Atle Grønn

• Grønn, Atle (2026). Tense in Slavic. I Gehrke, Berit & Šimík, Radek (Red.), Topics in the semantics of Slavic languages. Language Science Press. ISSN 9783961105892. s. 347–396. doi: 10.5281/ZENODO.22078581. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This chapter gives an overview of the topics in Slavic tense which have generated most interest in the semantic linguistic community. Data from most Slavic languages are considered. The introduction identifies some of the main issues through selected data from Ukrainian, Croatian, and Bulgarian. Section 2 traces the history of Slavic tense semantics with focus on the formalisation of the temporal domain – the interaction of tense and aspect in a compositional system. The last two sections provide a more detailed account of what we take to be the main theoretical challenges in Slavic tense semantics: the role of temporal auxiliaries, notably the bud-future and the be-perfect (Section 3) and subordinate tense from complement tense to adjunct tense (Section 4). This last part centers around the role of so-called relative tenses in non-sequence-of-tense-languages.

• Grønn, Atle (2025). What Is “Relative Tense”? On Shifted Interpretations in Russian. I Kamphuis, Jaap; Fortuin, Egbert & Dekker, Simeone (Red.), The Slavic Verb. Brill. ISSN 9789004731622. s. 105–134. doi: 10.1163/9789004731622_006. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The chapter aims to improve our understanding of what is traditionally called “relative tenses” in Russian. The embedded tense—present, past, or future—can only be shifted under a “modalized temporal centre”. The restrictions on relative/shifted tense are here precisely stated: An anaphoric tense in deeply embedded adjuncts can be shifted if and only if its antecedent serves as the temporal centre in an intensional context, normally under an attitude verb or a modal. Hence, we correctly predict that extensional adjunct clauses do not allow for a relative tense interpretation. The chapter shows how this new result builds on the rich literature in this field by adding merely one crucial ingredient, namely the semantic restriction on temporal anaphora. We can thereby get rid of an allegedly “pragmatic preference” for tense “harmony/doubling” stipulated in previous work.

• Grønn, Atle (2023). Tense in how- and that-clauses under visual perception: A view from Russian. I Jędrzejowski, Łukasz & Umbach, Carla (Red.), Non-Interrogative Subordinate Wh-Clauses. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780192844620. s. 63–84. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780192844620.003.0003. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2021). Noen anvendelser av parallellkorpuset RuN — fra realia til pragmatiske partikler. I Krasnova, E.V. (Red.), Po sledam uchitelja. Issledovanija po skandinavistike i germanistike. Sbornik statej k 90-letiju professora Valerija Pavlovicha Berkova. Izdatelstvo Sankt-Peterburgskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. ISSN 9785288061059. s. 20–28. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2021). Present tense in relative clauses as evidence for sequence of tense in French. I Nilsen, Christine Meklenborg; Lohndal, Terje & Østby, Kathrine Asla (Red.), Syntax, semantics and acquisition: In honor of Hans Petter Helland. Universitetet i Oslo. ISSN 9788291398129. s. 61–69. doi: 10.5617/osla.8907. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The paper accounts for an unexpected embedded present tense, which denotes a future time in French relative clauses. The matrix displays either the periphrastic future or the simple future. In both cases, one can arguably decompose the matrix into a present tense feature and a forward shifter. This move leads to an analysis of the morphology encountered in the relative clause as an instance of Sequence of tense.

• Grønn, Atle (2021). Justifying tense and mood morphology in counterfactuals. Theoretical Linguistics. ISSN 0301-4428. 47(3-4), s. 233–250. doi: 10.1515/tl-2021-2021. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2020). A note on the relative future in Russian, ВАПросы языкознания: Мегасборник наностатей. Boki Vedi. ISSN 9785446528820. s. 434–438. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle & Stechow, Arnim von (2020). The Perfect. I Gutzmann, Daniel; Matthewson, Lisa; Meier, Cécile; Rullmann, Hotze & Zimmermann, Thomas (Red.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Semantics. John Wiley & Sons. ISSN 9781118788516. doi: 10.1002/9781118788516.sem046. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2020). Tempus i trekktvang. Om en kontrafaktisk presens i norske sjakkspalter. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa). 11(2), s. 159–171. doi: 10.5617/osla.8495. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This paper analyses tense marking in Norwegian chess columns, a specific genre that reports mainly two kinds of events: actual chess moves played in the game under discussion vs. counterfactual, alternative chess moves discussed by the chess pundit. This narrow context is ideally suited for pragmatic competition. It is shown that Norwegian chess writers typically use the unmarked indicative present tense in reference to counterfactual chess moves. The present tense form contrasts with the marked past tense used for actual and anaphoric refer-ence. From a production perspective the simple unmarked present is preferred over morpho-syntactically heavy competitors (composite tenses and modals) with explicit marking of counterfactuality.

