UPPSALA UNIVERSITET
C-uppsats
Institutionen för lingvistik och filologi
Lingvistik C
VT 2012
A comparison of the argument structure of the German
verb fragen and the Faroese verb spyrja
The case of the ditransitive double accusative construction
Fredrik Valdeson
Handledare: Niklas Edenmyr
Abstract
This paper presents a study of the argument structure of the German verb fragen 'ask' and the
Faroese verb spyrja 'ask'. These two verbs can be used ditransitively, and both of them appear in a
double accusative construction (a construction in which both the direct object and the indirect
object are marked with accusative case), a ditransitive pattern that is relatively rare in both German
and Faroese. The main focus of this paper is to look at how frequent the double accusative
construction is, and to see if there are any other ways of coding the
ADDRESSEE
and the MESSAGE/TOPIC
(terminology borrowed from FrameNet), that will mark a clearer distinction between the two
objects. In addition to this, some other aspects (not necessarily ditransitive) of the argument
structure of these verbs are dealt with. The main findings are that the double accusative construction
is very unusual with both fragen and spyrja, that it seems possible to express the ADDRESSEE as some
kind of adverbial (together with a preposition), but that these cases are both quite rare and also a bit
doubtful, and that the most common use for both fragen and spyrja is to express the
clause (either a subordinate clause or a direct quote) and to leave the
ADDRESSEE
MESSAGE
as a
unexpressed. The
main difference between German fragen and Faroese spyrja is that fragen, to a much higher degree
than spyrja, may be used together with a reflexive pronoun.
2
Table of contents
Abstract.................................................................................................................................................2
1 Introduction....................................................................................................................................... 4
1.1 Purpose.......................................................................................................................................6
1.2 Terminology............................................................................................................................... 6
2 Background........................................................................................................................................6
2.1 Ditransitivity.............................................................................................................................. 7
2.2 German.......................................................................................................................................9
2.2.1 Case and ditransitive constructions....................................................................................9
2.2.2 The verb fragen................................................................................................................ 10
2.3 Faroese..................................................................................................................................... 11
2.3.1 Case and ditransitive constructions.................................................................................. 11
2.3.2 The verb spyrja................................................................................................................ 12
2.4 Introduction to FrameNet.........................................................................................................13
2.4.1 FrameNet terminology..................................................................................................... 13
2.4.2 FrameNet and the verb ask...............................................................................................14
3 Material and method........................................................................................................................15
3.1 Material.................................................................................................................................... 15
3.1.1 The Faroese corpus.......................................................................................................... 15
3.1.2 The German corpus.......................................................................................................... 16
3.2 Method..................................................................................................................................... 16
4 Results............................................................................................................................................. 17
4.1 Overview..................................................................................................................................17
4.2 Pure active clauses................................................................................................................... 20
4.2.1 Pure active clauses with fragen........................................................................................20
4.2.2 Pure active clauses with spyrja........................................................................................ 23
4.2.3 Comparison between fragen and spyrja...........................................................................27
4.3 Prepositional constructions...................................................................................................... 27
4.3.1 Prepositions used with fragen.......................................................................................... 28
4.3.2 Prepositions used with spyrja.......................................................................................... 29
4.4 Prepositional constructions expressing the ADDRESSEE..............................................................31
4.5 Constructions with two (non-agentive) nominal arguments....................................................33
5 Discussion........................................................................................................................................35
5.1 Comparison between fragen and spyrja.................................................................................. 35
5.2 The double accusative construction......................................................................................... 35
5.3 Ways of getting around the double accusative construction.................................................... 36
5.4 Final comments on ditransitivity............................................................................................. 37
6 Summary..........................................................................................................................................37
References.......................................................................................................................................... 38
3
1 Introduction
Within the theory of construction grammar, there is the idea of constructions operating as the basic
unit of language, and as such the sense of "construction" is as wide as possible, covering different
aspects of grammar, from lexical units through morphology to syntactic constructions (see Croft
2001:14 ff; Barðdal 2001:22-23). Linked to this theory is the Usage-based model, which stems from
a hypothesis assuming that constructions (be it either a word or a syntactic pattern) that are
frequently used will probably remain intact in a language, whereas those that occur less often are
more likely to dwindle out of use and eventually disappear (Croft 2001:28).
Following this idea, it is important to distinguish between constructions that are high in type
frequency and those that are high in token frequency. A syntactic construction that is high in type
frequency is instantiated by a large number of lexemes, whereas a construction high in token
frequency is instantiated by a narrowly limited amount of lexemes. The lexemes of the latter
construction are, however, most often relatively common (Barðdal 2001:31). It is also presumed
that a construction that is high in type frequency is more likely to be productive within the language
(Croft 2001:28).
With this perspective in mind, this paper presents an investigation of the usage of the German
verb fragen and the Faroese verb spyrja, which both fairly well correspond to English ask. What
makes these particular verbs interesting, is that although they are relatively frequently used, they
both exhibit the same kind of unusual morphological pattern, with the possibility of taking two
accusative objects at the same time (one denoting the content of the question and the other denoting
the person (or whatever) to whom the question is directed), setting them apart from the usual
ditransitive pattern of both German and Faroese, where one verb (traditionally called the direct
object) is in accusative case, with the other one (traditionally the indirect object) bearing dative
case.
In Barðdal (2001), construction grammar and the usage-based model are put into practice for the
analysis of various case patterns in Icelandic. She manages to confirm the notion that those patterns
that are instantiated by a higher number of lexemes are also more productive than less common case
patterns (Barðdal 2001:212). Another study, more closely related to the one carried out in this paper,
where construction grammar and the usage-based model are applied to empirical material, is found
in Silén (2008), where a comparison is made of the distribution between two alternating
constructions concerning the word ge 'give' in the Swedish spoken in Sweden with the same
phenomenon in the Swedish spoken in Finland (the alternation in this case is between a double
object construction and a construction with a prepositional object/adverbial).
4
For the verbs investigated in this study there is not, however, any clear distinction between two
alternating constructions. But assuming that constructions that are unusual in a language will tend to
be replaced by more common patterns, it might be hypothesized that the double accusative
construction of the verbs fragen and spyrja is not very common, and that, in order to express
clauses with these verbs in which there are two objects, some alternative construction, such as the
use of prepositions, might be used instead. This paper aims at investigating the overall frequency
and use of the double accusative construction with fragen and spyrja, and also looks at some
alternative constructions that these two verbs can appear in.
Another aspect, that is not dealt with further in this paper, but still deserves mentioning, is of the
historical development within the history of Indo-European languages from a case system to a
system with adpositions, a tendency that is shared between many of languages in this family. As
Germanic languages, both German and Faroese show a reduced case inventory compared to that of
Proto-Indo-European (see Hewson & Bubenik 2006:274-275). In addition to this, there also seems
to be a tendency towards minimalizing the number of different kinds of case patterns, also when it
comes to those case forms that still exist in the languages. An example of this is that verbs which
previously appeared with subjects in oblique case in Faroese, now increasingly join the more
prototypical pattern of subjects in nominative case (Barnes 1986/2001b). The same tendency can be
seen for the verbs fragen and spyrja, which both used to have a direct object in genitive case (see
section 2.2.2 below for German and section 2.3.2 below for Faroese), but now only appear with
objects in accusative case. Hewson & Bubenik point out that, in Indo-European, the accusative
usually represents "the goal, or goal of motion", whereas the genitive is used to denote "source or
departure" (Hewson & Bubenik 2006:17-18). The transition seen in fragen and spyrja, from
appearing with a genitive object to appearing with an accusative object seems therefore to, at least
in theory, change the meaning of the verb, which might in turn lead to other syntactic patterns, such
as the use of prepositions, taking over from the double-object construction in order to preserve the
meaning of the verb, and to keep the semantic distinction between the two objects intact. This
notion will be kept in mind as a possible explication for any alternative syntactic constructions that
might be found in relations to the verbs fragen and spyrja. (However, since no real historical
analysis will be carried out, it will not be possible to give any definite answer to whether the use of
any alternative constructions might have arisen as a consequence of case loss. This will have to be
the focus of future studies.)
5
1.1 Purpose
The main purpose of this paper is to look at the various argument structure constructions in which
the German verb fragen and the Faroese verb spyrja can appear. The focus is to see how common
the double accusative construction is with these two verbs, and to see if there are any other
strategies for coding the object-like arguments (such as the use of prepositions) that may help to
make a clearer distinction between these two arguments. In order to get a wider perspective, there
are also some comments on intransitive and monotransitive uses of fragen and spyrja, as well as a
short general investigation on how prepositions may be used in connection with these verbs.
1.2 Terminology
I do not in this paper make any attempt at approaching the question of what is and what is not a
direct or indirect object, but when talking about the double accusative construction of fragen and
spyrja I use, for the sake of convenience, the term indirect object for the recipient-/addressee-like
argument and direct object for the theme-/message-like argument. I generally use the terms
recipient and theme when discussing ditransitive patterns in general (which is mainly in section 2.1,
which gives some background to research on ditransitivity as a phenomenon) but when discussing
the particular verbs studied here I borrow the FrameNet terms
ADDRESSEE
and
MESSAGE/TOPIC,
which
hopefully makes a more accurate description of the activity of asking.
