Signe Oksefjell Ebeling

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2026). A cross-linguistic cross-register study of the verb phrase in English and Norwegian face-to-face conversation and fictional dialogue. In Rørvik, Sylvi & Izquierdo, Marlén (Ed.), Cross-linguistic Register Variation. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 9789027233943. p. 24–51. doi: https:/benjamins.com/catalog/scl.125.02ebe. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This chapter reports on a contrastive study of English and Norwegian conversation and fictional dialogue, offering insights into formal and semantic characteristics of verb phrases (VPs) from a cross-linguistic and cross-register perspective. Cross-linguistically, fictional dialogue is shown to behave similarly and comes across as a formally more homogenous register than conversation. In terms of semantic features, cross-linguistic differences are prominent in both registers, despite some overlap in process types. The cross-register analysis reveals that authors writing in English and Norwegian do not imitate the formal characteristics of the VP in conversation in their written dialogues. Semantically, authors writing in English produce a more conversational style, while Norwegian authors produce more identifying and action-driven dialogues compared to conversation.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2025). English GO and Norwegian GÅ: Lexicogrammatical patterns and translation paradigms. Languages in Contrast: International Journal for Contrastive Linguistics. ISSN 1387-6759. doi: 10.1075/lic.00054.ebe. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article investigates the cognate verbs go and gå in an English-Norwegian contrastive perspective. On the basis of bidirectional translation data, the study contributes new insight regarding their relatively low cross-linguistic correspondence rate. Although the verbs share many of their lexicogrammatical features, some notable exceptions are uncovered. English go seems to be semantically more flexible than gå in some of its uses, while Norwegian gå is arguably syntactically more versatile. As a consequence, the cross-linguistic relationship between the verbs is far from straightforward, and translations are clearly influenced by diverging polysemies and lexicogrammatical preferences.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2024). Corpus-based contrastive studies and AI-generated translations. Languages in Contrast: International Journal for Contrastive Linguistics. ISSN 1387-6759. 25(2), p. 289–315. doi: 10.1075/lic.00051.ebe. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2024). Seeing through Languages and Registers: A Closer Look at the Cognates See and Se. In Čermáková, Anna; Hasselgård, Hilde; Malà, Markéta & Šebestová, Denisa (Ed.), Contrastive Corpus Linguistics. Patterns in Lexicogrammar and Discourse. Bloomsbury Academic. ISSN 9781350385931. p. 29–61. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2024). Structural and semantic features of adjectives across languages and registers. Languages in Contrast: International Journal for Contrastive Linguistics. ISSN 1387-6759. 24(1), p. 57–83. doi: 10.1075/lic.00035.ebe. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract This study focuses on the seemingly simple grammatical category of adjectives. However, the framework adopted for analysing adjectives from both a cross-linguistic and a cross-register perspective highlights features of grammatical complexity within phrases as well as contrastive complexity within and across languages and registers. Using English-Norwegian comparable data from the fictional sub-registers of narrative and dialogue, the analysis uncovers both similarities and differences in the structural and semantic features of adjectives. Most notable is perhaps the impact of register at all levels of analysis, including adjectival function (attributive vs. predicative), the degree of phrase complexity and semantic class. The contrastive analysis proper, i.e. comparing adjective use across languages, reveals that English and Norwegian have more in common within each sub-register than across them. For example, the lexico-grammatical behaviour of adjectives in English narrative has more in common with Norwegian narrative than it has with English dialogue. To the extent that there are clear general differences between English and Norwegian, these are mainly found in the proportions and preferences of a few specific features.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2024). Combining Mutual Correspondence and Textual Variation in a Study of English GO and Norwegian GÅ. Nordic Journal of English Studies (NJES). ISSN 1502-7694. 23(2), p. 6–33. doi: 10.35360/njes.v23i2.39157. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article expands and nuances the procedures of calculating translation bias (TB) and mutual correspondence (MC) in contrastive studies. Both measures are intended to show how similar, or mutually translatable, two linguistic items are across languages. Traditionally, these procedures have been carried out without attending to variation across individual texts in a corpus. In a contrastive case study of English GOand Norwegian GÅ,we calculate the TB and MC of the fully congruent instances, i.e.,instances where the verbs correspond to each other in the same lexicogrammatical patterns, both in the traditional way and in a newly developed procedure where textual distribution is integrated into the measures. The study substantiates the initial hypothesis that the distributive variants of TB and MC—Distributive Translation Biasand Distributive Mutual Correspondences—are more informative and reliable, as the values more accurately show the range and distribution of correspondences.The study also suggests that the strict definition of congruence adopted (requiring lexicogrammatical correspondence) is better suited to capture details of cross-linguistic similarity than simply to require formal correspondence at the level of word class.This is made evident by the varying degrees of mutual correspondence in the different verb categories, e.g.,the generally higher correspondence measures for intransitive GO and GÅ compared to the phrasal verb use.