• Grønn, Atle & Stechow, Arnim von (2016). Tense, The Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics. Cambridge University Press. ISSN 9781107028395. s. 313–341. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139236157.012. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Our focus in this chapter is the semantics of tense, one of the main devices for encoding time in language. The grammatical category of tense is used to locate a situation or event in time, typically in interaction with aspect. When tense relates the speaker's temporal focus, what is normally called the reference time, to the speech time, we have deictic or absolute tense. Aspect, on the other hand, is concerned with the internal temporal structure of the event, for example, whether the event time is included or not in the reference time. Tense is typically marked by verbal morphology, normally an affix on the matrix verb or on an auxiliary verb, but the semantic tense operator is not interpreted at the verb. The operator can be located quite distant from the verb at the level of logical form. Thus, we must distinguish between tense semantics and tense morphology. We will assume that ourmodel contains a set of times I, and, furthermore, that verbs have a temporal argument of the semantic type i (time intervals). The latter assumption will be revised when we include aspect in the analysis. Times are partially ordered by the relations ≺ ‘before’ and ≻ ‘after’. Time intervals are coherent sets of time points. Hence, they may overlap, stand in the inclusion relation and so on (von Stechow, 2009b). While everybody agrees that themeaning of past and future tenses is relational – with past placing the reference time before now and future after now – there is a long-standing issue in the literature as to the exact status of the reference time: is it quantificational or referential? We argue that this question cannot be answered straightforwardly. In our view, tenses, such as the simple past in English, are ambiguous between an indefinite (quantificational) and a definite (referential) interpretation of the reference time. We will suggest that the data invite a dynamic account, according to which indefinite terms are analysed as introducing a new discourse marker (dm), whereas definite terms are considered to be anaphoric to an old dm and are in fact entirely presupposed.

• Grønn, Atle (2015). On (in)definite tense and aspect in Russian. I Zybatow, Gerhild; Biskup, Petr; Guhl, Marcel; Hurtig, Claudia; Mueller-Reichau, Olav & Yastrebova, Maria (Red.), Slavic Grammar from a Formal Perspective. The 10th Anniversary FDSL Conference, Leipzig 2013. Peter Lang Publishing Group. ISSN 9783631662465. s. 175–196. doi: 10.3726/978-3-653-05335-7. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2015). Parallel'nyj korpus v sisteme universitetskikh lingvisticheskikh kursov. I Eckhoff, Hanne Martine & Rosén, Thomas (Red.), Knigamъ bo estь neiščetnaja glubina. Essays in Honour of Irina Lysén. Uppsala universitet. ISSN 9789150624847. s. 55–63. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Корпус RuN-Euro, первоначально разработанный как русско-норвеж- ско-английский параллельный корпус в университете Осло, возник не благодаря нашему интересу к корпусной лингвистике, а скорее как по- бочный продукт при решении исследовательских и учебно-методи- ческих проблем в теоретической лингвистике, контрастивной лингвис- тике и преподавании русского языка как иностранного. По этой при- чине работа над параллельным корпусом была неразрывно связана с конкретными теоретическими и практическими задачами. Некоторые из них представлены в настоящей статье, в частности описывается он- лайн-программа RuN Interactive Translation (RuN-IT).

• Grønn, Atle (2014). En meningsløs norsk perfektum i kontrafaktiske kondisjonalsetninger. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa). 6(1), s. 7–27. doi: 10.5617/osla.730. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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.

• 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. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Stechow, Arnim von & Grønn, Atle (2013). Tense in Adjuncts Part 2: Temporal Adverbial Clauses. Language and Linguistics Compass. 7(5), s. 311–327. doi: 10.1111/lnc3.12019. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Part 1 of this article treats tense in relative clauses in English, Russian and Japanese. The temporal center in relative clauses can always be anaphoric, and sometimes it has to be the anaphoric Tpro. In Part 2, we investigate tense in temporal adverbial clauses (TACs) headed by ‘after’, ‘before’ and ‘when’. We argue for the following points: 1. English TAC Tense is bound in Present adjuncts under matrix ‘will’, in other constructions the TAC Tense is deictic. Tense licensing is non‐local in bound constructions, while in deictic constructions it is local. 2. Russian TAC Tense is deictic, and the tense licensing is local. 3. Japanese TAC Tense is bound. We have a ‘tenseless’ construction in the adjunct, and tense licensing is local.