2 Background
A great deal of this paper deals with the concept of ditransitivity and the arguments involved in a
ditransitive clause. This section first gives an overview to some of the ways in which ditransitivity
can be described and analysed. After that, a short introduction is given to the ditransitive patterns of
German and Faroese, as well as some background information on the verbs fragen and spyrja.
Finally, there is a short presentation of the FrameNet project and the way in which I have applied
FrameNet terminology for this study.
6
2.1 Ditransitivity
A ditransitive clause is most simply described as a clause in which, apart from the subject, there are
two arguments, one encoding a theme-like argument, denoting something that is transferred to a
recipient-like argument (see Haspelmath 2005b). The prototypical ditransitive verb would then be
give, in which A (agent) gives B (theme) to C (recipient). A traditional view is to only consider
double-object constructions as ditransitive, where the theme argument is referred to as the direct
object and the recipient as the indirect object. This is a definition which to a large extent stems from
the descriptions of languages such as Latin, in which the theme of the ditransitive clause and the
patient of the transitive clause are treated alike, thus making it logical to group them together as
direct objects, whereas the recipient of the ditransitive clause is usually in the dative, and can be
described as an indirect object (see Dryer 2007:255). The terms direct object and indirect object are,
however, not treated equally among linguists. Givón (2001:142), for example, treats the first object
that follows after the verb as a direct object, regardless of its semantic role, whereas Hudson (1992)
argues, on formal grounds, that (at least for English) the first object is the indirect one (since the
second object is said to be the ”real object” (Hudson 1992:251)).
From a functional perspective (see e.g. Dryer 2007 & Malchukov et al 2007) the formal
properties of the arguments are not considered crucial for the definition of a ditransitive clause,
since there are several different ways in which to encode the arguments surrounding a verb like
give. Malchukov et al (2007) mention several ways in which the arguments of the ditransitive clause
can be encoded, treating case marking and the use of adpositions to mark the roles of the arguments
as basically the same strategy, considering it merely different kinds of flagging. In addition to this,
they also mention indexing (i.e. verb agreement, basically) and word order as methods that
languages use for indicating the basic functions of the ditransitive construction (Malchukov et al
2007:6).
Malchukov et al (2007) also refer to the various alignment types that exist cross-linguistically
within the ditransitive construction, distinguishing between indirective, secundative and neutral
alignment. Comparing the marking of the theme argument and the recipient argument of the
ditransitive clause with that of the patient of the transitive clause, these three different patterns
emerge. The indirective is the one that (like e.g. in Latin) treats the theme argument of the
ditransitive clause as equal to the patient of the transitive clause. Secundative alignment treats the
recipient of the ditransitive clause and the patient of the transitive as equal in terms of grammatical
marking (this seems to be the least popular alignment type among the world’s languages (see
Haspelmath 2005a:5)). Finally, neutral alignment does not explicitly distinguish between the roles
7
of patient, theme and recipient at all. What is interesting for the purpose of this paper, is that both
German and Faroese generally exhibit indirective alignment, apart from a few verbs in each
language that show neutral alignment. The verbs that are investigated in this study are of this
neutral alignment type, making them part of a marginal kind of ditransitive constructions in both
languages.
Haspelmath (2005b) distinguishes between three alignment types that are basically the same as
those mentioned above (although he does not take word order into account): the indirect-object,
(corresponding to indirective alignment) the secondary-object (secundative) and the double-object
(neutral) construction. He also has a category (”mixed”) for languages that use more than one of
these constructions. An example of this is English, in which there is an alternation between a double
object construction (as in He gave her an apple (my example)) and an indirect object construction
(He gave an apple to her). German is, however, considered only to have an indirective-object
construction (thus ignoring the double-object construction of fragen ’ask’).
There are, as we have seen, different opinions regarding how to treat those cases in which the
marking of the theme argument or recipient argument is done with an adposition. Malchukov et al
(2007) (see above) do not see any difference between case marking and adpositions, whereas Dixon
& Aikhenvald (2000) think of it the other way around. Firstly, they do not even distinguish any
ditransitive constructions at all. Instead, they talk about ”extended transitive clause types” (Dixon &
Aikhenvald 2000:3) (as opposed to ”plain transitive clause types”), in which a third argument is
added to the ”core” of the transitive clause. If, however, an argument is marked with a preposition,
it is considered a ”peripheral argument”, thus not being a part of the core. 1 Again, it does not lie
within the scope of this paper to make any statements concerning what is and what is not a core
arguments or to try to explain what defines a transitive clause. But it could be worth keeping in
mind that there are different views on ditransitivity. The use of prepositions as a replacement for
case marking (or the lack thereof) is also considered in the results section, and one of the main aims
of this paper is to discuss the double accusative constructions of German and Faroese in comparison
with the various prepositional uses that are found for fragen and spyrja.
Another issue that could be raised is whether to treat ditransitive constructions in which one of
the objects is a reflexive pronoun as purely ditransitive. Again, I do not try to make any theoretical
claims concerning this, but following e.g. Barðdal et al (2011) I will treat this kind of construction
as ditransitive, but when presenting my results I also make a clear distinction between clauses with
a reflexive recipient/addressee argument and those in which this argument is non-reflexive. This is
bound to be relevant, since the frequency of the reflexive construction is much higher with the
1 Also see Næss (2007:7-8) for some further discussion about these different ways of defining ditransitivity
8
German verb fragen than with the Faroese verb spyrja (see Table 4, section 4.2.3).
2.2 German
This section gives an introduction to the case system of German, with particular focus on
ditransitive constructions and the verb fragen.
2.2.1 Case and ditransitive constructions
German has a four-case system where, generally, the subject is in nominative case, and the
remaining three cases – accusative, dative and genitive – are used to denote objects of various kinds
(as well as taking part in various sorts of adverbial constructions) (Duden 1984:89). In a regular
transitive clause the direct object is in the accusative (see (1a) below), but there are several verbs
together with which the object of the transitive clause is expressed with dative or (extremely rarely)
genitive case (Freund & Sundqvist 2006:376-381). For ditransitive clauses the most common
pattern is to express the direct object with accusative case, and the indirect object with dative case.
In addition to this there are, however, three other patterns for clauses with two objects, namely
ACC-DAT
NOM-
(with the subject expressed in the nominative, the indirect object in the accusative and the
direct object in dative), NOM-ACC-GEN and NOM-ACC-ACC (Abraham 2006:122).
Examples (1a–c) show the pattern of a prototypical transitive clause, a prototypical ditransitive
clause and a ditransitive clause with two objects in the accusative, respectively:
(1) a. Transitive
Sie
liebt
she.NOM2 loves
den
Luxus. (Freund & Sundqvist 2006:374)
the.ACC luxury.ACC
'She loves luxury.'
2 Information about case is given whenever it is part of the argument structure of the verb in question. In both
languages investigated in this paper, but especially in German, there is no overt case marking for many of the words.
(In German, for example, case marking almost never shows up on the noun, but is usually expressed through the
definite article.) I do, however, indicate case also in these instances, as I consider it to be relevant for the discussion
of argument structure constructions. In order to prove that the right case form is given, the substitutional method
may be used, where a noun might be replaced by a personal pronoun, since these always exhibit case marking in
both German and Faroese.
9
b. Ditransitive: DAT-ACC
Der
Kellner
gab ihr
die
Speisekarte. (ibid:384)
the.NOM waiter.NOM gave her.DAT the.ACC menu.ACC
'The waiter gave her the menu.'
c. Ditransitive: ACC-ACC
Das
frage ich
that.ACC ask
dich. (ibid:387)
I.NOM you.ACC
'That's what I'm asking you.'
The double accusative construction (NOM-ACC-ACC) is comparatively small in German, and is only (or
mainly) instantiated by four verbs: bitten 'ask (for)', fragen 'ask', kosten 'cost' and lehren 'teach'.
(Freund & Sundqvist (2006:386-387). These four verbs are however relatively common, which
might explain the fact that the double accusative construction is still alive (see Introduction, section
1). Abraham (2006:123) makes the claim that "NOM-ACC-ACC is totally avoided and replaced by NOMDAT-ACC
in the substandards". Since my material is from a newspaper corpus, it is perhaps not
surprising that I have not found any of these "substandard"
NOM-DAT-ACC
constructions with the verb
fragen. Admittedly, I have not found that many NOM-ACC-ACC uses of it either, and it would of course
be of great interest to examine during what circumstances a NOM-DAT-ACC construction might be used
with this verb. (I should perhaps mention that Abraham (2006:143) does not consider the
ACC
NOM-ACC-
pattern to be ditransitive at all, with the explanation that only one of the objects of this
construction can adopt the subject position when passivized.)
2.2.2 The verb fragen
The verb fragen can, as we have seen, appear in a double accusative construction. This construction
is however strictly limited, in that the direct object can only be expressed as a neutral pronoun (see
example (1c) above). This ditransitive construction is however only one (and as will be seen, quite a
marginal one as well) of the constructions in which the verb can be used. The Oxford-Duden
German Dictionary (2001:310) lists both transitive and intransitive uses of the verb, as well as the
prepositional constructions nach etw. fragen 'ask/inquire about something' and jmdn. um
Rat/Erlaubnis fragen 'ask sb. for advice/permission'. They also mention the reflexive construction
with the pronoun sich, as in sich fragen, ob… 'wonder whether…'. Thus, we see that the German
verb fragen roughly corresponds to the English verb ask, but also stretches out to include meanings
10
such as 'inquire' and 'wonder'.