• Čermáková, Anna; Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2023). ‘Be’ Verbs in a Contrastive Perspective: The Case of BÝT, BE and VÆRE. Nordic Journal of English Studies (NJES). ISSN 1502-7694. 22(2), p. 27–58. doi: 10.35360/njes.729. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper reports on a cross-linguistic study of ‘be’ verbs in Czech, English and Norwegian, viz. být, be and være, drawing on data from the fiction part of the International Comparable Corpus (Čermáková et al. 2021). The study identifies two main uses of ‘be’ verbs: auxiliary and linking, plus an ‘other’ category which includes minor (often) language-specific uses. The study reveals marked proportional differences in how the three languages exploit the grammatical and functional potential of their respective ‘be’ verbs, notably there is a marked preference for linking uses in English and Norwegian and a more even distribution between auxiliary and linking uses in Czech. In a case study of the linking use, the languages are shown to behave similarly, but with some minor differences regarding choice of adjective to describe fictional subjects. The methodology highlights the importance of a carefully crafted tertium comparationis at several levels, not only in relation to datasets and linguistic phenomena investigated, but also as regards terminology and grammatical traditions of description for the languages compared.

• Paquot, Magali; Larsson, Tove; Hasselgård, Hilde; Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell; Meyere, Damien De & Valentin, Larry [Show all 9 contributors for this article] (2022). The Varieties of English for Specific Purposes dAtabase (VESPA): Towards a multi-L1 and multi-register learner corpus of disciplinary writing. Research in Corpus Linguistics. 10(2), p. 1–15. doi: 10.32714/ricl.10.02.02. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Varieties of English for Specific Purposes dAtabase (VESPA first release) is the result of an international corpus compilation project that aims to address the lack of large-scale, open access, multi-L1, multi-discipline and multi-register learner corpora. This corpus report provides a detailed description of VESPA and illustrates possible uses of the corpus for register exploration of learner data. Specifically, it first offers an overview of the makeup of the corpus and the online interface that can be used to search and download the corpus. It then gives an illustrative example of a study where multi-dimensional analysis was used to investigate the relative importance of register vis-à-vis other factors in learner academic writing. In the concluding remarks, we identify priorities for future developments in the VESPA project, including the addition of more L1 components, more disciplines and more registers, as well as the compilation of a comparable corpus of native student writing.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2022). The function of recurrent word-combinations in English translations from three different languages. Meta : Journal des traducteurs. ISSN 0026-0452. 67(1), p. 143–169. doi: 10.7202/1092194ar. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2021). To score or to score a goal? Transitivity in football match reports. English Studies: A Journal of English Language. ISSN 0013-838X. 102(2), p. 243–266. doi: 10.1080/0013838X.2021.1886676. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article investigates the use and non-use of objects with six transitive verbs in a corpus of English football match reports. The verbs were selected on the basis of their frequency as well as their lexico-grammatical features of “footballness” and transitivity. The study suggests that object omission may not be as pervasive as hinted at in previous studies (e.g. Bergh and Ohlander 2016; Ruppenhofer and Michaelis 2010). Regarding potential reasons for object omission, it is uncovered that the football verbs-net, save, play-are more prone to object omission than the general verbs: feed, create, take. This is attributed to the strong attraction of the former to recurrent collocates such as goal and ball. This suggests that verbs used to report on unremarkable and canonical situations (to the game of football) more readily omit the object, albeit not on a general basis, as individual differences between the verbs also emerge.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2021). Minutes of action! A contrastive analysis of time expressions in English and Norwegian football match reports. In Čermáková, Anna; Egan, Thomas Laurence; Hasselgård, Hilde & Rørvik, Sylvi (Ed.), Time in Languages, Languages in Time. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 9789027209689. p. 229–254. doi: 10.1075/scl.101.10ebe. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This contrastive study examines the use of two time expressions – on # minutes and etter # minutes (‘after # minutes’) – in football match reports with the aim of shedding light on their conditions of use in English and Norwegian. The cross-linguistic findings suggest that the patterns are typically used to report on the achievements of players. With regard to syntax, the English pattern is clearly preferred in final position, while the Norwegian pattern is found in either initial or final position, with a slight preference for initial position. A more inconclusive difference can be noted regarding the patterns’ distribution across the 90 minutes; the English pattern is more evenly distributed across the two halves of the match than the Norwegian one.

