Variation in Mainland Scandinavian Object Shift: A Prosodic Analysis

Despite a decade-long research history, there are still ongoing debates on the analysis of Object Shift in Mainland Scandinavian, and all syntactic and information-structural accounts have run into empirical and/or conceptual problems. We argue that this debate can be resolved by recognizing that OS is, in fact, a prosodic phenomenon. Our analysis builds on the observatioDespite a decade-long research history, there are still ongoing debates on the analysis of Object Shift in Mainland Scandinavian, and all syntactic and information-structural accounts n that varieties with optional OS (most Swedish dialects, southern Danish dialects (e.g. Ærø)) also have a tone accent contrast. The insitu word order in these varieties is licensed because tonal accent creates a prosodic domain that makes the incorporation of weak pronouns possible.