Atle Grønn

• Grønn, Atle & von Stechow, Arnim (2016). Tense, In  The Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics.  Cambridge University Press.  ISBN 9781107028395.  11.  s 313 - 341 Full text in Research Archive.
• Grønn, Atle (2015). On (in)definite tense and aspect in Russian, In Gerhild Zybatow; Petr Biskup; Marcel Guhl; Claudia Hurtig; Olav Mueller-Reichau & Maria Yastrebova (ed.),  Slavic Grammar from a Formal Perspective. The 10th Anniversary FDSL Conference, Leipzig 2013.  Peter Lang Publishing Group.  ISBN 978-3-631-66246-5.  Artikkel.  s 175 - 196 Full text in Research Archive.
• Grønn, Atle (2013). Aspect and tense in counterfactual main clauses. Fake or real?, In Folke Josephson & Ingmar Söhrman (ed.),  Diachronic and Typological Perspectives on Verbs.  John Benjamins Publishing Company.  ISBN 978 90 272 0601 5.  kapittel 5.  s 133 - 158 Full text in Research Archive.
• Grønn, Atle & von Stechow, Arnim (2012). Adjuncts, attitudes and aspect: Some additions to a tense theory for Russian. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa).  ISSN 1890-9639.  4(1), s 263- 304 . doi: 10.5617/osla.237 Show summary

  Compared to other languages, the temporal organisation in Russian relative clauses and temporal adverbial clauses is as simple as it can possibly be: The tense morphology is licensed locally and the adjunct tense and matrix tense are independent of each other. It is tempting to give a purely deictic analysis of adjunct tense in Russian. However, there are some exceptions to the deictic story, the most important one being adjunct tense embedded under attitudes and modals. For these cases, we argue that the highest tense in the adjunct is anaphoric (Tpro). We show that our previous analyses of complement tense and adjunct tense can be combined to successfully treat adjuncts in such intensional contexts. Furthermore, we discuss some residual issues in our tense theory for Russian, such as the insertion of covert tenses at LF (Russian lacks overt perfect tenses) and the integration of aspect in our system of feature transmission via semantic binding.

• Grønn, Atle (2011). ‘Byvalo’ and ‘Used to’ as Verbal Quantifiers. Slovo. Journal of Slavic Languages, Literatures and Cultures.  ISSN 0348-744X.  (52), s 63- 80 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  The paper presents a contrastive study of habitual constructions in Slavic and Germanic, with particular focus on the verbal quantifiers byvalo in Russian and used to in English. The basic idea is to analyze the temporal make-up of these constructions in the light of the sequence of tense parameter. Of particular interest in this respect is the use of present tense morphology (in combination with the perfective or imperfective aspect) under byvalo. It is argued that this construction is reminiscent of the use of the present tense in Russian subordinate clauses under attitude verbs. In both cases the embedded verb is semantically tenseless and dependent on (bound by) a matrix verbal quantifier. If this explanation is on the right track, it should probably not only cover habituals proper since the same temporal patterns are also observed with implicative verbs (“it happened”). Russian displays an interesting contrast between byvalo (habitual) byvalo, čto (implicative) – and in both cases present tense forms can be used in the embedded verbs. The empirical basis for the study was provided by the multilingual RuN-Euro parallel corpus. The corpus data allow us to contrast different temporal, aspectual and morpho-syntactic aspects of the constructions in question in various languages.

• Grønn, Atle & Stechow, Arnim von (2011). Future vs. present in Russian and English adjunct clauses. Scando-Slavica.  ISSN 0080-6765.  57(2), s 245- 267 . doi: 10.1080/00806765.2011.631783 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  We treat the interpretation and motivate the morphology of tense in adjunct clauses in English and Russian (relative clauses, before/after/when-clauses) with a future matrix verb. The main findings of our paper are the following: 1. English has a simultaneous reading in present adjuncts embedded under will. This follows from our SOT parameter. Russian present adjuncts under budet or the synthetic perfective future can only have a deictic interpretation. 2. The syntax of Russian temporal adjunct clauses (do/posle togo kak…) shows overt parts that had to be stipulated for English as covert in earlier papers. We are thus able to present a neat and straightforward analysis of Russian temporal adjuncts.