• Herold, Jenny Ström; Levin, Magnus; Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Čermáková, Anna (2021). Analysing complex contrastive data. Bergen Language and Linguistics Studies (BeLLS). 11(1), p. 1–6. doi: 10.15845/bells.v11i1.3434. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2021). Hope for the future: An analysis of HOPE/HÅP(E) across genres and languages. Bergen Language and Linguistics Studies (BeLLS). 11(1), p. 7–26. doi: 10.15845/bells.v11i1.3436. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article reports on a contrastive study of the cognate nouns and verbs hope and håp(e) that investigates their lexico-grammatical conditions of use in English vs. Norwegian fiction texts and football match reports. The complex dataset consists of material from a parallel corpus of fiction texts and a comparable corpus of football match reports. An interesting finding is that the verb use outnumbers the noun use in the fiction texts, whereas the noun use outnumbers the verb use in the match reports in both languages. Moreover, the analysis of the lemmas suggests that they have similar potential of use but with slightly different preferences, both across the genres and languages. It is also suggested that the English lemmas are more consistently used in negative contexts than the Norwegian ones. Finally, the method of combining data from two different types of contrastive corpora proved fruitful, as the results become more robust.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2021). The Functions of N-Grams in Bilingual and Learner Corpora: An Integrated Contrastive Approach. In Granger, Sylviane (Eds.), Perspectives on the L2 Phrasicon: The View from Learner Corpora. Multilingual Matters. ISSN 9781788924856. doi: 10.21832/9781788924863-003. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2020). Contrastive Analysis, Tertium Comparationis and Corpora. Nordic Journal of English Studies (NJES). ISSN 1502-7694. 19, p. 97–117. doi: 10.35360/njes.514. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper highlights the importance of a common ground, or tertium comparationis, in order to establish unbiased cross-linguistic equivalence in contrastive studies. Following an outline of the two main types of corpora used in contrastive analysis—comparable and parallel bidirectional—a discussion of how they relate to different tertia comparationis is presented. This is further illustrated in a case study where the same phenomenon is investigated based on the two types of corpora. It is concluded that a bidirectional parallel corpus, relying on both comparable monolingual and bidirectional translation data, may yield more robust insights into cross-linguistic matters than either of the two on their own.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2020). Intensification in dialogue vs. narrative in a corpus of present-day English fiction. In Jonsson, Ewa & Larsson, Tove (Ed.), Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts. In honor of Merja Kytö. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 9789027207654. p. 302–316. doi: 10.1075/scl.97.18ebe. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This chapter examines adverbial intensification of adjectives in present-day English fiction, with the aim of establishing whether dialogic and narrative passages differ in this regard. Although the corpus is relatively small, the study indicates that the frequency of intensification differs across these two subregisters of fiction. Findings of a more qualitative nature include slight differences in preferred choice of intensifiers in dialogue (very > so > too) vs. narrative (so > too > very). Moreover, dialogue has a preference for evaluative adjectives, while narrative shows more variation. A comparison with authentic speech uncovered few clear patterns except the predominance of some high-frequency adverb-adjective combinations. Nevertheless, the differences between fictional dialogue and narrative demonstrate that linguistic phenomena may vary both within and across registers.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2020). Dialogue vs. Narrative in fiction: A cross-linguistic comparison. Languages in Contrast: International Journal for Contrastive Linguistics. ISSN 1387-6759. 20(2), p. 288–313. doi: 10.1075/lic.00019.oks. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2019). The language of football match reports in a contrastive perspective. In Callies, Marcus & Levin, Magnus (Ed.), Corpus Approaches to the Language of Sports. Texts, Media, Modalities. Bloomsbury Academic. ISSN 9781350088207. doi: 10.5040/9781350088238.ch-003. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Jarle & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2018). Comparing n-gram-based functional categories in original versus translated texts. Corpora. ISSN 1749-5032. 13(3), p. 347–370. doi: 10.3366/cor.2018.0153. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This study outlines and tests a method for comparing the use of functional categories consisting of high-frequency 3-grams in original and translated texts. The 3-grams are extracted from a corpus of contemporary English fiction texts (EO) and a comparable corpus of fiction texts translated into English from Norwegian (ET). The two varieties contain the same number of texts, thirty-nine, and about the same number of words, 1.3 to 1.4 million. Several different baselines against which to normalise the 3-gram frequencies are tested and a way of evening out the initial differences between the token counts of EO and ET is proposed. These last two points have an impact on the extent to which some of the categories differ statistically. On the basis of the comparison of the token counts of the 3-grams extracted for the study, it seems that most differences are a matter of degree, rather than being systemic at the level of the functions investigated.

