Pancake sentence
Pancake sentences are a phenomenon in
The phrase appears to have been coined by Hans-Olav Enger in a 2004 academic paper, "Scandinavian pancake sentences as semantic agreement" but it was well-known also by classic grammar and was dubbed "
Phenomenom
An example from Swedish is Pannkakor är nyttigt (Pancakes are healthy):
Pannkak(a)-or
Pancake-C.PL.NDEF
är
COP
nyttig-t
healthy-N.SG
It's healthy to eat pancakes.'
While pannkakor is the plural form of a common (gender) word, nyttigt is in its neuter singular form.
This phenomenon only occurs in the indefinite form. For example, the Norwegian sentences:[2]
- Pannekaker er godt (Pancakes are good)
- Pannekakene er gode (The pancakes are good)
In the first example, the phenomenom can be observed.
Pannekake-(e)r
Pancake-F.PL.NDEF
er
COP
god-t
good-N.SG
'Pancakes taste good.'
However, in the second example, the adjective is inflected as expected.
Pannekake-(e)ne
Pancake-F.PL.DEF
er
COP
god-e
good-PL
'The pancakes taste good.'
Sources
- Enger, Hans-Olav (December 2013). "Scandinavian pancake sentences revisited". Nordic Journal of Linguistics. 36 (3). Cambridge University Press: 275–301. S2CID 147344472.
- Josefsson, Gunlög (2012). "Pancake sentences and gender system changes in Mainland Scandinavian" (PDF).
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(help) - Josefsson, Gunlög (2014). "Pancake sentences and the semanticization of formal gender in Mainland Scandinavian". Language Sciences. 43: 62–76. .
- Josefsson, Gunlög (December 2012), "Disagreeing doubling det" (PDF), Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax, 90
- Polysemy and Pancakes
References
- ^ מה זה זה? ניתוח תחבירי של האוגד "זה" בעברית המודרנית [What is ze? A syntactic analysis of the copula ze in Modern Hebrew] (PDF) (in Hebrew)
- ^ Gunlög Josefsson (2012). "Pancake sentences and gender system changes in Mainland Scandinavian" (PDF). conference.hi.is. Retrieved 2019-01-01.[dead link]