• Grønn, Atle & von Stechow, Arnim (2010). Complement Tense in Contrast: The SOT parameter in Russian and English. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa).  ISSN 1890-9639.  2(1), s 109- 153 Show summary

  In an SOT-language like English, ‘past under past’ may have a simultaneous interpretation, i.e., we have temporal agreement. In a non-SOT language like Russian, we only have the shifted interpretation. In English, the temporal morphology of the embedded verb is determined by the matrix tense via a binding chain through verbal quantifiers such as ‘say’ or ‘think’. In Russian, these attitude verbs break the binding chain. The morphology of the embedded verb is determined locally by an embedded relative PRESENT, FUTURE or PAST. We propose that the difference between English and Russian is derived from: The SOT-parameter: A language L is an SOT-language if and only if the verbal quantifiers of L transmit temporal features. Verbal quantifiers quantify over times (e.g. fut. will) or world-times (e.g. verba dicendi). The paper will take up a recent challenge by Daniel Altschuler and Olga Khomitsevich against existing accounts: verbs of perception and, occasionally, factive verbs in Russian may express simultaneity by ‘past under past’. We will show that the problem is in fact non-existent when the complement is imperfective. Concerning factives, however, we argue that the complement tense is an independent de re past. Finally, perception verbs are normally not verbal quantifiers and hence not subject to the SOT-parameter.

• Grønn, Atle (2008). An amazing come-back a counterfactual imperfective in Russian. Scando-Slavica.  ISSN 0080-6765.  54, s 5- 31 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  The paper shows how the semantically underspecified imperfective aspect in Russian becomes associated with counterfactual complete events in specific contexts, notably in chess annotations (Restan 1989), while the perfective invariably denotes factual complete events. The counterfactual flavour of the construction invites a comparison with more standard counterfactual conditionals, including some discussion of the imperfective and counterfactuality in French. I show that the “counterfactual imperfective” in Russian differs from ordinary counterfactual conditionals, which are characterized by a semantically empty past tense. This subtle distinction leads to a further division of pragmatic labour between the form “imperfective past” (hypotheses in the past) and the “subjunctive (“by”) perfective past” (hypotheses in the present/future). The analysis is couched in Bidirectional Optimality Theory (Blutner 2000), which provides an ideal framework for analyzing non-compositional form-meaning optimization and pragmatic strengthening.

• Grønn, Atle (2008). Imperfectivity and complete events, In Folke Josephson & Ingmar Söhrman (ed.),  Interdependence of Diachronic and Synchronic Analyses.  John Benjamins Publishing Company.  ISBN 9789027205704.  chapter.  s 149 - 165 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  Imperfectivity is cross-linguistically associated with the subinterval property and a modal component induced by the famous ‘imperfective paradox’. These properties arguably hold for both the progressive and habitual-iterative readings. However, both in Romance and Slavic, the imperfective may also refer to complete events instantiated in the world of evaluation: the so-called Imparfait narratif in French and the Factual Imperfective in Russian. I propose an analysis of viewpoint aspect in terms of temporal inclusion relations between the event time and the assertion time. Importantly, however, the source of the two complete event readings in question are quite different inasmuch as the Russian imperfective is unmarked and is used whenever the marked perfective aspect is inappropriate, while the French Imparfait is marked. This means that the French Imparfait retains its meaning of contemporaneity even when it has a complete event interpretation.

• Grønn, Atle (2008). Russian aspect as bidirectional optimization, In Franc Marusic (ed.),  Studies in Formal Slavic Linguistics.  Peter Lang Publishing Group.  ISBN 978-3-631-57009-8.  kapittel.  s 121 - 137 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  Notions like markedness, competition, underspecification, context sensitivity and pragmatic implicatures play an important role in traditional Slavic aspectology. I propose in this paper to give these somewhat vague theoretical constructs a more explicit status within the framework of bidirectional optimality theory (BiOT), introduced in (Blutner 1998, 2000). Blutner’s BiOT can merge these elements into a coherent theory of Russian aspect with strong predictions.