• Hasselgård, Hilde & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2018). At the interface between Contrastive Analysis and Learner Corpus Research: A parallel contrastive approach. Nordic Journal of English Studies (NJES). ISSN 1502-7694. 17(2), p. 182–214. doi: 10.35360/njes.438. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper presents a model for combining contrastive analysis and interlanguage analysis. It can be seen as an extension of Granger’s (1996) Integrated Contrastive Model, but it explicitly requires a bidirectional parallel corpus for the contrastive analysis and matching learner corpora for the (multiple) interlanguage analysis. Thus, the model operates at the interface between Contrastive Analysis and Learner Corpus Research. Within the model, the contrastive, cross-linguistic analysis produces hypotheses for learner behaviour in the languages examined. Hence the learner corpus study of L2 data includes a cross-linguistic interlanguage analysis, based on comparable data produced by (at least) two learner groups (with different L1s and different L2s). As an illustration of the model, the English noun people and its typical Norwegian translation correspondences (FOLK and MENNESKE) are studied, with particular attention to postmodification patterns. The proposed Parallel Contrastive Model is shown to have the potential to throw new light on the cross-linguistic relationship between languages and interlanguages in a common framework.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2018). Exploring cross-linguistic congruence: The case of two stance frames in English and Norwegian. Bergen Language and Linguistics Studies (BeLLS). 9(1), p. 69–92. doi: 10.15845/bells.v9i1.1419. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper explores the degree of congruence between two closely related languages – English and Norwegian – in a case study of the two stance frames it BE * that and det VÆRE * at. It is first established that the open slot in the frames is most typically occupied by an adjective, thus steering this investigation towards a more detailed comparison of it BE ADJ that and det VÆRE ADJ at. The adjective determines the evaluative orientation of the frames, and, following Lemke (1998), the present study operates with seven categories to establish the attitudes and evaluations present in the frames. The study, which draws on material from a bidirectional translation corpus – the English-Norwegian Parallel Corpus+, reveals that the degree of congruence between the frames to some extent seems to depend on the attitude/evaluation expressed. Furthermore, the study reveals that there is 45% non-congruence between the languages. The translational correspondence network of the English and Norwegian patterns is broad, showing that there are a number of linguistic resources in the two languages that can be used to express attitudinal/evaluative stance. It is concluded that, while English and Norwegian are shown to have similar means of expressing attitudinal meanings with the frames, the two languages have their preferred ways of doing so both in terms of individual adjectives and attitudinal/evaluative class.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2017). Bringing home the bacon! A contrastive study of the cognates bring/bringe in English and Norwegian. Kalbotyra. ISSN 1392-1517. 70, p. 104–126. doi: 10.15388/klbt.2017.11193. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper highlights the value of a bidirectional translation corpus in contrastive studies in an investigation of the cross-linguistic relationship between two cognates in English and Norwegian: bring and bringe. Although monolingual and bilingual dictionaries prove to be excellent sources of information in respect of this relationship, the present study contributes further to our knowledge regarding the cognates’ conditions of use. Drawing on material from the fiction part of the English-Norwegian Parallel Corpus (ENPC), the study reveals that English bring is far more frequent than its Norwegian counterpart. By exploring the close to 500 occurrences of the two words in original and translated texts, it becomes clear that the two verbs have a relatively low Mutual Correspondence. That is, overall, they only correspond to each other in translation in roughly 20% of the cases. This low correspondence rate is surprising, given the fact that we are looking at verbs stemming from the same origin in two closely related languages. The corpus correspondences suggest that there may be at least two main reasons for this. First, Norwegian bringe may be considered more formal than English bring and there is thus a preference for using less formal verbs in Norwegian to express the meaning of