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UDC 811.113.4 Dina Nikulicheva
Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow State Linguistic University
QUASI-SYNONYMY OF DANISH TEMPORAL CONJUNCTIONS FROM THE ANTHROPOCENTRIC POINT OF VIEW*
For citation: Nikulicheva D. Quasi-synonymy of Danish temporal conjunctions from the anthropocentric point of view. Scandinavian Philology, 2019, vol. 17, issue 2, pp. 217-233. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu21.2019.202
The article explores formal variation of auxiliary words in the Danish language that are similar in their syntactic distribution but carry different functional and semantic information due to the speaker's perspective. The focus is on the functioning of quasi-synonymous temporal Danish conjunctions that differ in terms of expression, but function in similar syntactic contexts. When translated into Russian, these conjunctions correspond to the same equivalent. By applying the concept of quasi-synonymy it is possible to compare the temporal clauses, introduced in the Russian language by the conjunction when, with their Danish equivalents, namely, the clauses introduced by the conjunctions da, ndr and hvor, and to analyze the semantic differences between them. The hypothesis discussed in this article aims to prove that the asymmetry in the functioning of these conjunctions is related to the anthropocentric idea of the speaker's epistemic responsibility for the objective/subjective/concrete/ generalized status of the information that he addresses to the recipient. A relevant semantic distinction in the system of Danish temporal conjunctions is the asymmetric juxtaposition of past events as objective landmarks in time (da) to various manifestations of subjectivity in temporal orientation (ndr). The latter, on the one hand, include the immediate perception expressed by the speaker, and, on the other hand, various types of mental constructions: assumption, desirability, irreality and generalization, including iteration as its primary manifestation. Subjectivity in temporal orientation also manifests itself in the temporal functioning of the conjunction
* Supported by the RFFI (РФФИ) Grant 19-012-00146.
hvor, that characterizes a moment in time as being perceptually or mentally close to the speaker.
Keywords: Danish language, temporal conjunctions, quasi-synonymy, perception, mental construction, assumption, desirability, irreality, generalization, characterization.
According to the theory of linguistic supertypes proposed by Per Durst-Andersen in 1997 [Durst-Andersen, 1997], Danish is a language which grammatical system is focused on the listener, which, first of all, is manifested in a nuanced system of temporal and article oppositions. In line with the Danish project for the study of language polyphony [Sproglig polyfoni, 2004; 2005; 2007] the researcher introduced the term "basic voice" ("grundstemme") to describe basic features of a certain grammatical system [Durst-Andersen, 2007].
In his article, P. Durst-Andersen draws attention to the fact that the orientation of grammatical oppositions towards the addressee presupposes a secondary level of grammatical information. The pragmatic task at this level is to indicate the objective or subjective status of the information that the speaker shares with the recipient [Durst-Andersen, 2007, p. 179]. It is at this level that the anthropocentric component of the Danish grammar system is realized and the factor of the speaker-perceptor is fully manifested. The speaker-perceptor perceives denotative reality and passes it through his consciousness (Input) so that, then, as a speaker, he can turn it into a speech utterance addressed to the recipient (Output).
Comparing the use of analytical, synthetic and modal passive forms, Durst-Andersen shows that a speaker in Danish uses language to signal to the recipient that he "verbalizes" the information either from an objective source — namely, based on specific experience (erfaringslager) or generalized knowledge (videnslager) — or from a subjective source — namely, based on a specific assumption (troslager) or on a generalized opinion-assessment (meningslager) [Durst-Andersen, 2007, p. 168]:
Meningslager MENE Han ma fyres i morgen! Videnslager VIDE Mange fyres for tiden pga. outsourcing
Troslager TRO Han ma blive fyret i morgen Erfaringslager SYNES/ERINDRER Mange bliver fyret for tiden...
A contrast between subjectivized and objectivized utterance, when at the expense of linguistic means the native speaker gets the opportunity to present his utterance either as relevant, perceptually and / or conceptually close to the speaker or, conversely, distant and thereby presented in an objective form, was described on a typologically close Swedish material by Elena Chekalina [Chekalina, 2017]. In the book chapters "Subjective and objective view of things in the mirror of the Swedish language" and "Functional-semantic aspects of variability in modern Swedish", the author explains numerous facts of functional-semantic variability, such as, for example, the choice of analytical and synthetic forms of passive, use of Perfect or Imperfect tense forms to describe past events, variation of present and analytical forms to express future tense, fluctuation between Present and Imperfect forms to express emotional evaluation, and others.
