Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2001, Page 124

122 Ásgrímur Angantýsson
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SUMMARY
‘Scandinavian word order in Icelandic embedded clauses’
Keywords: syntax, Icelandic, Scandinavian, word order, embedded clauses,
functional projections, verb movement, adverbs, adjunction, split in-
flectional phrase
This paper is a survey of the possibilities of having the so-called Scandinavian, or
verb-third (V3) order in Icelandic embedded clauses, namely the order where the frni-
te verb follows a sentential adverb, like the negation for instance. It is shown that alt-
hough this order is possible in most types of embedded clauses in Icelandic it is sever-
ely restricted and heavily marked. It commonly requires an extra stress on the adverb
and it is frequently more acceptable if the subject is an unstressed pronoun. The
naturalness of the order also depends on the type of embedded clause involved, being
most natural in relative clauses and indirect questions introduced by an /iv-pronoun
but least acceptable in í/iat-complements. It is argued that the proper analysis of this
order in embedded clauses in Icelandic involves exceptional adjunction of the adverb
in question to the TP instead of the usual VP-adjunction of such adverbs. Thus it is
maintained that the adv-V order in these clauses in Icelandic is not due to exceptional
lack of V-movement in Icelandic but rather to exceptional AdvP-adjunction. In the
Scandinavian languages, on the other hand, the V3 order in embedded clauses is argu-
ed to be best analyzed as lack of V-movement (lack of V-to-I), as usually assumed.
The paper follows the analysis proposed by Bobaljik and Thráinsson (1998) in relat-
ing this difference between Icelandic and (Mainland) Scandinavian to the presence vs.
absence of split inflectional phrase.
Ásgrímur Angantýsson
Háskóla íslands
Árnagarði við Suðurgötu
IS-101 Reykjavík, ÍSLAND
asgrima@hi.is