bring, notably the multi-word verbs ha med (REFL) ‘have with (REFL)’, ta med (REFL) ‘take with (REFL)’ and komme med ‘come with’. Second, English bring is more versatile than Norwegian bringe, particularly in the sense that it more readily forms part of phrasal verbs and fixed phrases. It is also the case that English bring has come to be used with a wider range of meanings than Norwegian bringe, as attested in the dictionaries consulted. These ‘extra’ meanings include ‘initiate legal action against someone’ and ‘force oneself to do something (unpleasant)’; however, neither of these meanings is particularly salient in the current data. The findings underline the role a parallel corpus such as the ENPC can play in shedding light on contrastive nuances that contribute to a broader understanding of cross-linguistic relationships.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2017). A functional comparison of recurrent word-combinations in English original vs. translated texts. ICAME Journal. ISSN 0801-5775. 41, p. 31–52. doi: 10.1515/icame-2017-0002. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The study explores the potential of quantitative methods to shed light on how texts originally written in English (EO) and texts translated into English (ET) from Norwegian cluster in terms of functional classes. The object of study are sequences of three words (3-grams), classified into 15 functional categories. The investigation establishes that EO and ET do not differ significantly in half of the categories. As for the categories that do differ, two (Comparison and Spatial) are investigated in more detail, uncovering that the more frequent use of Comparison and Spatial 3-grams in ET is most likely a result of source language shining through. The findings are important in the context of both descriptive translation studies and translation-based contrastive studies. With regard to the former, the current study shows that, in many cases, ET does not seem to constitute a ‘third code’ at the level of 3-gram functions, since the same functions are equally attested in EO. As far as contrastive studies are concerned, the investigation reveals few, if any, lexico-grammatical differences between EO and ET that overturn the belief that translations are a good tertium comparationis when comparing and contrasting language systems.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2017). ADJ + enough + resultative/explanative that-clause: Diachronic development and conditions of use. Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English. 18. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Drawing on diachronic data from the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), this paper starts by testing the initial hypothesis that the resultative ADJ enough that construction is on the increase. One complicating factor for automatic extraction of this construction is the structurally similar explanative ADJ enough that construction, requiring manual scrutiny of around 700 instances of the sequence ADJ enough that in the corpus. Part of the analysis thus involves disambiguation of the two superficially similar constructions, calling for a discussion of the conditions of use of the resultative construction in terms of contextual co-occurrence patterns. The focus is on adjective selection and type of subject co-occurring with the two construction types. The analysis reveals that the resultative type is indeed on the increase in American English, while both similarities and differences are noted in their co-occurrence patterns. The major difference lies in the selection of adjective types and the number of adjective tokens in the resultative vs. explanative construction. While the resultative construction turns out to be much more flexible with regard to adjective selection, the explanative construction is more prone to recurrence of the same adjective types, resulting in a higher number of tokens. Finally, some potential reasons for the increase of the ADJ enough + resultative that-clause construction are discussed, of which two feasible candidates are colloquialisation and flexibility of use.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2017). A Cross-linguistic Comparison of Recurrent Word Combinations in a Comparable Corpus of English and Norwegian Fiction. In Janebová, Marketá; Lapshinova-Koltunski, Ekaterina & Martinková, Michaela (Ed.), Contrasting English and Other Languages through Corpora. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISSN 9781443896016. p. 2–31. doi: 10.1515/icame-2017-0002. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2016). Does corpus size matter? Revisiting ENPC case studies with an extended version of the corpus. Nordic Journal of English Studies (NJES). ISSN 1502-7694. 