The aforementioned cases of grammatical variation are also observed on Danish material. Along with this, in such a highly analytical language as Danish, this second tier information is frequently verbalized through oppositions within the "little words" framework. Particles, prepositions, conjunctions — all are involved in a complex system of the second level indexation that correlates actual information with the way it appears in the speaker's head.
These considerations prompted us to analyze those parts of the Danish grammar system that represent regular formal variations of auxiliary language markers similar in their syntactic distribution but carrying different functional and semantic information due to the speaker's intentions. Specifically, this article will focus on the functioning of Danish quasi-synonymous temporal conjunctions. By quasi-synonymous conjunctions we mean conjunctions that differ in terms of expression, but operate in nearly identical syntactic contexts, which, when translated into Russian, correspond to the same equivalent. (For the methodology for the analysis of quasi-synonymous temporal prepositions, see [Nikulicheva, 2017b].)
Earlier, when studying the prepositional time markers in the Danish language, we noticed the asymmetry of temporal localization of past and future events when expressed by prepositional phrases (i mandags — pa mandag, i sommer — til sommer, etc.). These verbal, prepositional manifestations of asymmetry of past and future events noticeably correlated with non-verbal visualizations of the past and future by native Danish speakers [Nikulicheva, 2017a]. It was emphasized that these dif-
ferences are perceptual and cognitive in nature. Representations of the biographical past are associated with the processes of visual recollection of past events, while representations of future events are determined by cognitive processes of mental construction.
DA VS. NÄR
In the functioning of temporal conjunctions, we can observe a similar asymmetry in marking past and future contexts. This is manifested in a clear opposition of the conjunction da, that localizes the event in the past, and the conjunction när, that localizes the event in the present and future. The etymology of both conjunctions goes back to the adverbs of spatial orientation:
Da (glda. tha, thaa, ceda. ^a, run. oldn. ^ä, eng. than, ty. dann (denn), got. ^an, lat. tum) [https://ordnet.dk/ods/ordbog?query=da]. The duality of the spatio-temporal meaning of an etymologically close adverb is clearly manifested in Greek. t^o; "there, then" [https:// lexicography.online/etymology/TaM]. The semantic duality is also confirmed by the large Danish dictionary "Ordbog over det danske sprog" (ODS). It indicates that until the end of the 17th century the spatial adverb der "there" was more often used in the function of the temporal adverb than da "then" [https://ordnet.dk/ods/ordbog?query=da].
När (glda. nar, nor, n^r (Kalk.III.190f. som adv.: Brandt.RD.I.141.169), ceda. n^(^)r (som adv.: DGL.II.146. FlensbSt.93. Harp. Kr.57), n^ra (i sa. bet.: DGL.II.146var.), nar (som konj.: SkLov.(Schlyter).237. nar sum. ErLov.3.37), sv. när (dial. ogs. nar), fsv. nar, n^r, no. när (dial. ogs. n^r), oldn. n^r) [https://ordnet.dk/ods/ordbog?query=n%C3%A5r]. The etymological proximity of the conjunction när with the adjective nsr "close" is noteworthy. (glda. n^r (og nar. Rimkr. M.67. Brandt. RD.I.328), ceda. n^r (fx. DGL.I.22.35.II.191), oldn. n^r, eng. near; egl. komp., jf. ty. näher, oht. nahor, got. nehwis; til oldn. nä- i ssgr., ncr- (jf. nabo), ty. nah(e), got. nehw(a); besl. m. I. naa [https://ordnet.dk/ods/ ordbog?query=n%C3%A6r].
Thus, if the conjunction da is etymologized to indicate distancing of the event on the time scale (there, then), than the conjunction när points at proximity (cf. da. adj. n^r and vb. nsrme) to the event that has not yet occurred. This makes logical the asymmetric use of the Danish temporal conjunctions da and när, with respect to past and future time events.
The authors of the academic grammar of the Danish language [Hansen, Heltoft, 2011] indicate that da is used in relation to the past (om de fortidige), and nar in relation to future and iterative (om de fremtidige og iterative) events. They provide examples of both the proper temporal clauses (1), (2), (3) and the temporal clauses in the function of object clause (eksplikative leds^tninger): (4), (5), (6):
(1) Ulykken skete da vi var i Jylland. Trouble happened when (da) we were in Jutland.'