• Grønn, Atle & Krave, Maria Filiouchkina (2007). Konkurencija vidov: pragmaticheskie implikatury i anaforicheskie presuppozicii nesovershennogo vida. Voprosy Jazykoznanija.  ISSN 0373-658X.  (4), s 51- 63 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  Целью данной статьи является описание сущности конкуренции глагольных видов (совершенный vs. несовершенный) в русском языке. В частности, объясняется, каким образом совершенный вид (СВ) вступает в конкуренцию с двумя разновидностями общефактического несовершенного вида (НСВ) в прошедшем времени: c ассертивно-событийным и c пресуппозитивным НСВ. Выделены два фактора, которые играют ключевую роль в выборе вида: прагматическая импликатура и событийная пресуппозиция. Авторы заключают, что выбор говорящего в пользу НСВ происходит в тех случаях, когда значимость итогового состояния не является релевантной в контексте дискурса (первый фактор: прагматическая импликатура). Кроме того, утверждается, что только НСВ может использоваться в случае событийной анафоры: в целях экономии НСВ, будучи немаркированным видом, может употребляться тогда, когда в контексте имеется его антецедент – завершенное действие (второй фактор: событийная пресуппозиция).

• Grønn, Atle (2006). Information Structure and Aspectual Competition, In Beata Gyuris (ed.),  Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium on Logic and Language.  Hungarian Academy of Sciences.  ISBN 9639660353.  bidrag.  s 70 - 77 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  The imperfective aspect in Russian competes with the perfective in referring to events whose existence is entailed by the input context. In the first, major part of the paper (sections 1-5) I take a global view on aspectual competition, which is analyzed in light of various pragmatic constraints. It is shown in a bidirectional optimization how the default/unmarked imperfective in the appropriate context gets a presuppositional interpretation. Then, in the second part of the paper, I turn to the issue of how this presuppositional reading can be accounted for locally (compositionally) at the syntax-semantics interface, without assuming a proliferation of imperfective operators.

• Grønn, Atle (2004). The Semantics and Pragmatics of the Russian Factual Imperfective. Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  Atle Grønn's dr. art thesis The Semantics and Pragmatics of the Russian Factual Imperfective is an investigation into some intriguing usages of the imperfective (Ipf), where Ipf denotes complete events. The so-called factual Ipf is a particularly interesting reading of Ipf, since it apparently functions on the territory of its competing aspectual rival, the perfective. Despite the prominent place of aspectual studies in Slavic linguistics, the role of factual Ipf in the aspectual system remains a major puzzle. The thesis argues that factual Ipf subsumes two quite different ways of referring to complete events - through asserting the existence of an event of the type of the verbal predicate (existential Ipf) or presupposing its existence (presuppositional Ipf). An entirely new formal machinery for treating information structure, notably the focus-background partitioning, is introduced in order to capture this distinction. Furthermore, in order to account for the interaction of aspect, tense and temporal adverbials a new temporal calculus for Russian is developed. Aspects are treated as relations between the event time and the speaker's assertion time, and the value of the latter is provided by tense and adverbials. The thesis gives empirical evidence for the use of factual Ipf with past perfect readings, and it is shown how these data can be accounted for in the temporal calculus. This is a non-trivial issue since the semantics in this case requires "two tenses" in the logical form, while the Russian sentence only exhibits one overt tense form. The analysis is carried out in a compositional version of the semantico-pragmatic framework Discourse Representation Theory, equipped with a neo-Davidsonian event semantics. This is the first time such an elaborate formal apparatus is applied to Russian aspect. The thesis provides a framework which may be of interest for formal studies of aspect in general.

View all works in Cristin

• Grønn, Atle (2020). A note on the relative future in Russian, In  ВАПросы языкознания: Мегасборник наностатей.  Boki Vedi.  ISBN 978-5-4465-2882-0.  IX. Вид, время, модальность.  s 434 - 438 Full text in Research Archive.
• Grønn, Atle & von Stechow, Arnim (2016). Tense, In  The Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics.  Cambridge University Press.  ISBN 9781107028395.  11.  s 313 - 341 Full text in Research Archive.
• Grønn, Atle (2015). On (in)definite tense and aspect in Russian, In Gerhild Zybatow; Petr Biskup; Marcel Guhl; Claudia Hurtig; Olav Mueller-Reichau & Maria Yastrebova (ed.),  Slavic Grammar from a Formal Perspective. The 10th Anniversary FDSL Conference, Leipzig 2013.  Peter Lang Publishing Group.  ISBN 978-3-631-66246-5.  Artikkel.  s 175 - 196 Full text in Research Archive.
• Grønn, Atle (2015). Parallel'nyj korpus v sisteme universitetskikh lingvisticheskikh kursov, I: Hanne Martine Eckhoff & Thomas Rosén (red.),  Knigamъ bo estь neiščetnaja glubina. Essays in Honour of Irina Lysén.  Uppsala universitet.  ISBN 978-91-506-2484-7.  Artikkel.  s 55 - 63 Full text in Research Archive.
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell; Grønn, Atle; Hauge, Kjetil Rå & Santos, Diana (2014). Corpus-based studies in contrastive linguistics at the University of Oslo. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa).  ISSN 1890-9639.  6(1) . doi: 10.5617/osla.897
• Grønn, Atle (2014). En meningsløs norsk perfektum i kontrafaktiske kondisjonalsetninger. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa).  ISSN 1890-9639.  6(1), s 7- 27 . doi: 10.5617/osla.730 Show summary