The diachronic aspect of ditransitive constructions and case patterns is not dealt with further in
this paper, but it might be of interest to know that fragen once appeared in a
NOM-ACC-GEN
frame
(Lexer 1922:352), rendering it parallel to modern Icelandic spyrja 'ask' (Barðdal et al 2011:18) (and
also to older stages of Faroese).
2.3 Faroese
This section gives an introduction to the case system of Faroese, with particular focus on
ditransitive constructions and the verb spyrja.
2.3.1 Case and ditransitive constructions
Faroese has a case system quite similar to that of German, with a nominative, an accusative, a
dative and a genitive case (although the latter is not much in use nowadays) (Thráinsson et al
2004:248). Nominative is the case usually used for denoting the subject, with the accusative being
somewhat default case for direct objects while the dative is most commonly associated with the
indirect object. Like in e.g. Icelandic, there are verbs that take oblique subjects (accusative or
dative), but these seem to be on their way out, instead being replaced by default nominative subjects
(ibid:253-257; Barnes 1986/2001b). There is also a number of verbs that select for a direct object
marked with dative case.
In Faroese there are only two case patterns for the ditransitive construction, with the NOM-DAT-ACC
(nominative case for the subject, dative for the indirect object and accusative for the direct object)
being by far the most common. There are only four verbs that act as an exception to this rule, and
instead appear in a
NOM-ACC-ACC
construction: biðja 'ask', kyssa 'kiss', læra 'teach' and spyrja 'ask'.
(Thráinsson et al 2004:263). (Note that with the exception of kyssa, the verbs in this group are
basically the same as three of the four verbs appearing in the German double accusative
construction (see section 2.2.1).) As has already been stated, the genitive seems to be on its way out,
and the case system appears to be undergoing great changes at the moment, with the nominative
taking over as a default subject case also for those verbs that used to take an oblique subject, and the
dative being used for the indirect object for almost all ditransitive verbs. The closely related
Icelandic, on the other hand, has preserved a number of different case patterns, of which all
probably existed in earlier Faroese (see Barðdal 2007). Looking ahead, it will thus be interesting to
11
see if (or how long) the NOM-ACC-ACC will survive.
Examples (2a-c) show the pattern of a prototypical transitive clause, a prototypical ditransitive
clause and a ditransitive clause with two objects in the accusative, respectively:
(2) a. Transitive
Jógvan
las
bókina. (Thráinsson et al 2004:236)
Jógvan.NOM read book.the.ACC
'Jógvan read the book.'
b. Ditransitive: DAT-ACC
Hon
gav
gentuni
telduna. (ibid:262)
she.NOM gave girl.the.DAT computer.the.ACC
'She gave the computer to the girl.'
c. Ditransitive: ACC-ACC
Tey
spurdu meg
they.NOM asked
ein
spurning. (ibid:263)
me.ACC a.ACC question.ACC
'They asked me a question.'
2.3.2 The verb spyrja
The ditransitive use of the verb spyrja differs slightly from that of German fragen, since the direct
object is (almost) always a cognate object (term borrowed from Givón 2001:132) – spurning –
which simply means 'question' (Henriksen 2000:79). (Remember that in German, fragen could
(basically) only be used with a neutral pronoun meaning 'that'.) Just like in German, however, the
ditransitive use of spyrja is, as is shown in this paper, not very common at all. The verb can appear
in a number of constructions that, to quite a large extent, correspond to those also found in German,
with its basic meaning being that of English 'ask'. Young & Clewer (1985:547) list the prepositional
uses with eftir and um: spyrja ein eftir 'ask someone how…is getting on', spyrja um eitt 'ask
(questions) about something'. (These prepositions roughly correspond to German nach and um.)
Spyrja can also have the meaning of 'be informed', 'get to know', which sets it apart from fragen.
Listed under the same entry in both Young & Clewer (1985) and Føroysk orðabók (1998) is the
derived so-called middle form spyrjast. This word has the meaning of 'come back', 'reappear'
("about a person who, or a thing which, has disappeared" (Young & Clewer 1985:547)), and is thus
12
clearly set apart from the basic word spyrja. (When discussing my results I do not delve into the
uses of spyrjast, since it falls out of the scope of this paper.) As in German, there is also a reflexive
construction, with the pronoun seg (sjálvan) being used as indirect object. This is, however, not
mentioned in the dictionaries I have looked in, and as is seen in the results section this reflexive
construction is by far more marginal in Faroese than it is in German.
2.4 Introduction to FrameNet
When analysing my results, I partly rely on the model for studying lexical meaning devised by
Fillmore and his companions within the FrameNet project. In this section I briefly explain what
FrameNet is and how it works (for more detailed information, see Fillmore et al 2007 and Atkins et
al 2007).
2.4.1 FrameNet terminology
The aim of FrameNet is to capture the meaning of a word by looking at the various contexts in
which it appears. Each different sense of a word is called a lexical unit, and each lexical unit evokes
a specific frame, where those words that are required in order to give the word its appropriate
meaning are known as frame elements (Fillmore et al 2007). Each frame has its own name, as have
the frame elements. To illustrate this, Fillmore et al (2007) use the Transfer frame, whose frame
elements are DONOR, THEME and RECIPIENT, where the DONOR is in possession of the THEME, which is then
transferred to the RECIPIENT. This frame can, for example, be evoked by the verb give.
In this example, the frame elements correspond quite well to the traditional grammatical
relations of subject, indirect object and direct object (see e.g. Blake 2001: ch. 1) and the semantic
roles of agent, patient and dative (see e.g. Givón 2001:107,142). The frame elements of FrameNet
are, however, more complex and more specific to the frame. Thus, both adverbials and subclauses
can appear as frame elements, and the frame elements of give are preserved when we turn the
perspective around and look at the verb receive, in which the
DONOR
RECIPIENT
receives the
THEME
from the
(Fillmore et al 2007:238).
As we have seen, several words can appear in the same frame, and the same word can also
appear in different frames. In this way FrameNet can show and describe the polysemy of one single
word, as well as the (near) synonymity of the different words that appear in the same frame.
FrameNet also distinguishes between so-called core and non-core frame elements (see Atkins et
13
al 2007:267). The core elements are those that are required in order to give the word its meaning
and that, in a sense, define the frame (as with the frame elements
DONOR, THEME
and RECIPIENT for the
Transfer frame). In addition to these basic elements, there are however others that can be added,
without really changing the meaning of the word, such as
MANNER
(the way in which something is
given) or REASON (the reason for which something is given). To complicate the matter, core elements
can sometimes be omitted, if the circumstances allow (Atkins et al 2007:269). In my material, this
is illustrated by those examples in which only either the addressee or the theme is present (and
where the element that is not explicitly expressed is supposedly known through the context).
2.4.2 FrameNet and the verb ask
The verbs that are investigated in this paper, German fragen and Faroese spyrja, both to a large
extent correspond to the English verb ask. In English, ask can evoke two different frames, the
Request frame and the Questioning frame. (FrameNet: Request; FrameNet: Questioning.) In the
discussion (section 5) I compare the results from investigation on the verbs fragen and spyrja to see
how well they fit into these two frames.
The core elements of the Questioning frame are the
is directed), the
MESSAGE
ADDRESSEE
(the person to whom the question
(the question or the content being asked), the
question), as well as, in many cases, the
TOPIC
SPEAKER
(who asks the
(which in English usually appears as a so called PP-
complement, i.e. noun phrase headed by a preposition, in this case usually about, (you ask someone
about something).) (FrameNet: Questioning.)
For the Request frame, the core elements are basically the same, apart from the fact that there is
no
TOPIC
ADDRESSEE
element within this frame (but there is still the
SPEAKER
who requests something, the
to which the request is directed, and the MESSAGE which tells the content of the request). In
this frame there is also a core element known as the
MEDIUM
(through which the request is
transmitted), in English usually a PP-complement (e.g. "...on television", "...in the papers").
(FrameNet: Request.)
The core elements that are the main focus of this study are the
ADDRESSEE
and the
MESSAGE,
since
these are the elements that can appear in the shape of objects, and thus constitute the double
accusative construction. Also the
TOPIC
is of interest, since a lot of the prepositional uses of fragen
and spyrja are similar to that of English ask about. (In my material, the MESSAGE and the TOPIC never
appear together in the same construction, and for the sake of simplicity I often treat them as a
MESSAGE/TOPIC
unit, since they both, in a sense, serve the purpose of expressing the content of he
question.) In English, the
ADDRESSEE
is usually a regular NP but can also be instantiated by a PP
14
Complement (usually a kind of directional adverbial) (FrameNet: Questioning), and the frequencies
of objects vs. prepositional constructions for the
section in this paper. The
MESSAGE
ADDRESSEE
is one of the main issues of the results
is described as usually taking ”the form of a direct quote or an
embedded question with a verb target” (ibid). In this study, I also take NP's as being able to denote
the MESSAGE, in those cases where they refer to the content being asked.