(2) Nar vi far bedre tid, skal vi til Italien. 'When (nar) time allows, we will go to Italy.'
(3) Nar solen gar ned, sa bliver det koldt. 'When (nar) the sun sets, it becomes chilly.'
(4) Jeg h0rte tydeligt da han kom hjem. 'I clearly heard when (da) he came home.'
(5) Jeg kan sagtens h0re nar han kommer hjem om lidt. 'I will certainly hear when (nar) he comes home.'
(6) Jeg kunne altid h0re nar han kom op ad trappen. 'I always heard when (nar) he was coming up the stairs' [Hansen, Heltoft, 2011, p. 1498, 1532].
At the same time, examples from fiction and from the corpus of the modern Danish language [https://ordnet.dk/korpusdk] confirm that the semantic scope of the temporal conjunction nar is much broader than futurality and iterativeness, and that this conjunction does not always introduce reality (see [Hansen, Heltoft, 2011, p. 1493]). The hypothesis discussed in this article is to prove that this polysemy is logical and is associated with the anthropocentric idea of the speaker's epistemic responsibility for the objective/subjective/specific/generalized status of the information that he addresses to the recipient.
The etymologically-based semantics of proximity of the conjunction nar, fully manifests itself in temporal adverbs that designate the present moment, directly observed by the subject of speech (perceptual present). Often such "speaker's presence in the frame" is marked lexically: lige nu, nar 'right now, when. Typical contexts are direct speech, or narrative, which is conducted in the first person in the present tense:
(7) Heroppe er der guddommeligt. Lige nu, nar himlen er usandsynligt bla, den blindende hvide sne dr0mmeagtig jomfruelig. 'Up here is divine. Right now when the sky is incredibly blue and the snow is fabulously virgin'
(8) — Trat. siger Janni, — N^h, ikke lige nu... nar jeg ser "mit" barn og hen-des g^ster. '— Tired, — Yanni says. — No, not right now..., when I am looking at my baby and her guests.'
It can be assumed that it is the semantics of the perceptual present inherent in the nar conjunction that allows the non-standard use of this conjunction with past predicates denoting a single event:
(9) At elske matte ogsa v^re at tilgive og glemme, nu, netop nu, nar jeg holdt om hende. 'To love meant to forget and forgive, now, right now, when (nar) I was embracing her.
(10) Angsten for at blive gravid 0delagde desv^rre lidt af forn0jelsen, forteller Karen. Men jeg glemte det nu, nar jeg var lun pa en fyr. 'The fear to get pregnant unfortunately was spoiling the fun, Karen remembers. But I forgot about it now when I was in love with the guy'.
Note that the conjunction nar referring to a single event in the past, expressed by a predicate in Imperfect, is necessarily accompanied by the adverb nu 'now'. Thus, the speaker reproduces the effect of direct observation of the event at the time of speech and thereby brings the event closer to the recipient. This creates a stylistic effect that acquired a special term in cognitology: a shift of the deictic center in the sentence [Iriskhanova, 2014, p. 58].
However, the most common occurrences of the nu, nar combination in the corpus are still not the examples of perceptual present when the speaker directly observes the event, but examples of extended present when the speaker knows about the current state of affairs (referring to the generalized experience of the speaker):
(11) Det er et af hovedsp0rgsmalene i landbrugets 0konomi specielt nu, nar sa mange sldre landm^nd trakker sig tilbage. 'This is one of the most important issues in agricultural economics, especially now that so many older farmers are retiring'.
As for the conjunction da, it refers to an event that objectively occurred and is distant from the speaker. This is just an external time marker correlated in time with other objective events:
(12) Da vi satte os ved et af de lange fellesborde, s0gte hundrede 0jne vores
tallerkener... Vi havde taget mindst dobbelt sa meget som alle andre. [Hesselholdt, 2010, p. 60]. 'When (da) we sat down (satte os) at long common tables, hundreds of eyes followed our plates... We had taken <before this> (havde taget) at least twice as much food as everyone else.
