ROSKILDE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY DANISH STUDIES Second order zero in morphology and the case of the Danish imperative Peter Juul Nielsen Finite form Weak conj. A Weak conj. B Modal verb Imperative mal ‘paint!’ spis ‘eat!’ --- Non-imperative present active maler ‘paint(s)’ spiser ‘eat(s)’ må ‘may/must’ Non-imperative present passive males ‘is painted’ spises ‘is eaten’ --- Non-imperative past active malede ‘painted’ spiste ‘ate’ måtte ‘might/must’ Non-imperative past passive maledes ‘was painted’ spistes ‘was eaten’ --- 1. Sign relation and commutation The linguistic sign is a conventional association of expression (signifiant) and content (signifié). Language as a sign system is based on distinction, and the individual sign X is defined relationally by its difference from sign Y (and other distinct signs). Signs are established through commutation (Hjelmslev 1969): the difference that makes a difference (Bateson 1972). The signs X and Y each consist of differentially defined expression (E) and content (C), and the constitutive difference- relation between the contrasting signs X and Y is a correlation between a difference between the expression of X (E x ) and the expression of Y (E y ) and a difference between the content of X (C x ) and the content of Y (C y ), cf. Figure 1. E X E Y C X C Y Figure 1: The commutation between signs X and Y as the correlation of expression difference and content difference Abbreviations ACT : active – DEF: definite – GEN: genitive – IMP: imperative – NONIMP: non-imperative – PASS: passive – PAST : past – PL: plural – PRES: present – UT : uter (common gender) – X II : second order exponent – Ø I : first order zero – Ø II : second order zero References • Bateson, G. (1972). Form, substance and difference. In G. Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Northvale, New Jersey & London: Jason Aronson, 455-472. • Braunmüller, K. (1989). Er det danske sprogs morfologi ‘naturlig’?. 2. Møde om Udforskning af Dansk Sprog. Århus: Aarhus Universitet, 73-87 • Hansen, E. & L. Heltoft (2011). Grammatik over det Danske Sprog (GDS). Copenhagen: Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab. • Heltoft, L. (1998). Det danske morfologiske system. Årsberetning 1996-1997. Copenhagen: Selskab for Nordisk Filologi, 85-99 • Herslund, M. (2002). Danish. Languages of the World/Materials 382. München: LINCOM EUROPA. • Hjelmslev, L. (1969). Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. Translation of the Danish original (1943) by F. J. Whitfield. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. • Mel’čuk, I. (2006). Aspects of the Theory of Morphology. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. • Nielsen, P.J. (in press). Den danske imperativmorfologi som et andenordensnul. Ny forskning i grammatik 22. • Nielsen, P.J. (2015). Morphology reconsidered : Theoretical issues and studies in nonfinite verb forms in Danish. Manuscript submitted for publication. 4. Danish agglutinative morphology Modern Danish is characterised by agglutinative morphology, i.e. isolatable biunique associations of one expression element – an affix – and one monosemic content component (Braun- müller 1989; Heltoft 1998, Herslund 2002), cf. the agglutinative structure of the noun inflection in (2). (2) hest-e-n-e-s horse-PL-UT -DEF-GEN ‘of the horses’ The agglutinative organisation is a pervasive feature, which can be established in the analysis of the system of finite verb forms, presented in Table 1. (8) mal-Ø-Ø-er spis-Ø-Ø-er paint-PRES-ACT -NONMP eat-PRES-ACT -NONMP All three binary oppositions of the finite forms are expressed by the contrast between zero and overt expression, but the zeros are of different orders. 7. The difference that makes a difference In the Danish mood inflection the absence in the imperative of all the markers of tense and voice and their presence in the non-imperative constitute the difference that makes a difference: the Ø II that signals imperative and the X II that signals non- imperative. For further details see Nielsen (in press, 2015). The suffix -er does indeed express non-imperative in contrast to the zero of the imperative, but it does so only as a “mood reinforcing” allo-expression when the systemic expression of non-imperative – articulation of tense and voice – fails to provide non-zero expression. The final paradigm of the mood opposition is represented in Figure 5. 5. Inflection of the finite forms in Danish The finite forms are inflected for mood, voice and tense. Mood Inflectional mood distinguishes imperative vs. non-imperative (indicative). The imperative is morphologically characterised by absence of any overt desinence after the verb stem, cf. (3). (3) mal-Ø spis-Ø paint-IMP eat-IMP There is no individual isolatable marker of the set of non- imperative forms to contrast with the zero of the imperative mood (but see below regarding -er). Non-imperative offers the inflectional selection in the paradigms of tense and voice. Modal verbs have no imperative form and no passive voice, so only past and present (active) forms as shown in Table 1. Voice Non-modal verbs are inflected for voice : active vs. passive. The contrast is clearest in the past tense