Despite being referred to as core elements, both the
ADDRESSEE
and the
MESSAGE
can be omitted
(this is true for both German and Faroese, as well as English). It actually turns out that for German
and Faroese, leaving out the ADDRESSEE is more common than explicitly stating it (see Tables 2 and 3
in section 4.2 below).
3 Material and method
3.1 Material
In order to obtain enough natural language material to carry out a quantitative study, I have used
material from two newspaper text corpora, one for German and one for Faroese. Considering the
fact that German is a much more widely spoken language than Faroese, it is not surprising that the
number of German corpora available greatly outnumbers that of Faroese. Thus, the nature of the
Faroese corpus that I was able to obtain also had to dictate the conditions for the German one (and
is therefore presented first).
3.1.1 The Faroese corpus
The Faroese corpus is the Føroyskt TekstaSavn ('Faroese Text Collection') (FTS), obtainable
through Språkbanken (Gothenburg University). The corpus consists of all articles published during
1998 in the Faroese newspaper Dimmalætting, which at the time came out five days a week,
Tuesday-Saturday (Hansen 2005). The articles include both those written by journalists and those
that have been written and sent in by readers. (The number of articles written by readers is relatively
high, amounting to 767 out of 2853 (ibid). This could be kept in mind while looking at the results,
since many of these articles/letters address other readers, making the use of the accusative form of
the second person singular – teg – higher than it might otherwise have been.) The corpus explicitly
omits entries such as advertisements and announcements, with the exception of four weeks (about
20 issues), in which also the private advertisements were included (ibid). When dealing with my
15
results, I have omitted those case where it obvious that the examples have been taken from
advertisements, since the word spyrja is used quite extensively in these (such as when people who
are interested in buying something are requested to call a specific number and ask for a specific
person).
3.1.2 The German corpus
The German corpus is a small sample from the DWDS (Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen
Sprache 'Digital dictionary of the German language'). This corpus consists of several newspapers,
as well as novels and other kinds of prose (DWDS). In order to get data that would be relatively
comparable to the Faroese corpus, I have chosen one newspaper, the Berliner Zeitung, and
narrowed my material down to only cover the entries from 1998, thus having both of the
investigated corpora representing the same space of time.
3.2 Method
In order to get a result that I was able to handle, I have only looked at five hundred instances each
of the verbs, counting backwards (thus taking the last 500 entries from the year 1998), since for
some reason this was the default setting of the German DWDS corpus. With the DWDS it is
possible to simply search for a word in its uninflected form and still obtain all entries of the word in
all its different forms. The verb fragen generated 3530 entries, which means that I have merely
studied about 15% of all the entries for fragen from this year. To search the FTS for all inflected
forms of spyrja, I had to search for the different forms individually. The FTS, however, gives you
the opportunity to search for all the words that begin with a specific letter constellation, which made
it possible to get all instances of spyrja by doing three different searches in the corpus: spyr%
(where % means ”words that consist of or begin with these letters”) for the forms spyrji, spyrt, spyr,
spyrjandi and spyrið, spur% for spurdi, spurdu, spurd and spurdur, and spurt for spurt. All in all
these searches rendered 1513 entries, which means that my results reflect about 33% of the overall
material in the corpus.
For both fragen and spyrja, a number of the original 500 entries were later omitted, for reasons
explained in section 4.1 below. The entries that remained have then been categorized for different
aspects, e.g. transitive uses and prepositional uses. This categorization is also accounted for in
section 4.1.
16
4 Results
The results are presented in several steps, starting with an overview of the whole material, followed
by a number of in-depth studies where the aim is to highlight those constructions concerning fragen
and spyrja that are relevant for this paper. For each language a number of different comparisons are
made, such as the percentage of ditransitive as opposed to monotransitive or intransitive clauses.
The number of clauses taken into account for each individual comparison (of which most are
presented in tables) will therefore differ, and when percentile measures are given, they often do not
refer to the entire material, but only to a particular subset thereof, and in these case it should be
obvious on what grounds these subsets have been made.
The main focus of this study is to find out how frequent the ditransitive double accusative
construction is in connection to the German verb fragen and the Faroese verb spyrja, and to see if
there are any other ways to express the
ADDRESSEE
and the
MESSAGE
than as direct objects in
accusative case. The idea is that this can be done by replacing one (or both) of the objects of the
double accusative construction with a prepositional phrase, thus taking the form of an adverbial.
In the first overview of the material (see Table 1, section 4.1), I have included instances where
the verbs occur together with a particle, as well as passive/participle constructions, in order to get a
clearer perspective on the whole range of how the verbs are used. Apart from that however, the
focus will be on active in- mono- and ditransitive uses of the verbs (which I have lumped together
as pure active clauses), and the uses of a preposition to mark one of the core elements, thus
comparing and discussing different kinds of "flagging" (see section 2.1.)
Prepositional constructions generally pose a problem, since it always has to be decided whether
we are dealing with a core element (in FrameNet terms) or some kind of non-core adverbial.
(Usually, however, these different uses are in practice relatively easy to tell apart.) Section 4.4
shows the examples I have found of prepositional constructions used to express the
ADDRESSEE.
Most
likely, all of these examples can be questioned, since we might just as well be dealing with
adverbials merely expressing the location or direction of the question. However, I hope that my
analysis can still put a little perspective on the ditransitive construction of German and Faroese.
4.1 Overview
First of all, Table 1 shows how many instances of each verb that have eventually been included in
the investigation. The material has been divided into four categories, based on the how the verbs
behave. The pure active clauses (admittedly not very good term) are the ones where the verbs are
17
used either in-, mono- or ditransitively (with "transitive" here used in the formal sense).
The category preposition only includes those clauses where the
MESSAGE
or
TOPIC
is expressed
with a prepositional construction, such as in the Faroese example (3). (Note that instances where a
preposition is used to denote the
ADDRESSEE
are not taken into account here, but are dealt with in
section 4.4.)
(3) Tú
kundi spyrja hann
you.NOM could ask
um
him.ACC
okkurt
fjall...
about some.ACC
mountain.ACC
'You could ask him about some mountain...'
Particle constructions are given a category of their own, since the particle itself usually adds
meaning to the verb that lies out of the original scope of the verb. Because of this difficulty in
explaining the meaning of a verb and particle combination (and also because of the fact that particle
verbs might be considered verbs in their own right) I have chosen not to study these verbs any
further, but only include them in this first overview. In (4a–b) examples are given of a particle
construction in German and Faroese, respectively.
(4) a. Wir
fragen nicht als Aasgeier
we.NOM ask
not
as vultures.NOM
nach,
PARTICLE
sondern aus
('after') but
Interesse.
out-of interest
'We do not inquire as vultures, but out of interest.'
b. ...tí-at
landsstýrismaðurin
hevði útnevnt
because the.member-of-govertnment.NOM had
nevndina
uttan
tveir prestar
appointed two clergymen in this.ACC
at spyrja Prestafelagið
the.committee.ACC without to ask
í hesa
the.clergymen-associtaion.ACC
eftir.
PARTICLE
('after')
'...because the member of government had appointed two clergymen for this
committee without asking the association of clergymen.'
Finally, the participle/passive category contains those occurrences of the past participle that are
either used to construct passive sentences (in which one of the objects, in this case mainly the one
expressing the MESSAGE, is moved into subject position) or used as adjectives, either predicatively or
attributively. The form of the past participle may, in both German and Faroese (as well as in
English) also be used to form the perfect tense. These clauses are not included in the
'participle/passive' category, since they do not share the adjectival behaviour of the usages
18
mentioned above. (Also note that both languages can form present participles (roughly
corresponding to the English progressive form). Although these participles also have an adjectival
aspect, they do not alter the syntactic structure of the corresponding active clause, i.e. if an active
clause is reshaped and the verb replaced by a present participle, the syntactic and semantic
properties of the participants will remain intact, the subject will remain in subject position, the
direct object in direct object position etc.) The examples included in the participle/passive category
will also be left aside for the remainder of this study, due to the limited amount of space in this
paper, but for the sake of illustration, examples form German and Faroese, respectively, are given in
(5a–b).
(5) a. Wir
sind nie
gefragt worden.
we.NOM are never asked
been
'We were never asked.'
b. Men teir
blivu spurdir uppaftur aftaná...
but they.NOM were asked
again
afterwards
'But they were asked again afterwards...'
Table 1 illustrates the size of the investigated material, and not too many implications should be
drawn from the figures in it. Among occurrences that were not included in the material are, for
example, when one and the same clause occurs more than once (in exactly the same context). (The
reason why such duplicates exist might be that the same sentence occurs both on the front page as
well as in an article inside the newspaper.) This accounts for basically all 15 clauses that were taken
away from the German sample. The reason why the Faroese material is so much smaller is, partly,
that there were more duplicates in the Faroese corpus. Also, all instances that were obviously part of
advertisements were taken out (see section 3.1.1 above), as well as a few instances of the expression
Spyr bara 'just ask', which was the name of a Faroese TV show in 1998. Finally, the occurrences of
the mediopassive form spyrjast are not included, since this is arguably a verb of its own, with a
meaning that ranges quite far from that of spyrja (see section 2.3.2).