The reader in Episode (12) sees a speaker recalling an event of the past. The source of objective information is the speaker's own experience. According to the Durst-Andersen scheme above, this is a signal to the recipient that the speaker is verbalizing information from the mental space of objective experience: "erfaringslager".
Time markers in the past objective reality, introduced by the conjunction da, are opposed to hypothetical events introduced by the conjunction nar that are constructed by the speaker regarding situations of the past. In this case, the event appears not as having taken place in reality (da), but as the speaker's mental construct — an unrealistic assumption from the past (nar):
(13) I stedet for at fors0ge at finde mit hotel skulle jeg have checket ud og taget min bagage med mig. Nar jeg udmattet af udforsken og steberi ikke kunne mere, kunne jeg have slxbt mig til et nyt, ukendt hotel — og sa v^re sat af fra det, nar jeg igen absolut skulle s^tte af[Hesselholdt, 2010, p. 24]. 'Instead of trying to find my hotel, I should have checked out and taken my luggage with me. When (nar) exhausted by the exploration and pulling my luggage I could not continue (ikke kunne), I could have dragged myself to a new, unknown hotel — and then be set free from it when (nar) I should (skulle) definitely leave.
Here we deal with a situation that is being constructed by the speaker. In essence, this brings closer the use of the conjunction nar in hypothetical and in ordinary futural contexts (2), (5) or (14):
(14) Selvf0lgelig skal drengene ikke sla jer. Hvad nu, nar de bliver 14 og 16 ar og dobbelt sa sterke som deres far? 'Of course, your boys should not fight you. And what will happen when they turn 14 and 16 and they become twice as strong as their father?'
According to P. Durst-Andersen, this is a signal to the recipient that the speaker is verbalizing information from the mental space of the subjective assumption: "troslager".
The application of the semiotic distinctions proposed by Durst-Andersen also allows us to explain the logic of using the temporal conjunction nar in a generalizing function. Firstly, this signifies a repeated action, regardless of whether it refers to the present, future or past:
(15) Hunden sa lille og fortabt ud ved siden af s0jlerne, men det skulle man ikke tage fejl af — sa snart jeg nxrmede mig, sprang den med et sk^vt smil ned ad trinene. <...> Nar jeg igen indtog min position i regnen, gik den i ly og sa fremdeles. 'The dog next to the pillars looked small
and lost, but one should not be mistaken — as soon as I approached, it leapt under the steps with a wry snarl. <Every time> when (nar) I regained my position in the rain, it hid into cover and looked quite satisfied' [Hesselholdt, 2010, p. 37].
The use of the conjunction nar in (15) unambiguously indicates multiple or repeated action expressed by predicates. If conjunction da were used instead, then in the Russian translation the single action would be conveyed by perfective aspect forms: 'Как только я приблизилась, она с кривой усмешкой отскочила под ступеньки. <...> Когда (da) я снова вышла на дождь, она спряталась в укрытие' As I approached, she bounced with a wry snarl under the steps. <...> When (da) I went out into the rain again, she hid into cover. The obligatory use of conjunction nar to refer to repeating actions against the background of many other generalizing uses of this conjunction allows us to interpret iterative use as the primary manifestation of the subjective mental processing of the denotative situation by the speaker.
Even more explicitly, the generalizing function of the temporal conjunction nar is manifested in the generalizing assumptions of the speaker:
(16) Han havde ladet hende snakke, for han havde pa fornemmelsen hvad der ville f0lge efter. Nar visse kvinder troede at have pillet en mand fuld-stendigt fra hinanden, felte de trang til at s^tte ham sammen bagefter [Jessen, 2005, p. 9]. 'He had let her talk, for he had the feeling of what would follow. When (nar) certain women believed to have completely peeled a man apart, they felt the need to put him together'.
Note that example (16) does not illustrate the timeless generalization that would contain a predicate in the present tense, but the character's conclusion that had occurred in similar past situations, which is marked in Danish as a matching past tense predicate (nar visse kvin-der troede).
The same refers to all other generalizations of specific experience in the presence:
(17) Nar man har f0dselsdag, plejer man at fa sin livret. 'When it is your birthday, your favorite meal is usually cooked'.
Finally, the generalizing conjunction nar naturally introduces any universal generalizations, whether they are definitions of the laws of nature (18) or paremias (19):
(18) Fugtig luft afk0les, nar den stiger til vejrs. 'Humid air cools when it rises'
(19) Nar man taler om solen, sa skinner den 'speak of the devil'. (Literally) 'When speaking of the sun, it shines'.