  The paper explores the temporal organization of counterfactual conditionals with focus on the perfect auxiliary `ha’ (= `have’) in Norwegian. Data from the Oslo Multilingual Corpus suggest that languages like English, German and French are more well-behaved at the syntax-semantics interface when it comes to the use of the (past) perfect in counterfactuals. Indeed, in all Indo-European languages `have-/be-’ in the antecedent of past counterfactuals will typically be semantically empty. However, in Scandinavian the perfect is ambiguous all over the place in counterfactual conditionals. In fact, the temporal auxiliary can optionally be absent in the overt syntax, or it may be overtly expressed but interpreted as identity in the semantics or it can have its expected meaning as a backward shifter. In the latter case, the backward shift can outscope the bare conditional (genuine past counterfactuals) or take local scope inside the antecedent or consequent.

• Grønn, Atle (2013). Aspect and tense in counterfactual main clauses. Fake or real?, In Folke Josephson & Ingmar Söhrman (ed.),  Diachronic and Typological Perspectives on Verbs.  John Benjamins Publishing Company.  ISBN 978 90 272 0601 5.  kapittel 5.  s 133 - 158 Full text in Research Archive.
• von Stechow, Arnim & Grønn, Atle (2013). Tense in Adjuncts Part 1: Relative Clauses. Language and Linguistics Compass.  ISSN 1749-818X.  7(5), s 295- 310 . doi: 10.1111/lnc3.12020 Full text in Research Archive.
• von Stechow, Arnim & Grønn, Atle (2013). Tense in Adjuncts Part 2: Temporal Adverbial Clauses. Language and Linguistics Compass.  ISSN 1749-818X.  7(5), s 311- 327 . doi: 10.1111/lnc3.12019 Full text in Research Archive.
• Grønn, Atle & Pazelskaya, Anna (2012). Preface to the Russian Verb. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa).  ISSN 1890-9639. . doi: 10.5617/osla.236
• Grønn, Atle & Sæbø, Kjell Johan (2012). A, The, Another: A Game of Same and Different. Journal of Logic, Language and Information.  ISSN 0925-8531.  21(1), s 75- 95 . doi: 10.1007/s10849-011-9148-7 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  Indefinites face competition at two levels: Presupposition and content. The antipresupposition hypothesis predicts that they signal the opposite of familiarity, or uniqueness, namely, novelty, or non-uniqueness. At the level of descriptive content, they are pressured from two sides: definites expressing identity and another-phrases expressing difference, and Gricean reasoning predicts that indefinites signal both difference and identity and are infelicitous when definites and another-phrases are felicitous. However, occasionally a space opens between the and another, for a to fill. This is in part due to conditions handicapping the or another semantically, in part to another’s phonological handicap. The division of labor between determiners in the field of difference and sameness is thus the result of an intricate competition. We model this competition in a version of game-theoretic pragmatics.

• Grønn, Atle & von Stechow, Arnim (2012). Adjuncts, attitudes and aspect: Some additions to a tense theory for Russian. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa).  ISSN 1890-9639.  4(1), s 263- 304 . doi: 10.5617/osla.237 Show summary

  Compared to other languages, the temporal organisation in Russian relative clauses and temporal adverbial clauses is as simple as it can possibly be: The tense morphology is licensed locally and the adjunct tense and matrix tense are independent of each other. It is tempting to give a purely deictic analysis of adjunct tense in Russian. However, there are some exceptions to the deictic story, the most important one being adjunct tense embedded under attitudes and modals. For these cases, we argue that the highest tense in the adjunct is anaphoric (Tpro). We show that our previous analyses of complement tense and adjunct tense can be combined to successfully treat adjuncts in such intensional contexts. Furthermore, we discuss some residual issues in our tense theory for Russian, such as the insertion of covert tenses at LF (Russian lacks overt perfect tenses) and the integration of aspect in our system of feature transmission via semantic binding.

