Christine Meklenborg Nilsen

Professor and Head of Department
Image of Christine Meklenborg Nilsen
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Phone +47-22857338
Mobile phone +47-90720200 +47-90720200
Room NT 926
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Visiting address Niels Treschows hus 9th floor Niels Henrik Abels vei 36
Postal address ILOS P.O.Box 1003 Blindern 0315 Oslo Norway

As a theoretical linguist specializing in the cartographic approach, my focus lies on word order, particularly in Old French. My particular research interest concerns the  Verb-Second structure, which is found in Old French and the Modern Germanic languages (excluding Modern English). Notably, I led the research project Traces of History (2013–2017), exploring why Germanic languages retained V2 while Romance languages abandoned this word order.

A rewarding aspect of my work involves contrasting Old French with other languages, shedding light on structures like topicalization and the intriguing resumptive structure, which seemingly violate the V2 constraint.

My doctoral research focused on interrogative structures in the history of French, and my postdoctoral work investigated changes in object clitic clusters in French. Recent projects include the study of topicalization in Old French and Norwegian, as well as an extensive exploration of the resumptive structure in the history of Swedish.

I am currently Head of Department at ILOS, a position that leaves me with limited time for active research and teaching.

For a detailed overview, please refer to my full CV (June 2021).

Tags: French, French language, Old French, Linguistics, Language history, Diachronic linguistics, Word order, Clitics, Verb placement, Verb Second, Syntax, Generative linguistics, Linguistic cartography, Contrastive linguistis, Topicalisation

Publications

  • Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg & Lohndal, Terje (2023). Adverbial Resumption and Scope: A Case Study of Norwegian. In Karen, De Clercq; Haegeman, Liliane; Lohndal, Terje & Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (Ed.), Adverbial Resumption in Verb Second Languages. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780197651155. p. 221–241. Full text in Research Archive
  • Haegeman, Liliane; de Clercq, Karen; Lohndal, Terje & Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2023). Adverbial Resumption in V2 Languages: The Background. In Karen, De Clercq; Haegeman, Liliane; Lohndal, Terje & Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (Ed.), Adverbial Resumption in Verb Second Languages. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780197651155. p. 7–42. Full text in Research Archive
  • Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2021). Extraction Strategies in Norwegian. In Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg; Lohndal, Terje & Østby, Kathrine Asla (Ed.), Syntax, semantics and acquisition: In honor of Hans Petter Helland. Universitetet i Oslo. ISSN 978-82-91398-12-9. doi: 10.5617/osla.8921. Full text in Research Archive
  • Kemenade, Ans van & Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2021). Issues in the Left Periphery of Old English and Old French. Topic types and the V2 constraint. In Wolfe, Sam & Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (Ed.), Continuity and Variation in Germanic and Romance. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780198841166. p. 248–274.
  • Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg; Helland, Hans Petter & Lohndal, Terje (2021). Topics in French and Norwegian. In Wolfe, Sam & Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (Ed.), Continuity and Variation in Germanic and Romance. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780198841166. p. 223–247. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198841166.003.0009.
  • Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2021). Merged and Moved. Topics in Old and Middle French. Journal of Historical Syntax. ISSN 2163-6001. 5(16-25), p. 1–49. doi: 10.18148/hs/2021.v5i16-25.72.
  • Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2020). Resumptive structures in a Gallo-Romance perspective. In Wolfe, Sam & Maiden, Martin (Ed.), Variation and Change in Gallo-romance Grammar. Oxford University Press. ISSN 978-0-19-884017-6. p. 41–70. Full text in Research Archive
  • Helland, Hans Petter; Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg & Lohndal, Terje (2020). La topicalisation en français et en norvégien. Scolia. ISSN 1253-9708. 34, p. 51–69. doi: 10.4000/scolia.1176. Full text in Research Archive
  • Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2020). Adverbial resumptive particles and Verb Second. In Woods, Rebecca & Wolfe, Sam (Ed.), Rethinking Verb Second. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780198844303. Full text in Research Archive
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2019). A micro-perspective on Verb-second in Romance and Germanic. Linguistic Variation. ISSN 2211-6834. 19(1), p. 1–15. doi: 10.1075/lv.00010.mek. Full text in Research Archive
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg & Walkden, George (2017). Diagnosing embedded V2 in Old English and Old French. In Mathieu, Eric & Robert, Truswell (Ed.), Micro-change and Macro-change in Diachronic Syntax. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780198747840. p. 168–181. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198747840.003.0011.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2015). La disparition de l'infinitif antéposé. In Badiou-Monferran, Claire & Verjans, Thomas (Ed.), Disparitions. Contributions à l'étude du changement linguistique.. Honoré Champion. ISSN 9782745329288. p. 303–320.
  • Helland, Hans Petter & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2014). Affaire(s) de grammaire. In Helland, Hans Petter & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (Ed.), Affaire(s) de grammaire. Mélanges offerts à Marianne Hobæk Haff à l'occasion de ses soixante-cinq ans. Novus Forlag. ISSN 978-82-7099-753-4. p. i–iii.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2014). Le complémenteur 'que' et la périphérie gauche : analyse diachronique. Syntaxe & Sémantique. ISSN 1623-6742. 15, p. 47–80. doi: 10.3917/ss.015.0047.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg & Bech, Kristin (2014). Postverbal subjects in Old English and Old French. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa). ISSN 1890-9639. 6(1), p. 201–228. doi: 10.5617/osla.725. Full text in Research Archive
  • Bech, Kristin & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2014). Preverbal word order in Old English and Old French. In Bech, Kristin & Eide, Kristine Gunn (Ed.), Information Structure and Syntactic Change in Germanic and Romance Languages. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 9789027255969. p. 233–269. doi: 10.1075/la.213.09bec.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2014). "En espérant qu'elle vienne" - l'emploi modal après espérer. In Helland, Hans Petter & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (Ed.), Affaire(s) de grammaire. Mélanges offerts à Marianne Hobæk Haff à l'occasion de ses soixante-cinq ans. Novus Forlag. ISSN 978-82-7099-753-4. p. 107–131.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2013). Reflexive verbs and the restructuring of clitic clusters. In Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg & Helland, Hans Petter (Ed.), Challenging Clitics. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 978-90-272-5589-1. p. 283–310. doi: 10.1075/la.206.12sal.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg & Helland, Hans Petter (2013). Why challenging clitics? Some introductory remarks. In Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg & Helland, Hans Petter (Ed.), Challenging Clitics. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 978-90-272-5589-1. p. 1–26. doi: 10.1075/la.206.01sal.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2013). Topics and the Left Periphery. A comparison of Old French and Modern Germanic. In Lohndal, Terje (Eds.), In search of universal grammar : from Old Norse to Zoque. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 978-90-272-5585-3. p. 131–172. doi: 10.1075/la.202.10sal.