In the function of broad generalization, nar predictably weakens or completely loses the temporal connotations and becomes analogous to the conditional conjunction hvis:
(20) Alle betalinger er rettidige, nar de sker senest 7 dage efter forfaldsdagen. 'Payments are timely when (= if) they are made no later than seven days after the payment deadline'.
According to the Durst-Andersen's scheme, all generalizing uses of nar are a signal to the recipient that the speaker is verbalizing information from the mental space of generalized objective experience: "vid-enslager".
It is obvious that the relevant contrast in the system of Danish temporal conjunctions is the asymmetric dichotomy between the past events as objective temporal markers (da) and various manifestations of the subjective factor of temporal orientation (nar). These, on the one hand, include the direct perception of the world by the speaker at the moment of speech, and, on the other hand, various types of mental construction of the world by the speaker, whether it is prediction, desirability, irreality or generalization.
What is the reason for such asymmetry?
The answer to this question can be given by comparing the functioning of the conjunction da with the conjunction hvor in its temporal use.
DA VS. HVOR
Both conjunctions indicate a specific situation in the past, however, a comparison of examples with these conjunctions clearly demonstrates their quasi-synonymous status. If da acts as an objective time reference point, building a temporal distance, and thereby creating an external perspective of the observer, hvor, due to its initially locative semantics, represents the moment of speech as a temporal "container" inside which an event occurs, as if observed from within. Sometimes in Russian this conjunction can be translated as 'while, as':
(21) Det optog han nu, hvor han sad her og felte sig som bxnkevarmer over alle bxnkevarmere [Jessen, 2005, p. 9]. 'Such were the thoughts in his
mind now, as (hvor) (literally, now where...) he sat here and felt like a loser of losers'
This creates an internal perspective of the observer, shifting the focus from the localization of the event in time to its characterization or — using the cinematic metaphor — showing the event in close up:
(22) Der var engang hvor man ikke syntes man skyldte naturen at gtede sig over den; hvor den bare var et helvedes mas, eller noget, der stak, nar man som en vild stormede igennem den; hvor man ikke identificerede det som en mangel i en selv, hvis den ikke abnede sig for en [Hesselholdt, 2010, p. 26]. 'There was a time when (hvor) you did not think it was necessary to admire nature; when (hvor) it was just a hellish mess, or something that stung when (nar) one stormed through it; when (hvor) your inability to open up and welcome it was not identified with a personal inferiority'.
An analysis of examples with temporal hvor in fiction and in the corpus of modern Danish allows one interesting observation. In Danish, this "close-up" narrative plan (and thus, the proximity of the described situation to the speaker, and, accordingly, to the recipient) is not always associated with an intensification in the perceptual component of the situation, (which could be assumed from the use of an imperfect aspect in the Russian translation, by default signaling the observation of the middle phase of the process (он сидел, мысли вертелись, что-то кололось, ты пробирался), but more often — with immersion in the sphere of mental activity of the speaker.
In the examples given, this is clearly manifested in the putative nature of predicates syntes 'believed', identificerede som 'identified as', f0lte sig som 'felt as if' and in the axiological nature of the accompanying definitions et helvedes mas 'hellish mess', en mangel i en selv 'personal inferiority', bxnkevarmer over alle bxnkevarmere 'loser of losers' (b^nke-varmer (benchwarmer) — derogatory naming of a girl who is never invited to dance at parties).
To test this hypothesis, all phrases "there was a time when. " der var engang, hvor... (42 occurrences) and der var engang da... (45 occurrences) in the Corpus of the modern Danish language were analyzed https:// ordnet.dk/korpusdk/teksteksempler/kontekst. (It is noteworthy that Kor-pusDK does not register any occurrences of *der var engang, nar.)!
The invariant meaning, expressed by all examples with the temporal reference der var engang, da, consists in putting certain past events in
the focus of communication. Here, the deictic semantics of the conjunction da is fully realized, indicating the moment "(there) in time" that is remote from the speaker. Moreover, the proposition introduced by the conjunction da is presented by the speaker to the addressee as an objective knowledge about an indisputable fact:
(23) Nu skal j eg fortelle dig det helt forfra: der var engang, da himlen og j orden var et. Der fandtes ikke nogen grsnse imellem dem. 'Now let me tell you from the beginning: there was a time when heaven and earth were one. There was no boundary between'.