• Stechow, Arnim von & Grønn, Atle (2013). Tense in Adjuncts Part 1: Relative Clauses. Language and Linguistics Compass. 7(5), s. 295–310. doi: 10.1111/lnc3.12020. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Part 1 of Tense in Adjuncts presents a compositional analysis of tense in relative clauses (RCs). The languages under investigation are English, Russian, and Japanese. We introduce the syntax and semantics of tense and the theory of feature transmission under variable binding, which mediates between syntax/semantics and morphology. In sequence of tense languages such as English, the morphology of the tense in a RC will be licensed by a non‐local tense if the RC is embedded under will . In other constructions, the RC tense is licensed by a local tense. In non‐sequence of tense languages, the tense in the RC is also determined by a local tense. The paper says which factors are responsible for the tense distribution in the different languages under consideration.

• Grønn, Atle (2013). Aspect and tense in counterfactual main clauses. Fake or real? I Josephson, Folke & Söhrman, Ingmar (Red.), Diachronic and Typological Perspectives on Verbs. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 9789027206015. s. 133–158. doi: 10.1075/slcs.134.05gro. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The role of aspect and tense in counterfactual main clauses is discussed on the basis of both well-established and “new” data from Russian and French. In the first part of the paper, I show that the predominant use of the imperfective in French counterfactuals is arguably “fake”, i.e. without semantic impact, while aspect in Russian is “real” and retains its normal meaning in the same counterfactual environment. In the second part of the paper, the focus is shifted to certain irrealis contexts where a fake imperfective – without conditional/subjunctive morphology – is found both in Romance and Slavic. This surprising “counterfactual imperfective” in Russian is given a purely competition-based pragmatic explanation, and it is shown how pragmatic strengthening and the development of aspectual implicatures arises through associative learning in diachronic steps. Both in Romance and Slavic, past tense morphology in this construction is licensed by a real semantic past in the input context, i.e. a kind of past tense anaphora. This is different from ordinary counterfactuals where one layer of past tense is “fake” and the irrealis hypothesis can be non-past.