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  • Karen, De Clercq; Haegeman, Liliane; Lohndal, Terje & Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2023). Adverbial Resumption in Verb Second Languages. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197651155. 383 p.
  • Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg; Lohndal, Terje & Østby, Kathrine Asla (2021). Syntax, semantics and acquisition: In honor of Hans Petter Helland. Universitetet i Oslo. ISBN 978-82-91398-12-9. 12(1). 237 p.
  • Wolfe, Sam & Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2021). Continuity and Variation in Germanic and Romance. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198841166. 624 p.
  • Helland, Hans Petter & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2014). Affaire(s) de grammaire. Mélanges offerts à Marianne Hobæk Haff à l'occasion de ses soixante-cinq ans. Novus Forlag. ISBN 978-82-7099-753-4. 271 p.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg & Helland, Hans Petter (2013). Challenging Clitics. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 978-90-272-5589-1. 315 p.

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  • Cruschina, Silvio; Fábregas, Antonio & Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2022). Introduction. Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics. ISSN 2385-4138. 8(3), p. 1–6. doi: 10.5565/REV/ISOGLOSS.255.
  • Wolfe, Sam & Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2021). Germanic and Romance: Data, method, and theory. In Wolfe, Sam & Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (Ed.), Continuity and Variation in Germanic and Romance. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780198841166. p. 1–12.
  • Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2020). Topik-markøren si – en sammenligning mellom gammelfransk og gammeloksitansk.
  • Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2019). Egentlig så er det ikke så dumt. Språknytt. ISSN 0333-3825.
  • Haanæs, Øystein Rygg & Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2019). Derfor bruker vi nordmen "så" så ofte. [Internet]. forskning.no.
  • Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2019). V2 and resumption - a cross-linguistic perspective.
  • Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg (2019). Merged and Moved - topics in Old French.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg & Kemenade, Ans van (2019). The information-structural status of topic constructions i Old English and Old French.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2019). Resumption in Gallo-Romance.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2019). Different shades of si. Information structure, V-to-C movement and the loss of V2.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2019). Resumption in V2 languages.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Michael Zimmermann: Expletive and Referential Subject Pronouns in Medieval French. Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur. ISSN 0044-2747. 128(2-3), p. 324–328.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Topicalisation patterns in Old French.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Den urgamle jula. Eidsvoll Ullensaker Blad.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Naturnavn, gårdsnavn og slektsnavn i Eidsvoll.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Det lille filleordet så. Språkprat.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Semantically bleached or semantically salient? The story of two homonymous particles in Old French.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Minnetale over professor Helge Nordahl. Årbok / Det norske videnskaps-akademi. ISSN 0332-6209. p. 112–117.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Helge Nordahl 12. januar 1927 – 31. mars 2018 .
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg & Hobæk Haff, Marianne (2018). Helge Nordahl (nekrolog). Aftenposten (morgenutg. : trykt utg.). ISSN 0804-3116.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg & Kemenade, Ans van (2018). Critical remarks on the Force-Fin V2 model.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). En beretning om vann. Eidsvoll Ullensaker Blad.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Ord, ord, ord. Eidsvoll Ullensaker Blad.
  • Helle Therese, Kongsrud & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Sytermer fra fransk (serie som sendes høsten 2018). [Radio]. Språkteigen, NRK P2.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Navn i og rundt Eidsvoll.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Nå så snakker vi om så. En studie av endringer i bruken av den resumptive konstruksjonen i dansk, svensk og norsk.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Hva så?
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Kåseri, Språkteigen. [Radio]. NRK P2.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2017). Hvorfor studere fremmedspråk?
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2017). Anekdoter om fransk språk.
  • Myhre, Torunn & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2017). Det lille ordet så. [Radio]. NRK P2 Språkteigen.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2017). I norsk så bruker vi så.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2017). From tha to så – the resumptive structure in Old Swedish.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2017). Microvariation in Germanic.