15(3), p. 33–54. doi: 10.35360/njes.375. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Jarle & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2015). An English-Norwegian contrastive analysis of downtoners, more or less. Nordic Journal of English Studies (NJES). ISSN 1502-7694. 14(1), p. 62–89. doi: 10.35360/njes.340. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2015). Learners' and native speakers' use of recurrent word-combinations across disciplines. Bergen Language and Linguistics Studies (BeLLS). 6, p. 87–106. doi: 10.15845/bells.v6i0.810. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2015). Learner corpora and phraseology. In Granger, Sylviane; Gilquin, Gaëtanelle & Meunier, Fanny (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Learner Corpus Research. Cambridge University Press. ISSN 9781107041196. p. 207–230. doi: 10.1017/cbo9781139649414.010. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2015). Loving and hating in English and Portuguese: A corpus-based contrastive study. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa). 7(1), p. 439–456. doi: 10.5617/osla.1443. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2015). Cross-linguistic perspectives on verb constructions. In Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (Ed.), Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Verb Constructions. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISSN 9781443878081. p. 1–6. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This volume sheds new light on verb constructions by exposing them to cross-linguistic analysis based on multilingual corpora. It is composed of nine studies which provide insights into various aspects of cross-linguistic diversity, including showing that seemingly equivalent verb constructions may differ in their semantics, and that similar meanings may be expressed by different types of constructions. In other words, this book shows that different languages have different ways of lexicalising verb-based meanings, most notably by means of other, divergent verb constructions. A range of lexicogrammatical aspects of verb constructions are explored throughout the book, including time reference; modality; voice; light verb constructions; non-finite complementation of lexical verbs; posture-verb constructions; semiperiphrastic constructions; and the construction and semantic composition of verbs of putting. All of the contributions consider English in comparison with at least one of the following languages: Czech, German, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish. As such, this volume offers a truly multilingual perspective on verb constructions. The diversity of comparisons also highlights the multi-faceted nature of the verb phrase, which seems to have virtually limitless potential for exploration in the fields of tense, aspect, modality, lexical semantics, syntax, and phraseology.

• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2015). A contrastive study of Norwegian pseudo-coordination and two English posture-verb constructions. In Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (Ed.), Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Verb Constructions. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISSN 9781443878081. p. 29–57. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This volume sheds new light on verb constructions by exposing them to cross-linguistic analysis based on multilingual corpora. It is composed of nine studies which provide insights into various aspects of cross-linguistic diversity, including showing that seemingly equivalent verb constructions may differ in their semantics, and that similar meanings may be expressed by different types of constructions. In other words, this book shows that different languages have different ways of lexicalising verb-based meanings, most notably by means of other, divergent verb constructions. A range of lexicogrammatical aspects of verb constructions are explored throughout the book, including time reference; modality; voice; light verb constructions; non-finite complementation of lexical verbs; posture-verb constructions; semiperiphrastic constructions; and the construction and semantic composition of verbs of putting. All of the contributions consider English in comparison with at least one of the following languages: Czech, German, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish. As such, this volume offers a truly multilingual perspective on verb constructions. The diversity of comparisons also highlights the multi-faceted nature of the verb phrase, which seems to have virtually limitless potential for exploration in the fields of tense, aspect, modality, lexical semantics, syntax, and phraseology.

