[Ads-l] Scandinavian topicalization is very flexible

[Mark Mandel]

*Scandinavians' little linguistic hat trick*

2019-12-12.1545 UTC±

<https://phys.org/news/2019-12-scandinavians-linguistic-hat.html>

*Norwegian University of Science and Technology*

Linguist Dave Kush at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's
Department of Language and Literature has been studying a phenomenon in
which Norwegian, Swedish and Danish stand out.

This language peculiarity has to do with the order of words, or the syntax.
The basic point of the study is to better understand the grammatical
building blocks in our brain.

Moving the most important word to the beginning of a sentence
<https://phys.org/tags/sentence/> is called topicalization. The first word
acts as a "heading" for the rest of the sentence.

"Other languages also use topicalization, but the Scandinavians have
developed topicalization into an art. The keyword can be retrieved from a
relative clause and placed at beginning of the sentence, even when the
context is a distance away. The connection—the interpretation of the first
word—comes later in the sentence," says Dave Kush.


* Click link for article*

Mark Mandel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org