• Grønn, Atle & Pazelskaya, Anna (2012). Preface to the Russian Verb. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa). doi: 10.5617/osla.236. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle & Stechow, Arnim von (2012). Adjuncts, attitudes and aspect: Some additions to a tense theory for Russian. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa). 4(1), s. 263–304. doi: 10.5617/osla.237. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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 & 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. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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 & 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. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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 (2011). From the Guest Editor. Scando-Slavica. ISSN 0080-6765. 57(2), s. 134–134. doi: 10.1080/00806765.2011.631772. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2011). ‘Byvalo’ and ‘Used to’ as Verbal Quantifiers. Slovo. Journal of Slavic Languages, Literatures and Cultures. ISSN 0348-744X. s. 63–80. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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 & Hauge, Kjetil Rå (2011). Korpusăt Run-Euro: razvitie i priloženija. Balgarski ezik. ISSN 0005-4283. 58(3), s. 89–99. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle & Stechow, Arnim von (2010). Complement Tense in Contrast: The SOT parameter in Russian and English. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa). 2(1), s. 109–153. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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 & Klonova, Olga (2010). Russkij jazyk v kontrastivnom aspekte - vzgljad so storony korpusa RuN. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa). 2(3), s. 467–478. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle & Marijanovic, Irena (2010). Russian in Contrast: Form, meaning and parallel corpora. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa). 2(1), s. 1–24. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2008). Imperfectivity and complete events. I Josephson, Folke & Söhrman, Ingmar (Red.), Interdependence of Diachronic and Synchronic Analyses. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 9789027205704. s. 149–165. doi: 10.1075/slcs.103. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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). An amazing come-back a counterfactual imperfective in Russian. Scando-Slavica. ISSN 0080-6765. 54, s. 5–31. doi: 10.1080/00806760802494158. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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). Russian aspect as bidirectional optimization. I Marusic, Franc (Red.), Studies in Formal Slavic Linguistics. Peter Lang Publishing Group. ISSN 9783631570098. s. 121–137. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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. s. 51–63. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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 (2007). Relative past and the syntax-semantics interface in Russian. I Kosta, Peter & Schürcks, Lilia (Red.), Linguistic Investigations into Formal Description of Slavic Languages. Peter Lang Publishing Group. ISSN 9783631553763. s. 515–527. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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 (2006). Norwegian bare singulars: a note on types and sorts. I Solstad, Torgrim; Grønn, Atle & Haug, Dag Trygve Truslew (Red.), A Festschrift for Kjell Johan Sæbø: In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Celebration of his 50th Birthday. Forfatterne. ISSN 9788299728904. s. 75–90. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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 (2006). Information Structure and Aspectual Competition. I Gyuris, Beata (Red.), Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium on Logic and Language. Hungarian Academy of Sciences. ISSN 9789639660359. s. 70–77. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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. I Dekker, Paul (Red.), Proceedings of Concord Phenomena and the Syntax Semantics Interface. ESSLLI. s. 21–26. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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 (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. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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 (2024). Games and goals. New in Chess. ISBN 9789083347981. 272 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2023). Sjakken som var. Cappelen Damm AS. ISBN 9788202803391. 288 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Berkov, Valerij P.; Kharina, Alla; Haraldsson, Helgi; Kottum, Steinar; Glad, Alf B. & Grønn, Atle (2022). Stor russisk ordbok. Digital utgave. Ordnett. Gyldendal Norsk Forlag A/S. ISBN 9788257312213. 1605 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle & Lahlum, Hans Olav (2018). Sjakkgeniene. Historien om verdensmesterne. Cappelen Damm AS. ISBN 9788202598259. 429 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2016). Sjakken eller livet. En reise i sjakkens unike skjebner, historie og kultur. Cappelen Damm AS. ISBN 9788202527952. 307 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2008). Proceedings of Sub 12. Universitetet i Oslo. ISBN 9788292800003. 677 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Solstad, Torgrim; Grønn, Atle & Haug, Dag Trygve Truslew (2006). A Festschrift for Kjell Johan Sæbø: In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Celebration of his 50th Birthday. Forfatterne. ISBN 9788299728904. 226 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The festschrift contains contributions from the following authors: Bergljot Behrens, Reinhard Blutner, Pål Kristian Eriksen, Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen, Jens Erik Fenstad, Atle Grønn, Janne Bondi Johannessen, Sveta Krasikova, Jan Tore Lønning, Doris Penka, Wiebke Ramm, Torgrim Solstad, Arnim von Stechow, Ingebjørg Tonne, Eirik Welo, Henk Zeevat and Thomas Ede Zimmermann

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• Lunde, Ingunn; Grønn, Atle; Mohr, Bernhard & Bergensen, Eirik (2026). Pølser og politikk. Tema: Russland. Brudd. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Aas, Endre Ugelstad; Nesset, Tore & Grønn, Atle (2026). Ukrainsk språk er i vinden. [Journal]. Klassekampen. doi: https:/klassekampen.no/artikkel/2026-02-24/ukrainsk-sprak-er-i-vinden. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Ukrainsk er blitt et av de mest populære språkfagene ved Universitetet i Oslo. Også ved UiT Norges Arktiske Universitet er det mulig å studere ukrainsk.

