Articles

Sa kâld net as juster. Eat oer scrambling yn it Frysk

Authors

  • J. Hoekstra

Abstract

This article discusses two cases of scrambling in Modern West Frisian: scrambling of sa ‘so’ (+ adjective) over the negative adverb net and the affirmative adverb wol and scrambling of universally quantifying expressions over net. Both types of scrambling also occurred in older Dutch until the 19th century (and are still common in Flemish),  but seem to be on their retreat in modern language use. More specifically, Dutch seems to have lost scrambling of anaphoric zo ‘so’ and only allows scrambling of intensifying zo nowadays. It will be shown that scrambling of sa (+ adjective) and scrambling of universally quantifying expressions trigger a presuppositional reading, whereas the word order without scrambling is presuppositionally neutral. Further it will be argued that although both cases of scrambling may involve non-arguments, they cannot be analyzed as A’-scrambling, but have all the properties of A-scrambling. This article presents a critical evaluation of the criteria for distinguishing between A-scrambling and A’- scrambling that are found in the literature, and it will be contended that the Frisian data support an analysis of scrambling that does not make use of the A/A’-distinction. More generally, the article wants to break ground for a more extensive treatment of scrambling phenomena in Frisian.

Published

2014-12-01

Issue

Section

Articles