19
Table 1: Overview of the whole material (pure active includes instances of formally in-, mono- and
ditransitive uses)
fragen
spyrja
Pure active
340
258
Preposition
44
48
11
26
90
104
485
436
Particle*
Participle/passive
*
Total
4.2 Pure active clauses
In this section the distribution of the pure active clauses of fragen and spyrja are presented. (In this
paper, direct object refers to an object in accusative case expressing the
MESSAGE,
and indirect object
to an object in accusative case expressing the ADDRESSEE.)
4.2.1 Pure active clauses with fragen
Table 2: Distribution of pure active uses of fragen
NP as direct
object
Clause as direct
object
No direct
object
Total
Indirect object
5
58
9
72
Indirect reflexive
4
85
1
90
No indirect object
7
166
5
178
16
309
15
340
Total
* This category is not further dealt with in this paper.
20
Table 2 shows how the pure active clauses in the German material are distributed, and examples
(6a–i) show examples of all the nine categories of clauses found in Table 2, with (6a–c) illustrating
the examples with an indirect object, (6d–f) those with an indirect reflexive (i.e. where a reflexive
pronoun is used instead of a "proper" indirect object), and (6g–i) showing examples of clauses with
no overtly expressed indirect object.
(6) a. Indirect object + NP as direct object
Niemand
würde mich
das
fragen,
no-one.NOM would me.ACC that.ACC
ask,
wenn ich ein Buch über Massenmörder
if
I
verfaßt hätte.
a book about mass-murderers written had
'No one would ask me that, if I had written a book about mass-murderers.'
b. Indirect object + clause as direct object
Sie
fragte den
Hai,
warum er das getan hätte...
she.NOM asked the.ACC shark.ACC, why
he that done had
'She asked the shark why he/it had done that...'
c. Indirect object + no direct object
Aber ihn
but
fragt ja
keiner.
him.ACC asks (yes) no-one.NOM
'But no-one asks him, (of course).'
d. Indirect reflexive + NP as direct object
Das
fragt
that.ACC asks
sich
mit dem Publikum auch Bruno Grassini...
himself.ACC with the audience also Bruno Grassini.NOM
'That is also what Bruno Grassini asks himself, together with the audience.'
21
e. Indirect reflexive + clause as direct object
Dazu
fragte man
additionally asked
so viel
sich,
INDEF.NOM
woher
beim Kasselerbraten
oneself.ACC, from-where by-the kasseler-frying
Sauce kommt.
so much sauce comes
'In addition to that, one asked oneself ('it was asked'), from where, when frying the
kasseler, all that sauce comes out.'
f. Indirect reflexive + no direct object
Ich hoffe, es gibt noch viele
Redakteure,
I
editors
hope, it gives still
die
many
sich
beharrlich
durch
alle Instanzen
fragen...
who.NOM themselves.ACC persistently through all official-channels ask
'I hope there are still many editors who persistently ask themselves through all the official
channels...'
g. No indirect object + NP as direct object
Dort können wir
there can
alles
fragen, was uns bewegt.
we.NOM everything.ACC ask,
that us
moves.
'There we can ask everything that concerns us.'
h. No indirect object + clause as direct object
Ja, könnt ihr mich nicht in Ruhe fliegen lassen? fragte die
yes can
you me
not
in peace fly
let
asked the.NOM leader-goose.NOM
'Yes, can't you just let me fly undisturbed? asked the leader-goose.'
i. No indirect object + no direct object
Aber Maja
but
fragt nicht nur...
Maja.nom? asks
not
only
'But Maja does not only ask...'
22
Leitgans...
(6a) is an example of the double accusative construction, with both objects in accusative case. As
expected (see section 2.2.2) the direct object is instantiated by a neutral pronoun – das 'that'. Out of
the five occurrences in my material of this construction, three clauses contained this word as its
direct object, the other two having the words was 'that'/'what' and alles 'everything', both fitting into
the description of neutral pronouns. It is also obvious that the double accusative construction is
quite rare in my sample, with a total of five occurrences, which mounts up to just a bit over one per
cent of all occurrences of fragen.
The nature of the direct object is, in my sample, slightly more varied in a few cases where there
is no indirect object present. Here we find the words Spannenderes 'something more exciting' and
Witziges 'something witty', which could both be described as nominalized adjectives (though at least
they are both neutral, and may, perhaps, due to their inflectional behaviour be seen as more
pronominal than nominal). This must, however, be seen as a marginal extension of what is possible
for a direct object of fragen. It should also be pointed out that both these examples are from the
same newspaper article, and could possibly be seen as an artistic contribution by the author.
The most common use, by far, concerning the verb fragen is to have its
MESSAGE
appear as a
direct object-like clause. Clause, in the sense I use the term here, includes both subordinate clauses
and direct quotes, including a few cases where the question is in a foreign language, as well as
clauses that lack an explicit finite verb. The latter means that a clause can, in some cases, consist of
only one word, and maybe a word like utterance would be more appropriate than clause. However,
these occurrences are relatively rare, and as I have not seen any reason for treating clause and
utterance as two separate categories, the term clause still describes fairly well what is indicated
here. (The wide scope of this category (clause as direct object) might, however, to some extent
explain why it is also so heavily represented in my material.)
4.2.2 Pure active clauses with spyrja
Table 3 presents the distribution among the Faroese pure active clauses. As with fragen, we see
again a clear tendency towards constructions with a direct object expressed as a subordinate clause
or a direct quote, as well as a preference for not explicitly stating an indirect object. When
compared with the German results, the main difference seems to be that, in Faroese, the verb spyrja
is usually not used together with a reflexive pronoun, but that, on the other hand, the intransitive use
of the verb is relatively common. (The Faroese reflexive construction is a rather complicated issue,
which is dealt with in more detail further down in this section.)
23
Table 3: Faroese pure active clauses
NP as direct
object
Clause as direct
object
No direct
object
Total
Indirect object
1
58
19
78
Indirect reflexive
03
13
0
13
No indirect object
3
132
32
167
Total
5
203
51
258
Examples (7a–i) illustrate the various pure active construction types found in the Faroese material.
(The examples have been numbered so that they can be easily compared with the corresponding
German ones in section 4.2.1. This means that an example (7f) does not exist, since there is no
occurrence in my material of an indirect reflexive pronoun appearing in a construction in which
there is no direct object. There is one potential occurence of an indirect reflexive pronoun occuring
together with an NP as the direct object (see footnote), but this example has to be considered
doubtful, and is thus not included in the statistics, and following this there is no example (7d) in the
list of examples below.)
(7) a. Indirect object + NP as direct object
...kundi gitni
sálargreinarin
Alfred Adler spyrja vitjandi "sjúklingin"
could renowned the.psychotherapist.NOM Alfred Adler ask
visiting the.patient.ACC
skynsama spurningin...
sensible
the.question.ACC
'...the renowned psychotherapist Alfred Adler was able to ask the visiting "patient" the
sensible question...'
3 There is one example in my material with an indirect reflexive and what could be understood as an NP as direct
object. The example is, however, not a very good one, since the direct object – sum – is a word that cannot be
inflected in any way. It is therefore difficult to say if this word should be treated as a relative pronoun bearing some
kind of invisible accusative case marking, or simply as a subordinator bearing no case marking at all and as such not
even being a part of the argument structure of the verb. For the sake of illustration, this is example is given (as (7d)
below:
(7) d. Hetta vóru spurningarnir, sum
leiðarar
kring heimin
spurdu seg sjálvan...
these were the.questions that.ACC? leaders.NOM around the.world asked them-selves.ACC
'These were the questions that leaders around the world asked themselves.'
24
b. Indirect object + clause as direct object
Tað er sum at spyrja revin,
that is like to ask
um hann hevur etið
the.fox.ACC if
he
has
gásina...
eaten the.goose
'That is like asking the fox if he has eaten the goose.'
c. Indirect object + no direct object
Fyrst geva teir
loyvi
uttan
at spyrja nakran.
first give they permission without to ask
anyone.ACC
'First they give permission without asking anyone.'
e. Indirect reflexive + clause as direct object
Og eg
havi spurt meg
sjálva
er hetta átrúnaður, ella er hetta politikkur?
and I.NOM have asked me.ACC self.ACC is this
faith
or
is this
politics
'And I have asked myself, is this faith or is this politics?'
g. No indirect object + NP as direct object
Hann
visti nógv og
spurdi viðkomandi spurningar...
he.NOM knew much and asked relevant
questions.ACC
'He knew a lot and asked relevant questions...'
h. No indirect object + clause as direct object
Dagin
eftir spyr hann: "Er tað í-morgin
the.day after asks he.NOM
is
it
enn?"
tomorrow yet
'The next day he asks: "Is it tomorrow yet?"'
i. No indirect object + no direct object
Vit
spyrja og
we.NOM ask
svara, hugsa og droyma, flenna og signa...
and answer think and dream laugh and bless
'We ask and answer, think and dream, laugh and bless...'
The double accusative construction is, as the table shows, extremely rare with spyrja. In my sample,
I only found one example (7a), and in this example, the direct object, skynsama spurningin 'the
sensible question', is actually followed by a direct quote revealing the content of the question. Thus,
it could have entered the category Clause as direct object as well, but I have chosen to consider the
25
noun phrase to be the main direct object (where the clause might possibly be seen as attributive).
