Abstract
Like most Germanic languages, Norwegian generally exhibits verb-second (V2) word order. Due to the strict V2 constraint, the finite verb occupies the second position in main declarative clauses, regardless of whether the sentence begins with the subject or a non-subject. Deviations from this pattern are typically described as ungrammatical in accounts of present-day Germanic word order.
Nevertheless, non-V2 structures, commonly referred to as verb-third (V3) word order, have been documented in several Norwegian varieties. Such structures have been observed in language use among adolescents in multilingual urban settings in Norway, as well as in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. V3 has also been attested in heritage varieties of Norwegian in North and Latin America and in contact varieties in Northern Norway, where Norwegian is in contact with Sámi and Kven.
More recently, studies from Germany and Sweden have demonstrated that V3 structures are also used by adult native speakers. Some researchers have argued that the emergence of this grammatical pattern in multilingual youth varieties may be part of broader processes of ongoing language change. However, in the Norwegian context, syntactic variation involving V3 word order has not yet been systematically investigated outside multilingual youth settings.
Against this background, my PhD project investigates syntactic variation in spoken Norwegian, focusing on deviations from the verb-second (V2) word order. The data consist of audio recordings of spontaneous, everyday conversations between pairs of participants. In addition, participants completed a digital questionnaire providing information about age, gender, language use, and linguistic background. Most participants were born and/or raised in Oslo or Kristiansand, while a small number moved to Norway after school age.
This talk provides an overview of the project, with emphasis on the first article. I examine patterns of syntactic variation related to V2 word order in spontaneous spoken Norwegian and present key findings from recordings of 25 speakers from Oslo and surrounding areas. The participant group includes both adolescents and young adults aged 17 to 36, both first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) speakers of Norwegian.
Bio
Bahra Rashidi is a Doctoral Research Fellow at Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies. She is supervised by Associate Prof. Anu Laanemets and Prof. Bente Ailin Svendsen.