• Grønn, Atle (2011). ‘Byvalo’ and ‘Used to’ as Verbal Quantifiers. Slovo. Journal of Slavic Languages, Literatures and Cultures.  ISSN 0348-744X.  (52), s 63- 80 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  The paper presents a contrastive study of habitual constructions in Slavic and Germanic, with particular focus on the verbal quantifiers byvalo in Russian and used to in English. The basic idea is to analyze the temporal make-up of these constructions in the light of the sequence of tense parameter. Of particular interest in this respect is the use of present tense morphology (in combination with the perfective or imperfective aspect) under byvalo. It is argued that this construction is reminiscent of the use of the present tense in Russian subordinate clauses under attitude verbs. In both cases the embedded verb is semantically tenseless and dependent on (bound by) a matrix verbal quantifier. If this explanation is on the right track, it should probably not only cover habituals proper since the same temporal patterns are also observed with implicative verbs (“it happened”). Russian displays an interesting contrast between byvalo (habitual) byvalo, čto (implicative) – and in both cases present tense forms can be used in the embedded verbs. The empirical basis for the study was provided by the multilingual RuN-Euro parallel corpus. The corpus data allow us to contrast different temporal, aspectual and morpho-syntactic aspects of the constructions in question in various languages.

• Grønn, Atle (2011). From the Guest Editor. Scando-Slavica.  ISSN 0080-6765.  57(2), s 134- 134 . doi: 10.1080/00806765.2011.631772
• Grønn, Atle & Hauge, Kjetil Rå (2011). Korpusăt Run-Euro: razvitie i priloženija. Balgarski ezik.  ISSN 0005-4283.  58(3), s 89- 99
• Grønn, Atle & Stechow, Arnim von (2011). Future vs. present in Russian and English adjunct clauses. Scando-Slavica.  ISSN 0080-6765.  57(2), s 245- 267 . doi: 10.1080/00806765.2011.631783 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  We treat the interpretation and motivate the morphology of tense in adjunct clauses in English and Russian (relative clauses, before/after/when-clauses) with a future matrix verb. The main findings of our paper are the following: 1. English has a simultaneous reading in present adjuncts embedded under will. This follows from our SOT parameter. Russian present adjuncts under budet or the synthetic perfective future can only have a deictic interpretation. 2. The syntax of Russian temporal adjunct clauses (do/posle togo kak…) shows overt parts that had to be stipulated for English as covert in earlier papers. We are thus able to present a neat and straightforward analysis of Russian temporal adjuncts.

• Grønn, Atle & Klonova, Olga (2010). Russkij jazyk v kontrastivnom aspekte - vzgljad so storony korpusa RuN. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa).  ISSN 1890-9639.  2(3), s 467- 478
• Grønn, Atle & Marijanovic, Irena (2010). Russian in Contrast: Form, meaning and parallel corpora. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa).  ISSN 1890-9639.  2(1), s 1- 24
• Grønn, Atle & von Stechow, Arnim (2010). Complement Tense in Contrast: The SOT parameter in Russian and English. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa).  ISSN 1890-9639.  2(1), s 109- 153 Show summary

  In an SOT-language like English, ‘past under past’ may have a simultaneous interpretation, i.e., we have temporal agreement. In a non-SOT language like Russian, we only have the shifted interpretation. In English, the temporal morphology of the embedded verb is determined by the matrix tense via a binding chain through verbal quantifiers such as ‘say’ or ‘think’. In Russian, these attitude verbs break the binding chain. The morphology of the embedded verb is determined locally by an embedded relative PRESENT, FUTURE or PAST. We propose that the difference between English and Russian is derived from: The SOT-parameter: A language L is an SOT-language if and only if the verbal quantifiers of L transmit temporal features. Verbal quantifiers quantify over times (e.g. fut. will) or world-times (e.g. verba dicendi). The paper will take up a recent challenge by Daniel Altschuler and Olga Khomitsevich against existing accounts: verbs of perception and, occasionally, factive verbs in Russian may express simultaneity by ‘past under past’. We will show that the problem is in fact non-existent when the complement is imperfective. Concerning factives, however, we argue that the complement tense is an independent de re past. Finally, perception verbs are normally not verbal quantifiers and hence not subject to the SOT-parameter.