As was expected from the background information on Faroese (see section 2.3), the content of a
noun phrase appearing as a direct object is a cognate object, simply meaning 'question'. One of the
five instances of NP as direct object did however have the word meira 'more' in this position, a
word that I have chosen to include in the NP category, although it might also be referred to as an
adverb. This exception suggests that other words may be used to denote the content of the question
than just the word spurning, but this is, in any case, a marginal extension of the original behaviour
of this construction.
The reflexive pronoun in Faroese exists in two different varieties, the "simplex reflexive
pronoun" seg and the "complex reflexive pronoun" seg sjálvan (Thráinsson et al 2004:199-20). The
function of the Faroese reflexive has been most thoroughly discussed by Barnes (1986/2001a), and
it is not always possible to predict, in a clause consisting of a main clause and a subordinate clause,
whether the reflexive seg refers to the subject of the main clause or the subject of the subordinate
clause. In my sample I have found two such ambiguous examples, illustrated by (8):
(8) Seinni í greinini
later
greiðir
Jóan Karl frá,
at
um Landsstýrið
in the.article explains Jóan Karl from that if
hevði spurt seg,
hevði hann sagt, at
had
had
asked
REFL.ACC
fullkomuliga óegnað
he
skipið
government.the. NOM
var og er
said that ship.the was and is
sum vaktarskip.
completely unsuitable as
guard-ship
'Later on in the article Jóan Karl explains that if the Government had asked him, he would
have said that the ship was and is completely unsuitable as a guard ship.'
This sentence will not make sense unless you take seg as referring back to Jóan Karl, i.e. the
Government is not supposed to ask itself, but to ask Jóan Karl about his opinion on this ship. Thus,
despite the fact that this formally is a reflexive pronoun, I have chosen to classify this as indirect
object rather than indirect reflexive.
It must also be kept in mind that the German reflexive construction sich fragen 'to ask oneself'
may also translate as 'to wonder', whereas the Faroese dictionaries I have consulted did not suggest
any similar meaning for the reflexive construction with spyrja.
26
4.2.3 Comparison between fragen and spyrja
Table 4 shows a comparison of some of the major statistical differences between the results from
the German and the Faroese corpus. As has already been stated, the German verb fragen appears
with a reflexive pronoun much more often than does Faroese spyrja. This reflexive usage is, in the
German sample, even more common than are the instantiations of the verb with a "proper" direct
object. What German and Faroese seem to have in common is that, in most cases (more than 50 per
cent of the examples I have looked at) there is not considered to be any need to explicitly state the
MESSAGE.
This tendency is, however, stronger with Faroese than with German, and it might also be
worth remembering that, in Faroese, it appears to be more common also to omit the direct object,
thus rendering what we might call an intransitive use of the verb spyrja much more common than
with fragen.
Table 4: The nature of the ADDRESSEE in clauses where the MESSAGE is explicitly instantiated by either
an NP or a clause.
fragen
spyrja
Tokens
(NP+clause)
Percentage
Tokens
(NP+clause)
Percentage
Indirect object
63 (5+58)
19,4 %
59 (2+58)
28,5 %
Indirect reflexive
89 (4+85)
27,4 %
13 (0+13)
6,3 %
Not instantiated
173 (7+166)
53,2 %
135 (3+132)
65,2 %
325
100 %
207
100 %
Total
4.3 Prepositional constructions
This section present just a brief overview of the prepositions used to denote either the
TOPIC
MESSAGE
or the
argument of fragen and spyrja. A more detailed investigation of the semantics of the
prepositions used in connection with these verbs (and how this might relate also to the meanings of
the non-prepositional uses) would of course be appreciated. In the results presented here, I simply
list which prepositions are used, and briefly try to capture the meaning of these.
27
For both fragen and spyrja there are, in my material, two prepositions that can be used to
distinguish the
MESSAGE/TOPIC
(German nach and um, Faroese eftir and um), and they appear to be
used rather similarly in the two languages. We might however note that Faroese seems to favour
prepositional constructions to a much higher degree than German does, and also that the relative
frequency between the two prepositions varies between the languages.
4.3.1 Prepositions used with fragen
Table 5: MESSAGE/TOPIC argument of fragen instantiated with a preposition.
Preposition: nach
Preposition: um
Total
Indirect object
9
2
11
Indirect reflexive
1
0
1
No indirect object
32
0
32
Total
42
2
44
Looking first at the German examples, we find the prepositions nach and um. The preposition um
only appears twice in my sample, both in the same kind of sentence, where somebody asks someone
else for advice. Applying a FrameNet perspective to this, um is used here to denote the
MESSAGE
within the Request frame (cf. the non-prepositional uses presented above, where the direct object
could only be the MESSAGE within the Questioning frame).
The preposition nach is a bit more complex, with at least two easily distinguishable meanings, as
shown in examples (10a–b) below. (10b) ought to be interpreted as having a meaning fairly similar
to that of um, illustrated by the fact that both examples would require the English translation 'ask
for', whereas example (10a) shows a usage of the preposition nach that would rather be translated as
'ask about'. In FrameNet terms, the preposition nach is in this way used to mark a
TOPIC
argument
within the Questioning frame. We might thus conclude that when an argument with a preposition is
used in connection with fragen instead of just a simple direct object, there is either a slight shift in
the meaning of the verb (from Questioning to Request), or a change in the nature of the argument
(from MESSAGE to TOPIC).
28
(9) Preposition um generating the meaning of 'request'
Ich
fragte Freunde
um Rat.
I.NOM asked friends.ACC for advice
'I asked friends for advice.'
(10) a. Preposition nach generating the meaning of 'inquire'
Er
saß in dieser spießigen Altbauwohnung rum
he.NOM sat in this
bourgeois old-apartment
around
und fragte nach Dingen, die ihn nicht interessierten.
and asked about things
that him not
interested
'He was sitting in this old bourgeois apartment and asked about things that did not
interest him.'
b. Preposition nach generating the meaning of 'request'
Ohne Genehmigung steckte er sich
without permission
lit
eine seiner Mentholzigaretten an und statt
he himself one of-his menthol-cigarettes on and instead-of
nach dem Aschbecher zu fragen, beschimpfte er die Bürokraten in Brüssel...
for
the ashtray
to ask
abused
he the bureaucrats in Brusells
'Without permission he lit one of his menthol cigarettes, and instead of asking for the
ashtray he abused the bureaucrats in Brussels.'
4.3.2 Prepositions used with spyrja
With the Faroese examples, it is more difficult to spot any clear differences in meaning between the
prepositions eftir and um, since they both seem to able to express a
TOPIC
argument within the
Questioning frame as well as a MESSAGE argument of the Request frame.
The most obvious similarity between Faroese and German um, is that they are both commonly
used together with a word meaning 'advice', ráð in Faroese and Rat in German. In Faroese,
however, the preposition extends over a much wider field semantically, and it is also the most
common preposition used in connection with spyrja. Thus, it may be used to express the request of
something else than advice, as illustrated by (11b) below. It seems, however, also to be possible to
use um within the Questioning frame, where it expresses the
translated as 'about' in English.
29
TOPIC
argument, and would as such be
Table 6: MESSAGE/TOPIC argument of spyrja instantiated with a preposition.
Prep: eftir
Prep: um
Total
Indirect object
2
18
20
Indirect reflexive
0
0
0
No indirect object
6
22
28
Total
8
40
48
(11) a. Preposition um generating the meaning of 'inquire'
Tú
kundi spyrja hann
you.NOM could ask
um
okkurt fjall...
him.ACC about some mountain
'You could ask him about some mountain...'
b. Preposition um generating the meaning of 'request'
...at hann verður
noyddur at fara til bankan
that he.NOM becomes forced
to go
og spyrja um fígging
til eini hús...
to bank.the and ask for financing to a house
'...that he will have to go to the bank and ask for financing for a house...'
For the preposition eftir (which can be said to correspond to German nach), basically the same
semantic scope might be attested as for um. Accordingly, we find example (12a) where the meaning
would most logically be 'ask about' and example (12b) which has the sense of 'ask for'. As was the
case with um, eftir can thus be used both to denote the
well as the MESSAGE argument of the Request frame.
30
TOPIC
argument of the Questioning frame as
(12) a. Preposition eftir generating the meaning of 'inquire'
Eg eri kunnaður um, at
I
am aware
of
landsstýrið
avvarðandi vinnufelag
that concerned
eftir
company. NOM have
hesum máli uttan
government.the.ACC about this
hev-ur spurt
asked
at hava fingið
nakað svar.
issue without to have received any
reply
'I am aware of the fact that the company in question have asked the government about
this issue without having received any reply.'
b. Preposition eftir generating the meaning of 'request'
...tí
ringir onkur
til hansara og spyr eftir Viagra.
thus calls someone.NOM to his
and asks for Viagra
'...thus someone calls him and asks for Viagra.'
4.4 Prepositional constructions expressing the ADDRESSEE
The final point of investigation in this paper is to look at if, and how, the
ADDRESSEE,
which is
normally expressed as an indirect object can instead appear as a kind of adverbial, marked with a
preposition.