(24) Der var engang, da hele menneskeheden havde et tungemal, et sprog. 'There was a time when all mankind had one tongue, one language'.
Often an indication of a certain state of affairs in the past is contrasted to a different state of affairs in the present. A comparison of two time markers reflects a distant — i. e. external — perspective of the speaker:
(25) Der var engang, da danske fodboldlandshold stillede sig tilfreds med hs-derlige nederlag. Den tid er heldigvis forbi. 'There was a time when (da) the Danish soccer team was content to lose honorably. Luckily, this is longpast'.
(26) Der var engang, da man blot investerede i to grammofoner, hyrede en pladevender og sa havde man et diskotek. I vore dage kraves der mere. 'There was a time when (da) money was invested in the purchase of a pair of record players, a disc jockey was hired, and there you have a disco. Nowadays much more is required.'
It is interesting to compare the use of conjunctions da and hvor within one sentence:
(27) Og skoleelever sviner simpelthen mere i dag. Der var engang, da de sad roligt pa rskker ved deres borde, hvor de skrev, lyttede og rakte han-den i vejret. Nu handler meget af undervisningen om projekter, hvor der skal males eller slsbes en halv skovbund ind i klasselokalet. 'And schoolchildren are simply littering more today. There was a time when (da) they were sitting quietly at their tables while (hvor) writing, listening and raising their hands. Now much of the teaching is about projects where/when (hvor) they have to paint or drag half a forest into the classroom'.
If da fulfills the function of temporal localization, then hvor has the function of characterizing the situation "from the inside", detailing it and presenting it, thereby, with a larger "close-up":
(28) Der var engang en tid, hvor kvinden herskede uindskranket over f0dslen. Over det nye liv, men ogsä over D0den som af og til blev f0dslens udgang. Det var en tid, for ikke sä forferdelig tenge siden, hvor samfundets moral var anderledes. En tid hvor mange kvinder ved f0dslen matte v^lge: Slä dit barn ihjel eller lev videre som en udst0dt, en sk0ge. Det var ogsä en tid hvor f0dslen ganske og aldeles tilh0rte kvinderne. 'There was once a time when (hvor) the woman ruled unrestricted over childbirth. Over the new life, but also over Death which sometimes ended labours. It was a time, not so terrible long ago, when (hvor) society's morals were different. A time when (hvor) many women had to choose at birth: Kill your child or live on as an outcast, a harlot. It was also a time when (hvor) the birth belonged entirely to the women'.
The meaning of the subordinate clauses introduced by the conjunction hvor in (27) and (28) comes close to the attributive clauses: projekter, hvor...; en tid, hvor... However, internal perspectivization, which "enlarges" the narrative and promotes the perceptive immersion of the addressee in the described situation, also arises in the actual temporal contexts:
(29) Vi havde da haft meget sammen, der var da engang, hvor vi kunne tale i timevis. Mäske var det dog til sidst mig som talte mest, men det var fordi han holdt op med at h0re efter, og sä mätte jeg sige tingene flere gange. 'We had had a lot in common. After all, there was a time when (hvor) we could talk for hours. Maybe it was me who spoke the most in the end, but it was because he stopped listening, and then I had to say things several times'.
The most interesting, from our point of view, is the use of the construction der var engang, hvor with predicates of mental activity. It is significant that not a single case of the use of such predicates with the conjunction da was registered in the corpus, but it turned out that in the construction with hvor, the putative predicate troede 'thought, believed' was the most common:
(30) Der var engang hvor jeg troede, kosmisk kaos var pä mode for jeg hang ud blandt udbrandte stjerner, og det tog lysär f0r jeg sä, livets storhed i det smä og at himlen er begravet i vores hjerner. 'There was a time when (hvor) I thought (troede) cosmic chaos was in fashion, for I hung out among burnt stars, and it took light years before I saw the greatness of life in the little and the sky buried in our thoughts'.