• 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). 6(1). doi: 10.5617/osla.897. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2014). Cross-linguistic semantic prosody: The case of 'commit', 'signs of' and 'utterly' and their Norwegian correspondences. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa). 6(1), p. 161–179. doi: 10.5617/osla.695. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2014). An eye for an eye? Exploring the cross-linguistic phraseology of eye/øye. Nordic Journal of Linguistics. ISSN 0332-5865. 37(2), p. 225–255. doi: 10.1017/S0332586514000195. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2014). For Pete's sake!: A corpus-based contrastive study of the English/Norwegian patterns "for * sake" /" for * skyld". Languages in Contrast: International Journal for Contrastive Linguistics. ISSN 1387-6759. 14(2), p. 191–213. doi: 10.1075/lic.14.2.02ebe. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Jarle & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2013). "To find oneself a partner" vs. "to find a partner": A contrastive analysis of the patterns V REFL NPindef and V NPindef in English and Norwegian. Languages in Contrast: International Journal for Contrastive Linguistics. ISSN 1387-6759. 13(2), p. 212–237. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2013). Semantic prosody in a cross-linguistic perspective. Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English. 13. Full text in Research Archive
• Hasselgård, Hilde; Ebeling, Jarle & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2013). Introduction. In Hasselgård, Hilde; Ebeling, Jarle & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (Ed.), Corpus Perspectives on Patterns of Lexis. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 9789027203632. p. 1–9. Full text in Research Archive
• Paquot, Magali; Hasselgård, Hilde & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2013). Writer/reader visibility in learner writing across genres: A comparison of the French and Norwegian components of the ICLE and VESPA learner corpora. Corpora and Language in Use. ISSN 2034-6417. p. 377–388. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2013). From Babylon to Bergen: On the usefulness of aligned texts. Bergen Language and Linguistics Studies (BeLLS). 3(1), p. 23–42. doi: 10.15845/bells.v3i1.359. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Jarle; Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2013). Using recurrent word-combinations to explore cross-linguistic differences. In Aijmer, Karin & Altenberg, Bengt (Ed.), Advances in Corpus-based Contrastive Linguistics: Studies in honour of Stig Johansson. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 9789027203595. p. 177–199. doi: 10.1075/scl.54.11ebe. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell; Ebeling, Jarle & Hasselgård, Hilde (2012). Aspects of corpus linguistics: compilation, annotation, analysis - Introduction. Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English. 12. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Wickens, Paul (2012). Interpersonal themes and author stance in student writing. Language and Computers (L&C). ISSN 0921-5034. doi: 10.1163/9789401207478_004. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2012). Textual reduction in translated dialogue in film versus literary fiction. Nordic Journal of English Studies (NJES). ISSN 1502-7694. 11(3), p. 100–126. Full text in Research Archive

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• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2015). Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Verb Constructions. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781443878081. 266 p. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This volume sheds new light on verb constructions by exposing them to cross-linguistic analysis based on multilingual corpora. It is composed of nine studies which provide insights into various aspects of cross-linguistic diversity, including showing that seemingly equivalent verb constructions may differ in their semantics, and that similar meanings may be expressed by different types of constructions. In other words, this book shows that different languages have different ways of lexicalising verb-based meanings, most notably by means of other, divergent verb constructions. A range of lexicogrammatical aspects of verb constructions are explored throughout the book, including time reference; modality; voice; light verb constructions; non-finite complementation of lexical verbs; posture-verb constructions; semiperiphrastic constructions; and the construction and semantic composition of verbs of putting. All of the contributions consider English in comparison with at least one of the following languages: Czech, German, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish. As such, this volume offers a truly multilingual perspective on verb constructions. The diversity of comparisons also highlights the multi-faceted nature of the verb phrase, which seems to have virtually limitless potential for exploration in the fields of tense, aspect, modality, lexical semantics, syntax, and phraseology.

• Ebeling, Jarle & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2013). Patterns in Contrast. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9789027203649. 257 p. Full text in Research Archive
• Hasselgård, Hilde; Ebeling, Jarle & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2013). Corpus Perspectives on Patterns of Lexis. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9789027203632. 291 p. Full text in Research Archive

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• Ebeling, Jarle & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2025). From star (N) to star (V): A contrastive study of cognate noun/verb pairs in English and Norwegian. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2024). Corpus-based Contrastive Studies and AI-generated Translations. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2024). A cross-linguistic cross-register study of the verb phrase in English and Norwegian face-to-face conversation and fictional dialogue. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2024). English in Contrast: Corpus-based Approaches. Introduction. Nordic Journal of English Studies (NJES). ISSN 1502-7694. 23(2), p. 1–5. doi: 10.35360/njes.v23i2.39154. Full text in Research Archive
• Kupietz, Marc; Barbaresi, Adrien; Čermáková, Anna; Czachor, Małgorzata; Diewald, Nils & Ebeling, Jarle [Show all 19 contributors for this article] (2023). News from the International Comparable Corpus: First launch of ICC written. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2023). Going places: English go and Norwegian gå – mutual correspondence and textual variation. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2023). Contrasting languages: Different corpora, different potentials. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Jarle & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2022). Reporting clauses in British general vs. crime fiction. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2022). Structural and semantic features of adjectives across languages and registers. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2021). Compiling corpora of student writing. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2021). Oslo Multilingual Corpus i Glossa. Full text in Research Archive
