Variation in Infinitive Markers in American Norwegian

Abstract

The topic for this article is infinitive markers in American Norwegian. In the Corpus of American Nordic Speech, 'te' is found to be an alternative infinitive marker in addition to standard Norwegian 'å'. The present study explores three possible reasons behind this: 'te' could be an influence from English 'to', and/or an inherited dialect feature from homeland rural Norwegian, and/or it can be connected with (reanalysis of) the frequent combination 'til å' (preposition + infinitive marker) in all types of Norwegian. Relevant aspects are both language contact and dialect contact, including comparisons with other Germanic contact varieties. Among other approaches, the authors analyze their findings theoretically in light of Polinsky's (2018) notion of structural salience.