regular yes/no-questions. Consider the pair in (1) showing a Standard Norwegian degree question (1a) compared to the Trondelag/North Norwegian construction (1b).
Highlights
As described in Endresen (1985) and Bull (1987) Norwegian dialects in Trøndelag and North Norway have a way of forming degree questions without the use of a wh-expression and without the syntax that normally accompanies wh-questions
NALS Journal In ScanDiaSyn the construction was tested by two sentences in Norway and one of them was included in the Swedish version of the questionnaire
(3) LESTE du mange bøker? (#991) (Norwegian) read you many books ‘How many books did you read?’. The latter of the two test sentences was included in order to check if the construction is sensitive to a distinction between gradable adjectives and quantified nominals
Summary
As described in Endresen (1985) and Bull (1987) Norwegian dialects in Trøndelag and North Norway have a way of forming degree questions without the use of a wh-expression and without the syntax that normally accompanies wh-questions. Consider the pair in (1) showing a Standard Norwegian degree question (1a) compared to the Trøndelag/North Norwegian construction (1b). (Trøndelag/North Norwegian) are you old Disregarding intonation, example (1b) is strictly speaking ambiguous between the reading given by the translation and that of a yes/no-question, i.e. As described in Endresen (1985) and Svenonius and Kennedy (2007), in a yes/no-question there will be an intonational peak on a the most embedded constitutent whereas the intonational peak will typically come further to the left in a wh-less degree question: on the string in (1b) the difference would come about as a difference in intonational peak on the adjective gammel (yes/no-question) versus on the fronted verb (degree question)
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