• Čermáková, Anna; Ebeling, Jarle & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2021). BE verbs in a contrastive perspective: The case of BÝT, BE and VÆRE. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2021). Bidirectional parallel corpora: Challenges and possibilities. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2021). Seeing through languages and registers: A closer look at the cognates "see" and "se". Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2020). Hope for the future: An analysis of HOPE/HÅP(E) across genres and languages. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2019). Contrastive Analysis, Tertium comparationis, and Corpora. Full text in Research Archive
• Xu, Xiuling & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2019). An interview with Signe Oksefjell Ebeling. [Journal]. Corpus Linguistics. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2019). Minutes of action! A contrastive analysis of time expressions in English and Norwegian football match reports. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2019). Keywords and key words in English and Norwegian football match reports. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2019). Minutes of action! The language of football match reports in a contrastive perspective. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2019). Review of Sebastian Hoffmann, Andrea Sand, Sabine Arndt-Lappe and Lisa Marie Dillmann (eds.), Corpora and lexis (Language and Computers 81). Leiden and Boston: Brill / Rodopi, 2018. Pp. 306. ISBN 9789004361133. English Language and Linguistics. ISSN 1360-6743. doi: 10.1017/S1360674319000224. Full text in Research Archive
• Kirk, John M.; Čermáková, Anna; Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell; Ebeling, Jarle; Křen, Michal & Aijmer, Karin [Show all 14 contributors for this article] (2018). Introducing the International Comparable Corpus. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2018). Dialogue vs. narrative in fiction: A cross-linguistic comparison. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2018). An eye for an eye? A multilingual look at the phraseology of eye. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2018). Contrastive phraseology: method and analysis. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2018). Using the BAWE and VESPA corpora to explore learners’ and native-speakers’ use of recurrent word-combinations across academic disciplines. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2018). Corpora for contrastive research. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2018). Corpus analysis: comparing word sequences across languages. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Jarle & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2018). What can a diachronic corpus of modern British fiction tell us about changes in (British) society? Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2018). Corpora et comparatio linguarum: Textual and contextual perspectives. Bergen Language and Linguistics Studies (BeLLS). 9(1), p. 1–4. doi: 10.15845/bells.v9i1.1518. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2018). Korpus som infrastruktur. Full text in Research Archive
• Hasselgård, Hilde & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2017). The interfaces between LCR and contrastive analysis. A parallel contrastive experiment. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2017). The Bidirectional Contrastive Method in theory and practice. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2016). A functional comparison of recurrent word-combinations in English original vs. translated texts. Full text in Research Archive
• Nordrum, Lene; Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2016). Introduction - Languages in contrast 20 years on. Nordic Journal of English Studies (NJES). ISSN 1502-7694. 15(3), p. 1–6. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Jarle & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2016). A comparison of recurrent word-combinations in English original vs. translated texts. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2016). A cross-linguistic comparison of recurrent word-combinations in a comparable corpus of English and Norwegian fiction. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2015). The ADJ + enough + resultative that-clause construction: Diachronic development and conditions of use. Full text in Research Archive
• Hasselgård, Hilde & Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2015). The Norwegian component of the VESPA corpus – compilation, annotation and use. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2015). Datadrevet grammatikkundervisning. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2014). An eye for an eye? Exploring the cross-linguistic phraseology of eye/øye. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2014). The secret life of words: Implications for English language teaching and learning? Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2014). Does corpus size matter? Revisiting ENPC case studies with an extended version of the corpus. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2014). Contrastive phraseology: Method and analysis. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2013). "For Pete's sake!" A corpus-based contrastive study of the English/Norwegian patterns "for * sake/skyld". Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2013). A contrastive analysis of downtoners, more or less. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2013). Cross-linguistic semantic prosody: The case of "commit", "signs of" and "utterly" and their Norwegian correspondences. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2013). Learners’ and native speakers’ use of recurrent word-combinations across disciplines. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2012). Why did she build herself a house when she could simply have built a house? - A contrastive analysis of the patterns V REFL NPindef and V NPindef in English vs. Norwegian. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Ebeling, Jarle (2012). Patterns in contrast. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell (2011). VESPA macro tagging. Full text in Research Archive
• Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell & Hasselgård, Hilde (2011). The VESPA corpus: status report and first explorations. Full text in Research Archive

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