Table 7: Addressee arguments expressed through adverbial constructions, percentage of the total
amount of pure active and prepositional clauses in which no indirect object is explicitly expressed.
(The Total column indicates the total number of instances out of which the percentages have been
calculated.)
fragen
spyrja
Tokens
%
Total
Tokens
%
Total
Directional
2
1,0 %
210
0
0%
196
Locational
2
1,0 %
210
1
0,5 %
196
Total
4
1,9 %
210
1
0,5 %
196
31
Putting this in relation to the double accusative construction, the hypothesis might be that an
adverbial construction would be favoured, since it more clearly helps the listener/reader to identify
the ADDRESSEE argument and to distinguish this from the
MESSAGE
argument, than does a construction
where both arguments are marked with the same case.
In Table 7 it is shown how many examples I have found in my material (the pure active and the
prepositional instances) where there is no explicitly expressed indirect object in accusative case, but
where an
ADDRESSEE-like
argument is still expressed, albeit with an adverbial. (The percentages are
out of all pure active and prepositional clauses in which no indirect object is expressed.)
Examples (13a–b) and (14a–b) are the ones that I have found in the German corpus. In total
there are four such examples, and I have chosen to categorize them as either directional or
locational adverbials, depending on the prototypical meaning of the preposition used together with
the ADDRESSEE-like argument.4 In examples (13a–b) the preposition in is used together with an object
in accusative case, which gives it a meaning relatively similar to the English preposition into. In
(14a–b), on the other hand, the preposition bei is used together with an object in dative case. The
meaning of the preposition is here closer to English at.
(13) ADDRESSEE instantiated by a directional adverbial
a. Kennt ihr
einen,
der
jemals vom
know you anyone who ever
Nordpol
zum
Südpol
gelaufen ist?
from.the North-Pole to.the South-Pole walked
fragt Prof. Dr. Dr. Faselfarn (Hannes Hohgräve) ins
is
Publikum. Ja.
asks Prof. Dr. Dr. Faselfarn (Hannes Hohgräve) into.the audience
yes
'Do you know anyone who has ever walked from the North Pole to the South Pole? asks
Prof. Dr. Dr. Faselfarn (Hannes Hohgräve) into the audience. Yes.'
b. "Möchte heute abend
wants
jemand auf eine Party von Moët Chandon? ,
today evening anyone to
fragt Walberer in
a
party of
Moët Chandon
die Redakteurs-Runde. Null Reaktion.
asks Walberer into the editors-circle
zero reaction
'Would anyone like to go to a Moët Chandon party tonight? asks Walberer into the
editor's circle. Zero reaction.'
4 A point may be raised, that these two kinds of adverbials are fundamentally different, since it would logically be
possible to have an indirect object appear in combination with a locational adverbial, whether this is unlikely to be
possible in combination with a directional adverbial. However, I find this categorization useful, since for all
examples of adverbials in my sample, it would be possible to exchange the adverbial for a simple indirect object,
and the adverbial might thus be said to fulfil the role usually played by an indirect object.
32
(14) ADDRESSEE instantiated by a locational adverbial
a. Mehrmals
fragte Iris B. im Oktober vergeblich
several-times asked Iris B. in October in-vain
bei der Sparkasse nach dem Kindergeld
at the Sparkasse for
für ihren Sohn.
the child-benefit for her
son
'In October, Iris B. asked in vain several times at the Sparkasse ('savings bank') for the
child benefit for her son.'
b. Indessen
verrichtet Manager Hoeneß eifrig
Routinearbeit,
meanwhile carries-out manager Hoeneß eagerly routine-work
fragte bei Bayer Leverkusen gar
nach
den Konditionen...
asked at Bayer Leverkusen even about the conditions
'Meanwhile Manager Hoeneß eagerly carries out some routine work, (and) even inquired
at Bayer Leverkusen about the conditions...'
Example (15) is the only corresponding example found in the Faroese corpus. Out of the examples I
have examined, there is no construction equalling the directional adverbial that appeared in the
German material (examples (13a–b)), but there is one example which shows that a locational
adverbial can be used with spyrja in Faroese to denote the
ADDRESSEE.
The preposition used here is
hjá (with an object in dative case), which is fairly similar in meaning to German bei (see examples
(13a–b) above), and has the meaning 'at'.
(15) ADDRESSEE instantiated by a locational adverbial
...tá-ið bileigarin
spyr um ráð
hjá dekkseljaranum.
when the.car-owner.NOM asks for advice at the.tyre-salesman
'...when the car owner asks for advice at the tyre salesman.'
4.5 Constructions with two (non-agentive) nominal arguments
Finally, Table 8 shows the distribution of all the examples found where the verbs fragen and spyrja
are used together with two nominal arguments, these arguments being either objects in accusative
case or objects (in either accusative or dative case) appearing together with a preposition.
It should be noted that the examples where the
33
MESSAGE
is instantiated by a clause are not taken
into account here (since these do not count as "nominal arguments"). This means that the German
examples of the
ADDRESSEE
being expressed through a directional adverbial are not part of the
statistics here. Due to this reduction of the material we find that in those cases where a PPcomplement is used to express the
ADDRESSEE,
the argument expressing the
MESSAGE/TOPIC
is also
always a PP-complement. (This might however possibly be explained by the relatively small size of
the material investigated in this study.)
What Table 8 shows is that, although the double accusative construction is not very common
with either of the verbs fragen and spyrja, it is with fragen at least more common than a
construction where the ADDRESSEE is expressed as a PP-complement, and with spyrja at least equally
common as a PP-complement construction. If the verbs appear with two arguments at the same
time, it is however most often the case that the
ADDRESSEE
is expressed as a simple object in
accusative case, whereas the MESSAGE/TOPIC of the verb is expressed as some kind of PP-complement.
Table 8: The nature of the ADDRESSEE and MESSAGE/TOPIC (non-prepositional vs. prepositional)
argument in clauses with two nominal arguments.
fragen
spyrja
Tokens
Percentage
Tokens
Percentage
5
27,8 %
1
4,5 %
NP6
MESSAGE/TOPIC: PP
11
61,1 %
20
90,9 %
PP7
MESSAGE/TOPIC: PP
2
11,1 %
1
4,5 %
18
100 %
22
100 %
NP5
MESSAGE: NP
ADDRESSEE:
ADDRESSEE:
ADDRESSEE:
Total
5 See Table 2, section 4.2.1 for fragen and Table 3, section 4.2.2 for spyrja.
6 See Table 5, section 4.3.1 for fragen and Table 6, section 4.3.2 for spyrja.
7 See section 4.4.
34
5 Discussion
5.1 Comparison between fragen and spyrja
First of all, we may conclude that fragen and spyrja share a lot of common traits, with roughly the
same distribution between pure active, prepositional, particle and participle uses. An important
difference is that, in German, the reflexive pronoun sich is very common with the verb fragen,
whereas the Faroese equivalent seg (sjálvan) is quite rare with spyrja. This might be due to the fact
that German sich fragen has a lexicalized meaning 'to wonder', and that the Faroese reflexive
pronoun is more difficult to handle, both because it comes in two different versions (seg and seg
sjálvan) and also because it is somewhat ambiguous and it is not always easy to know what the
reflexive actually refers to (see section 4.2.2).
Another point of difference between fragen and spyrja concerns the use of prepositions to mark
the
MESSAGE/TOPIC.
While both verbs only appear with two prepositions each, and although these
prepositions might be said to be each others' equivalents in both languages, the relative frequency
between them is different when fragen and spyrja are compared. In both German and Faroese we
find the preposition um, which has a similar meaning in both languages. With German fragen, it is
however not very common, and only appears in the constellation um Rat fragen 'ask for advice'.
With Faroese spyrja, however, this preposition is the most common one, and can be used with
various kinds of nouns, including ráð 'advice', but can also be used for the request of other things,
such as money, or to inquire about something. The other preposition that we find with these verbs is
German nach and Faroese eftir. These can be used for both requests and inquiries in both languages,
but is more common with fragen than with spyrja. An explanation for this seems to be that German
um has taken a very limited scope with the verb fragen, and can only be used when asking for
advice, whereas no such limitation can be seen for Faroese um. In Faroese, both um and eftir seem
to have a rather similar scope (and it might then be the case that um is preferred, due to it being
shorter than eftir).
5.2 The double accusative construction
The main conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that, as predicted, the double accusative
construction of fragen and spyrja is not very common at all, mounting up to 1 % for fragen (out of
the 485 instances that were shown in Table 1, section 4.1 ) and 0,2 % for spyrja. In both German
and Faroese, it is relatively common not to explicitly state the
ADDRESSEE,
argument is usually known already from the context. When an
ADDRESSEE
35
presumably because this
is present in the shape on
an indirect object in accusative case, the
MESSAGE
is, in both languages usually a clause of some
kind. This means that, in both German and Faroese, nominal arguments are to some extent avoided.
If this really has to do with the fact the double accusative construction is a marginal construction in
these languages, and therefore something that the speaker wishes to avoid (or is not even aware of)
cannot really be stated from the results presented here. It would be necessary to do a bigger study
on verbs in German and Faroese, comparing e.g. all double accusative verbs with a handful of
regular ditransitive verbs (dative-accusative) to see if this behaviour is something specific for
fragen and spyrja. Also, a study on the verb ask cross-linguistically would be of interest, as this
might bring some perspective to whether fragen and spyrja are odd cousins within their respective
languages, or if they just behave like the verb ask usually does.