• Grønn, Atle (2008). An amazing come-back a counterfactual imperfective in Russian. Scando-Slavica.  ISSN 0080-6765.  54, s 5- 31 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  The paper shows how the semantically underspecified imperfective aspect in Russian becomes associated with counterfactual complete events in specific contexts, notably in chess annotations (Restan 1989), while the perfective invariably denotes factual complete events. The counterfactual flavour of the construction invites a comparison with more standard counterfactual conditionals, including some discussion of the imperfective and counterfactuality in French. I show that the “counterfactual imperfective” in Russian differs from ordinary counterfactual conditionals, which are characterized by a semantically empty past tense. This subtle distinction leads to a further division of pragmatic labour between the form “imperfective past” (hypotheses in the past) and the “subjunctive (“by”) perfective past” (hypotheses in the present/future). The analysis is couched in Bidirectional Optimality Theory (Blutner 2000), which provides an ideal framework for analyzing non-compositional form-meaning optimization and pragmatic strengthening.

• Grønn, Atle (2008). Imperfectivity and complete events, In Folke Josephson & Ingmar Söhrman (ed.),  Interdependence of Diachronic and Synchronic Analyses.  John Benjamins Publishing Company.  ISBN 9789027205704.  chapter.  s 149 - 165 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  Imperfectivity is cross-linguistically associated with the subinterval property and a modal component induced by the famous ‘imperfective paradox’. These properties arguably hold for both the progressive and habitual-iterative readings. However, both in Romance and Slavic, the imperfective may also refer to complete events instantiated in the world of evaluation: the so-called Imparfait narratif in French and the Factual Imperfective in Russian. I propose an analysis of viewpoint aspect in terms of temporal inclusion relations between the event time and the assertion time. Importantly, however, the source of the two complete event readings in question are quite different inasmuch as the Russian imperfective is unmarked and is used whenever the marked perfective aspect is inappropriate, while the French Imparfait is marked. This means that the French Imparfait retains its meaning of contemporaneity even when it has a complete event interpretation.

• Grønn, Atle (2008). Russian aspect as bidirectional optimization, In Franc Marusic (ed.),  Studies in Formal Slavic Linguistics.  Peter Lang Publishing Group.  ISBN 978-3-631-57009-8.  kapittel.  s 121 - 137 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  Notions like markedness, competition, underspecification, context sensitivity and pragmatic implicatures play an important role in traditional Slavic aspectology. I propose in this paper to give these somewhat vague theoretical constructs a more explicit status within the framework of bidirectional optimality theory (BiOT), introduced in (Blutner 1998, 2000). Blutner’s BiOT can merge these elements into a coherent theory of Russian aspect with strong predictions.

• Grønn, Atle (2007). Relative past and the syntax-semantics interface in Russian, In Peter Kosta & Lilia Schürcks (ed.),  Linguistic Investigations into Formal Description of Slavic Languages.  Peter Lang Publishing Group.  ISBN 978-3-631-55376-3.  V Semantics.  s 515 - 527 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  In this paper, I argue both empirically and formally that we need an optional relative past in the semantics of the temporal system of Russian. I propose a temporal calculus which can effectively deal with relative past readings in Russian, including the interaction with temporal adverbials, without positing an unwelcome ambiguity of explicit markers of tense and aspect. Furthermore, I show that a relative past is, to a certain extent, independent of aspect and co-occurs also with imperfective aspect, pace Paslawska and von Stechow (2003). More specifically, the so-called factual Ipf clearly exhibits past perfect interpretations, although it does not freely allow interpolation of a relative past.

• Grønn, Atle & Krave, Maria Filiouchkina (2007). Konkurencija vidov: pragmaticheskie implikatury i anaforicheskie presuppozicii nesovershennogo vida. Voprosy Jazykoznanija.  ISSN 0373-658X.  (4), s 51- 63 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  Целью данной статьи является описание сущности конкуренции глагольных видов (совершенный vs. несовершенный) в русском языке. В частности, объясняется, каким образом совершенный вид (СВ) вступает в конкуренцию с двумя разновидностями общефактического несовершенного вида (НСВ) в прошедшем времени: c ассертивно-событийным и c пресуппозитивным НСВ. Выделены два фактора, которые играют ключевую роль в выборе вида: прагматическая импликатура и событийная пресуппозиция. Авторы заключают, что выбор говорящего в пользу НСВ происходит в тех случаях, когда значимость итогового состояния не является релевантной в контексте дискурса (первый фактор: прагматическая импликатура). Кроме того, утверждается, что только НСВ может использоваться в случае событийной анафоры: в целях экономии НСВ, будучи немаркированным видом, может употребляться тогда, когда в контексте имеется его антецедент – завершенное действие (второй фактор: событийная пресуппозиция).