• Grønn, Atle; Maurseth, Anne Beate & Krefting, Ellen Marie (2025). Sjakk og litteratur. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2022). Ivar Magnus Ravnum, 1939–2010. Norsk oversetterleksikon. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2021). The truth seeker. New In Chess. ISSN 0168-8782. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2021). Å gjera det motsette (essay om sjakk og kjønn). Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2021). Historien om det kontrafaktiske sjakkspråket – fra russisk til norsk. Språkprat. Et populærvitenskapelig tidsskrift. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Einevoll, Gaute & Grønn, Atle (2021). Podcast #38: Om sjakk. [Internet]. Podcast: Vett og vitenskap med Gaute Einevoll. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2020). To geni og mønstera dei oppdaga (essay om Chomsky og Zaliznjak). Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2019). Valerij Berkov: Han som elsket Norge. Aftenposten (morgenutg. : trykt utg.). ISSN 0804-3116. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2019). Martin Nag. Norsk oversetterleksikon. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2017). Han gjorde språk til vitenskap (anmeldelse av Chomskys «Det medfødte språket»). Utdanning. ISSN 1502-9778. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Iunker, Finn & Grønn, Atle (2016). Dramatikken ved brettet. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle & Vogt, Yngve (2005). Knekker russisk grammatikk med matematisk logikk. [Journal]. Appollon. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2003). Redigering av bokstavene D, N, T. I Berkov, Valerij P.; Haraldsson, Helgi & Kottum, Steinar (Red.), Stor norsk-russisk ordbok. Kunnskapsforlaget. ISSN 9788257312213. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Ordboken dekker både bokmål og nynorsk. Den inneholder ca 90.000 oppslagsord, flere hundre tusen eksempler og idiomatiske uttrykk, samt noen hundre bevingede ord. tillegg med informasjon om Norge: stat, styresett m.m.. Brukerveiledning på bokmål og russisk. Russiske morfologiske tabeller og en kortfattet beskrivelse av norsk fonetikk og grammatikk. Ordboken omfatter i første rekke moderne ord og uttrykk, men spesielt viktige ord fra tidligere perioder er også tatt med. Boken er både beregnet på brukere med norsk og russisk som morsmål. Valerij Berkov er bokens hovedredaktør. Et stort antall manusforfattere og konsulenter var involvert i arbeidet.

• Grønn, Atle; Lunde, Ingunn & Kharina, Alla (2019). Realia in Literary Translation: A quantitative and qualitative study of Russian realia in Norwegian and English translations. Universitetet i Oslo. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Lawrence Venuti introduserte begrepene “hjemliggjøring” og “fremmedgjøring” for å skille mellom to hovedtyper av oversettelsesstrategier. Mens “fremmedgjøring” innebærer en anerkjennelse av kildespråket og kildekulturens særegenheter, anser han “hjemliggjøring” som en form for “etnosentrisk vold” hvor de samme særegenhetene utviskes. Hvordan bruker engelske og norske oversettere disse strategiene i dag? Er det noen forskjell mellom dem i hvor mye de er villige til å “hjemliggjøre”? Kulturspesifikke ord og uttrykk (navn på tradisjonelle klær, matretter, måleenheter, sosiopolitiske fenomener, osv.) kan være en utfordring for oversettere siden de mangler lett tilgjengelige ekvivalenter i målspråket. I denne avhandlingen ser Alla Kharina nærmere på ulike måter oversettere “hjemliggjør” eller “fremmedgjør” kulturelle referanser på. Hun tester en kvantitativ modell for å måle graden av “hjemliggjøring” i oversettelser av seks russiske romaner. Undersøkelsen viser at de norske og engelske oversetterne ikke er vesentlig forskjellige i denne forbindelse. Forskjeller har imidlertid blitt funnet i behandlingen av sosiopolitiske referanser. Selv om Kharina ikke har funnet store kvantitative forskjeller mellom de norske og engelske måltekstene, demonstrerer hun interessante kontraster mellom oversettelsesstrategier i flere konkrete sammenhenger. Hun viser hvordan oversettere forsøker å oppnå en balanse mellom å bevare den lokale/historiske “fargen” til en roman og å formidle viktig informasjon til leseren.

• Grønn, Atle (2007). Horn Strategies and Optimization in Russian Aspect. ESSLLI. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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. Fremmedspråksenteret. ISSN 9788281950085. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Grønn, Atle (2005). Presuppositional variance and aspectual meaning. ESSLLI. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Information structure is normally considered to be orthogonal to the syntaxsemantics interface. However, in this paper, I argue that aspectual operators in Russian, notably the imperfective aspect with complete event interpretations, are sensitive to information structure. My goal is to show how the imperfective aspect can be used either to assert or presuppose the existence of a complete event of the type described by the VP, without positing ambiguity of the aspectual operator. In a compositional framework, this implies that we need something like a <Background, Focus>-partitioning already at the VP-level, which is input to the aspectual operator. I also suggest how this combined approach to aspect and information structure could be extended to account for aspectual usage in nondeclarative sentences.

• Grønn, Atle (2004). The Semantics and Pragmatics of the Russian Factual Imperfective. Universitetet i Oslo. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  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 assertion time (the speaker's focus), 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 (1999). Subjektiv-modale partikler i russisk. En semantisk og pragmatisk analyse av partikkelen vot. Slavisk-baltisk avdeling, I¯O. ISSN 9788290250770. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

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