Even if the state of affairs in the past is opposed to the state of affairs in the present — which would be expressed by the conjunction da with
other types of predicates (see 23, 24) — then the conjunction hvor is steadily used with the predicates of mental activity:
(31) Der var engang, hvor jeg troede, at man mâtte vide sâ og sâ meget for at kunne forstâ Beckett, men sâdan tœnker jeg ikke mere. 'There was a time when (hvor) I thought you had to know so and so much to understand Beckett, but I don't think that way'.
(32) Der var engang hvor mennesket troede verden var flad. Nu rejser vi til mâ-nen og ser pâ kloden udefra. 'There was a time when men thought the world was flat. Now we travel to the moon and look at the globe from space'.
Using the conjunction hvor with putative predicates, the speaker defines the situation by the mental activity of the subject. Shirking responsibility for the accuracy of the proposition, the speaker thereby assesses this situation subjectively: Der var engang hvor mennesket troede verden var flad 'There was a time when a person believed that the earth was flat' = <there was a time of misconceptions>. Using the conjunction da, the speaker assumes responsibility for the validity of the proposition, presenting it as an objective fact, however dubious this proposition may be. Compare the modification of the sentence (28): Der var engang da verden var flad 'there was a time when the earth was flat' = <I state this as an objective fact>. See also examples (23), (24).
Apart from the predicate troede, the phrase Der var engang, hvor... may use putative predicates syntes, identificerede som (14), as well as other verbs of mental activity:
(33) Der var engang, hvor det f0rste, J0rgen tœnkte pâ "morgenen efter", var: "Hvordan kommer jeg hurtigst muligt vœk herfra!". 'There was a time when (hvor) the first thing J0rgen thought about "the morning after" was: "How to get away from here as soon as possible!" '
(34) Der var engang, hvor man end ikke havde drnmt om at bore en tunnel under Storebœlt. Engang hvor enhver tanke om EF var anledning til indlœggelse pâ den lukkede afdeling. 'There was a time when (hvor) one never even dreamed of drilling a tunnel under the Great Belt. When any thought about the EC was the reason for admission to the closed'.
Characterization may relate not only to the situation, but also to the emotional state of its subject:
(35) Matilde er utrolig glemsom. Det har lykkedes hende at glemme, hvor hun har lagt sin tandb0rste. Og der var da ogsâ engang, hvor hun var sâ sur pâ Katrine, da hun kom for at hente sin cardigan oppe i Matildes t0jskab.
Matilde havde selvf0lgelig glemt, at hun havde lant den engang, fordi hen-des egen var blevet v^k. 'Matilde is incredibly forgetful. She has managed to forget where she put her toothbrush. And there was a time when (hvor) she was so mad at Katrine when (da) she came to pick up her cardigan in Matilde's closet. Matilde, of course, had forgotten that she had borrowed it once because her own had been lost'.
The above example (35) contains both conjunctions within a single complex sentence. This allows us to clearly illustrate the differences in the semantics of subordinate clauses introduced by the conjunctions hvor and da: the conjunction hvor signals that the speaker characterizes a moment in time related to the subject's state of mind within a proposition, and the conjunction da serves as an objective reference to the time when this condition occurred.
Particularly indicative are examples with the Perfect tense, a grammatical form located at the intersection of meanings related to the past, present and future. The Danish Korpus 2007 contains all three variants of temporal conjunctions that demonstrate various aspects of the grammatical semantics embedded in Perfect:
(36) "Tvivler du nu, da vi er naet sa langt?" spurgte tereren smilende. 'Do you doubt now that we have come this far?" asked the teacher smiling'. Resultative perfect — localization of the event in the past, when (da) the actual result for the present was achieved.
(37) Og nu, hvor gulden har naet astronomiske h0jder, laner vi bare sorgl0st videre til at betale renterne pa gulden. 'And now that the debt has reached astronomical heights, we just carelessly lend on to pay the interest on the debt'. Characterizing perfect — evaluative characterization of the present moment (hvor).
(38) Jeg haber, at der i sidste ende vil vise sig en l0sning nu, nar borgmestrene har talt med deres byrad. 'I hope that a solution will eventually emerge now that the citizens have spoken to their city council.' Perfect of the future state — projection of the result into the future (nar).
Thus, the conjunction hvor, like the conjunction nar, manifests the subjective factor in the system of Danish temporal conjunctions and characterizes a moment in time as perceptually or cognitively close to the speaker. Moreover, just as in the case with nar, an important connotation of the conjunction hvor is the reflection of the mental activity of the subject of the proposition introduced by the corresponding subordinate clause.