• Grønn, Atle (2006). Information Structure and Aspectual Competition, In Beata Gyuris (ed.),  Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium on Logic and Language.  Hungarian Academy of Sciences.  ISBN 9639660353.  bidrag.  s 70 - 77 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  The imperfective aspect in Russian competes with the perfective in referring to events whose existence is entailed by the input context. In the first, major part of the paper (sections 1-5) I take a global view on aspectual competition, which is analyzed in light of various pragmatic constraints. It is shown in a bidirectional optimization how the default/unmarked imperfective in the appropriate context gets a presuppositional interpretation. Then, in the second part of the paper, I turn to the issue of how this presuppositional reading can be accounted for locally (compositionally) at the syntax-semantics interface, without assuming a proliferation of imperfective operators.

• Grønn, Atle (2006). Irrealis and Sequence of TAM, In Paul Dekker (ed.),  Proceedings of Concord Phenomena and the Syntax Semantics Interface.  ESSLLI.  bidrag.  s 21 - 26 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  In this paper, I will discuss an irrealis-construction in Russian, which poses non-trivial problems for a compositional analysis of tense, aspect and mood (the categories subsumed under the abbreviation TAM). The past tense morphology on the verb – in absence of a semantic PAST operator – is argued to be licensed by an IRREALIS operator. This concord phenomenon will be accounted for in terms agreement/checking as in Minimalist feature theory. The choice of imperfective aspect in this construction can possibly be explained from the perspective of competition between optimal form-meaning pairs.

• Grønn, Atle (2006). Norwegian bare singulars: a note on types and sorts, In Torgrim Solstad; Atle Grønn & Dag Trygve Truslew Haug (ed.),  A Festschrift for Kjell Johan Sæbø: In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Celebration of his 50th Birthday.  Forfatterne.  ISBN 978-82-997289-0-4.  bidrag.  s 75 - 90 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  The distribution of bare singulars in Norwegian was thoroughly examined in Borthen (2003). The present paper outlines an account of these data in a type-logical semantics of the Neo-Carlsonian kind. The focus is primarily on the syntax-semantics interface, which here, somewhat simplified, amounts to assigning semantic types in the appropriate sortal domain to bare singulars. I argue that bare singulars can have their denotation both in the domain of ordinary individuals and kinds. Furthermore, they can either be used with their property type or function as names. This explains why bare singulars can be both predicates and arguments. Concerning bare singulars in the direct object position, the phenomenon of incorporation also seems to play a role. The various restrictions on the use of bare singulars can basically be accounted for in terms of competition with more marked grammatical forms, notably (in)definite DPs.

• Grønn, Atle (2001). The Semantics of the 'Experiential Imperfective´ in a Unified Account of the Imperfective in Russian. Scando-Slavica.  ISSN 0080-6765.  47, s 81- 100 Show summary

  In this paper, I present a formal semantic analysis of the experiential reading of the imperfective in Russian. Following Klein 1995, I claim that aspect is a temporal relation between an assertion time and the event time, with the imperfective denoting a relation where the assertion time is temporally included in the event time. I further claim that the imperfective is characterised by the subinterval property. This property implies that the imperfective can only relate to on-going processes or states. One such state is the experiential state, which is central to the experiential reading. Moreover, in order to maintain that the imperfective in this case denotes an inclusion relation between the assertion time (e.g. the utterance time) and the experiential state, I will claim that the event must be coerced into an experiential state. The present analysis also has implications for the interpretation of past tense in Russian. I will claim that past tense in the case of the experiential imperfective actually behaves like a perfect, i.e. the assertion time is located after the event time. This is compatible with the aspectual operator locating the assertion time within the experiential state of the event. Thus, the interaction of aspect and tense largely explains the data under consideration.

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• Grønn, Atle & Lahlum, Hans Olav (2018). Sjakkgeniene. Historien om verdensmesterne.. Cappelen Damm AS.  ISBN 978-82-02-59825-9.  429 s.
• Grønn, Atle (2016). Sjakken eller livet. En reise i sjakkens unike skjebner, historie og kultur. Cappelen Damm AS.  ISBN 978-82-02-52795-2.  307 s.
• Grønn, Atle (ed.) (2008). Proceedings of Sub 12. Institutt for litteratur, områdestudier og europeiske språk, Universitetet i Oslo.  ISBN 978-82-92800-00-3.  677 s.
• Solstad, Torgrim; Grønn, Atle & Haug, Dag Trygve Truslew (ed.) (2006). A Festschrift for Kjell Johan Sæbø: In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Celebration of his 50th Birthday. Forfatterne.  ISBN 978-82-997289-0-4.  226 s.