5.3 Ways of getting around the double accusative construction
Another issue is to look at if there are any ways of getting around the double accusative
construction. Apart from omitting one or two of the arguments, I have also looked at if prepositions
may be used to single out either the
ADDRESSEE
or the
MESSAGE/TOPIC
these arguments are present. Of special interest is to see if the
in a construction where both
ADDRESSEE
can be expressed as an
adverbial of some kind, which I find that it can with both fragen and spyrja. With fragen, there are
two different adverbial constructions possible, either a directional adverbial with the preposition
in+accusative 'into' and a locational adverbial with the preposition bei+dative 'at'. The directional
adverbial is however only used when the MESSAGE is expressed as a clause, and thus there is no proof
that this construction might also be used in a clause where the
MESSAGE
is expressed as a noun
phrase. With spyrja, there is only one occurrence of an adverbial construction to express the
ADDRESSEE,
with the preposition hjá+dative 'at' forming a locational adverbial.
Summing this up, we find that, out of all instances in my material where both the
the
MESSAGE/TOPIC
ADDRESSEE
and
is expressed as a nominal argument of some kind (with or without preposition),
the double accusative construction accounts for almost 30 % of all occurrences with German
fragen. For Faroese spyrja, however, there is in my material only one occurrence of a double
accusative, and this accounts for about 5 % of the total of all instances with both nominal
ADDRESSEE
and nominal MESSAGE/TOPIC. We may thus conclude that, although the double accusative construction
is very marginal when we look at all the different argument structure constructions that fragen and
spyrja can appear in, it is, at least for fragen, still quite common in those relatively few cases where
both the ADDRESSEE and the MESSAGE/TOPIC are present. It is perhaps not so much the double accusative
construction that is avoided, but rather a general tendency to use these verbs monotransitively.
36
5.4 Final comments on ditransitivity
If we follow a functional perspective on ditransitivity (as exemplified by Dryer 2007; Malchukov et
al 2007; Haspelmath 2005b) we find three basic strategies for encoding the (non-agentive)
arguments of a ditransitive construction, which correspond to at least two of the "three main types
of ditransitive constructions" distinguished by Haspelmath (2005b). The double accusative
constructions of fragen and spyrja correspond to the double-object construction of Haspelmath
(2005b) (and the neutral alignment of Malchukov et al (2007)). The construction in which the
MESSAGE/TOPIC
is expressed as an adverbial and the ADDRESSEE as an indirect object in accusative case,
which is found with both fragen and spyrja, corresponds to the secondary-object construction of
Haspelmath (2005b), which he defines as a construction in which the recipient (ADDRESSEE) is coded
like the patient of a monotransitive clause, whereas the theme (MESSAGE/TOPIC) is coded differently.
The third strategy found with fragen and spyrja, in which both the
ADDRESSEE
and the
MESSAGE
are
expressed as adverbials and thus coded differently from the monotransitive patient, does not really
seem to have an equivalent in this terminology.
6 Summary
The main conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that, for both fragen and spyrja, the
double accusative construction exists, but is not used very often. It would however be necessary to
investigate more verbs in German and Faroese, as well as look at the verb ask in more languages
than just these two, to judge whether the low frequency of the double accusative construction with
fragen and spyrja is due to it being a relatively rare construction, that only appears with a handful of
verbs in both German and Faroese, or if it is simply a result of the verb ask seldom being used
together with both an explicitly expressed MESSAGE and an explicitly expressed ADDRESSEE at the same
time. Generally, it is not very common for these verbs to appear in constructions with two nominal
object-like arguments at the same time (whether these are "bare" or marked with a preposition), and
as seen in Table 8 (section 4.5), for fragen, the double accusative still constitutes almost a third of
all such instances (whereas for spyrja the corresponding figure is merely five per cent).
For both fragen and spyrja, the most common argument structure construction is to express the
MESSAGE
as a clause and leave the
ADDRESSEE
unexpressed. The most obvious difference between the
verbs is that a reflexive pronoun is much more often used to denote the
fragen than with Faroese spyrja.
37
ADDRESSEE
with German
References
Abraham, Werner. 2006. Bare and prepositional differential case marking: The exotic case of
German (and Icelandic) among all of Germanic. Case, Valency and Transitivity, ed. by Leonid
Kulikov, Andrej Malchukov & Peter de Swart. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, 115–
146.
Atkins, Sue, Charles J. Fillmore & Christopher R. Johnson. 2007. Lexicographic relevance:
selecting information from corpus evidence. International Journal of Lexicography (16:3), 251–
280.
Barðdal, Jóhanna. 2001. Case in Icelandic: A synchronic, diachronic and comparative approach.
(Lundastudier i nordisk språkvetenskap, A57.) Lund: Department of Scandinavian Languages.
Barðdal, Jóhanna. 2007. The semantic and lexical range of the ditransitive construction in the
history of (North) Germanic. Functions of Language (14:1), 9–30.
Barðdal, Jóhanna, Kristian Emil Kristoffersen & Andreas Sveen. 2011. West Scandinavian
ditransitives as a family of constructions: With a special attention to the Norwegian ‘V‐REFL‐
NP’ construction. Linguistics (49:1), 53–104.
Barnes, Michael. 1986/2001a. Reflexivisation in Faroese: a preliminary survey. Faroese Language
Studies, ed. by Ernst Håkon Jahr. (Studia Nordica 5.) Oslo: Novus Forlag, 65–102.
Barnes, Michael. 1986/2001b. Subject, nominative and oblique case in Faroese. Faroese Language
Studies, ed. by Ernst Håkon Jahr. (Studia Nordica 5.) Oslo: Novus Forlag, 103–140.
Blake, Barry J. 2001. Case (second edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Dixon, R. M. W. & Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald. 2000. Changing valency: case studies in transitivity.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dryer, Matthew S. 2007. Clause types. Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Volume I:
Clause Structures (second edition), ed. by Timothy Shopen. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 224–276.
Der Duden in 10 Bänden. Bd 4, Duden Grammatik der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. 1984.
Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut.
DWDS: Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache ('Digital dictionary of the German language').
http://www.dwds.de/resource/kerncorpus/ (2012-06-03).
Fillmore, Charles J., Christopher R. Johnson & Miriam R. L. Petruck. 2007. Background to
FrameNet. International Journal of Lexicography (16:3), 236–250.
38
FrameNet: Questioning. https://framenet2.icsi.berkeley.edu/fnReports/data/frameIndex.xml?
frame=Questioning (2012-06-03).
FrameNet: Request. https://framenet2.icsi.berkeley.edu/fnReports/data/frameIndex.xml?
frame=Request (2012-06-03).
Freund, Folke & Birger Sundqvist. 2006. Tysk grammatik (tredje upplagan). Stockholm: Natur &
kultur.
FTS: Føroyskt TextaSavn ('Faroese text collection'). Språkbanken: Gothenburg University.
http://spraakbanken.gu.se/FTS/query_forms.phtml??1323359828012 (2012-06-03).
Føroysk orðabók. 1998. Tórshavn: Føroya Fróðskaparfelag.
Givón, Talmy. 2001. Syntax: An Introduction, Volume 1. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Hansen, Kirsti. 2005. Om materialet: Det började med en liten korpus på en miljon ord.
http://spraakbanken.gu.se/FTS/query_forms.phtml??1331830459859 (2012-03-15).
Haspelmath, Martin. 2005a. Argument marking in ditransitive alignment types. Linguistic
Discovery (3:1), 1–21.
Haspelmath, Martin. 2005b. Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give'. The World Atlas of
Language Structures, ed. by Martin Haspelmath et al. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 426–
427.
Henriksen, Jeffrei. 2000. Orðalagslæra. Vestmanna: Sprotin.
Hewson, John & Vit Bubenik. 2006. From case to adposition: the development of configurational
syntax in Indo-European languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Hudson, Richard A. 1992. So called 'double objects' and grammatical relations. Language (68:2),
251–276.
Lexer, Matthias. 1922. Mittelhochdeutsches Taschenwörterbuch (sechzehnte Auflage). Leipzig: S.
Hirzel.
Malchukov, Andrej L., Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie. 2007. Ditransitive constructions: a
typological overview. Typescript. Max Planck Institute: Leipzig.
Næss, Åshild. 2007. Prototypical transitivity. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.
The Oxford-Duden German Dictionary. 2001. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Silén, Beatrice. 2008. Konstruktionsval vid verbet ge i finlandssvenskt och sverigesvenskt talspråk.
Språk och stil (18), 112–142.
Thráinsson, Höskuldur, Hjalmar P. Petersen, Jógvan í Lon Jacobsen & Zakaris Svabo Hansen. 2004.
Faroese: An Overview and Reference Grammar. Tórshavn: Føroya Fróðskaparfelag.
Young, George Vaughan Chichester & Cynthia R. Clewer. 1985. Faroese-English Dictionary. Peel,
Isle of Man: Mansk-Svenska Publishing.
39