forms of the non-modal (weak) verbs in Table 1. Passive voice is expressed by the overt desinence -(e)s, cf. (4), while active voice is expressed by zero, the absence of the overt passive marker, cf. (5). (4) mal-ede-s spis-te-s paint-PAST -PASS eat-PAST -PASS (5) mal-ede-Ø spis-te-Ø paint-PAST -ACT eat-PAST -ACT Tense All verbs are inflected in the non-imperative for tense: present vs. past. Past tense is expressed by an overt desinence, -ede or -te, cf. the non-imperative past forms in Table 1. The past marker can be seen in the segmented forms of the weak non- modals in (4) and (5) and in the modal verb in (6). (6) må-tte may-PAST Present tense is expressed by zero, the absence of the overt past marker. This can be seen in the non-imperative present passive forms of the weak mon-modals and in the present tense of the modal verb in Table 1, segmented in (7). (7) mal-Ø-es spis-Ø-es må-Ø paint-PRES-PASS eat-PRES-PASS may-PRES The role of -er Structurally the desinence -er is not a present tense marker, but a marker of non-imperative in the one instance where the contrast to imperative mood would otherwise be lost, in the present active of non-modal verbs where both tense and voice selection is expressed by zero (Heltoft 1998; Hansen & Heltoft 2011: 663-666), compare (3) with (8). 3. First order zero and second order zero The ”ordinary” morphological zero is the meaningful absence of the overt expression of a paradigmatically contrasting morph- eme, e.g. Spanish singular expressed by the absence of the overt desinence -s of the plural cf. (1). (1) libro-Ø libro-s book-SG book-PL The Spanish singular zero is the absence of the expression of another sign. This is a first order zero, Ø I . Absence of a full set of morphemes may also serve as the expression side of a zero sign. This is the meaningful absence of paradigm articulation: the non-selection in the morphological paradigm A as the zero expression of a content. This is a second order zero, Ø II . The paradigmatic contrast to the second order zero is the second order exponent, X II : the articulation of paradigm A as the signal of the content that contrasts with the content of the Ø II . The individual members of paradigm A function as representatives of the articulated paradigm and thus as allo-expressions of the X II (Nielsen in press, 2015). The relation between expression and content of the second order opposition between Ø II (absence of articulation of paradigm A) and X II (articulation of paradigm A) is illustrated in Figure 3. 2. The zero sign The zero sign is defined as meaningful absence (Mel’čuk 2006). Based on the commutation relation beteween expression and content, the zero sign is the correlation between the expression difference of presence vs. absence of E X and the content difference C X vs. C Y , i.e. the absence of E X constitutes the difference that makes a difference, cf. Figure 2. Peter Juul Nielsen Assistant professor, MA, PhD Danish Studies Department of Culture and Identity Building 3.2.3 Roskilde University PO Box 260 – DK 4000 Roskilde pjn@ruc.dk E X {absence of E X } C X C Y Figure 2: The commutation structure of the zero sign: the absence of E X that counts as the expression of C Y Table 1: The finite verb forms in Danish, conjugation of weak verbs A and B and of modal verbs (strong verbs not included) 6. Mood opposition and paradigm articulation Mood is the superordinate morphological specification of the finite verb. Within the semantics of the imperative, there is no distinction in temporal anchoring, and the demotion of the agent through passive voice (Hansen & Heltoft 2011: 1287) is not allowed, therefore there is no selection of tense and voice. The distinction in temporal anchoring plays a central role to the semantics of the non-imperative, and the demotion of the agent through passive voice is compatible with the function of non- imperative mood, therefore there is selection of tense and voice. The expression of the imperative is a second order zero, Ø II : the absence of the set of tense and voice desinences of the non-imperative, i.e. absence of paradigm articulation. The expression of the non-imperative is a second order exponent, X II : the presence of representatives of the set of tense and voice desinences, i.e. paradigm articulation. The articulated paradigms each contain a member with first order zero expression, Ø I : the present tense and the active voice. Leaving aside the role of -er, the paradigm of the mood opposition may be represented intermediately as in Figure 4. Ø II vs. X II Articulation of paradigm A Expression CONTENT OF Ø II CONTENT SIGNALLED BY ARTICULATION OF A Content VS. Figure 3: Expression and content of the second order opposition between Ø II and X II -Ø II vs. -X II -Ø I vs. -ede/-te -Ø I vs. -(e)s Expression IMP VS. NON-IMP PRES VS. PAST ACT VS. PASS Content Figure 4: Expression and content of the second order opposition between imperative and non-imperative in Danish - Intermediate -Ø II vs. -X II -Ø I vs. -ede/-te -Ø I vs. -(e)s Expression -er IMP VS. NON-IMP PRES VS. PAST ACT VS. PASS Content NON-IMP Figure 5: Expression and content of the second order opposition between imperative and non-imperative in Danish - Final