CONCLUSION
This article employs a contrastive approach to identify grammatical categorization features in Danish. The study was conducted on the material of Danish conjunctions that introduce subordinate clauses of time. The use of the concept of quasi-synonymy allowed us to compare the subordinate time clauses, introduced in the Russian language by the conjunction когда (or in English by the conjunction when), with their Danish equivalents, namely, the sentences introduced by the conjunctions da, nar and hvor, and analyze the semantic differences between them.
A detailed analysis of examples from fiction and from the corpus of modern Danish language made it possible to state that the speaker's choice between these conjunctions is not arbitrary, but is determined by the juxtaposition of the objective and subjective reality that includes the speaker's perceptual and cognitive activity, as well as mental constructs, generalization and characterization.
In future the research will focus on comparing the functioning of Danish quasi-synonymous temporal conjunctions with quasi-synonymous conjunctions of characterization (der and som), and quasi-synonymous conjunctions of causation (for and fordi).
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Дина Борисовна Никуличева
Институт языкознания РАН,
Московский государственный лингвистический университет
КВАЗИСИНОНИМИЯ ДАТСКИХ ВРЕМЕННЫХ СОЮЗОВ В АНТРОПОЦЕНТРИЧЕСКОМ РАССМОТРЕНИИ*
Для цитирования: Nikulicheva D. Quasi-synonymy of Danish temporal conjunctions from the anthropocentric point of view // Скандинавская филология. 2019. Т. 17. Вып. 2. С. 217-233. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu21.2019.202
В предлагаемой статье исследуется один из фрагментов грамматической системы датского языка, где представлено регулярное формальное варьирование служебных языковых маркеров, схожих по своей синтаксической дистрибуции, но несущих различную функционально-семантическую информацию, обусловленную установкой говорящего. Речь идет о функционировании квазисинонимических временных союзов датского языка. Под квазисинонимическими
* При поддержке гранта РФФИ 19-012-00146.
союзами понимаются союзы, различающиеся в плане выражения, но функционирующие в максимально схожих синтаксических контекстах. При переводе на русский язык всем этим союзам соответствует один и тот же эквивалент. Применение понятия квазисинонимии позволило сопоставить придаточные временные, вводимые в русском языке союзом когда, с их датскими эквивалентами, а именно с предложениями, вводимыми союзами da, nar и hvor, и проанализировать семантические различия между ними. Гипотеза, обсуждаемая в данной статье, состоит в том, чтобы доказать, что асимметричность функционирования этих союзов носит закономерный характер и связана с антропоцентричной идеей эпистемической ответственности говорящего за объективный/субъективный/конкретный/обобщенный статус информации, которую он адресует реципиенту. Релевантным противопоставлением в системе датских временных союзов оказывается асимметричное противопоставление событий прошлого как объективных ориентиров во времени (da) разнообразным проявлениям субъективного фактора временной ориентации (nar). К таковым, с одной стороны, относится выражаемая союзом nar непосредственная перцепция мира говорящим в момент речи, а с другой стороны, обслуживаемые этим же союзом различные виды ментального конструирования мира говорящим: прогностич-ность, желательность, контрафактивность, а также генерализация, включая такое ее первичное проявление как итеративность. Субъективный фактор временной ориентации также проявляется в темпоральном употреблении союза hvor, сигнализирующего о характеризации момента времени как перцептивно или ментально приближенного к субъекту речи.
Ключевые слова: датский язык, временные союзы, квазисинонимия, перцепция, ментальное конструирование, прогностичность, желательность, кон-трафактивность, генерализация, характеризация.
Dina Nikulicheva
Dr. of Philology, Professor,
Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
1, Bolshoy Kislovsky per., Moscow, 125009, Russia
Moscow State Linguistic University
38, ul. Ostozhenka, Moscow, 119034, Russia
E-mail: [email protected]
Никуличева Дина Борисовна
доктор филологических наук, профессор, Институт языкознания РАН,
Россия, 125009, Москва, Большой Кисловский пер., 1 Московский государственный лингвистический университет, Россия, 119034, Москва, ул. Остоженка, д. 38 E-mail: [email protected]
Received: September 1, 2019 Accepted: October 16, 2019