  • Toril, Haugen & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2017). Det lille ordet «så» har stor betydning. [Journal]. Apollon.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2017). At the corner of syntax and semantics. Resumptive structures in Old French and Old Swedish.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2017). The resumptive cycle.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2017). Navn i Eidsvoll.
  • Erdal, Elise Sundfør & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2016). Cirkumfleksens skjebne. [Radio]. P2, Kulturhuset.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2016). Resumption in Romance and Germanic.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2016). The emergence of linguistic patterns.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2016). The syntax of resumptives.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2016). Nu så börjar det lossna!
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2016). Nå så har vi det bra - om resumpsjon i V2-språk før og nå.
  • Bech, Kristin & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2016). To foredrag om året 1066 og dets sammenheng med engelsk og fransk språkhistorie.
  • Bech, Kristin & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2016). 1066 - et skjebneår for engelsk og fransk språk.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg & Fernández-Rubiera, Francisco José (2015). Clitic placement and V2 – two sides of the same coin.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2015). Licensing pro in Old French.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg & Fernández-Rubiera, Francisco José (2015). V2 and enclisis: a diachronic and synchronic phase-approach.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2015). When Verb Second seems to be Verb Third.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2015). Jeg skjønner ikke en dritt. Eidsvoll Ullensaker Blad.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2015). Stedsnavn i Eidsvoll.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2015). Traces of History.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2015). Traces of History.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2015). Resumption and V2.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg & Fernández-Rubiera, Francisco José (2015). V2 and enclisis: a uniform analysis for Germanic and (some) Romance varieties.
  • Wilberg, Gunn & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2014). Jubler for millioner til egen forskning. [Newspaper]. Eidsvoll Ullensaker Blad.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2014). De frankiske statene - Tyskland og Frankrikes felles fortid.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2014). Typisk norsk. Eidsvoll Ullensaker Blad.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2014). Vidvnderlige versaler. Aftenposten Viten. ISSN 2464-3033.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2013). Definitivt innafor. Eidsvoll Ullensaker Blad.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2013). DELALINVALATINA à la langue française.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg & Walkden, George (2013). Diagnosing embedded V2 in Old French and Old English.
  • Bech, Kristin & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2013). Superficial typology: the so-called verb-second constraint in Old English and Old French.
  • Bech, Kristin & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2013). Språka for 1000 år sidan: Fransk og engelsk svært ulike. [Journal]. Apollon.
  • Bech, Kristin & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2013). Superficial typology: The so-called 'verb-second constraint' in Old English and Old French.
  • Bech, Kristin & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2013). A corpus-based, contrastive case study of subject type and position with complex verb phrases in Old English and Old French.
  • Bech, Kristin & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2013). 1066 - et skjebneår for engelsk og fransk språk.
  • Bech, Kristin & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2013). 1066 - et skjebneår for engelsk og fransk språk.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2013). Gammelfransk vs. norsk. Om venstreperiferi og topics.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2012). Ny rekkefølge i gamle tekster - en undersøkelse av klitika i gammelfransk.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2012). Ukruttkartet til fransk lingvistikk.
  • Bech, Kristin & Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2012). 1066 - et skjebneår for engelsk og fransk språk.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2012). The transition from Old to Modern French: Exit V2, enter obligatory subject pronouns.
  • Salvesen, Christine Meklenborg (2018). Grunnleggende fransk grammatikk. Universitetet i Oslo.

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Published Sep. 23, 2010 12:00 PM - Last modified Dec. 4, 2023 3:05 PM

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