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• Grønn, Atle (2019). Martin Nag. Norsk oversetterleksikon.  ISSN 2535-616X. Full text in Research Archive.
• Iunker, Finn & Grønn, Atle (2016). Dramatikken ved brettet. Show summary

  De tolv første trekkene i et sjakkparti fra 1934 mellom Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) og Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) ble rekonstruert i 2010, og siden da er det kommet flere bidrag som belyser ulike sider ved disse to tenkerne som sjakkspillere, om sjakkens funksjon i den tyske eksiltiden (1933–1945) m.m. Atle Grønn og Finn Iunker møttes på Dramatikkens hus for å diskutere de tolv første trekkene i lys av sjakkteorien såvel som kulturhistorien. Sjakkspiller og forfatter Eivind Riise Hauge fremførte deretter en nyskrevet sjakknovelle. Etterpå spilte seks ungdomsspillere, fordelt på tre partier, videre på det historiske partiet fra 1934.

• Grønn, Atle; Hauge, Kjetil Rå; Khachaturyan, Elizaveta & Saric, Ljiljana (2010). From RuN to RuN-Euro: a multilingual parallel corpus at the University of Oslo.
• Grønn, Atle (2007). Horn Strategies and Optimization in Russian Aspect. Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  I propose to explain the diachronic development of the aspectual system in Russian in terms of Horn strategies (partial blocking). The analysis is based on Blutner’s bidirectional OT, which has a strong diachronic dimension. I also suggest that a context-sensitive version of bidirectional OT can play a role in explaining the synchronic situation for Russian aspect.

• Grønn, Atle (2007). Russisk i verden. Fokus på språk. 5.
• Grønn, Atle & Vogt, Yngve (2005, 01. november). Knekker russisk grammatikk med matematisk logikk.  Appollon.
• Grønn, Atle (2005). Presuppositional variance and aspectual meaning.
• Grønn, Atle (2004). The Semantics and Pragmatics of the Russian Factual Imperfective. Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  Atle Grønn's dr. art thesis The Semantics and Pragmatics of the Russian Factual Imperfective is an investigation into some intriguing usages of the imperfective (Ipf), where Ipf denotes complete events. The so-called factual Ipf is a particularly interesting reading of Ipf, since it apparently functions on the territory of its competing aspectual rival, the perfective. Despite the prominent place of aspectual studies in Slavic linguistics, the role of factual Ipf in the aspectual system remains a major puzzle. The thesis argues that factual Ipf subsumes two quite different ways of referring to complete events - through asserting the existence of an event of the type of the verbal predicate (existential Ipf) or presupposing its existence (presuppositional Ipf). An entirely new formal machinery for treating information structure, notably the focus-background partitioning, is introduced in order to capture this distinction. Furthermore, in order to account for the interaction of aspect, tense and temporal adverbials a new temporal calculus for Russian is developed. Aspects are treated as relations between the event time and the speaker's assertion time, and the value of the latter is provided by tense and adverbials. The thesis gives empirical evidence for the use of factual Ipf with past perfect readings, and it is shown how these data can be accounted for in the temporal calculus. This is a non-trivial issue since the semantics in this case requires "two tenses" in the logical form, while the Russian sentence only exhibits one overt tense form. The analysis is carried out in a compositional version of the semantico-pragmatic framework Discourse Representation Theory, equipped with a neo-Davidsonian event semantics. This is the first time such an elaborate formal apparatus is applied to Russian aspect. The thesis provides a framework which may be of interest for formal studies of aspect in general.

• Grønn, Atle (2003). Redigering av bokstavene D, N, T, I: Valerij P. Berkov; Helgi Haraldsson & Steinar Kottum (red.),  Stor norsk-russisk ordbok.  Kunnskapsforlaget.  ISBN 82-573-1221-5.  D, N, T.
• Grønn, Atle (1999). Subjektiv-modale partikler i russisk. En semantisk og pragmatisk analyse av partikkelen vot. Meddelelser (Universitetet i Oslo. Slavisk-baltisk avdeling). 81.

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